Ciao!

Cara Famiglia,

This week has been pretty normal. Not much new stuff going on, we still have class all the time and Italian is going great. Yesterday we did the TRC all in Italian again, and we taught the Plan of Salvation lesson. It was cool because we were on exchanges with other Elders, so I got to see how the other Elders in the district teach and stuff. The lesson went well and they agreed to our baptism commitment so we're golden. Whenever we go in the TRC we say a phrase to pump ourselves up (or at least I do) where we say "Accenda l'acqua, perche oggi, batteziamo!"). Basically it means "turn on the water, because today, we baptize!!" Good stuff.

Oh! Also we played Come Thou Fount in Sacrament meeting. We might audition it to perform for a meeting or something, but I dunno. We're also really trying to work on 'I Love the Lord' as a zone because it's basically the best song in the world. It's really tough though because it's all a cappella and has a couple tough key changes. Also tell Sister Richards thanks for writing me and also tell her thanks for the arrangement she gave me of 'If You Could Hie To Kolob.' It's awesome! I can't play it perfectly yet but it's so intense and everyone in my district loves the arrangement.

Complimenti to Jeremy and Ashley for writing me this week. I am writing them back today. Oh also thanks for the letter from Sister Dickson! I have seen Maria a couple times, but not for the last 2-3 weeks. She was teaching on my floor but then we changed from our awesome building to a not-as-nice one. One funny thing I dunno if I mentioned is that since none of us (including the teachers) like having a chalkboard, we duct taped a 2x3 foot white board in the middle of the blackboard. It's really small and pretty silly but it's soooo much better than a blackboard. Also another funny thing that has been happening recently is DearElder making a fool of themselves. So what happened was I got this DearElder with letters that obviously weren't intended for me, but were still addressed to an Elder Benjamin Smith. Coincidentally, as I was thinking about how I should get them to him, another cool Elder in my Zone was like "Hey, did you know I know another Benjamin Smith who was in my lifeguarding class back home?" I was like "wow tell him to come get his mail! And to tell his family the right box number!" So we actually ended up seeing him and after a couple times actually remembered to bring his mail to give to him. So that got sorted out.....OR SO WE THOUGHT! Nah but really last night he saw me at dinner and was like "hey, this time some of your letters got spliced into my DearElders!" So me and my zone friend went over to his dorm yesterday and picked them up. He's actually a cool guy, but DearElder isn't. The mixing up of letters was pretty egregious(big english word!).

In other news if you guys have heard about the missionary that got hit by a car in Georgia, apparently he was serving in Elder Scheurn's sister's ward. Pretty crazy, apparently some guy was bending down looking for his glasses when he swerved off the road and hit the Elder who was riding his bike. He's in a coma and can't breath on his own, so keep him in your prayers.

This week's spiritual thought is an awesome activity Fratello Tate did last night. He brought in his friend who speaks Cambodian and had him share a really powerful spiritual message. The point was that we couldn't understand anything he said (literally Cambodian is crazy I don't know how people speak it), but that we could still feel the Spirit and the power of his message. The only thing we got was because he wrote on the board that he was talking about Mosiah 24:14-15. Those are some awesome scriptures right there. I know the Book of Mormon is a true book, and I'm grateful for the power the scriptures can have in our lives if we read and study them daily. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet who was called of God to teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that the work we are doing is the work of God, and that we are called to Italy for a reason. One of our subs gave us a great lesson about how when you get called to Italy people normally say things like 'Oh, you'll plant seeds' or 'It will be pretty, but you won't baptize anyone.' Basically he shoved that aside and said the seeds have been planted for 44 years, now it's time to harvest. All the news we hear out of the mission is that baptisms are going way up, and the people there are ready. Especially with the Temple being built, it should be an amazing time.

That's all I got for this week, ciao!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith