Provo MTC - week 3!!

Grazie, babbo, as always, for the wonderful email! And, grazie Courtney and John for the letters! Seriously, those were the greatest things ever. They were exactly what I needed.

Seriously, y'all's emails & letters keep me sane. It is still pretty  hard here for me, but I'm much happier about everything. I'm not as stressed. I do get stressed a little bit at a time, but overall I just figure I'll try my best, and not worry about it. So I try to smile through everything, and find the good. Occasionally, I do still have doubts, like why it's taking me so long/why it's so hard to learn the language, but I know I'm just being too hard on myself, and expecting too much from myself. I basically want to be fluent in the language right now, but I guess that's not really realistic. Haha.

Also, I dunno if I told you, but remember how I was stressing about not having a father's blessing (okay, I never told you I was stressing, but I really felt like I needed/wanted one)? Well, after I read your email last week, then went to the Temple, I wasn't worried about it, and I've taken your "wee impression" as my father's blessing. It's the greatest greatest thing ever.

Oh, Happy Birthday Ben! His birthday`s August 21, I think. Same day as President Monson`s! Also, can I please get Adam`s mailing address (question mark - my question mark`s not working). I don`t have enough time to email him, and I wrote all the family last week, except for him. So, I want to write him.

But, holy cannoli, let me get started on stuff that happened this week! Our teacher, Fratello Bulloch was out of town until two days ago. So, we've had about 8 different substitute teachers - allow me to name them (ha!): Fratello Carrington, Newton, Pesci, Bulloch, Boynton, Acerson, Hatch, and Sorella Miller. Ma, va bene (it's all good). I love them all. And, wee side note: babbo, remember how I said I wanted to apply for BYU for when I come home? Well, if I get in, then I want to apply to be a teacher at the MTC! I love all the instructors so much, and it would be an awesome way to teach, keep up with my Italian, and feel the spirit, and so so much. It just seems like the greatest thing in the world to me. Ma (but), Adam, Fratello Newton won't be my "official" teacher much longer. I think he has a lot going on with school, so he won't be teaching a lot the next few months, but he said he might still sub for us. Che sad. He's my hardest teacher, but I do still enjoy his class. He pushes us. Which is a good thing... I guess. Hahaha.
 

And jeez, I'm going to miss David Frey by a couple of days! I leave Oct. 2! Che sad. And it's even sadder, cause the Armenian's are in my building! Where our classroom is, there are a bunch of different other languages being taught throughout the building - French, Italian, Armenian, Greek, Hungarian (yes, Elisabeth, be jealous). And that's just on our same floor. And, they only send Europeans to Greece, so the Greek's are all German, English (from England, haha), and there's one from Switzerland (?) I think. I'm not sure about the last one. But they're fun to talk to. And I see all the Armenian's all the time, I love them.

Well, all the older Sorelle and Anziani left on Tuesday - so sad! I love them. And, one of the Sorelle told me that they thought they were going to make me the new coordinating sister (ZL for sisters, kinda - except it`s not a companionship, just one sister). Well, she told me that, then all the other sorelle all agreed that they thought it would be me. It was just super sweet that they thought I would be ready and qualified for a position like that. Haha. I`m not the new coordinating sister, but still, I appreciated the compliment :)

Oh, then on Sunday, during Music & The Spoken Word, there was this wonderful solo artist singing with MoTab, and he had a phenomenal operatic voice. Then he started to sing a song. Nella Fantasia. I had never heard it until then, but it was so so spectacular. It almost made me cry. I swear, I think my soul is Italian or something, because anything Itaian just hits home for me. It`s just like my whole heart. I dunno, it was wonderful. Then the day before, in a workshop about prayer, the teacher started out with a song. MoTab singing with Andrea Boccelli, singing ``The Lord`s Prayer``. Amazing! Seriously. I love the church. I love Italian. So, when the two are combined, my heart just explodes. Can you imagine how I`m going to be at Christmas time, in Italy, as a missionary (my question mark won`t work for some reason). I`m pretty sure my heart will explode. Haha. I`m so excited. Sunday we took pictures with ALL the Italians - the departing missionaries, and us 3 week old missionaries. It`s probably my favorite picture I have thus far. I wish I could send it to you all. We`re holding the Italian flag and all :)

Oh! Crazy time now. Then we had the Sunday night devotional. I don`t remember his name, but he`s in charge of training all the MTC teachers around the world (I think that`s who he was). Anyway, long story short, he started telling a story of how he went to a lesson with 2 missionaries in Texas one evening, and how it was the best lesson he had ever been to. The famliy was baptized, and he showed a picture of the missionaries and the family. And who was one of those missionaries (question mark) - WILLIAM PEREZ! Creeping Things, Miami! I might have freaked out a bit. Haha, it was so cool. So Will, you are now famous at the MTC :) Then that night, our Spanish roommates were packing up. So sad, I love them so much. I miss them, but it`s a lot quieter now that they`re gone. Haha, and cleaner. We vacuumed and wiped off everything when they left. It`s so clean now, I love it :)

Then Monday all the italian missionaries got together for an unofficial Italian meeting - the departing sorelle and anziani (and our teachers) were to share with us one of the most important things they`ve learned, what they wish they would have done better, then they bore their testimonies. This has become a tradition for the Italian missionaries, so when we leave, we`ll do this for the younger missionaries who come in behind us. It`s crazy to think that in 3 weeks I`ll be the OLDER missionary, and the new Italian missionares will come in, and look up to me. Crazy. But, the unofficial italian meeting was SO so good. And the day before I read a scripture, and wanted to share it with anyone and everyone, and never had a chance to share it, so I got up at the end of the meeting and shared a little spiritual thought. It was D&C 31:3-5. SO good. I love that scripture. My favorite part of it is the last (ish) line: ``The laboror is worth his hire.`` Do your work, do your best, and that is enough for the Lord. Mi piace.

Then, quickly, because I`m already over on my time - Tuesday night devotional was Elder Neil L. Anderson of the 12. And I`ll just leave it at that :) Hahaha.

Love you all! Be good!

Ciao a tutti!

Love,

Sorella Willis

PS: can y`all send me a picture of Tanner (question mark). I have a picture of the whole family at Christmas time without before he was born, so can y`all take an awesome picture of Tanner, then print it out, and send it to me, per favore (question mark).