Mamma Mia. Six weeks.

Ciao cari famiglia, amici e stranieri!

I apologize in advance for the grammar of this email. I have a hard time switching back and forth between Italian and English sometimes!

First of all, thank you for your letters! Even you stranieri who have sent me notes, grazie tanto! :) And thanks to Nana and Liesl for sending me treats! The rest of my district thanks you as well.

Alllllllora! This week has been crazy! I can't believe I've been here six weeks already. On Sunday we decided to try and do SYL Monday, Tuesday and today - that's three days straight of only speaking in Italian!!! We've done pretty dang good, if I do say so myself. It has been SO HARD to only speak Italian, especially for the other missionaries who didn't speak any Italian other than "ciao" six weeks ago. They did great! It's totally nuts that they can speak in Italian! *coughthegiftoftonguesisREALcough* It's been hard for me, too, even though my Italian is way more advanced than theirs, not only because it's sometimes difficult to understand what they're saying (i.e. they speak English but use Italian words) and also because they often times don't understand me when I speak. I told Sor Sobeck last night though that even though she thinks her speaking skills are behind the other sorelle, in reality her grammar is better than theirs because she picks up how to say things from me. Sor Teichert took spanish in college and so she speaks mostly spanish with italian words here and there. Sor Ivory, her companion, didn't take any spanish before, but she now speaks in spanish sometimes because of what she picks up from Sor T. Haha. But it's all good. Everyone is doing so well.

Now that we've officially hit the 6 week mark, it means that new italian missionaries are coming in! There are five total coming in - 4 elders and 1 sister. The sister already speaks italian so she won't be in our class or district, but she'll leave with the other sorelle for Rome in three weeks. There were supposed to be 5 anziani coming, but one is coming the next time, so we only have 4. And one of those 4 is the anziano from Albania that was supposed to come the same day and me but had visa problems or something. Because he's international, he came in last night and we got to meet him. The poor kid only speaks Albanian - no Italian and hardly any English. I don't envy him, that's for sure.

Last Sunday was our musical number! It went really well. The song, "My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee" sounded really good and we had a lot of people in the branch comment on it to us afterward. It was great! Very, very cool. I wish you could've heard it, especially you, mom, but I told the other missionaries that they might all just have to come to AL so we can sing it in sacrament meeting! Oh, so we sang with Elders Crook and Clark who are both going to Brasil. Well, eventually they will. They finished their time here at the MTC and their visas still weren't ready so they got reassigned. Elder Crook got reassigned to the Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission! So! If any of you Wisconsonites meet Elder Crook, be nice to him!

OH! Super cool thing. So last night was our weekly devotional and guess who it was??? SISTER JULIE B. BECK!!!! I was so excited! She is so cool! So any time that anyone speaks, they always let that person's spouse speak for a few minutes first. Well. We got to hear from Brother Beck. His first words were "This is the part that scares my wife the most" and then he said "dove sono gli italiani??" which means "where are the Italians??" We were sitting kind of in the back, so we all shouted "hey!!" and waved our arms. And then he spoke to us in Italian, while still up in front of everyone, and talked about how cool it was that there is a temple being built in Rome. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!?! Bro Beck totally served his mission in Italy and gave us a major shoutout! It was totally rad. And then after the meeting all the sorelle went down to the floor to meet him. We introduced ourselves and he spoke to us in Italian and it was so cool! AND THEN he introduced us to his wife. So.... GUESS WHO GOT TO SHAKE HANDS WITH SISTER BECK???? Oh that's right. ME!!!!! It was awesome! Her talk was so so so good, too. Afterwards, Sor Taylor looked at me and was like, well your companionship was completed tonight! I was confused until she explained "Yeah! Sorella Soh. Sorella Beck. Sorella Sobeck!!!" Haha. I guess so!

So last Saturday our teacher, Sor Swensen, had her last class with us. We are gonna miss her! She is a FANTASTIC teacher and we've all learned a TON from her. Apparently on the last day of class, it's tradition for the teacher to guess where they think your first city will be. She said that as soon as I came to the MTC she thought I would go to the biggest city in the mission. She served in Catania, which is now in the Rome mission, so she wasn't really familar with the cities in Milan where sisters can serve, so her guess was that my first city would be Milan. We'll find out in three weeks if she was right! THREE WEEKS. Can you believe it????? AHHHHH!!! SO EXCITED!!!!!! For my other sorelle she guessed: Sor Teichert - Mistretto, Sor Sobeck - Ragusa and Sor Ivory - Taranto. We shall see!!!! Sor Sobeck's older sister also served in the Rome mission and I really hope that she gets to serve in Cagliari (on Sardegna) which is the only sister city in the mission that her sister also served in. How cool would that be if you got to serve in the same city as your older sister (especially when you have the same last name and look like twins). Maybe one day Michelle will serve a mission and get called to Italy and get to serve in my same cities!!! Ahhh!!!!

It's been cold out lately so we've been going inside for gym time this week. I've been playing volleyball and it has been so fun! There are quite a few people who play that are pretty good, and I've gotten a couple kills in. I forgot how much I really love playing volleyball.

Well, I'm out of time! I feel like I haven't really said anything! These 30 minutes just fly by! However. I love you all! Thanks again for all your support, letters, and prayers! You are great!

Have a fantastic week! Vi voglio bene!

Love,

Sorella Soh