CIAO A TUTTI!!!
Okay. Guess what? I LEAVE FOR ITALY IN SIX DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I can hardly believe that I've been here for 8 weeks already. Eight weeks! Mamma mia! Oh man oh man oh man I'm a missionary and I'm going to Italy. Cray-zee.
It's been a pretty good week! We got our flight plans on Friday, so it's all becoming pretty real. We're all getting really excited and all we want to do is just work super hard so that we can learn as much as we can before we hit the streets of Italia! My district is full of some pretty stellar missionaries, so they better get ready!
First of all, a HUGE thank you to Penny Wadham, Auntie Liesl and Nana and Mom and Dad for the packages this week! Thank you so much! The watch is PERFECT :) And the alarm clock is super cute. I feel so loved! You all are the best!
Oh, and I also need to thank Nana and Bethy. Bethy, thank you for leaving your Hanson brothers tshirt at Nana's house and thank you Nana for letting me take said shirt and keep it and love it. I brought that Hanson shirt on my mission and wear it to bed at night. Let's just say that I'm probably the most popular sister on our floor because when I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, someone will always comment on my shirt. It usually goes something like "Oh my gosh is that a Hanson tshirt?!?!?!?!?!" and I just revel in the glory of it all.
So big news of the week is that our investigator, Salvatore, IS GETTING BAPTIZED TODAY!!!!!!!!! MY FIRST BAPTISM!!! We've been teaching Salvatore since our second or third week here. Salvatore is a real person who lives on Sardenia who F.llo Mortenson helped teach while he was on his mission. I don't know how clear this explanation is, but basically at the MTC for practice we teach our teachers who pretend to be people they taught on their missions. Does that make sense? It's kinda weird to teach F.llo M as an older man named Salvatore, but Salvatore is a real person! Anyway, we've been teaching him for a while and he finally is getting baptized. He is so great! Dad, you would love Salvatore! He talks A LOT and really fast, but he loves fishing and is a really fun, affable kind of man. SO excited for him! It's been really neat to learn how to teach with him as our investigator. Sor Sobeck is doing great with the language (...giftoftonguesisreal...), as are Sor Ivory and Teichert. Sor Sobeck has come a long way in her teaching, too, and is good to not let me talk the whole time and answer every question. She is so great at just bearing her testimony of what she knows is true and it's such a blessing to have in our lessons because her testimony just brings the Spirit. Sor S and I have to pretend to be investigators every other day so that Sor I and T can teach us. It's so cool to get to see how they teach and what they feel inspired to do and talk about. Sor Teichert's eyes just light up when she teaches and it's so powerful that as an investigator I can't help but want to do what she says because she has such a great love for my investigator self. Sor Ivory has such a passion for the church and for the Gospel that she just grins from ear to ear while she's teaching, even when she doesn't know if what she is saying in Italian makes any sense. It's just so great! They are all going to make great, super, awesome, fantastic missionaries! I love my Sorelle!
It's weird to think that we'll be splitting up next week! I'll be getting a new companion - my trainer! Ah! So cool. Oh, and it's really against the rules to try to come up and find me at the airport in SLC, so while I appreciate the sentiment, please don't come. I really want to be exactly obedient as a missionary for the sake of my investigators, fellow missionaries and also for the Lord. But know that I still love you! It's typically a tradition to call your family while at the SLC airport, but I'm not sure if that is against the rules or not. Everyone does it, but like I said, I want to be exactly obedient to the rules, so please please please please PLEASE don't have hurt feelings if I don't call. But if President Brown says it's ok, I'll call you on Tuesday! I have to report to the travel office at 6am (the Roma missionaries leave at 8am. Luckies.) and my flight leaves SLC at about 10:43am. I'll fly from SLC to Chicago, Chicago to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Milan! I get to Milan at 9:55am on Wednesday morning, Italy time. It's getting so close!
Ack! I'm out of time already - I've hardly written anything! As a side note, if you want to send me a snail-mail letter, you need to mail it by tomorrow or else I won't get it before I leave. And if you write a DE after Sunday, I won't get it. Just send it on over to Italy! Woo!!!
I love you all, thank you for showing interest in my efforts and reading my emails/blog! As always, your love and support is accepted with gratitude. Your prayers on behalf of all the missionaries do not go unanswered, I can assure you. I hope to do you all proud as a missionary. Hurrah for Israel!!! Italy here I come!
Lots and lots of love! Vi voglio bene!
Love,
Sorella Soh
No comments:
Post a Comment