Buon Anno everyone! That means happy new year... Mom! Thanks for your box! We had an excellent celebration and got to watch a video of Andrea Bocelli singing with the MoTab with our teacher as we rang in the new year. (We celebrated at 4 because that's midnight in Italy and we didn't want to stay up until 12. Nor were we supposed to. Ha!) The entire branch says thank you to mama Forbes! You're the best. I still like the MTC. I get more and more antsy for Italy every day, though. I can't handle it! Okay, I can, because I know this time at the MTC is important too. But Italy! Yeah, I'm excited.
You guys are in Hawaii!!! Crazy! When will you be back?! And who went?! That's awesome. Col, they can talk about Hawaii all they want, because I'll be LIVING in ITALY in THREE WEEKS for 15.5 MONTHS!!! I'm not too sad you are in Hawaii without me... haha. So tell me all about it! I wanna see pictures! Any fun stories? That's great. Have fun. Be safe.
This last week again has been pretty simple. Just the same old class for 8+ ours a day, speaking Italian 3 days in the week with italian between lunch and dinner everyday, teaching "investigators..." It's great. One cool thing that we got to do, we had been teaching one of our teachers as an investigator for about 2 weeks, and at the end of those two weeks he showed us pictures of the real person he had been pretending to be and told us their story. We had been teaching "Maurizio" from Ravenna. He and his wife Carla were baptized by our teacher when he was a missionary there. That was really cool to hear the real stories. Every investigator we've taught here is a real person that our teachers taught in Italy! So cool.
I love being a missionary. Have I told you that yet? haha. Because I do. I have never felt so close to the Savior and Heavenly Father. I feel them helping me every day when we're teaching, when I'm studying, or even just when I'm having a down moment. It's really nice to feel those "spiritual hugs" every now and then.
I LOVE my personal study time. I think it's my favorite part of the day every day. I learn so much each time. I'm really loving Alma 18 right now. Ammon was the perfect missionary, and there is so much to be learned from that chapter that I can apply to the work I'll be doing in Italy. I'm praying that I might be able to be a missionary like Ammon! He's awesome. Also Alma 42 is super awesome. Read it if you haven't in a while. I LOVE all the talk about how mercy will satisfy the demands of justice at judgment. EVERY person in the world will hear this message at some point, and has the opportunity to benefit from that mercy. (p.s. mercy in italian is one of my favorite words: misericordia. Gorgeous!) God truly does love each and every one of us.
We got to go to temple today! It was nice since it was closed for two weeks. I love the temple. It was strange how after just two weeks I already felt a void. That might be a difficult thing once we get to Italy, because we won't go to the temple that whole time. But we'll be doing work for the living instead, so I'm okay with that and know there will be blessings to be found there.
We get 10 new italians today! I'm really excited. We met the sister last night. She came in early because she's international. She's from France! St-Etienne! Todd! Was that in your mission? I wasn't sure. She speaks really great english and already knows some italian. And she seems really nice. I'm excited to meet the rest of them later.
My new roommates are Hermana Beck and Hermana Orantes, going to the Tampa and Ecquador missions. We lost Hermana Wright and Hermana Jensen this week, going to Chile and Nicaragua. I love them. They're going to be amazing missionaries. I love all the new people I meet here, and hearing everybody's stories about what called them to this work. It truly is the Lord's work. I've seen and heard about so many miracles already.
Not really sure I have much else to say! haha. I'm doing great here and just trying to learn as much as I can while I anxiously await the day we leave for Italy! It's going to come so fast! I can't wait.
Oh! I heard a cool story the other day: once there was a missionary. And he had a Book of Mormon in his backpack. One day someone came out of the blue and shot a gun at this missionary's back. But nothing happened. The missionary pulled out the Book of Mormon later and saw that it had stopped the bullet from hitting him. Yeah! The bullet stopped at the Isaiah chapters! ......
Get it? Ha! I think it's funny. Missionary humor... We heard that joke in a video of a talk by Elder Bednar. He said Elder Oaks had told it to them and was laughing hysterically as he told it. I can't imagine that! Apparently, he's a very funny man. Anyway... haha
Love you all and I hope you are all well! Happy new year!
Sorella Forbes
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