One Month

I have officially been in the MTC for one month today! I can't even believe that I only have two weeks until I will be in Italy.

Happy Birthday Nathan! I love you! I hope you had a great birthday on the 25th! I can't believe you are 6 years old now! I love you so much and I hope you got the postcards and letter I sent you!

Mysterious Chex mix

So I found a strawberry chex mix and two jolly ranchers on my desk one morning last week in class. It wasn't from any of the sorelle that I know (and I know all of the sorelle in my branch) haha. So it has to be from an anziano....hopefully it was just from the classroom cleaner checker. haha The song from Tarzan "Strangers like me" kept popping into my head. I'll probably never know who it was from but it sure made me start off the day with a good morning.

Thank you so much for the dear elders, letters and packages! It is always an exciting day when you get a package slip (which means you get to pick up a package from the mailroom).

Mission Song

We learned our mission song last week! I can't wait to sing it in Italy. The words are so beautiful when you translate it. (I sent you a copy of it mom and dad. maybe it is the same lyrics when dad served there!) We sang the Milano mission song with the milano missionaries this week and it was very powerful to sing all together. I am excited to be serving with all of these great missionaries. I have noticed that there are more missionaries going to Milano. There are 14 going to Milano and about 10 going to Rome. Two more weeks until I will be in Italy! We will be getting our travel plans next week. We also learned another song this week. It is a primary classic....."Head, shoulders, knees and toes" or should I say "Testa, Spalle, Ginocchia, Pie" It was seriously so much fun to learn! I have been wanted to learn this song since we first got here and finally one of our teachers taught it to us. "testa, spalle, ginocchia, pie, occhi orrechi, bocca, naso!" yay! hah Dad was right! Singing Italian hymns is my favorite things to do. It is so beautiful in Italian!

Dario's Lesson

Sorella Walch and I didn't know if we had prepared enough for the lesson but we decided that we needed to ask him what some of the difficulties that he was facing at this point in his life. He couldn't understand the question we were trying to ask but through the spirit he was able to understand our very broken Italian. He said "Difficolta?"hahah As soon as he understood that one word we were able to find out that his wife passed away and that he has three kids. Without that one question we wouldn't have been able to know what we needed to teach him. After Fratello Cena told us that he didn't understand the question but through the spirit he was able to understand what we were trying to ask. It truly was a testament of the importance of having the spirit while teaching investigators and that the spirit can touch the hearts of those you teach. The spririt is essential with teaching and helped Dario understand what we were trying to ask him.

Saturday is a special day

So Saturday I got a suprise package from my wonderful sisters kelly and Rachel. Thank you soooo much for the cupcakes from the cocoa bean. It brought back memories from good old BYU-I and Rexburg. My sorelle loved them as well. Needless to say we had a great Saturday eating cupcakes celebrating Nathan's 6th birthday. hahah Grazie per la tazza dolce tarte. I think that means that you for the cupcakes..haha but I am not sure

Secret Santa

The Sorelle and I in my district decided to start doing secret santa in our branch for the anziani and sorelle in our district. Our first victim was anziano miles from another district. We gave him food and a note with a motivational scripture D&C 68:6. Hopefully it brought a smile to his face. We are trying to decide which anziano or sorella will be our next victim.

Sister's leaving

Our neighbors in the residence hall left this week and are in colorado now. Also Sister Pitts (the happiest sister missionary there ever was) hah left this week for Norway! It is always hard to say goodbye. We are getting two new sorelle in our room today so hopefully I will get to meet the new sorelle later today.

Dario

After the last lesson with Dario we decided that we wanted to teach him about the plan of salvation. We wanted to focus the lesson on the fact that he can live with his wife again someday but he needs to follow the example of Christ and be baptized. There was such a good spirit thoughout the lesson although our Italian is very broken. I memorized the baptism invitation that day and I knew that I wanted to say it to Dario. Before I asked Dario I told him the importance of following the savior's example then through the spirit I said "Seguira l'esempio di Gesu Cristo facendosi battezzare da qualcuno che detiene l'authorita del sacerdozio di Dio?" I said it very slow but the spirit was present and he felt it. He told us yes! After that lesson I felt such a peaceful spirit the rest of the day. I am excited to share this great plan of happiness in Italy. I am very grateful to be a missionary although it is often very difficult. All of those hard moments are worth it when we have that one good moment where an investigator feels the spirit, accepts an invitaion, or agrees to be baptized.

Native Game

Last week my district decided that we should play a game to help us with Italian. Everyone has to try their best and speak as much Italian as they can, but there is one native which means they have to only speak italian(as much as they can). We would pick two natives one sorella and one anziano and at the end of the day we had to try and guess who was the native. It was helpful because we tried to speak the language as much as possible.

TRC via Skype

We had TRC over skype yesterday with someone in Italy right now. It was an awesome experience. We taught Guilia who was from Torino (member). She was beautiful with the dark long curly hair. It was hard at times to hear her at times and it disconnected twice but it was a neat experience to teach an actual person living in Italy. Our district was one of two districts to test out using skype for TRC for the Italian missionaries. I am so grateful that we were one of the districts to be a guinea pig. We constantly had to aske her to repeat because she spoke sooooo fat and used vocabulary we didn't know. ha It was a great TRC experience to teach her about repentance over skype.

Tuesday Devotional

May 28th, 2013 was a monumental moment for the Provo MTC because the raintree and wideview apartments were officially opened and are now being used for the MTC. W. Craig Zwick and his wife spoke about the importance of building faith in Jesus Christ and developing Christlike attributes.

He compared the building of the Portland, Oregon Temple to building Christlike lives

1. Start with the end in mind

2.Strong desire in committment

3.Willingness and discipline to work hard

4.Prepare for challenges

5.Structural and Spiritual Integrity

6.Total dedication to the Lord

Seriously this devotional wasa exactly what I needed to hear. I have been studying the new testament which has helped me recognize Christ's love for each and everyone of us and makes me want to become more like him and become a better disciple of Christ.

BYU-I friends

I saw two of my friends from Byu-I again! Greg Peterson and Julain(he is going to the long beach, CA mission so he will get to see jayson!)

Thank you so much for the cute "greenie" package grandma and grandpa hansen! I got the package today! I love you both so much and I sent you a letter. Thank you for the letter as well grandpa! I loved hearing about your mission in holland.

Missionary work is hard work but it is an important work. Each day I am here I want to be a misisonary even more so each day. Thank you all for all of your love and support! Keep writing me letters and dear elders! They help me a lot during the week!

love,

sorella carter