Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Ether 2 & Being truly happy!!! - Feb 1, 2011

Ciao tutti!

Mama mia, questa settimana era buonissima!

Martedi scorsa- The temple was great! AND i'm getting better at staying awake =D For the devotional, we sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer (the same version we sang in ward choir a couple of months ago, with the men's quartet in the middle) and it was AMAZING!!!!

Mercoledi- So, Anziano Webb had an appt to go to, so I had like 45min of free time, and during that 45 minutes I attempted to write a harmony part to Come Thou Fount using just solfej and awesomeness like that, and when I sang it with the piano there were only 5-6 notes that sounded bad =D so that was pretty awesome. I definitely did not have that ability before my mission! Well, today we needed to start teaching Giorgio the rest of the Gospel, and he accepted everything wayy faster than we were ready for, so we got to where we were talking to him about the commandments, and we never even had a chance to study those principles in Italian, so once again, the Gift of Tongues is awesome! Oh, and in my Book of Mormon reading today, I was reading in Ether 2, and by the time I got to the end of the chapter, I was kind of really bummed... I felt like I didn't get anything out of that chapter, and that it was just superficial story-stuff. But, right as soon as I thought that, I remembered the talk given tuesday night. The speaker was a close friend of President Monson's, so he was telling us a lot of cool stories about President Monson that no one's heard, so that was awesome. But what I'm getting at, is he also talked about President Monson's tendency to use "folky" stories to teach doctrines, and how a lot of people looked down on that. Well, in our devotional review (the 6 of us in our district discuss the devotional for the 45min after the devotional) we talked about that, and then someone brought up that that's how Christ taught, was through stories, so that was an awesome comparison. ANYWAYS, back to Ether 2, I remembered that idea about teaching through stories, so I re-read the last verse, Ether 2: 25, and realized that the whole chapter, and the entire concept of building the barges, and the preparation is talking about our lives. And the "great deep" they had to cross is our life, and we can't get across it without God's help, and there are more symbolisms in it related to that, but i'm running out of time already lol so read it- Ether 2

Giovedi- Nothin too exciting. I saw Elder Montierith (sp?) and so that was an awesome little reunion! Our district is being extremely lazy with SYL-ing, so that's definitely not good.... I am leaning a lot of different Italian hand signals (Italians speak with their hands A LOT) so that's pretty fun. ALSO I found out my birthday is a national holiday in Italy. And in France, but no none knows why. All the teachers just say that no one does ANYTHING on that day, and Anziano Portellano said the same thing about France, so someone should check that out and let me know, cause I think I may be famous.

Venerdi- We had a HUGE improvement with SYL today, The only time I spoke any english was when my teacher made me becasue we had to have our weekly progress review, and apparently that's supposed to be in english (lame, i know). Well, I won't give any details, but suffice it to say Anz Webb and I had a confrontation with one of the Disrict Leaders, and it was kind of a huge learning lesson.... so, ya. Not fun.

Sabato- Well, Giorgio's car broke down today, so we didn't get to teach him , BUT we did do an activity later in the day where we taught the other district the Plan of Salvation, and I got to use that fun little puzzle you sent me, and they loved it! thanks! Also, I have been learing a lot from D&C 121 about leadership, and I kind of wish I had read this before, because it's amazing. And very informative. So any of you that are in a leadership position, read D&C section 121.

Domenica- Was great! I'm still learning a lot of things that as zone leaders we are supposed to be doing and not doing, so that can get frustrating (but only a little) I am super excited for the new Italian districts that are coming in on Wednesday! Anziano Webb and I get to be the first ones to really talk to them and help them get setttled in, so that's going to be awesome! Also, I'm not sure what caused it, but today I felt more surely than I ever have before, and I think it just seems completely real, and more of a fact now then ever, but I KNOW that Christ is coming, and that this time, he is coming in all his glory, and I know that we will be resurrected just as he was, and that we will live with our Father in Heaven. I also know now more than ever that this is the time for men to prepare to meet God. And that means a lot of preparation... It's not exactly something we can just sit back and relax about, so I am so thankful I have this opportunity to devote 2 entire years to preparing myself and others to meet God. I know it won't be in vain.

Lunedi- The Gift of Tongues is VERY real. I experience it every single day here. Nothing particularly exciting happened today, but for some reason, I just felt good. Just happy. Just like everything was right, I like it.

Allora, Non ho tempo piu, ma scrivero ancora martedi prossima! Vi amo tutti! Non dimenticatevi scrivere! Dont forget to write!

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