Wednesday, August 21, 2013

08.21.13 - {week 4}

Ciao, famiglia!

It's so good to be writing you again!  And I was so happy to get so many emails this morning!  You guys are the best.  First off, I'm so sorry to hear about Aunt Peggy.  I'm so sad, but how great is it that we have the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation??  I'm always so excited to teach our investigators about that, because it brings so much hope and happiness!  I know that so many people were excited to greet her in heaven, especially Uncle Bill.  I hope the funeral goes well this weekend - I'm sure it will be beautiful.  Please let me know how Grandma's doing with all of this.  I'm worried about her.

Well, all is well here at the MTC!  We're 2/3 of the way through!  This makes me both incredibly excited and incredibly nervous.  I don't know enough!  But I CANNOT wait to get to Italy.  We get our travel plans this Friday!  I've heard that they send them to your family as well, but I don't know that for sure.  If not, I'll be sure to let you know the plan next Wednesday.  This week was pretty normal.  Monday was the best Monday here so far.  And we even had to go to TRC on Monday, so that's saying something!  But TRC went really well.  We were supposed to teach about the Book of Mormon, and I tell you what, I have NO problem testifying about that book.  I fall more in love with it every day.  We taught one girl who just barely got back from the Milan mission, so that was awesome!  And then, Anziano Barrow's parents both speak Italian so they came and volunteered at TRC and we got to teach his mom.  It was awesome and she was so sweet.  The volunteers have to leave comments after and hers made my day!  (I'll send a picture of it...)  And then Tuesday was also great!  We taught Dario for...I think the sixth time?  And it went well for the first time...  We taught about the Atonement and the Spirit was SO strong.

You know what's beautiful?  The Italian language.  I'm still struggling but, holy smokes, I love speaking it!  We've been trying to translate random songs this week.  We attempted doing "Carry On" by Fun and putting the words from the hymn "Carry On" to the Fun tune...  It did not work so well.  BUT we translated the theme from Arthur.  Yes, the cartoon.  Arthur.  So that was random.  And awesome.  "E dico, 'Ai!'"  

We were working on learning past tenses this week and we found out that we've been saying something VERY wrong...  The verb for suffer is "soffrire", so if you go by the regular rules of making it past tense, it would be "soffrito."  So all along we've been saying that Jesus "soffrito" for our sins.  But...we just found out a few days ago that the correct conjugation for that verb is "sofferto" and the word that we've been using ("soffrito") actually means "deep fried."  So...you get the picture.  Whoops.

Funny story:  A couple of anziani in my district were teaching an "investigator" the other day.  She asked them a question.  She thought they were asking if they believe in repentance.  So of course they nodded their heads and said yes.  They came to find out AFTER the lesson, that she had actually asked if, in our church, we confess to priests.  Haha we laughed about that one for a long time.

Whenever we remind Sorella Spencer to SYL (speak your language) when she's telling a story, she just talks quieter.  She's hilarious.

This guy named Vai Sikahema came and spoke to us on Sunday night for the devotional (I know he's, like, really famous in football or something, but...that means nothing to me.  Sorry.)  Anyway, he was AWESOME.  He basically just told this story of a guy he converted while on his mission and the guy was there and helped him tell the story.  It was great.  And last night Richard J. Maynes from the Presidency of the Seventy came and spoke.  He talked about how there is a linkage between people and about how we must play our part well so that none of the links go missing.  We must find the people we're supposed to share the gospel with so that they can share it with the people they're supposed to and so forth.  Devotionals are my favorite.

Anyway, that's about all that's going on here!  Sounds like the house is going to look totally different by the time I come home!  And the internet will work!  That's exciting.  ;)  Sounds awesome though - you'll have to send me some pictures.  To answer some of your questions, my arm is pretty much all better now.  It was pretty bad for a couple of days, but it's all good.  Mom, I got the music and pictures you sent!  As well as the raincoat.  Thank you!!  Yes, I did get the letters from Keith and Heather - I sent them a letter - did they get it??  Basically just send any recipes you feel I would want, I have no idea.  Oh and can you send me some family history stories?  That would be awesome.  Hey, you all should send me more pictures (especially those of you with children!) and I don't have a way to print them off here, so if you could send me hard copies every once in a while, that would be awesome.  Basically, I would love to have all the ones you sent me in the email today, Mom.  And if you could print off a couple of those ones from Egypt/Israel/Jordan, that would be cool to have!  Even though I look twelve.  Oh, and Mom, could you send me a hard copy of that picture of me with Grandma on the day I came into the MTC?  I still don't have a good one of the two of us.  THANK YOU!

Thanks for all of your support and letters and packages!  They seriously mean the world to me!  I'm working on writing everyone back - it'll happen eventually.  :)  (P.S. Bep - the cookies were perfect!)  Hey, guess what?  The church is true!  AMORE!

Sorella Gunnerson



Sometimes we just gather all of the random food that has been sent to us and eat it all.  This festa was extra special because Sorella Carter had just received a Harry Potter themed package!  So we had butterbeer and chocolate frogs!


We all have animal sweaters so...we wore them.  And then we took double chin pictures for some reason.
  They're weird like me - it's fine.


The evaluation of our lesson at TRC with Mamma Barrow!  Love her!  (I taped this evaluation in my journal - I'll have it forever!)  Also, the second picture is so great.  On Sunday night, we (the four sorelle) got home from movie night to find this taped to our door!  Anziano Pinnock drew the picture and then all of the anziani in our district wrote down their favorite scriptures!  Then they gave it to the other sorelle in our zone to put on our door. It made our night!  We may or may not have gotten a little teary-eyed.  
We love those anziani of ours!


This is Sorella Carter and me RIGHT NOW.  In our Italia shirts!


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