One of 12, Singing Sacrament, Thanksgivin'

hi-dee-ho! Hey all! Everything is going swell in the MTC. I'm way sad that I couldn't have e-mailed you Tuesday night after our ridiculously incredible Fireside. This really awesome man named Elder Jefferey R. Holland came and spoke to us! I'll tell you what, it was debatably the best fireside I've ever been to! Not joking, I've never heard him speak in person but he's quite....stern? I don't know how to properly describe it but honestly, at first it kind of scared me. He would get kind of loud when he was talking about certain things. But after a while I realized that he wasn't mad, but the things that he was talking about were just really important. That sounds incredibly un-profound. But it was amazing! Seriously I felt like the definition 'rebuked' was a little clearer after that talk. ha ha I wish I knew how to explain it because it was seriously incredible! I could tell you some of the things that he talked about, but it probably won't be as cool to you because it's just missionary advice but essentially he was talking about how important it is that we, ourselves, are our first converted. That we know first. And that we know with such surety, that when we come home, we won't walk away from this. It was way cool. He stressed that we need to be doing everything that we want our investigators to be doing. So if we want them to pray more sincerely, then we need to do it first! And if we want them to get into the scriptures, then we need to get into the scriptures. Well...it sounds an awful lot more profound when it's coming from him,but just take my word for it. It was fan-diddly-tastic!In other news we had zone conference on Saturday. Pretty much all of the Italian teachers took like 20 minutes and each talked to us about serving better, studying better, and goods about Italy. It was way cool. Whenever our teachers talk about Italy we get SO excited. Seriously part of me cannot wait to get over there...and a part of me is hyperventalating because I feel like I need to learn so much more in these last 3 weeks. I found a sweet scripture though that expresses exactly how I'll feel when I'm on my flight to Italy. Ready? Romans 1:15. We got some new missionaries in our zone!! Our district of 2 left. They're both going to Catania. It's kinda sad that they're gone but the group before them were harder to say goodbye to. But hey, I'll be joining them in 3 weeks! So we got 14 new anziani and 3 new sorelle. There's 3 anziani going to Roma and everyone else is going to Milano. So the 6 of us sorelle that came in together are the only sorelle going to Roma. It's so cool!So Sorella Swenson told our zone leaders that I wanted to sing in sacrament meeting. Ah...yup, I actually did not volunteer nor tell her anything of the sort. But you'd better believe that I sucked her into singing with me. So my companion Sorella Millis played the piano. We convinced one of our teachers to smuggle some music in for us so we could sing something pretty. So we sang a really pretty arrangement of "For the Beauty of the Earth". It was really fun actually. A bit nerve wracking but fun.Well I can't think of anything else spectacular at the moment...loving life and am happy to be here. My companion is wonderful. Seriously we work hard together but we're laughing all the time. It's gonna be really sad to not be companions with her anymore after the MTC because we have a consistent good time. The Italian language is as beautiful as ever. I love attempting to speak it. Well I love you all. Hope you're healthy,happy, lovin' life, and....thankful...this week especially. :) ha ha So I don't think that we have any classes on Thanksgiving. We'll have a 'Thanksgiving dinner' at like 1 or something and then a general authority will come speak to us I believe. Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and when you go around the table and say what you're thankful for you can insert this thought on my behalf, "The Italians!" ...and you guys too. The church gets more and more true everyday. Seriously everyday I'm amazed at how the gospel helps some of the 'investigators' that I'm teaching, and how many scriptures we can find that will help them. It's so cool.
All my Italian Love, Sorella Hansen

(Romans 1:15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.)

Happy Half-Way to Me!

Hey fam and friends~

So Friday marked our half-way point here in the MTC. It's so crazy how fast this is going. Sorella Crandall's mom sent her a half-way package with Martinelli's and stuff and Sorella Hughes fam sent her brownies too, we all sat in a circle and talked about our favorite memories so far. ha ha When I say favorite memories, mostly we wrote down a lot of the funny quotes that have been said by our teachers and other people in our district. Oh man our group is hilarious. So happy half-way to us! We're getting more anziani and sorelle in this week. 17 in fact! We're getting 3 sorelle, but they're all going to Milano. And of all of the new missionaries, only 3 of the elders are going to Roma. We're so excited to get more missionaries in our district. When our last two districts left we lost so many so we're excited to get more Italians in here at the MTC!! There's a district of two: Anziano Fernandez and Anziano Smith that are the only ones older than us now. They're leaving next...Monday I think. After that, we're officially the old ones and are supposedly supposed to sound like we speak Italian an stuff....uh...we'll see how it goes. We've all learned so much and it's cool to see how much all of our district has grown and changed but I think the idea of us being the oldest ones in here makes us all a bit nervous. But we'll step it up. We've gotta make this place as wonderful as it was made for us. (Is it just me or was that sentence a mess?) For devotional this week, Elder F. Enzio Busche came and spoke to us. Holy smokes! It was so good. If any of you need something awesome to read...pick up the book that he wrote. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it's called, but they undoubtedly sell it at Deseret Book. That man blew my mind. Heand his wife were incredible. He told us about his conversion story and about how we have God's love in us. It was seriously amazing. Um...what else...OH! So this week in the TRC (for those who are still unfamiliar with the 8 million acronyms that the MTC uses, it's where volunteers come in who speak Italian and we talk to them and teach the lessons.) so up to this point we've been talking for like 15 minutes with them in Italian and then we teach a lesson to them in English. Well, this was the first day that we had to talk to them in Italian and then teach the whole first lesson to them in Italian. Holy cow it was a doozey! Well...okay so I think it went pretty well but, it's just nuts that we're supposed to be teaching in all Italian now. So for our 15 minute conversation part with them before the lesson, we were supposed to talk to them about food. So we were supposed to have memorized all of these different food words and when we were with the volunteers we were supposedly in a cafe and had to order food and then share a scripture with them. So we had gym on Monday before the TRC, and Sorelle Watson, Hughes, and I all work out together. So we do tons of abs, arms, legs stuff. Anywho, since we weren't feeling really comfortable with all of our food terms I decided that whenever we were in the middle of our crunches or lunges and we were about to yell in pain, INSTEAD, we had to yell out a food word in Italian. ha ha It was so funny. We'd be counting crunches and this is what someone from outside of our exercise group would have heard, "72, 73, 74, 75, il pomodoro!....100, 101, il cucchiaio! 102, 103". It was a good time. The examples I just gave you were tomato, and spoon. It was so funny. Especially doing that during crunches just hurt our abs even more because we'd burst out laughing when someone yelled in pain something like, "meatloaf!". Good times in the MTC. On Sunday we had a former mission president of the Milano mission talk to us and it was so good. He quoted a scripture that I've rather enjoyed the last few weeks here in the MTC. You should check it out: Hebrews 13:24, and he told us some cool stories. Hearing from people who served over there and love those people so much make me so stoked to get over there. I already feel like I love those Italians. I can't wait to get there...and yet, I know I have tons more studying and learing to do until I mutter my testimony to them in Italian. So one of the funny quotes of the week before I go: We have an Anziano in our district who is an unsuspecting good time. I didn't think he would be as funny as he is. But we were doing this exercise in Preach My Gospel and it was a situation that said something like, "You see a mother and her child playing in a park. What do you think you should go talk to them about?" And Anziano Brooks leans over and says, "Definitely tithing." ha ha Well, that's all for this week. Hope everyone's doing well. Working really hard, learning tons, and loving life. The church gets more wonderful everyday I learn more about it--as does the Italian language. Seriously how I scored the best of both worlds is beyond me. I feel guilty here in the MTC telling people where I'm going because every time they kind of feel bad about their missions afterwards. It really is sweet, not just that I'm going to preach the gospel there, but that Heavenly Father has work for ME to do there. Till next week!

Sorella Hansen

PiCTuReS!!!

Mallory sent us some pictures in her last letter and I have been arguing with the scanner for days now trying to figure out how to get them onto the blog. (I am slightly challenged). Thankfully Sis. Swenson's blog had these two pictures, so I stole them from her and put them on until the scanner and I are on speaking terms. Mike, if you read this, I know you don't want to hear it but...I need some help.

The Sorelle from Mallory's district (L-R)

Sorella Hughes, Sorella Crandall (up), Sorella Watson, Sorella Swenson, Sorella Millis Sorella Hansen

New President, Teaching in Italian, and Jack Bauer...

So this week was a slammin' good time. So I guess we chose a new president? Man we are seriously so sheltered in here. Wednesday morning we went to pick up "sack breakfasts" because we had gym in the morning and there was no announcement or anything of who the new president was. We just had to ask one of the workers here who the president was and they told us. I totally thought they'd announce it or something. Well we have surely missed the missionaries that left to Italy last week. It's pretty pathetic actually how much we miss them. My companion and I constantly find ourselves saying things like, "Hey is that Anziano Carter over there?" or "What's Anziano Herbert doing going out the wrong door?". I guess we're delusional or something because we keep "seeing" them everywhere. It's weird and pathetic. We miss them a lot. Even though they were only here for three weeks they were like family to us. I can only imagine how hard it's going to be when I have to say good by to my district.But out with the old in the with the new. We got 7 new missionaries on Wednesday. Two new sorelle and 5 new anziani. Two of the anziani are from England. We met them on Tuesday before the rest of their district came in and we were worried. ha ha Luckily our first impressions were incorrect and they must have had a lot of jet lag. ha ha And the anziani in our district have certainly warmed them up to the idea of hugging. It's so funny because the first couple of days when all of the anziani would hug at the end of the night...the two anziani from England looked SO uncomfortable. ha ha I think they're more used to it now. One night at dinner we were all laughing about something (I can't even remember what about) and one of the anziani from England leaned over to me and said, "I don't get American humor." ha ha Just like the hugging thing, I'm sure we'll break them in to our humor sooner or later. All of the new missionaries are fun. All 7 of them will be going to Catania but they're a good time.So in our class we all have "investigators" who we teach. For example one of mine is named Isabella and I know her whole life story because some anziani in our district teach her and are progressively working with her. Sorella Millis and I have about 5 investigators (so just 5 different people from our class pretending to be investigators) and we've been progressively working with them, giving them challenges, and trying to teach to their needs. Well starting on this last Friday our teachers told us that we have to start teaching them in Italian. So we're on the second lesson with most of them and teaching about the spirit world and kingdoms of glory in Italian is actually pretty hard! But every time we do anything in Italian I'm always amazed by how much we can explain and get out. It's truly amazing.So on Saturday night the district leaders came and asked me if I'd give the closing prayer in our Italian sacrament meeting on Sunday. I was kinda nervous but excited. So also, I don't remember if I've told you this or not but, we have to write a 5 minute talk every Sunday in Italian. And right after the sacrament, someone from the bishopric stands up and tells us who will be speaking that day. So besides the fact that I was thinking about saying a prayer in sacrament, I had to write a 5 minute talk in Italian about repentance. So before sacrament meeting one of the new anziani was sitting by me and asking me to help him pronounce somethings in Italian. He pretty much went through his whole talk that he'd written (ha ha mostly quotes from Preach My Gospel) and was asking me to help him pronounce things. So guess who the bishopric asked to give one of the talks? yup, yours truly. I assume they saw me talking to one of the anziani and thought I was dinking around or something so they thought they'd put me on the spot. ha ha It was actually pretty cool. So myself and another anziano had to give the talks. I spoke about repentance and how preach my gospel says that when we repent, it changes our perspective of other people, the world, and ourselves. I shared a scripture and bore my testimony. It was pretty cool actually. Italian is sooo beautiful. I'm sure I don't do the language justice when I speak it but I love speaking it none the less!!As a closing story, I wanted to share a tid bit with you about the wonder that is our teacher Fratello Fife. He is cool because he gives the most powerful and amazing lessons, is INCREDIBLE at Italian, AND is just flat out hilarious. So we were learning the verb "Piacere"--which means "to like" or "to be pleased with". So he was giving us a sentence and he said, "Mi Piace Jack Bauer". (For those of you who have never seen 24, you probably won't fully appreciate this) and someone in the class said, "Does that mean you have a man crush on Jack Bauer? That's kinda creepy." ha ha And Fratello Fife, without even thinking said, "Well if you think that it's creepy, then you're probably a terrorist." ha ha! So che la chiesa di Gesu Cristo e vera. So che quando abbiamo bisogni di aiutarci che possiamo pregare e Dio rispondera.

I love you all. Sorella Hansen

Two Important Visitors....

Hey guys~Another great week in the MTC. This week especially went really fast. It's making me nervous that the number of weeks until we go to italy is getting smaller and smaller. 6 weeks!So a week ago today we had a pretty cool speaker for the Tuesday night fireside. Oh ya know, a nice fellow by the name of L. Tom Perry. Good man! I heard him talk at BYU-Idaho too. He's great. He and his wife spoke about our purpose as missionaries and focused on our need to "help" and "invite" people to come to the gospel. It was way good!Then we've also been being prepped because the Ambassador from Uganda was coming to the MTC, to OUR class! We had several people come talk to us beforehand about how important it was for us to behave and be good examples because we could effect whether or not the church can send proselyting missionaries there. So he came on Wednesday last week and it was way cool. I think we were expecting him to sit through our whole class and ask us questions but that didn't really happen. He was in our class for like 10 minutes. But he taught us a little Kiswahili. It was rad. Our teacher did a little demonstration of how we learn Italian and he seemed impressed I think. He brought his wife with him and they were really nice people. Before he left he told us how he thought it was so cool that we were so young and dedicating so much time to the work. And one of the people accompanying him on his "tour" of the MTC mentioned that we're all paying to be here. Before he left he said, "How many of you would like to serve in my country of Uganda?" and obviously we all raised your hands. Come on, who wouldn't?! And he just had a big smile on his face and said "I hope you can all come to Uganda after this and be missionaries." So I think he has a pretty good impression of us. It was way cool to meet him.Hmmmm...what else. Halloween was this last week. We really didn't do anything incredibly awesome. Some of the sorelle from the other district told us to wear all black and gray so....that was us celebrating the holiday! ha ha This morning at 3 a.m. our 2 oldest districts left us! 20 of our anziani and the other 6 sorelle all left! So we're pretty much all alone now. Besides the 8 anziani and 6 of us Sorelle that all came in together, there's only 2 other anziani here! 26 gone, 16 left. Fast Sunday was so good. It was the coolest meeting! Our branch president asked that everyone who wanted to bear their testimonies to do it in English. I wanted to hear their testimonies in Italian, but I'm glad I heard them in English. I think we were all bawling. Seriously they're just like family to us and now we're going to be the older missionaries. It's so weird for us. They've all helped us so much so it's sad to see them go but...we'll see some of them again. The rest are going to Milano.Language is coming along slowly but surely. I dunno I always write letters after the TRC so I'm hardly feeling proud of my language or teaching skills after that but it's good. The TRC is "The humbler". you just don't walk out of their feeling like the Rocky of Italian or the gospel. There has been progress made. It's fun to try and speak it and see that you can figure out how to get around to saying what you want. Did that make sense? It's crazy. The longer I'm here, the more I feel like I've learned a lot and yet I don't know anything. Like the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. It's cool though. I'm really enjoying it. It's how we get better right?!?!My companion is great. We work really hard but we also have a lot of fun together. I'm super lucky because it's very apparent when people don't get along with their companions and it's sad. You just can't hide it. I can't believe I've only known her for 3 weeks. It just seems like we've been through so much together already. It's a crazy roller coaster ride that we're on but we're working hard and enjoying every second.Well I can't think of anything else awesome going down...uh...if you have questions, just ask? Love you all. I hope every one's doing good. I'm sending all kinds of Italian love your way, Sorella Hansen