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.)