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