Travel Plans!

Last P-day in the MTC!!! (Ottimo)

First let me hit you with the flight plans. Here's the date: Monday, the 7th of December. We leave the MTC at 4 in the morning!!! As far as flight plans go: I'm going to be flying out of SLC something like 7 in the morning, then I'll go to Altanta Georgia. Chill there for 3 or 4 hours, call home, pass out some pamphlets, maybe a Book of Mormon, who knows :). That'll be from 12:41 PM to 3:35 PM in Georgia, after which we'll fly to Rome, arrive at 7 in the morning, and then we'll fly down to Catania at 9, get there around 10.
Long travel day!

Now let me tell you about the week, because it was quite eventful.

First off, we had two Apostles come talk to us. Elder Oaks and Elder Holland. It was pretty awesome. They both had a lot of good things to say. I don't know if there are any quotes from them that will help you out too much though. Mostly missionary directed. One cool one that Elder Holland said was that Foreknowledge is not predestination. It's like if you saw a car accident, that doesn't mean that you caused it. And God with all his power may warn one of the drivers, but the driver still has to choose to listen. Anyway, I thought that was cool.

Okay, now for one of my highlights: Anziano Rowland got put in quarantine!!! hahaha. He doesn't have swine flu, just the normal flu, but they still put him in for five days. We skype him into our classes. It's pretty funny.

The real highlight of this week though must be when me and my companion got to teach an actual investigator!! It was awesome. We taught Fratello Auna's friend Josh. The Spirit was really strong and we bore testimony a lot, and he's going to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. (And he really is too. He's been studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses, but he's going to read the Book of Mormon now) It was AMAZING. I can't wait to go teach more real investigators in person. It was really cool.

I also had the opportunity to speak in church this week. That went really well. I guess my talk was pretty funny, and my Italian flowed really smooth. I wish I could just record myself talking because I'm pretty sure it would sound sweet if you don't understand it.

Speaking of the language, it's going really well. Just like how I said missionaries need to not try and fight the system, the same goes for learning a language! Some missionaries always question why they say it that way, or how is that right, but the thing is that it's a different language and they talk with different rules, and so instead of questioning all the rules, you should just learn them.

So the secret of learning a language? Well, you just need to use it, and not try and form it into English. Something really cool happened to me the other day (btw, we've been doing all SYL now), I decided to try and think in Italian, and I totally did!!! It was sweet. I can't express myself as much as I'd like, but I can go pretty well. We had our last TRC lesson yesterday and there was a couple spouts where I was able to say exactly what I wanted just fine.

Another cool thing is me and Anziano Garcia translated "Is this love" by Bob Marley on the spot. I know, i know, it's not a church song, but it was way sweet because we translated it while we sang!! It was cool. Translating songs is really cool.

Hey, one thing I just remembered. So there's that scripture in D&C 131 or something about reproving betimes with sharpness. Well, Brother West used the analogy of an HDTV for sharpness, and I totally couldn't relate at all!! So I'm pretty sure what we can take from that is that we need an HDTV before I come home. hahaha. (seriously though, we should get one, that would be sweet)

My life is awesome!

Con Affetto,

Anziano Banks.