Week 4 - Learning Italian

Buongiorno la mia famiglia! :D

It was so nice reading your letter this week. I was feeling a little chumped out because everyone in my district gets a ton of letters and Dear Elders in the mail everyday and the only thing I got this week was acne medicine from Group Health... But, I always have better emails from my family than all of them do, so I feel pretty good on p-days! ;p

The joy of receiving mail!

I thought it was funny that Dad says the dorms here look the exact same way they did in the 80's because I was thinking the same thing... We do 75 minutes of service two times a week (at 6 in the morning mind you) and the Elders in our district are assigned to a super nice building! The bathrooms in the building have what appear to be GRANTITE COUNTER TOPS! Needless to say, I'm always a little jealous of the other Elders at the MTC when I do service. But, on Saturday, the jealousy I felt paled in comparison to the joy I felt... We were assigned to empty all the trash cans in the building and replace the trash cans with new garbage bags. I SCORED SO MUCH CANDY! I don't know why, but for some reason everyone was throwing away candy that was still in the packaging! So, I collected all the candy I found in a big box and now there is a drawer in my dorm room full of candy! The other Elders in my dorm room are way germier than I am and won't even touch the candy... But, I'm never going to turn down a Twix bar that's still wrapped up! ;p

Candy Diving

I'm glad to hear that I'm not compeletely out of everyone's thoughts back in Olympia! I was a little bit scared that I might be considering that it seems like my own sister doesn't even remember me anymore... *cough* You didn't email me this week Abbey! And thanks for telling me about Ashley's farewell talk, mom! I'm glad she made a reference to her ex-boyfriend! ;) Although, hearing that story brought back feelings of embarrassment.... I remember after hearing that Ashley bought a prom dress, I was REALLY embarrassed that I didn't ask her to prom (oops ;p)!

Do you guys remember how I teach "investigators" here at the MTC (my language teachers)? Well, I have some pretty interesting stories to share about some of my lessons this week... Yesterday, one of my teachers was playing the role of a sleepy investigator to all the companionships in our district. After our investigator fake-slept in the lesson that Elder Esmay and I taught him, he ACTUALLY fell asleep in the lesson that Elder Hogan and Elder Mciver taught him! I don't think I would've been able to contain my laughter if he would've actually fallen asleep in our lesson with him. ;p

Another time this week, I was teaching one of our investigators, Elena, about the Word of Wisdom. So, naturally, I had Elena read part of Doctrine and Covenants 89 where it talks about what we can't put into our bodies. Unfortunately, I had Elena start reading a verse before I wanted her to. Look up D&C 89:6 and look at my mistake.... THEN, to make it worse, when she asked if wine was okay to drink, I said it was (I wasn't familar with the word for wine and just went along with what she was saying)!

I had another embarrassing lesson with Elena during the lesson following the Word of Wisdom goof-up. The lesson was on the Law of Chastity. In the lesson, I heard Elena say, "Watching films is bad?" I thought she was talking about pornographic films because we had just got done having "the talk" with her and so I vehemently agreed that watching "films" was bad! Apparently Elena was actually talking about regular films... Like going to the movies and stuff before your married...

Well, life here is pretty good! It's really hard at times, but one of my teachers says that post-mission life is WAY harder (he's the one that was so exhausted that he fell asleep in Elder Hogan and Elder Mciver's lesson)... So, I'm just trying to enjoy my experience here as much as possible!

Amo voi,

Anziano Anderson