Week 9 - The miracle of the Banana Bread

Ciao Carissimi !!
Another week down in the Great Italy Rome Mission. Battipaglia feels more like home everyday, as I can now recognize the local Jehovah's Witnesses, avoid the local crazies, and have made friends with the people who run a crepe stand, the cafe owners, and the sandwich makers. I've basically got the whole food pyramid covered with all of my strategic friendships.

We had zone conference this week. It was great being able to get together with everyone and learn from President Pickerd. We discussed 2 Nephi 2 about life before and after the Fall of Adam and Eve, and about life thanks to Christ's Atonement. It was interesting to see how the things we lost because of the Fall (being in the presence of God, easy life with no worries or sin) can be restored through the Atonement of Christ. Thanks to The Fall, we can progress and grow, and we can have families. God's plan is truly one of happiness!

In true Christmas tradition, we acted out the nativity as a zone. We had a full cast; inn keepers, wise men, shepherds, a flock of sheep, an angel, even sone pigs. What was my role? The star. What did that entail, you might ask? Standing behind everyone, with my arms stretched out. I had flashbacks to the time my dad made Stewart and I have a contest to see who could hold their arms over their head the longest, and afterward I couldn't move my arms. It wasn't quite to that level, but I will say I'm glad I had practice.

Highlight of the week was for sure my scambio with Sorella Taylor! For those who don't know, we were next door neighbors for a while, and grew up in the same ward. It was a miracle she was the first sister I had a scambio with. She. Is. A. Fireball. She talked with every single person we passed and was so bold in sharing our message. I'm hoping I can become the same type of missionary she is. 

Finally, as my spiritual thought/Light The World promo/crazy story, I want to tell you about the miracle of the banana bread. Our day started out by us trying to figure out how we could use #siiunaluce. The theme of the day was helping those who are sick or afflicted. One of our investigators had been having a very hard time with her depression the day before so we decided to make her some banana bread and give her a visit and a lesson to comfort her. So we made banana bread, not realizing it needed an hour to cook... the brilliant missionaries that we are, we just cooked it for 45 minutes, then just cut off the raw bottom part. (Sorry mom) Then we ran to catch our train. Somehow we made it to our investigators house, only to have her tell us she couldn't see us until 1. We were a little disappointed, BUT here's where the miracle comes in. We stopped to do comp study at a grubby looking cafe, and within minutes, the family who owned the cafe was out talking with us and asking us questions and inviting us back so they could learn more. So our impulsive decision to bake banana bread and go to Eboli turned into an amazing teaching experience. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass"

I love you all, have a wonderful Christmas! 
Sorella Maxfield

Week 8 - B is for Brownies

Ciao famiglie e amici!
I don't have a ton of time to write so I'll give you just a couple quick updates: 
The work - awesome. We teach the most amazing people. We've had a hard time getting people to church, but most are progressing well in the Book of Mormon! We're tagging this awesome man (who we're going to pass off to the anziani if all goes well this week) but he's so sweet and see s to be genuinely interested in learning more. We're also teaching this family that are just the best. The dad is a little scary, and he speaks proper Napolitano, which means I can't understand him at all. But he's awesome. We had a brownie baking competition with him, and he just destroyed us, his brownies were amazing. 
English Course - oh boy. English course. Here's what I've learned I  English course: 
1. Italians never stop arguing. 
2. Italians will always think they're right and you can never convince them otherwise. (even when you're trying to tell them you know how to speak English)
3. In the end, all  arguments can probably be settled by eating food together. 
4. I'm an Italian. 
Funny experience - we had an awesome service experience. I loved it because I felt right at home. To preface, for those of you who know my family, you know yard work doesn't mean weeding or planting flowers. It means digging in the mud like the delinquents in Holes, sifting rocks like people at labor camp, or moving a 1000 pound piece of granite using only your bare hands and some logs. This family has the same work ethic as my family. Basically, their driveway was made poorly, so when it rains, all the water piles in this huge pool where their cats live, and then their cats can't eat or sleep comfortably (side note: this family has 13 cats)  so they asked if we would help get this water out of their drive way. So using dust pans, we scooped the water into buckets, then walked the buckets around the side of the house and dumped them down the hill. It was a strange strange project that took a long time, but it was fun. The I out problem is that it's rained again, which means we'll be back at it on Tuesday. Hopefully we can think of a more permanent fix.
Food - I have to talk about food, this is Italy! I love the food culture here, it's always always about sharing. For example, we were out finding and we stopped this random lady and while we were talking with her, she just offered us her fresh homemade zeppole. A complete stranger. Also every time we visit people they give us food. Its amazing. 
Spiritual thought- we had a lot of interesting conversations this week about why we need a church organization. This was something that I've never really had a clear explanation about, but I found this great scripture in Ephesians 4 that says
 11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
I just love that this church gives us clarity of doctrine and a unity of faith. We don't rely on the church for personal revelation, but with it, we can all build each other up and practice and understand the true doctrine of Christ. 
I love you all so much! 
Sorella Maxfield

Week 7 - A is for Alice and Anchovies

BONGIORNO FROM BATTIPAGLIA !!
la mia prima cità
This week has been so crazy, so I'll catch you up quickly as far as how I got to Battipaglia:
We took a 10 hour plane ride from Atlanta to Rome, where we met a nun, a crazy italian mom who fought with the flight attendants for the the whole flight, and a man who served in the Rome mission with my mom. 
Day one in Rome, we went on a "walking tour" of the city, which turned out to be a very sneaky way of making us talk to people and pass out biglitini. So we saw some cool sights, talked to some cool people, and survived our first day. But here's the best part of day one: dinner. We got back from our tour and Sorella Pickerd said we were having pizza. I was so pumped. I get excited to eat Little Ceasar's, so you can only imagine how excited I was to eat some pieces of a real Italian pizza. So we were eating our salad, when Sister Knies tells us that they're back with the pizza. AND THEN PROCEEDS TO GIVE EVERYONE A BOX OF PIZZA. SO I GOT A WHOLE BOX OF PIZZA. It was beautiful. I love Italy. 
So anyway, then I got my first city, and headed down to Battipaglia.The Napoli zone is cool, there are three other missionaries from Olympus in this zone, and all of the 2nd ward Rome missionaries. I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm happy it did. Guess what else? Battipaglia is in the Napoli Zone, which means Napoli pizza. I was feeling like the food part of this mission was really treating me well. 
Then I had my first meal appointment...it was my companions birthday on Friday, and a family we do service for wanted to make us lunch to celebrate her birthday. So I was super excited, thinking we would have this awesome, authentic, Italian birthday meal. Then on the way over, Sorella Oveson told me this family wanted to honor her birthday by giving her a greater understanding of her first name, Alice. Well apparently in Italian alice means anchovy.   This family served us a meal that was 100% anchovies. We had them battered and fried, baked in a casserole, fried whole and salted, and baked in a pastry. And that was the whole meal. It was not very pleasant, but we made it through. I definitely learned some more about the word alice, namely, they're still disgusting, and even though you can do something (i.e. make an anchovy pastry) it doesn't always mean you should. 
Besides our anchovy experience, everything else had been awesome. Battipaglia is great and my companion is the best. She's super motivated and hard working and her Italian is so good. She's from Colorado, majoring in physics and applied mathematics, she did debate in high school, loves to run, and is so caring. She's got a cool inner hippy, so we eat super clean in the apartment and do yoga at night. It's great. 
Anyway, spiritual thought this week would probably be the importance of charity. Something I've learned so far is that charity is one of the only things that really matter in this world. Out is so important to love everyone as Heavenly Father's children, and express that love to them. One thing I've found being here is that people really open up if you just show love for them. Even though we don't speak the language well, we can do muncher love to people and that's what opens their hearts to Jesus Christ. 

Love you all so so much, 
Sorella Maxfield 

Week 6 - Surprise Speakers, Sobs, and Southern Sounds

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving weekend was amazing! It was strange spending Thanksgiving away from home, but I had a surprisingly good time here at the MTC. Here's how our day went:

Morning Devotional. We're all sitting down, singing our prelude, when they announce that the speaker coming is David A. Bednar! There were lots of gasps, and I'm pretty sure a sister in front of me started crying. Basically every missionary is emotionally unstable, so any sort of surprise throws them over the edge. Anyway, the devotional had a very unique format. Elder Bednar's team passed out 150 cell phones around the auditorium, and then put a text number up on the screen for the missionaries to text in questions. So we had a cool Q&A type of devotional. The main messages that I took away were A) I'm probably going to change a lot because of my mission, and it's important that I embrace and love the person that the Lord will mold me into. I've already felt myself change so much even after 6 weeks, and I'm excited to see what changes are coming! and B) Book of Mormon Book of Mormon Book of Mormon. I need to read it more. And I need to study it to find answers to my questions. Elder Bednar suggested that for every question, we get a cheap copy of the Book of Mormon and read it with just that question in mind. Then once you're done, write a page summary of what you've learned, label the side of the book, and put it on a shelf and start collecting little specialized Book of Mormons for every question. 

So after Elder Bednar spoke we had our Turkey Dinner (at lunch time). The pumpkin pie wasn't as good as yours, Grandma, but the turkey wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. 

Then we watched the movie "Love, Kennedy" Here's the deal. I would only recommend this movie if you are currently in one of the following categories. 

1. You have something stuck in your eye that you need to flush out. 

2. You're trying to win a "most tears cried in 90 minutes" award.

3. You've never cried in your life and you're curious about what that might feel like. 

If you don't fall under one of those categories, save yourself from the dehydration. I cried, like a scary noisy type of cry, through the whole movie. And if you think that maybe I'm just a baby, think again: the entire row of very manly looking elders sitting behind us were crying harder than I was. 

We finished off the night on a better note though. The Nashville Tribute Band was invited to come perform for our evening devotional. For those of you who haven't heard of them, think Southern Redneck Mormon Music, and whatever image comes to your head is probably accurate. I'll just sum up their performance by saying that during one song, every missionary was standing up clapping along, and many were shouting out things like "hallelujah" and "yee haw". It was a lot of fun, which is probably why we got an email this morning from the Mission Presidency saying how disappointed they were in some of the bands music choices. I will say that they played several songs that were beautiful and the message they left us with was very uplifting, so va bene. 

Some other highlights of this week:

- While acting like an investigator, Anziano Elliot was trying to tell me that "If you read that Book of Mormon, you will become closer to Jesus" except he forgot the Italian words for 'closer to' so he just left them out. Needless to say, he left this investigator with a some very strange ideas about the Mormon Church. 

- They decorated the whole MTC with Christmas lights!!! It's so fun. Like a slightly less exciting Temple Square. 

- I accompanied two musical pieces this week: One cute Sister headed to Hong Kong, and two Elders going to Arizona and California. The sister's performance went flawlessly, and the Elders' didn't have their lyrics memorized until two minutes before their performance time... 

- I learned that it is grammatically correct to add emphasis to words using as many prefixes and suffixes as you want. so my new favorite word is supervelocissimamente , which translates to super very fastly. 

My final spiritual thought this week comes from an interesting talk we had with the MTC Executive Secretary. He was telling us about the story of Ammon, but proposed that Ammon was more of a member missionary than a missionary missionary. We talked about the story from that perspective, and it was so interesting. He didn't go to the Lamanites and immediately begin preaching, he just served them. And by serving them, he slowly took down the walls around their spirits that were preventing them from listening to the spirit. So for all you member missionaries at home, remember that you're Ammon! Just by serving people, you open up their hearts so they can let the gospel in! I invite you all to go back and read that story and think about ways that as a member missionary, you can be like Ammon. 

I love you all so much, and next time you'll be hearing from me, I'LL BE WRITING FROM ITALIA !!

Vi voglio un sacco di bene, 

Week 5 - Obedience and Virtue

We've had a gelato countdown going on our classroom board since week 1, and today we hit 10 days. HOW CRAZY IS THAT. I can't believe that I'm going to be in Italy in 10 days. I'm excited, but at the same time, I have no idea how I'm going to talk to people. I can use gospel words, but regular people conversations? no way. I can remember random words, such as brividi (goosebumps) but basically my conversational skills go from "Hi, what's your name? What do you like to do for fun?" to "Do you believe in God?" . I'll keep you all posted as to how that works out in Italy. But despite that, I'm very very excited to interact and learn from the people.

We've already had some pretty funny language mix-ups in our classroom and in our lessons. For example, during our lesson with Daniela this week, we were teaching her the importance of keeping commandments. I was giving my portion of the lesson and talking about how when we keep the commandments, we are blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost, which comforts us and helps us learn. So I'm going on and on about "la donna dello Spirito Santo". Then afterwards, my companion decides to let me know that "la donna" means woman, and "il dono" means gift.... yep. I just preached some false doctrine about the Woman of the Holy Spirit, but hopefully the message got through anyway. 

Another highlight of this week was our Sunday Film. After every devotional, they show a couple different films you can choose between; different talks, old devotionals, Meet the Mormons, Book of Mormon movies, etc. This past Sunday somebody suggested Legacy, a movie about the pioneers. I don't know if I would recommend Legacy to anyone, but it was MUCH needed entertainment here. It was the closest thing we've had to a romcom in a month. Afterward all the girls in our district ate cookies and talked about the love story and it was great. 

This week our spiritual focus has been on Obedience and Virtue. I had an interesting thought during our devotional this week about virtuous thinking. Our speaker talked about the importance of optimism and being positive in how we view ourselves. I don't know why, but as I was taking notes, I was just thinking how connected optimism is to virtuous thinking. Complaining and having a negative mentality about everything keeps us from growing closer to God and focusing on becoming like Him. I've made it my goal to work on thinking positively and having an eternal perspective on things. 

Last, I just want to share this scripture with you all! I read it this morning while I was in the temple and I felt so much comfort and peace. 

2 Nephi 26:27-28

I love this church so much, and I love my Savior! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be out here serving a mission.

I love you all!

-- 

Sorella Maxfield

p.s. shout out to my older brother for tying the knot today !! If anyone has funny stories or pictures from their wedding, please send them my way!!

Week 4 - President Russel M. Nelson

Scherzo. If you made it past the subject heading, you'll be pleased to know this was probably the best week I've had at the MTC. 

Remember how last week I talked about how Sorella Dean and I were asked to play at a special dinner for the devotional speaker? So on Tuesday we go up to the front desk and the whole mission presidency is there. They take us the room where we'll be playing and it's set up really fancy for this dinner. There are 12 seats in the room around this big square table, and the room is probably just a bit smaller than my kitchen. Anyway, after they show us the room, the Mission President's Wife says "So do you know who you'll be performing for tonight?" We told her we hadn't been told yet, and she just smiles and says "Russel M. Nelson will be our special guest tonight"   We have probably never looked more unintelligent. We all just stood there and stared at her and didn't say anything. First of all Russel M. Nelson. The president of the 12. HOW CRAZY. Second, we've already had a member of the twelve come and speak at a devotional. So the fact that we've now had two is ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. 

It was an incredible experience. We got to shake his hand, and I just felt so touched by the power and amazing spirit of this man. When we played for him, the spirit was so strong, and I could feel the testimony of Sister Dean as she sang. My testimony and love for our church leaders grew so much. I could just feel that these men have sure testimonies of Christ and of this gospel and there are no better people to be leading our church. We are so fortunate to have a living authorities who can receive revelation to guide us and teach us. I love it!! I love this church. 

This week was probably the best week I've been here thus far, and not only because of Elder Nelson. The other miracle of the week was that I got to host the Hannah Seastrand (just celebrated our 13th year of friendship) on her first day at the MTC! It seriously was a miracle. I was trying to find someone to ask if my zone could host this past Wednesday, but then, before I could ask anyone, we got a letter asking us if we would host!! I actually screamed when the Anziani told us. It was so fun to see her and her family. 

Everything else that goes on here is very much the same. I'm really loving every minute of the MTC, but that doesn't mean I'm not counting them down until I leave for Italy. Forza Italia!

Click here to Reply, Reply to all, or Forward

Week 3b - we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ

A: No. Not unless you count singing "Lo Spirito Arde" because it's the only Italian Hymn that has the word "Spirito" in it. We also put up a sign on our door that said "Trick-or-Treaters Welcome" but nobody stopped by... che triste. Please send any festive halloween pictures like costumes or decorations or pretty fall leaves. :)

It's hard to remember what happens during the week, I feel like I just barely got here, but at the same time, this morning feels like 6 days ago. I feel like God warps our time here so we feel like we have enough time in the day to get everything done but also like time is flying. Anyway. There were so many cool things that happened this week, here are just a few:

- Sorella Dean and I were asked to perform during the Sunday evening devotional. We performed for everyone. EVERYONE. in the MTC. Without Sorella Dean I think I would have actually passed out. Sorella Dean has been the lead in many a musical and Opera, Including Kristine in Phantom of the Opera and the lead in an Italian Opera performed in an Italian Opera House in Italy. So basically, big crowds aren't too much of a problem for her. And she did so amazing when we performed, she sang with such a strong spirit, and all week people have been stopping her to thank her for her performance. Fast forward to yesterday, she and I got called down to the office of the First Counselor's Wife. She asked us if we would perform at a small dinner with the Mission Presidency and the visiting General Authority on Tuesday!! It was crazy!! So next week we're performing at this dinner and so hopefully that goes well!!

- This whole week I've been praying for the gift of being able to teach with the Spirit even though my language skills make me sound like a caveman. I feel like I'm being simple, yet strong during the lessons, but then afterwards I realize that I say things like "I am message from Jesus, we have missionary" or "You pray, I know good feelings you feel" So anyway, I've been really pleading that somehow I'll be able to communicate with the spirit of our investigators. Yesterday we had our first lesson with Azzurra, and the answer to my prayer came. We started teaching and it wasn't some crazy experience where all these new words started coming out of my mouth, rather, I  just had the confidence to speak. And as I started talking I started feeling the spirit so strongly, it was insane. Then I started crying because I was feeling the Spirit so strongly and testifying of Christ, and then Sorella Helgeson started testifying and crying too and then Azzurra started crying and committed to pray about God's love for her and everyone was just crying and feeling the spirit and testifying of Christ and it was amazing. I've never really had a prayer answered in such a strong way as this one, so it was a testament to me that God listens to us and will answer us in his own time, but it's always the perfect time.

- I'm probably the least athletic of everyone in my district, but some how this week I made it to the King's Court in volleyball three times and the King's Box in four-square five times. So I'm feeling pretty excited about that. The gym time is probably one of my favorite times of day, our whole districts gets together and we get to play and laugh and have fun, and it's a good contrast from all the study. (The study part is great too though. all the parts are great. everything's pretty great actually)

- Finally, my spiritual thought for this week is the scripture 2 Nephi 25:26. "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins" I. Love. This. Scripture. Jesus Christ is amazing. His atonement is amazing. I am so happy that I'll be able to share the message of redemption through Christ for the next 18 months. This week our district has been sharing a message about Christ before and after every lesson and it's really been strengthening my testimony and increasing my love and gratitude for Christ. I'm so happy to be serving a mission you guys! It's such a unique and rare opportunity and I'm ready to live every moment of it!

Love and miss you all, 

Language learning MTC style

Week 3a - Packages and Provo

The chocolate chip cookies were seriously manna from heaven. Yesterday I smuggled some into our classroom and shared them with my district and they all loved them. It was a good way to end the Halloween week, because they don't celebrate that here... they didn't let us go trick or treating or anything so it was a bummer. 

Ooh please send pictures of the dresses, I want to see!! ASOS is a good place to check, they let you specify what you really want so you can easily sort through all the oddly trendy stuff. ModCloth is kind of fun too, but sometimes hit and miss. Piper and Scoot and Clad and Cloth were two of my favorites, but their dresses are a little more on the casual side. Where have you gotten your dresses from? What style are they?

So you're probably going to be down in Provo today then? If you drive by the temple around 1:30, you might see me and my district playing soccer haha, that's the plan right now. I'm so happy everyone did so well in school, I seriously love and adore my little siblings so much. No offense to you or dad or Stewart, but thinking about them gets me the most homesick haha. 

Honestly though, I've maybe been homesick like twice the whole time I've been here and it's been brief. I've been really really happy here, I think for lots of reasons, but two have stuck out to me. One; life is just so simple, and I have a purpose. Every day goes well because I know exactly what I'm here to do and I have nothing else to worry about (except for the fact that I've already gained two pounds....) The other is the effect the Spirit has on my attitude. I was feeling a little frustrated during week one because I had the mentality that the second I got to the MTC I'd be feeling just those intense Spiritual feelings all. the. time. And I wasn't so I was kind of getting down on myself. Then Sorella Dean said one night "You know what? I've never been happier than I am here" and it just BOOM hit me. The fact that I have been so happy is just a manifestation of the spirit. Even though I haven't had goosebumps 100% of the time, I've been so happy because I've had the constant presence of the spirit. 

I'm loving the energy at the MTC.

Send pictures of you guys getting donuts!!!

Lots of love, 

Sorella Maxfield

Week 2- Field Trip to SLC

Highlight of the week: we took a field trip to meet with the consulate!! Guess where the consulate is? The judge building in downtown salt lake. Right by 222 Main where my dad works. It was so crazy. We took the frontrunner downtown, then met with the consulate and then wandered around temple square and got lunch in city creek. It felt so weird being outside the MTC as a missionary. 

Another highlight: for our devotional last Tuesday we got to hear from Gary E. Stevenson. His message was about developing Christ like attributes, which was amazing because we had just talked about that as a district the day before. For our Sunday devotional  we heard from the president of UVU. He gave such a powerful talk about allowing ourselves to be perfected through Christ. He talked about the Provo Tabernacle and how beautiful a building it was and how content everyone was with it's purpose. When if burned down it was difficult for the people in the city and it seemed like such a tragedy that God had allowed this beautiful building to burn. But when it was announced that the Provo Tabernacle would become Provos 2nd temple, it was clear that God had that plan from the beginning for the building to become even more beautiful and sacred. Then he shared a quote from C.S. Lewis that went something like this (and if anyone could find the exact quote and send it to me I would be so grateful :) We're like cottages that God needs to fix up. At first he comes and changes the pipes and fixes the leaks, things we knew we needed. But then he starts tearing down walls and ripping up carpet. And it's painful. A lot of it we can't understand. But when he's finished we realized that he's turned us into a beautiful mansion rather than the small house we were expecting. Something to that effect. Anyway, that message really stuck out to me, and I'm working on trusting God's plan for me and I'm ready to see how He changes me!

MTC humor is weird. Really weird. Things that normally would be funny for maybe 10 seconds are funny for days. For example, Sorella Dean told us that lots of people in Willard say "hullo" rather than "hello". And we have being laughing hysterically about that for four days. Four days of laughter at "hullo". It's a really fun environment though everyone is just so happy, I love it. The Romanian sisters left on Monday and gave us their box of fruit snacks and Pringles, which we were very grateful for. There's something about the MTG food. It feels like we're always eating, but then somehow we're always hungry. Non ha senso. 

Sorella Dean (the opera singer) asked me to accompany her in an audition to perform at the Sunday night devotional, and they loved her! So now not only are we playing for the whole MTG on Sunday, but they also put my name on the accompanist list... which is all good and fine but now people keep leaving notes on my door and I don't know if I have time to learn new songs everyday and learn Italian. It'll work out haha. 

Everything is going well here, I'm having fun and loving learning Italian!!

Love and miss you all!

Sorella Maxfield 

Sister Maren Irene Maxfield 

NOV29 ITA-ROM

2005 N 900 E Unit 161

Provo UT 84602

Lunch at City Creek

Downtown SLC in front of Dad's Office

MTC Companion

MTC District Happy Sisters

MTC Serious District

Week 1 - The MTC, first impressions

The MTC. I feel like I'm in a different world, even though I can see Heritage Halls from my classroom. Everyone calls each other Anziano or Sorella and on the first day everyone, and I mean everyone, would just wave to you and say "Welcome to the MTC Sister!!" in the most enthusiastic way.

After I got dropped off, the sequence of events went something like this:

Hauled luggage up three flights of stairs

Got my tag

Dropped off my luggage in my room

Went straight to class

that's it. no time to unpack or take a breath or pee or realize I hadn't brought a Preach My Gospel. nothin. straight to class.

I was literally here for maybe ten minutes before my host pointed me in the direction of my classroom and said, "Okay, room 433. Have fun!" and then left me. On top of that, when I got to my classroom, two sisters were already jabbering in Italian and the teacher came in and just started giving me instructions in Italian. I have never been more confused, but eventually (mostly through sign language) I understood what she was telling me. 

The two sisters who were already speaking in Italian were Sorella Dean and Sorella Helgeson. Sorella Dean is in a Masters Program for Vocal Performance, specifically, Opera, so she knows Italian because it was a required class in her opera study. Not to mention the fact that she was the lead role in an Italian Opera in Milan. Sorella Helgeson took Italian for 7 years, and she's amazing. She knows so much Italian. She's also my companion, which is going to be a huge blessing, since I know nothing except for how to say "let's go" and "give me a kiss", one of which is not exactly helpful missionary language... (thanks mom) 

So Sorella Helgeson is my companion and our roomates are Sorella Dean and Sorella Walker. Sorella Walker is so cute, she's a yoga instructor and a rock climber and we have pretty similar personalities, so that's been nice. 

So I've only been here for three days, but here are some initial thoughts I've had:

HANNAH AND ALL PEOPLE WHO ARE LEAVING TO SERVE A MISSION : BREAK IN YOUR SHOES BEFORE YOU COME. I have six blisters already. yes. six. and they're awful. so bring lots of bandaids and moleskin too. 

Personal Study is the best. I've started over reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning, and my first personal study I dedicated to the intro and the testimonies, since I usually skip those. If it's been a while since you've read those, give them a look over!

The environment here is so positive, and I'm really happy! We had our first interview with the Branch Presidency and I just couldn't stop smiling because I'm so excited to be here. The second counselor told me to try to keep up that smile through the rest of the MTC experience so I'll let you know how that goes. 

I'll try to send out some pictures later this evening, but I'm a little crunched for time, so if not this week, then next week I'll have some to share!

I love and miss you all!!

MTC Roomies

MTC Selfie

Companion

Farewell Address

Good morning brothers and sisters. For those of you who don’t know, I will be leaving to begin my missionary training at the Provo MTC on Wednesday. While I was waiting for my mission call to come, Lauren Taylor received her call to the Italy Rome mission. After we found out Lauren would be serving in the same mission as my mom, my mom told me “You better not have had any hopes of going to Rome, they wouldn’t call two people from the same ward to the same mission.” Then Colton Bell received his call to the Rome Italy Mission. Again my mom said something to the effect of “Well you’re definitely not going to Italy. They would never call three people from the same ward to Italy.” Needless to say, I think my mom was the most shocked when I opened my call and was assigned to serve in Rome. On top of being the third member of our ward leaving to serve in the Rome, I will also be the second person in my nuclear family, and the fourth in my extended family to be serving in this mission. The best part is none of my family ever thought to teach me any italian, besides “mammia mia” , “andiamo bambini” , “pizzaria”  and a word I’ve been told not to say over the pulpit. However, they have told me that the easiest way to get into an Italian’s home is to sniff around the air for a second and then say “oh my goodness, it smells so lovely, what are you cooking” and apparently they’ll just invite you right in and probably give you some homemade pasta.

Now. One might think that having a father in the bishopric would make getting a topic for a talk pretty easy. A simple “Hey Dad, what should I talk about at my farewell?” Oh no. When I first asked him, he said “that’s not my job, Nate’s in charge of this month, you can’t ask me, you need to ask Nate” So I texted Nate. Nate’s response was “Just ask your Dad.” So I asked my dad. So after juggling back and forth my dad basically said “here are some scriptures that are nice, think about them and then talk about whatever you feel.” Thank you for specificity Dad. Though the scriptures were really great, I got too many ideas, so for a while my talk was covering a lot of different topics and making very little sense. I think I’ve narrowed it down, but if this talk seems all over the place, we’re going to blame my dad for giving me too many ideas. I’ve decided to speak on becoming perfected through Christ.

The goal of our existence here on earth is grow and develop spiritually so that one day we can live again with our Heavenly Father. All we have to do is follow God’s commandments, listen to the Holy Ghost, keep our covenants, oh and also be perfect because “no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God.” If that were it, I could probably just sit down and be resigned in the fact that none of us are perfect, so that’s that. We’ve already failed. But we know that our Heavenly Father is merciful and loving, and he knows that we would never be able to reach perfection on our own. In 2 Nephi 12, we read “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.”

It is so easy to feel hammered down by the high expectations of “perfection” in the gospel, and self-deprecating feelings can seem unavoidable. It’s important for us to realize that these feelings don’t come from God. When we fail, our Heavenly Father doesn’t say “Nice job, you really messed up this time. You’re basically a lost cause at this point.” Our Heavenly Father acts just the same as a loving father does when their child makes a mistake; He helps us recognize our wrong, then comforts us, cares for us, and heals us. My favorite analogy to this comes from a talk called “His Grace is Sufficient” by brother Brad Wilcox, a professor at BYU. He says that our life can be compared to learning the piano. It’s very easy to say “Don’t you realize how hard it is to practice? I’m just not very good at the piano. I hit a lot of wrong notes. It takes me forever to get it right.” Now wait. Isn’t that all part of the learning process? When a young pianist hits a wrong note, we don’t say he is not worthy to keep practicing. We don’t expect him to be flawless. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now we can be content with progress in the right direction. Why is this perspective so easy to see in the context of learning piano but so hard to see in the context of learning heaven?” I’ve been playing the piano since I was very little, and I started teaching piano when I was thirteen. I was lucky enough to have taught two of my cousins. One cousin decided he wanted to take on a very challenging song from Star Wars. Everything about it was harder than any other song he’d ever learned. Not only is my cousins a hard worker, but he is a perfectionist. Every wrong note was hard on him and there were days when he just wanted to be done trying to learn this song. From a teaching perspective, it made me sad to see him frustrated over little things, when every week he was getting better and better! I’m very happy to say that my cousin didn’t give up and this past week he played the Star Wars song memorized and perfect at our lesson. I learned so much from him about hard work and I also got a very very small glimpse into the way Heavenly Father must feel when we make mistakes. We are inevitably imperfect, and sometimes we can’t help but fall a little bit. We shouldn’t tear ourselves down because we falter, He knows we’re not perfect. What matters to Him is that we keep “trying to be like Jesus” even after we mess up.

After receiving my call, I was hit with some serious feelings of weakness. It just struck me how flawed I am and how many mistakes I’ve made, to the point where I was feeling unsure about my decision to serve. I asked Heavenly Father over and over to help take away my feelings of inadequacy, but it wasn’t until I finally expressed my emotions to my dad that I felt any peace. At the end of our conversation he said “Maren. It’s okay that you’ve made mistakes. Everyone does, and it’s important that we feel remorseful so that we can sincerely repent. But I want you to know that your harsh self-judgements don’t come from God. I know that in His eyes, a mission is exactly the right thing for you to do now.” His words helped me realize that I am a Daughter of a Heavenly Father who wants his children to succeed. He wants me, and all of us, to become like him, despite our best efforts in convincing ourselves that we’re beyond saving.

Sister Lara Isaackson said “Satan has somehow managed to make covenants and commandments seem like curses and condemnations. For some he has turned the ideals and inspiration of the gospel into self-loathing and misery-making.” After talking with my dad, I realized that I was allowing my imperfections to make me miserable, and that was not God’s plan. Satan was making me feel worthless, whereas God would have wanted me to be hopeful. I now understand that our journey in trying to learn perfection is what matters in God’s eyes. What we learn from our mistakes is what brings us closer to Christ. I know that my feelings of inadequacy weren’t immediately taken away by Heavenly Father when I asked, because I needed to have that conversation with my dad. We make mistakes so that we can learn from them, and that way we can always be progressing.

Though mistakes are ultimately for our benefit, it doesn’t change the fact that in order to be with our Heavenly Father again we must be completely clean. There has to be a way for us to be “without spot.” And there is. Elder Holland illustrates this in his most recent conference talk through a parable. He says “Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven—we can’t “earn” it. Thus, the grace of Christ offers us not only salvation from sorrow and sin and death but also salvation from our own persistent self-criticism.

A servant was in debt to his king for the amount of 10,000 talents. Hearing the servant’s plea for patience and mercy, “the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and … forgave … the debt.” But then that same servant would not forgive a fellow servant who owed him 100 pence. On hearing this, the king lamented to the one he had forgiven, “Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?”10
There is some difference of opinion among scholars regarding the monetary values mentioned here—and forgive the U.S. monetary reference—but to make the math easy, if the smaller, unforgiven 100-pence debt were, say, $100 in current times, then the 10,000-talent debt so freely forgiven would have approached $1 billion—or more!
As a personal debt, that is an astronomical number—totally beyond our comprehension. (Nobody can shop that much!) Well, for the purposes of this parable, it is supposed to be incomprehensible; it is supposed to be beyond our ability to grasp, to say nothing of beyond our ability to repay. That is because this isn’t a story about two servants arguing in the New Testament. It is a story about us, the fallen human family—mortal debtors, transgressors, and prisoners all. Every one of us is a debtor, and the verdict was imprisonment for every one of us. And there we would all have remained were it not for the grace of a King who sets us free because He loves us and is “moved with compassion toward us.”11
Jesus uses an unfathomable measurement here because His Atonement is an unfathomable gift given at an incomprehensible cost. That, it seems to me, is at least part of the meaning behind Jesus’s charge to be perfect. We may not be able to demonstrate yet the 10,000-talent perfection the Father and the Son have achieved, but it is not too much for Them to ask us to be a little more godlike in little things, that we speak and act, love and forgive, repent and improve at least at the 100-pence level of perfection, which it is clearly within our ability to do.”

None of us will ever be perfect in this life so we have to put away the self-criticism and hate, and put all of our trust in our Heavenly Father and in our Savior Jesus Christ. It can only be through him that we can ever truly be perfect. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said “May I speak . . . to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short. . . .

. . . This feeling of inadequacy is . . . normal. There is no way the Church can honestly describe where we must yet go and what we must yet do without creating a sense of immense distance.

. . . This is a gospel of grand expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for each of us.”

This is, to me, the most amazing message of Christ’s gospel; That we can truly, absolutely become perfect. In Moroni 10 we read, “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, that ye become holy, without spot.”

The power of Christ’s atonement covered each and every one of us, and it is through his grace that we can be with our Father again. We won’t achieve perfection now, or at any time during our mortal life. All we can do is continue to “Press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.” I can’t wait to teach the people of Italy about the truth that we can be clean of any mistake through our Savior. Though the thought of a  mission is pretty frightening, the thought of sharing what brings me so much joy makes me think that it will all be worth it.

As per the farewell talk style, I feel there are a couple people I owe some thanks to, specifically my family.

Charlie - Thanks for being my little cuddle buddy and teaching me to always have fun and be a little crazy.

Sydney - you’re such an amazing example of pure selflessness. I hope that I can become as kind and happy as you are.

Emma - Thank you for showing me how to loosen up and also how to be bold.

Stewart - You have always been and will continue to be an amazing example. If I’m half as successful as you were on a mission, I’ll be more than happy

Dad - Thank you for advice, blessings, and all the goofiness. You’ve always been an example of incredible faith, so thank you for letting me lean on yours when I felt my own wavering.

Mom - You’ve taught me so much about being a faithful daughter of God. You are my confidant, comforter, and best friend. I am so excited to be serving in your same mission because it means that I’ll always get to remember your example while I’m serving.

I know that it can only be through Christ that we can be perfected. I love this gospel, and I am so excited to dedicate the next 18 months of my life to teaching it.