(Vi voglio bene means I love you all) This week has been challenging in a few different ways but I have learned a lot. That's the great thing about a mission. I've realized that you don't "find yourself" by going and laying on a beach for six months (first hypothetical thing I thought of haha), but instead by serving others and learning from difficult things.
👍At the beginning of this week (Saturday & Sunday) I was having a rough time with my attitude about going to the field. It's only 1.5 weeks away! I hear all the time how tough it's going to be, and I, being a realist, was thinking too much about the difficulties I would face once I get there. It was starting to drag me down. But then on Sunday night we had a devotional by an older man who had served in the Italy North Mission (you can tell he's old because it's not called that anymore haha). I went into the devotional with the question, "How can I be the best missionary I need to be, and how can I love the field?" The devotional answered all my questions. It was amazing. If anyone wants to see my notes, let me know. I will include, though, a couple quotes that were especially poignant for me:
"Everything you want in life is just outside of your comfort zone!"
"'That which we persist in doing becomes easier...' -Ralph Waldo Emerson"
On Monday Slla. Cook and I had a bunch of lessons. We taught our teacher as herself, our investigator, and another TRC (member) through Skype. The TRC was interesting because she didn't answer our Skype call the first time so I left an awkward voice message in Italian while Sorella Cook was like uuuuh whattt. I was like, "Ciao! Siamo missionarie per la chiesa... vogliamo a parlare con Lei... call us back per favore..." hahaha it was so awkward. And then she called back like 10 seconds later and we had the lesson with her.
😂On Tuesday night we had another devotional that helped me a lot, too. During that devotional the speakers talked about the Real vs. Ideal ideas of things. They talked about how sometimes being a realist isn't what's best for us. I realized this: It is my choice what I get out of my mission. My attitude will determine how it goes for me. Sometimes I get too realistic and tell myself the mission field will be extremely hard, but I forget that I can also have amazing experiences. It's my choice to be either excited for the good or scared for the difficult.
We also sang "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" in the MTC choir, and it was beautiful.
On Wednesday we got to host! So instead of being the missionary that got out of the car and said goodbye to her family, I got to help another sister who is new to the MTC. They told us beforehand that they wanted us to try and host at least 3 people because there were like 700 new missionaries coming in. Welllll... I only got around to hosting one. It was crazy. The girl I hosted, Sister Stephany Dorneles Dos Santos (yes that is her whole last name), got out of a taxi after flying here from Brazil and only spoke Portuguese. No English. It was quite an interesting day. I used English, Italian, Spanish, and sign language?? to communicate with her what we needed to do. I learned some Portugese haha. Because she was international, she had to get a bunch of check-ups and even an x-ray, and all of the nurses and receptionists wanted me to communicate to her what was going on.
😅 At one point I was trying to think about something to talk about with her as we were walking between errands, so we were just silent, but then she turned to me and said (in English), "I like you!" And she smiled. It was so sweet
😢
She is going to be serving in Boston, MA speaking Portuguese. I think
that was a blessing for me because even though there was a language
barrier, we still became friends, which I think is a very applicable
lesson for when I'm out in the field. I've been sick since Tuesday so that's been tough but I'm glad it's happening now instead of next week! Also if any of you want to send me letters, now would be the time to do it
😉 Sorry I didn't take many pictures this week but I love the new MTC buildings, so I'm attaching a couple of pictures from my building
😀P.S. In my email last week I put the word "right" where it should have been "write," so please count this as my official correction, and I apologize to anyone I might have made cringe because of that
😂 [NOTE from Abby's mom: I changed it, because it stuck out to me 😉]Ciao everyone!
🍕Sorella Johnson
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