Ciao Famiglia!!!
As you might have figured
out by the power of deduction, today is finally my P-day!!! Yes, we
survived a whole week without a P-day. It was long, but I'm glad its
finally here. I'm so glad to hear that all is well back home. I'm so
incredibly excited to hear that the US beat Honduras and qualified for
the World Cup, but I'm even more excited that I've got Dad hooked on
soccer!!! I miss watching it so much! I'm so glad to hear that Lizzy's
birthday party went well and I want her to know that I was thinking
about her on her birthday. But back to the stuff you actually want to
hear about.
First week over and I love it here!
The first day we were thrown into a classroom with two teachers who
didn't speak a single word of English, only Italian. So it was basically
sink or swim. Luckily, I caught on pretty fast and understand a pretty
decent amount. I met my companion, Anziano Erickson from Puyallup
Washington, and we instantly hit it off. He is really nice, smart, and a
lot of fun to be around. We work great together! Right now, we are on
fire! We are picking up Italian really fast. The third day, we had our
first lesson with our investigator Luca. I love Luca!! He is so awesome,
and he has such a great spirit about him. He is a pretty easy
investigator because he has a really strong desire to follow Christ, but
he only speak Italian, so that is pretty difficult. Our first lesson
was suppose to be 15 minutes, but Anziano Erickson and I kinda taught
him for 45 minutes...whoops. I was really nervous at first, but as soon
as we started teaching him, I felt the Spirit so strongly and all of
my fears were replaced with love for him. We taught him about the
Restoration and when he read the First Vision, the Spirit was so strong.
I could feel it, my collega (companion) could feel it, and Luca could
feel it. The power of the Spirit is real. I have a firm testimony of
that. During our first lesson, I found myself turning away from my notes
to ask Luca questions that I didn't even know I could. I closed the
lesson by bearing my testimony like I never had before. I only knew how
to say a few things, but the Spirit ampliflied my words. I know that
Heavenly Father really blesses his missionaries. Without the gift of the
Spirit, I would not be speaking Italian as well as I do now.
To
Dad's enjoyment, we all practice SYL (Speak Your Language) here at the
MTC. We always try to speak Italian as much as possible, which was
really hard the first few days because all we could really say was
"Ciao!", "Buon Giorno!", "Grazie!", and "Prego!". I've noticed that if I
take the time to think through what I'm going to say, I can usually say
it in Italian, at which the rest of my District says is...."Che cosa?"
(What?). I'm really doing well with Italian. One of my teachers,
Fratello Jeter, told me in an interview that he is really impressed with
how well I was speaking and understanding, and that was last Friday!! A
few days ago, we were practicing trying to pass out pamphlets
(opuscoli) in Italian, and after we were done practicing, our other
teacher Sorella Turley told the class to watch me as an exampe and I
tried to give Fratello Jeter a pamphlet about the Restoration. I was
caught really off guard, but I just went for it and after both Fratello
Jeter and Sorella Turley were really impressed with how well I spoke!
My
district has 10 missionaries in it, who are all going to Milano. Otto
Anziani e due Sorelle (8 Elders and 2 Sisters). Our Sorelle, Sorella
Carter and Sorella Smart, both took two semesters of Italian in college,
so they both speak really well. Our district as a whole was a little
slow at the beginning, but they all have been picking up Italian really
fast. I firmly believe that whom the Lord calls, he qualifies. Everyday
we have time to study Italian by ourselves and so we spend that time
helping each other learn and grow. It is so amazing. I love my District.
We have about 70 missionaries in our branch;
about 30 going to Milano, about 30 going to Roma, and about 10 going to
Romania. I love our branch. We all have such a sense of brotherhood with
each other. Whenever we see each other, we always yell "Ciao
Anziani!!!!". We have so much fun together, as we all try and learn
Italian, and how to preach the Lord's gospel. Every gym time we all go
play soccer and we have the best time. Because we are all struggling
with the same things, we all have such a love for each other and we will
always go to each other's aid.
Back to Luca. So
Anziano Erickson and I have taught him at least 7 times since we've been
here and we just love it. We now know enough Italian to be able to
communicate our thoughts without notes, which is amazing because then we
can really connect with him. He is so nice, everytime we don't know how
to say something he always tells us that we don't need to worry about
it, because our Italian is great! After the 3rd or 4th lesson, the
Spirit prompted me to invite him to be baptized, so I did. he say there
and thought about it for a minute or so before accepting. We were so
excited and we couldn't stop smiling! He is getting baptized on July 3rd.
Now, even though he's not a real investigator (he's a teacher), we
still have such a love for him and we feel such joy when he comes closer
to Christ.
Every night, our District meets in our
room to sing an Inno (hymn) and then we recite our purpose as
missionaries from memory in Italian. Nostro scopo e: Invitare le persone
a venire a Cristo aiutandole ad accetare il vangelo restaurato mediante
la fede in Gesu Cristo e la Sua l'Espiazione, il pentimento, il
battesimo, il conferimento del dono dello Spirito Santo e peseverando
sino alla fine.
I apologize for any spelling or
gramatical errors, its starting to get hard to write and speak in
English. Also, I never say the word "yes" anymore. It's always "si". I
will be talking to someone in English and then I will just say "si" when
I would normally say "yes". I've seen practically my whole ward here so
far. I run into Elder Wirkus a lot which is so awesome. I love talking
to him and I miss being with him all the time. His Portugese is great,
at least as far as I can tell. I love when I see my old friends and we
can share our love of the Lord and the language that we speak; whether
its Italian, Spanish, English, French, Mandarin, or Portugese. I said
this before, but the Lord blesses his missionaries.
I just want to close by briefly bearing my testimony in Italian:
Io
so che questa chiesa e vera. Io so que Gesu Cristo e mio Salvatore.
Testimonio que Lui vive. Io so che possiamo venire a Cristo mediante
insegnare sua parole. Lui amo e so che ci ama tutti le persone. Io so
che lo dono dello Spirito Santo e reale and mediante lo, possiamo
benedire le vite di persone. Nel nome di Gesu Cristo, amen.
I
tried to attach some pictures of our District, me and my companion, and
some friends from BYU. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope they are the
right ones. It's hard to tell on this computer. I will figure it out and
send better ones next week. Also, we kinda have a competition in our
District going on, so if you all could write me a Dear Elder
letter every few days, that would be awesome. I love you all and can't
wait to hear back from you!
Anziano Langlois
P.S. 800+ missionaries came into the MTC with me last week
P.P.S.
One of the members of our Branch Presidency's wife is from Roma, and
whenever she talks to us, she reminds me of Sylvia. I love it.
Anziano (Elder) Langlois and companion Anziano Erickson
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