4-Week Mark

Hello, Family and Friends!

Here are a few pictures...you can click on them to enlarge.

This week has been pretty good.  I was called as a District Leader, which means I run district meetings and go to leadership council and that sort of thing.

Language learning is still the same.  I haven't gotten my flight plans yet, but they should come in today or tomorrow, and then I leave in 2 weeks.

Anziano Keller, Anziano Blazzard, me

(Side note: Carter is our neighbor...his mom was David's seminary/scripture study teacher.  Carter will serve his mission in Reno, Nevada) Carter is coming to the Mission Training Center today, so I'll look for him among the new missionaries.

me, Keller, Blazzard,
Sorellas Russell, Friedbaum, Palmer, Maples

We had Brother Ellis of the Seventy speak to us yesterday at the devotional...as well as 8 of his 9 children, all of whom had served on missions (the 9th is currently on her mission in Seoul).  It's pretty cool to hear of a family that strong in the gospel, all serving missions, all in Brazil, Portugal, and France.

We've just learned conversational past in our Italian studies.  At this point we've covered the lessons in Preach My Gospel in Italian, so we're working on more general-use speaking skills.  I think we'll do imperfect and future next.  I still need a lot of vocab words to be functional in day-to-day activities, but I'm progressing well at gospel topics.  Aunt Kathi and Kim sent me DearElder mail, which was nice; I got your message, too.

me, Blazzard, Keller

It's amazing how much food gets sent to the MTC.  Those missionaries right out of high school are getting packages with candy and cookies and all sorts of sweet stuff!  I don't know what they intend to do with it at the end of their time.  I've run into a few people I know from BYU, though Spanish-speakers are all on the West campus of the MTC.  An elder from the Ultimate team is going to Mexico, another is going stateside, an elder from my self-defense class is going stateside and an elder from my math class is going to Taiwan.

Hope everybody is doing well.
Love,
Anziano Whitesell