5th Week in the MTC

(I sent Anziano Whitesell a box, including some items he asked for: "P-Day" and exercise clothing, including 2 tshirts and 3 pair of shorts, also nail clippers, socks, pillowcase and a favorite recipes book. We also sent their district -- 7 missionaries he's been taking classes with, who will all go to Milan together -- 7 CTR rings in Italian, and some Articles of Faith cards in Italian. The sisters were very appreciative :)  We received 3 very nice thank you notes, the best part of which was their praise of Anziano Whitesell.  He's working hard and they think very highly of him.  He was able to give Sorella Palmer a blessing.  She's from Australia and very far from home.  Anyway those thank you notes were highlights of my week!  Always nice for parents to hear good things about their kids from someone else.)

Here is his response about the box coming, and his comings and goings for the week.

Excellent!  I've been wearing a Polo shirt and khakis for P-day, and I feel like IT Personnel rather than P-day.  I'm pretty sure that's all I'll need.  I don't know what, if anything, I'll send home, but I packed fairly light so I shouldn't need to send anything back.  There will be a few charges on the credit card over the next week from picking up a few things at the bookstore and from checked bag fees, but we got a nice information sheet about travel information so I know how much weight I can carry.  Anything else I need to know can be DearElder'd, and I'll check my email one more time the night before I fly out, so I'll get in a quick message if anything unexpected is going to happen.

This past week the Germans left.  They were in the classrooms across from ours, and on the dorm floor below us.  They had a lot of leftover candy and food that they weren't taking with them, so some of us Italians went and got candy from them.  Fun stuff.

for comparison: the Elder on the far left is 6'7"

I managed to climb down the length of the hall, so attached are a few pictures. It's not the Matrix picture TK wanted, but I did my own thing and got stronger at wall-climbing.

We're learning about the future tense in Italian, after having learned and Imperfect and Conversational Past, but before Subjunctive and Conditional.  It reminds me of Spanish, but we're learning faster.

The devotional last night was by an Emeritus General Authority, which I learned means retired.  The movie "The Other Side of Heaven" was based off his mission.  Which of course I haven't seen.  But he gave a nice testimony, and then we talked about it at the district devotional review last night.

I got a nice DearElder from Angela, so thank her for me.

I play soccer and volleyball during gym time.  I can't think of all that much that happened.  The food here is still good.  People are still receiving large amounts of food, so that will either be sent back, thrown away, or if they have extra weight, taken with them.

Just after our temple trip today, we read a sign that said "missionaries needed to help in laundry" so we helped in the temple laundry room.

Love,
Anziano Whitesell