{"id":223,"date":"2013-05-09T17:30:41","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T17:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/?p=223"},"modified":"2013-05-09T17:30:41","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T17:30:41","slug":"first-week-in-the-mtc-mission-training-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/first-week-in-the-mtc-mission-training-center\/","title":{"rendered":"First Week in the MTC (Mission Training Center)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"27142_366620406780997_1217607550_n\"<\/a>\"942323_366620443447660_2142957200_n\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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Saying goodbye for 18 months<\/p>\n

Caro la mia famiglia,<\/div>\n

Okay, so I just pulled an Emma move and accidentally deleted my email instead of saving it.\u00a0Sono triste.\u00a0 I wrote so much stuff and it was so good and I don’t have a lot of time to write!\u00a0 Ah! please forgive the jumbledness of this letter. \u00a0Please write me letters through Dear Elder or just regular letters.\u00a0 I only get to check my email once a week and I don’t have a lot of time to do it. And so I’ll attach pictures next week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I will write a letter to the family later, so so sorry I don’t have a lot of time to write that much. But HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! I love you!<\/div>\n
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When we first arrived at the MTC, we were taken to our classroom where the teacher only spoke in Italian.\u00a0 Luckily, I kinda know a lot of Italian already \ud83d\ude42 Our teacher is Fratello Jeter.\u00a0 He is amazing.\u00a0 He said – “You all already know Italian! You have the gift of tongues! It’s the language of your spirit!” I hope so. I have such a strong testimony, I just have trouble saying it in Italian!<\/div>\n
My companion is Sorella Carlock from New Jersey.\u00a0 She is amazing and I have already learned so much from her.\u00a0 She has a strong testimony of the gospel and testifies with conviction.<\/div>\n
My district is amazing.\u00a0 Two of them are converts, and all of them have made such sacrifices to be here.\u00a0 I wish I had time to tell you all their stories. I will in the future though, I promise!<\/div>\n
It was so funny, either the first or the second day (I can’t remember, the days all blur together here) we watch this video of a girl speaking in Italian.\u00a0 She was speaking so fast.\u00a0 I understood a lot of it but no one else in the district did.\u00a0 After we watched the teacher said, “You’ll be teaching her tomorrow! in Italian!”\u00a0 Everyone appropriately freaked out.<\/div>\n
So, our second day, we taught our first investigator, Patrizia. All in Italian.\u00a0 It went pretty well! W have taught her every day since.\u00a0 I am finding that the knowledge that I gained in seminary, from my personal study, and religion classes at BYU, is so useful.\u00a0 You can’t come to the MTC expecting to gain a testimony and learn all the doctrine.\u00a0\u00a0You have to know the doctrine. NOW<\/i>.\u00a0 We bore simple testimonies about the\u00a0Savior and His love for us.\u00a0 We also gave her a Book of\u00a0Mormon and challenged her to read it.\u00a0\u00a0The Spirit was there, even though we were speaking broken\u00a0Italian.\u00a0 We couldn’t rely on ourselves to do the teaching. It was\u00a0extremely humbling.\u00a0 The\u00a0Spirit does the teaching, we are merely the Lord’s mouthpieces.<\/div>\n
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As far as the food goes that everyone keeps asking me about – it’s good!\u00a0\u00a0Really, I don’t mind it at all.\u00a0 It’s just so hard to exert self-control. And the anziani (Italian for elders) think it’s HILARIOUS to put\u00a0desserts on my plate and\u00a0guilt me into eating the sweets.\u00a0 Seriously, there’s always a new cookie or brownie appearing out of nowhere! And the thing is – I can’t hit them to get them to stop! (That’s considered flirting, my friends.) Except.\u00a0 I accidentally hit someone today.\u00a0 Since it’s Wednesday, all the new people come in to the MTC.\u00a0 When you are new, you have an orange sticker on your name tag.\u00a0 Well, I said welcome to an Elder, but he as soon as I said it, I could tell he was a fake and he just put the sticker on for fun.\u00a0 He started laughing and then I hit him and then I gasped and apologized over and over again because I realized that wasn’t allowed.\u00a0 It was pretty funny.<\/div>\n
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Running out of time,\u00a0and I have learned so much this week that I want to share.<\/div>\n
Quick experience:<\/div>\n
Sorella Gross\u00a0 (a sister in my district) had an allergic reaction to something and had to go to the ER a couple of nights ago.\u00a0 She grew up on an Indian reservation, and so she has never taken medicine besides natural herbs.\u00a0 When she took the medicine, she got even more sick.\u00a0 Yesterday, she asked two of the anziani in our district, Anziano Baker and Anziano Petterbourg, to give her a blessing.\u00a0 These boys (oops, I mean Elders – they’re 18 and 19) had never given a healing blessing before.\u00a0 It was one of the sweetest things.\u00a0 They gave her a simple but powerful blessing.\u00a0 Afterwards, Anziano Baker told us he had never received a healing or Father’s blessing before, let alone given one.\u00a0 Sorella Gross is feeling well again and the Spirit was so strong. It was amazing to see the faith of these Elders giving the blessing as well.<\/div>\n
I only have a few minutes left, but here are some good quotes from the week:<\/div>\n
We are all here because of a missionary. – Sister Miller (Branch president’s wife)<\/div>\n
You are a missionary forever. – Chad Lewis<\/div>\n
When you’re tired, think of that person who needs you and pray harder. – Chad Lewis<\/div>\n
Reverence invites revelation. – President Hacking<\/div>\n
Funny quotes:
\nSorella Gross after attending 3 hours of class where the teacher only spoke Italian: “I feel l like I just took the ACT five times in a row my head hurts so much.”<\/div>\n
Anziano Betchi is from Canada but born in Africa.\u00a0 So he has a French accent, learning Italian, and communicating with us in English. he says “chocolate cookie” really funnily.<\/div>\n
Pretty much everyone except me took Spanish before.\u00a0 So they keep mixing up Spanish with Italian.\u00a0 Anziano Valentine said, “Get thee hence, Spanish out of my head!”<\/div>\n
All the funny things are pretty much inside jokes, but I hope you get a laugh out of them.<\/div>\n
I’m out of time now! But I’ll send pictures next week.\u00a0 I look forward to your letters.<\/div>\n
Io so che Chiesa id Gesu Cristo Dei Santi Degli Ultimi Giorni e vero. Io so che Il Libro di Mormon e vera. I so che Gesu Cristo vive.<\/div>\n
I love you all. The church is true. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world. The Atonement is real. I promise. God answers prayers.<\/div>\n
Vi voglio bene,<\/div>\n
Sorella Emma Strong<\/div>\n
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Emma and her companion. (picture taken by Grandma Strong–works at the MTC)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saying goodbye for 18 months<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emmaletters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}