Ciao!

How's life in the outside world?! I feel like I'm in a bubble because the only glimpses I get into the outside world are from letters y'all send me. Thank you so much for the letters. They brighten my day. :)

Life continues! Six hours of class, three hours of study, three "meals" a day. I say "meals" because I'm not actually sure what I'm eating. Haha! For cafeteria food though, it's not too bad. Anziani Anderson and Jaramillo didn't agree with the enchiladas we had the other day though. Sickness has been sweeping through our district. So far Anziani Anderson, Jaramillo, and Mata'u have been down for the count at one point. I'm thankful I have a really good immune system because I would not be alive right now if I didn't!

As of Tuesday, I'm officially halfway through my stay at the MTC! On March 19th, we will be on a plane to Milano! The time certainly has flown.

Staying focused is difficult sometimes. We're in the same room for at least ten hours a day. Whew. The language continues to progress. Every Monday we teach people who come in (usually from Provo or BYU) and volunteer to be taught. Some of them are native Italians so it gets crazy sometimes. Native Italians speak very fast! Although my vocabulary hasn't increased much over the past week, my understanding and speed with which I talk has. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you put your mind to the task at hand and put your trust in God.

Interesting trivia about the Italian language: There is only one way to spell one word. No other combination of letters can make that word. Also, every letter gets pronounced and there is only one way to pronounce each letter. The only exception is with Cs and Gs which make a soft sound (chuh or juh) if they're followed by an I or an E. Other than that, every Italian word is pronounced exactly how it looks. There's your Italian lesson for the day.

I've run into Elder Dalton Slangerup a few times. Did you see the picture of us at the map? It was nice to see a familiar face. I think he left to California on Tuesday. I guess his visa got delayed so he got reassigned for a transfer (six weeks). As far as we know, our Italian visas are all set.

Missionaries keep pouring into the MTC. Each week we get at least 800 new missionaries. We have over 3,000 missionaries here right now. The usual is about 2,000. It's amazing, but it makes the food lines really long... It's a historic time for missionary work though! The usual amount of missionaries in the field is 55,000, but they're projecting that it will be 80-90,000 soon! Wow! The Church announced a couple days ago that they will be opening 58 new missions to keep up with all the new missionaries. Ohio is getting a third mission!

Every Sunday and Tuesday we have devotionals. The Sunday speakers are usually executives from the Church's missionary department and the Tuesday speakers are usually General Authorities (leaders) of the Church. This week's speaker was Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! It's so amazing to hear from an Apostle! It's not something you see every day. He didn't give a deep doctrinal lesson or a big Sermon on the Mount. He simply talked about our purpose as missionaries: Blessing lives through Jesus Christ. He talked about how simple the Gospel really is. People try to complicate it, but they miss the point. The simple truth is that God loves us. We are quite literally His children. Often we say it, but how often do we actually think about it? He wants to be involved in our lives. He wants to be our Father. He wants us to return to Him. He is not fighting against us and He is not some all-powerful being with a gavel sorting people into Heaven or Hell. He is our literal Father and His arms are wide open waiting for us to come unto Him.

Keep being awesome. Voi voglio bene.

~Anziano Simcox

Ciao everyone!

This week went by fast! The work continues here at the MTC. The days are long, but short at the same time. Anziano Green has this theory that we're actually in a time warp. He's always full of conspiracy theories.

I don't remember if I mentioned this in my first letter, but on our second full day here, we taught an entire lesson in Italian. We were all scared out of our wits, but it ended up going pretty well. We taught an "investigator" named Raymond. After we finished teaching him, we found out he was actually our other teacher! PLOT TWIST! His name is actually Fratello (Brother) Carrington. Our other teacher is Fratello Weller, but we call him Fratello Wello because it sounds cooler. :P

Sundays quickly become a missionary's favorite day, at least in the MTC. It's the only day without language study. There's a lot of time for scripture study. In church this Sunday Anziani Mata'u, Burton, Green, and I sand an a capella version of "How Great Thou Art." I love still being able to sing, especially with talented people like them. In the evening we have a devotional and a taped conference talk/devotional. This week's video was by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. I don't remember what it was called, but it was very powerful. It was also directed specifically toward missionaries, so it was extra meaningful.

We are getting along well as a district. In the evenings we've been getting together and sharing conversion stories and other stories about our lives. It's amazing to hear about what has made these people into themselves. I love all of them. Because we get along so well, we're also a big distraction to each other. It's a blessing and a curse. Our goal the past few days has been to focus more during study time and use our meetings in the evenings to unload. I attached a picture to this email.

In order to stay alive in the MTC, you have to maintain a positive outlook. The days are long and repetitive. The work is hard. The language is hard. The chairs get uncomfortable. The room gets stuffy. Despite all this, it's still up to us how we choose to react to situations. It's something Mr. Snyder calls the "as if principle." If you act "as if" you are happy, you will become happy. If you act "as if" you are miserable, you will become miserable. God gave us agency, the power to make decisions. He wants us to use this agency. He loves when we use it. In the MTC, and in life in general, we are thrown into all sorts of situations. All of these situations, whether good or bad initially, are opportunities to learn and grow if we allow them to be. We can't always change our situations, but we can ALWAYS change our responses to situations. The title of this letter is cento percento. 100%. In all we do, if we give 100%, we will improve our situations and make them into wonderful experiences.

Thank you to all who have sent me letters. Seeing your handwriting and having a piece of you is more of a blessing than you know.

I love all of you. Stay awesome.

~Anziano Simcox

-The picture is a picture of my district. Front Row: Sorelle (Sisters) Reichert, Bucco, Jameson, and Stephens. Back Row: Myself, and Anziani (Elders) Mata'u, Anderson, Green, Speiser, and Jaramillo

This is my companion, Anziano Mata'u.

Austin and another Pickerington missionary at the MTC at the same time. They are pointing to where they will serve.

First Letter From the MTC

Buon Giorno!

The MTC is awesome. It's also stressful, but I love it. Everything is go, go, go! A typical schedule is wake up at 6:30, study from 7-7;30, have breakfast, class from 8-11, study until noon, lunch, study until 2, class from 2-5, dinner, MORE study/meetings/devotional, back to the dorm, write in my journal, sleep. Rinse, lather, repeat. It's a busy schedule, but I love it. I would be lying if I said it didn't get frustrating at some points, but that's to be expected with learning another language! I also love my class. We're split up into groups called districts. My district is made up of six anziani (elders) and four sorelle (sisters), all going to Milano. We have definitely become a family already. We spend more than twelve hours a day with each other, so I'm glad we get along. There's Sorelle Bucco, Reichert, Jameson, and Stephens, and Anziani Green, Anderson, Jaramillo, Speiser, Mata'u, and myself.

My companion is Anziano Mata'u (Mah-TAH-oo). He is from Orem, Utah. He could literally walk to his house from here. He's a pretty cool guy. In many ways, he is the Samoan version of me. Haha! We're different in a lot of ways though too, so that's awesome. He loves to sing too! In church on Sunday we're doing an a capella version of "How Great Thou Art" with Anziano Burton (one of our roommates) and Anziano Green. I'll let you know how that goes. We're also thinking about auditioning to sing at one of the devotionals.

We have devotionals every Sunday and Tuesday night. On Sunday night we also watch recorded conference talks (sermons) by leaders of the church. Sunday's was called "The Character of Christ" by David A. Bednar, one of the twelve Apostles. Look it up. Seriously. It changed my life.

Speaking of life-changing, missionary life is something else. It actually wasn't terribly hard to adjust to. The days are long though. The first three days felt like they took two weeks, at least, but they're speeding up now. Ahhhhh there's so much I want to write, but if I wrote everything I'd be here for hours. It's a good thing I can type fast. :)

The Spirit here is amazing. We're learning so fast. I definitely feel God's hand in my life and in our classroom. We've picked up quite a bit of the language. I can pray and bear testimony in Italian already and I can carry on a basic conversation too!

The most important lesson that I've learned though is that God is our loving Heavenly Father. It's the first lesson that missionaries teach. It's so simple, but I never realized how important  that is. Until people understand that one fact, nothing else we say matters. He loves us SO much. He is not some incorporeal cloud floating around in space. He is not some emotionless architect that created us and then left us alone. He is our Father and he wants to bless us. He WANTS us to return to Him and He WANTS us to be happy. He wants to bless us and be a part of our lives, but we have to let Him. He doesn't care who we were or what we've done, He only needs a contrite heart and soul that's willing to repent and turn to Him. None of us are perfect, but we can be through His Son Jesus Christ.

Thank you to everyone who's sent me letters so far. Seeing a friend or family member's handwriting is one of the highlights of my day, seriously.

Noi vogliamo bene (I love you all),

Anziano Simcox

It's Official

Austin was set apart today! He is officially a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

Congratulations!

Dinner

Grandma and Grandpa took us all out to dinner at Ichiban to celebrate Austin leaving for his mission.

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!!