It's the final P-Day in the MTC. We fly out for Italy on Tuesday! WOOOO! I'm so excited. I'll miss the MTC and the friends I've made here, but I am overjoyed that I'll soon be serving the people of Italy. I'll start packing tonight. I feel like the past five weeks have taken half of my life, but at the same time I feel like I just got here. It's an odd contrast.
With the final days coming up, we've been cramming in as much Italian as we can. It's really quite a miracle. We now no longer need English to communicate. Sure our grammar is terrible still, but we know enough to get our point across. I've heard before the 90% of communication is non-verbal. I always thought "Oh sure. Whatever." I can now testify that this is true. Although we only have a basic understanding of the language, we can communicate almost anything we need too. Then you add the Spirit to that and our communication power is astounding. During lessons with our "investiagtors" we are able to say whatever we need to say. It gets frustrating sometimes because I know exactly what I would say in English, but I can't! It has really made me appreciate though how beautiful of a language English is and also how important communication, verbal and non-verbal, is in our lives.
I got some letters from the Seminary class. Thank you all for the wonderful messages. They definitely made my week. Thank you too Sister Lange for the survivor's kit!
In just five more days we'll be on our way to Italy. When we get there, we get to tour the cathedral and then we get sent off to our areas. I'll meet my trainer and head off to serve the Italians!
Here's a cool thought for this week. Some of you might be familiar with this scripture of words from the Lord: "For behold this is my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." It's a beautiful scripture. I was reading it in Italian and in the Italian scriptures, the word "work" is translated to the word "opera." I thought that was interesting because the word for work in Italian is "lavoro." I went to my dictionary and found this: "Opera" also means work, but it is a word only reserved for works of art and literature. This means that our salvation is not only our Lord's goal or purpose, it is also His work of art. We are His masterpiece. He glories in seeing us live good lives and living in true happiness. It pains Him to see His children suffer. He does all He can in order for us to achieve salvation. We are His source of greatest joy.
I love being a missionary.
Con amore, Anziano Simcox
P.S. I probably won't have email time next week with the whole transition and what not, so CCFN! (Ciao ciao for now... I'm clever aren't I?)
We took these pictures behind the Provo Temple. This one is my district.
Front row: Sorelle Reichert, Bucco, Jameson, and Stephens.
Back row: Myself, Anziani Mata'u, Speiser, Jaramillo, Green, and Anderson.
This picture is most of the missionaries going to Milan, minus a district.
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