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