Only 4 More Weeks Until Italy!!!

CIAO! Come State?! Non capite? Va bene...I am doing very well here. This past week has been rough getting back to the grove after the nice sunday break we had. My companion and I have a goal to try to speak Italian as much as possible until we leave. We started this yesterday. We did very well, the mornings are rough becuase we cant think very well. I have some funny stories to tell but I cant remember them as of now. Today we get to clean the temple so that should be really fun. We will clean it for about 3 1/2 hours. Next week we get new Anziani and 1 sorella. There will be 9 new anziani. I am excited to meet them. We Italians have only 2 districts as of now and so it will be ncie to get 2 more. It will be weird because the younger anziani and sorella will see us like we saw the anziani before us which will be weird. We only have 4 weeks left here!!!!!!!!!!!! We are fairly excited about that. Our teacher, as a christmas present, showed us pictures that he took from when he was in Italy, and lets just saw we got a solemn reminder how bland our classroom was when we were done. We like to joke that we got a crappy classroom because our mission is pretty much the best. Cool story, Im not sure if I had shared this before but the other day I was contacting people(sharing testimony in Italian to people) and I contacted a Russian elder and his companion started rudely talking to me in Russian, the cool part was I understood his russian. I thought It was pretty cool. I stood there and thoguht he spoke Italian and I was just confused. Id say thats pretty cool. So our rooom was slightly messy and one of our branch president members is ex military and can be intimidating at times saw our room and it was slightly scary. Moral of the story:keep your room clean :D. Im very excited to when we go to Italy!!!! Im very blessed to not be struggling with the language, it just kind of comes to me which my companion loves and hates. He hates it because he wants to learn it that fast but he loves it because I usually spend study time helping him. Its actually pretty fun teaching, It gets me doing something and it helps my zone so Io prendo due piccioni con una fava(translation-I kill two birds with one stone-since the italians are nicer than americans they kill birds but in the literal translation is means two catch 2 birds with one fava bean. I remember the funny story! My companion and I were doing a door approach to teach our class and we knocked at the door and they asked who it was. My companion said this- Siamo missionari della chiesa di Gesù Cristo dei santi degli Uomini Giorno this literlaly means the church of jesus christ of man day saints when he said it our whole classstarted laughing and our teacher broke out laughing too. Got to love learning a new language also during a lessson I happen to call the boook of mormon a beautiful woman and I also said that Moroni was a beautiful man...not the worst I could say but still pretty funny! Anyways I need to finish my laundry so I will email next week!
I hope all is well!! Hope to hear from everyone soon.
Sinceremente,
Anziano Collins

CHRISTMAS EMAIL!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! I hope everyone enjoyed! I mean its still going on but most of the excitement happened this morning! Right now every missionary in the MTC is emailing and everythiing freezing up so this letter is taking forever to write even though I just started. Thank you for the presents! I enjoy candy, pens, and ties! This morning we had the chance to open our presents then got to listen to the christmas program that the tabernacle choir puts on then the apostle that came to speak to us today was......wait for it.......Elder Bednar! We had a two hour sacrament meeting with 2,020 missionaries! It was really cool, we got to listen to Elder Bednar for a whole hour! It was the longest talk ever but it felt very short! It was very very very good. I enjoyed it alot. The main focus of his talk was the characteristics of Christ and that through them the atonement was achieved. He then talked about some moments where christ showed his true nature. He said something that really suprised everyone. He said this mission isnt about you so stop complaining if you dont get everything you want even though you have worked hard enough for it. Which is really true, we are supposed tto be sacrificing our time for others. We neeed to do what christ did and turn outward in our times of trials and help others. The talk was wonderful and I could go on but this computer is really slow and cant finsih. I hope everyone is doingwell! What presents did you get family? Aaron, how do you like your new 360? It must be nice! Dad, you get pistachios and cashews? Laura, you gett reese christmas trees? Mother, did you get thatbox of chocolates with the good chocolarte covered cherries? What did you get brian?
I love you all, I hope all is well.
sinceramente,
Anziano Collins

Week 5

It has been a wonderful week here at the MTC.Of course at times it feels almost prison like but We are doing well. All of the portugeuse have left our branch and now its just the two italian branches that came in with me left. We get new Italians on January 4 so Im pretty excited about that. On the language front, I think I doing verywell, which is awesome. I just kind of soak it up which is a blessing, because there are some that just struggle alot. I cant believe its almost christmas, I dont really think about it for a few reasons, I as of now have not recieved any gifts, there are some christmas lights but not enough to get me in the mood, Im way toobusy, and finally we dont really get christmas off, we have lots and lots of "fun" meetings, which is good. I really onnly care about having sacrament meeting with an apostle. The rest is just filler time forme. (Side note, I have taken several pictures of megabed for all too see, one of our branch president members cameto our residents and saw it and reallyliked it. So we had a devotionalwith the whole MTC yesterday and a speaker showed a clip from the news about people paying off people's layaway ticekts. is that really all over the news? It was just exciting to hear something from the outside world :D. IM verysad to hear about the PAtriot broncos game. I have yet to tell anyone mainly because they will give me alittle crap about it. But thats not important. Pop Pop, you would be glad to hear that in basketball I have gotten really good at closing in on people when they drive in, step back and shot. I have even started jumping higher. I get very close at blocking shots!!!!!!! Its frustrating, but now people dont make as many threes on me because I close in so quick they panic. We had a good devotional the other day about our purpose here as missionaries and how the desires of the hearts of those we teach will be driven on how they feel and thus it is important to have the Holy Ghost with us as we teach so that they can feel happiness. Our teachers were telling us about that fun stuff we can do when we fare casa in casa(Knock on doors). Because the Italian people are so friendlly(would not have thought that especially after my experience at the consolate) when you knock at the door and they ask who it is you can say Siamo cui alla porta-which means we're here at the door. Its pretty funny. They were also telling us that sometimes people would answer their knocking at the door by saying who is it and you would answer siamo missionari, and some people would respond with no ones home! Oh Italians, they are funny, well im out of time! Hope to hear from you all soon.
Sinceramente,
Anziano Collins

Week 4

So I have been doing really well this week! The language continues to come along nicely! My companion and have been teaching fairly well in itialian. For 3 straight lessons we had struggled alot and just yesterdat we taught the whole plan of salvation in Italian without really having to prepare anything before hand! It was a neat experience! Now you might be wondering about the title of this email, the past two days we have several people leave to go out to the field! We had 4 Anziani leave for milano, and alot of the portugeuse left for boston, and brasil. Our roommates have left as well. In fact, pretty much the whole floor i live on is now almost empty which is sad. We really liked everyone but luckily for us missionaries always have too much stuff and had to leave tons of things behind such as shampoo, envelopes, stamps they cant use, and candy. It was really nice for our classroom because alot of the Russians on our floor left so we got tons of cushions for our seats and much better desks. It may not seem amazing through email but when you spend 8-10 hours a day in the same class room, those cushions are heavenly! Yesterday we had Sister Dalton speak to us. It was really cool to listen to! I really like what she shared! He main message was from Luke 1:37, With God nothing shall be impossible! I think it was good for all of us to hear especially since we are at our half way point and the material we are learning becomes more complex. Luckily I have a good spanish linguistic backround to where Italian is made simpler for me than my companion. Other than that I have been doing great. On a side note, a few days ago it was like a tie flea market the other day in my room. It was ridiculous, people were trading ties left amd right! I refused to partake in the tunfoolery :D. Im not spelling my words right, we are learning italian so fast that english starts to become foreign. One day some was speaking english to me and I could have sworn they were talking in Italian! IT was so confusing! Allora, se volete sapere riguardo cose in mia vita nella MTC potete scrivere un e-mail e chiedere domande. Anche, perfavore, non usate Google transle :P Pregate per il donno della lingua :P Most of my friends college have left the MTC! Ben is in LA now! Hopfully as is well with him! this 30 minute limit is killing me! I can never think of what to say! Until Next time!
Con tantisimo Amore,
Anziano Collins

Week 3

Buon Giorno Tutti!
La vita in el MTC e bene! I would like to write all of this in ITalian but I thought maybe no one would understand :D Our weeks go by so fast! I have almost been here a month and yet It feels like I just got here yesterday! Anziano Thomas and I''s Italian has gottn SO MUCH better! ITs really cool because we prepare to teach lessons and we have no clue how to say anything and when we go to teach the lesson we are speaking like Italians! The gift of tongues is very real! I hope everyone is doing well :D I am doing fantastic! Thank you everyone who wrote me letters! OTher than the language we are learning a lot about the gospel and its fantastic. THe older anziani are leaving next week, which is very sad but its nice for them to finally move out of the mtc. Its crazy to think Ill be in there place in a few months! From what it sounds like things look very hopeful in italy in terms of the gospel(obviously since they are building a temple there). The older anziani keep torchering us by telling us about the the food in Italy and how they will partake of it in Italy in a few days! BEcause there are only 18 italians in the MTC we all have gotten to be pretty good friends, its always funny to see when sports comes up who likes what team. Dad, there are lots of good basketball players here at the MTC, I cant always gaurd them but I have gottten really good at passing, some of the passses I have made were magical. SO this morning we were going to the temple and we had not realized how cold it really was, so we went outside and IT WAS FREEZING!!!! So we ran to the temple, when we got there, the albanian Anziano Mustafarj(j=i sound) realized he had forgettn his, I felt so bad for his companion because IT WAS SO COLD! But it was funny. Besides all the fun we are having we do LEARN to tons as I have mentioned before. Recently I studuied Ether in the book of mormon and it was wonderful! SO I suggest everyone study it. There are great lessons to be learned other than fathers begating sons!
Sinceramente,
Anziano Collins
ps. Volgio scrivere in itialano per sempre, allora avete bisogno di impararlo!

Week 2

HEY EVERYONE! Im doing well! It is week 3 here at the MTC and its great. Well sort of...its kind of like a prison in here but with good people. So alot has happened I guess this past sunday our Zone leaders left and My companion and I were made the new Zone Leaders!!!! Its crazy to think that because most of the zone leaders who were called have been here for 4 or 5 weeks! Its funny though because in our district there is only 2 guys so my companion is a zone leader and a district leader and im a zone leader and the senior companion! It will switch in a few weeks where ill be the district leader and he will be the senior companion. The language is coming along....kind of...the sisters in out districts are very good at it now and it VERY FRUSTRATNG. However, Anziano Thomas and I are getting better at it. The food is still messing with us...I can eat anything now. I got some letters from people so thats GREAT! Im not sure what else to talk about. We only have 30 minutes for emial so there is A TON of pressure while we do our emails. Suprisingly I get up right when my alarm goes off which is A MIRACLE! So thats good. Im getting along with all of the other Anziani. Gym and getting the email are the most exciting part of the day because we get to gget out of the classroom! We spend almost 8 hours of our day in the same classroom everyday....its rough....but it helps to get the language down! I hope everyone is doing well. If there is anything you want to about my life here just ask.
Sinceramente,
Anziano Collins
No Paura, No Debolezza