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