Handwritten Letter

Mia Famiglia!

 Ciao!  This week has been Great!  What with everything I said in the email, I also have been trying really hard to serve people more often.  I figure instead of trying to get love enough to work to serve people, just serve people until I get that love.  This has definitely shown results, after just 3 days!  Here's my thing I've started with:  all my district takes showers in the morning, but I do it the night before.  So while everyone else is in the shower, I get up and make everyone's bed.  There was even one day where I took everyon's sheets down to get washed.  I don't know as much about them, but I'm already having on easier time getting along with people, even that one I had a hard time with!

Another thing i wanted to say:  I absolutely LOVE the temple!  It's so fantastic to go there everyweek and 1. get some new insigh about the endowments and often how it applies to my life and 2. I love sitting, thinking, praying, and reading in the temple, I feel like it just super charges my week!  And I get incredible new insights from the Lord about the scriptures there, it's awesome!  By the way, can you tell Gram & P That I do get to go every week?  She sent me a card, but forgot to put a return address.  That was something she asked me.

One last thing (this P-day has been rather busy) could you maybe find some sheet music for this one song:  It's called "Savior, redeemer of My Soul" and under the title in italics-from Joseph Smith the Prophet.  Text by Orson F Whitney, music by Rob Gardner.  It starts in the key of D (2#'s) and ends on Eb (3b's)  I'm pretty sure.  I hope that's specific enough.  oh!  It's around 6 pages.  Could you send that in the sheet protectors you got me for Christmas?  I probably won't learn it here, but if I ever get a chance to play a piano, it's so cool!  thanks!

Ci Vediamo!

Anziano Walker

Happy P Day to You

Buon giorno principessa!

Ok, before you type that into google translate to confirm what you think it means, just know that that's a quote from a movie that my companion has seen that we greet each other with occasionally. Just for kicks! The movie is apparently all in Italian, called either "Bella Vita" or "Beautiful Life", I don't know which language. He said it was a really good, somewhat sad movie. Just if you want to know.

Anyway, I realize I could type in addresses, but you all seem to be doing good getting them to each other, so I'll save time for now! Haha!

OH MY GOSH CHANDLER'S AND NATHAN'S PAPERS ARE GOING IN (OR HAVE GONE IN) THIS IS GONNA BE SO COOL!!!!!!!!! For Chandler, I'm sticking with Foreign: Spain (we've talked about it before), and Stateside: I'm feeling Virginia. Nathan, foreign: Sweden and stateside: Colorado. Watch me TOTALLY be right!

Oh, and by the way, I met a missionary on service day (Tuesday's) who got in last week and he says he knows Pa. He even got his patriarchal blessing from him! His name is Elder Holmes, maybe you could see if Pa remembers him. I'm pretty dang sure he should, because he said to some other missionaries that I have the coolest middle name (which I do), before I even thought about it. Which I normally don't, but still.

Ok, new stuff in my life: we got new Italian missionaries yesterday!!!! Two new districts: 13 Elders, 1 Sister. And the best part is: one of the elders is from AUSTRALIA!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!! Although, I overheard him talking to someone from New Zealand that he knew (whoa!) that he gets kind of annoyed when Americans try to butcher his accent. Gotta watch myself. But everybody was SUPER excited in our Zone to get new missionaries, and so far they're really cool.

I also learned this Monday that I've been making a terrible mistake in Italian. I've been saying "Gesu Cristo ha sofrito per noi", which was supposed to mean "Jesus Christ suffered for us." The verb is "sofrire", so it should be that. Turns out, the right way is "sofferto". I had accidently been saying (for 6 weeks) in lessons and to each other He "fried for us." Yeah...... we busted up like none other when we learned that!

We watched a film after the Fireside on Sunday (like always), and this week we got to see a devotional from Elder Holland a while ago. It was so inspiring! He gave us the translation of a French poem his wife taught him which was really amazing: "Come to the edge", he said/ "No," I said, "We'll fall,"/ "Come to the edge," he said/ "No!" I said, "We'll fall!"/ "Come to the edge," he said/ So I came/ And he pushed us......./ And we flew. That part of the devotional was saying how on our mission and throughout life we're going to be pushed and pushed and pushed, and if we don't rely totally on the Lord, if we don't go out to the edge, if we don't show faith when there's so much risk, we can never see miracles. He then went on to explain a lot of stuff (he didn't have any notes, and it was the BEST talk I've ever heard from him!), which lit such a fire in me, it was amazing! What I got out of it was that we don't be obedient to commandments simply to be better than other people, or simply to be rewarded by God, we should (if we're doing it right) be obedient to have the Power of God with us. There is NO EXCUSE for falling in that regard: when we're doing our best for that purpose, we will have that power to help others. THAT'S what makes this Gospel special, THAT'S why we spread His word as much as we can, so other people can feel that. I absolutely loved it!

I was wondering how I could hold onto that fire, like Mom said. So far, what I've figured out is that we be exactly obedient, as much as we can. We be humble, without God we would have nothing to boast of (I got that from a scripture where Alma says "I don't boast of myself, I only boast of my God"). And we learn to pray whenever we start to feel like something's missing. And one thing that I think is very important, be LOOKING for that feeling. We've been blessed to have the Holy Ghost be with us ALWAYS, and I've noticed over the past few days, when I actually try to feel Him, He's still with me, filling my heart to bursting with that emotion. I absolutely LOVE what I've learned this week! I also know that like it says in Ether 12:6, it's hard to learn these things until "after the trial of your faith." I had an incredibly hard weekend, but I pushed through, and then I received all of that amazingness.

Now for individual stuff: Kaden - HAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh my gosh, I cracked up when I read that Dear Elder from Mom about the football game! Now everybody that was in the room before that Leadership meeting know it too, sorry. ;) Cam - Keep rockin' it, man! You better be an eagle scout by the time I get home! Cole - I am amazed to hear how much you love Scouts already! Keep it up! Mom - You've got to read some of Dad's emails to me, they give absolutely GLOWING stories about you ('cause that was good english....). Oh, and the long sleeve shirts are NOT for jeans, they are for suits. 1. Long sleeves are more comfortable and professional looking to me and 2. we just got to the time of year where we have to wear suit jackets. Plus, all the short sleeve shirts you ordered for me are regulars, not slim, so they don't fit quite right. Maybe you could send 4 or 5, that would be awesome! The short sleeves ARE for jeans, I only have 1 shirt for gym that's everyday. It stinks. Literally. Dad - My goodness, I love you and Mom so much! I keep seeing how what you've taught me as I grew up prepared me so dang well for everything here, thank you for being an absolutely amazing example!

Ci vediamo!
Anziano Walker

P-Day Letter

Buona giornata mia famiglia!

Hehe, that's all got the red underline, but it's actually spelled exactly right! I really like knowing another language. :) And Italian is perfect, because every word is spelled exactly how it sounds. Fratello Merrell even said that in Italy, if you ask someone how to spell a word, they just say it really slow. I thought that was pretty funny!

But anyway, thank you so much for your emails! I really love hearing about home, which I know may be a bit surprising, coming from me. I'm just glad to hear that everything is going along so well! Except that you all didn't get my letter. I sent that a week ago. I'm sure I had the right address and everything, where'd it go? I blame the Greeks. Not for any particular reason, except that I needed to put some group in that last sentence.

Italian is coming along SUPER well! We started playing a game in our district called "Native", where every morning class (which is every other day, almost), someone secretly gets picked as the native (picking a paper with an x out of a bag, the rest are blank), and they can ONLY speak in Italian until the next time. Everyone else is trying to convince everybody that THEY are the native by speaking in Italian as much as possible. Before we find out who the native was and switch for the next time, everybody votes to see who they thought was the native. If the native gets a vote, he/she gets 1 point. If a non-native gets a vote, they get 2 points. It's hard, but we're (mostly) learning a lot faster already! At dinner last night, I was able to have a bit of a conversation with someone without even really thinking about what I was saying. I mean, I didn't have to translate each individual word, it just came out. That was SO awesome! And I'm also able to make sense of what's going on in il Libro di Mormon when I read it, even if I don't know every word.

I absolutely love the devotionals here! This week we had Elder Bowen speak (he spoke in conference about his baby's death. I thought it was a good talk), and it was chock-full of good stuff! One of the biggest things I remember is that in our prayers, we should be able to say "Heavenly Father, I know I'm not much, but I AM obedient," completely truthfully. That's one of my goals here, to be able to be as obedient as humanly possible, and to know that I have to rely on the Lord as well. Another thing that he mentioned was that we can't receive revelation if we don't have a question. I realized as soon as he said that that I didn't really have a question, so I quickly tried to think of something that I really wanted to know about. Once I did, I immediately got like 3 answers out of his talk before it ended like 5 minutes later, and I got them in that Doctrine, Invitation, Promised Blessing format that I learned from Elder Bednar (I've been using that a lot, and it's awesome!).

I just want to say something really cool about yesterday. Honestly, that was one of the hardest days I've had here at the MTC. I had a hard time feeling good about the lessons with my "investigators" here, because I learned some hard things in their lives and wasn't able to help them as well as I thought I could. So I was feeling pretty down, but at one point I decided to read the Helaman's epistle to Moroni, where he becomes the leader of the Stripling Warriors (in Italian). While reading that, it struck me how amazing those young men were, and just how much faith they had in their God. Also, when they finally met up with the armies of Antipus, it said how they were so downhearted and tired, but the Lord provided them with this help, and it made them super glad. I felt really downhearted and tired yesterday, and I felt the Spirit come testify that it would all be ok in a bit. That was exactly what I needed. Some of that came with gymtime yesterday. I had decided that I would only shoot free-throws the whole hour, because I realized I was getting too competitive in the games and I was driving the Spirit away. So while I was doing that, I felt SO peaceful, and SO happy. It wasn't necessarily the free-throws that made it that way, but I was able to separate myself from something that made the days hard for me, and I felt a lot better afterward. So when you're downhearted and feeling low, well, let's look at a few inspirational words from Coldplay: "Lights will guide you home/ and ignite your bones/ and [He] will try to fix you." (Muahahahaha! Snuck in a spiritual thought from Coldplay!)

Anyway, I love you all a lot! Dad - I'm having to learn patience here too, I totally understand. It's hard. I want patience NOW. Kaden/Cameron - HOLY COW!! How were your grades so high? Nice job! Cole - YOU ARE AWESOME! Mom - I know you'll do what needs to be done to help the young women. You've been called by the Lord for that, and He knows you can (1 Nephi 3:7).

Tutte belle cose! (All beautiful things!)
Anziano Walker

Half Way P Day

Ciao, famiglia!

Gosh, thanks for so much input about life there! I'm just starting to appreciate knowing what's going on back home. But it still feels like life here in the MTC is just life, so I'm sorry if I don't remember you guys in prayers as I should! I really do love you all though!
Ok, can I just take the time to say that this was the BEST CONFERENCE EVER!!!!! I loved hearing all the talks and figuring out how the ideas they said could be applied to my learning the language and teaching (and you're right Dad, there's been a LOT more emphasis on teaching lately). But besides all that, I had possibly the best spiritual experience in the first session of my life! It's possibly a little too personal for an email, though, so I'll get it to you guys in a letter. But for right now, just know that I have NEVER felt God's love for me personally so strong, and had such a bright outlook on the future. We were given permission to write a letter home after Priesthood session, and I really did try, but the experience wasn't quite over, and I couldn't write the right words then, so I'll get that to you asap.
I took some of you're guys' advice and had some questions written down before, and just like you said, Dad, the answers came either all bundled in one talk, spread out over several sessions, or in the songs (by the way Mom, I loved the song with the soloist too. It was just so powerful, especially after Elder Packer had just given the lyrics a lot more meaning). I'm also super impressed that the boys were so vigilant during conference, and some of their questions were REALLY thoughtful, I love it! Most of my questions centered on how to be calm and hopeful through adversity, and how to really love other people (which is stressed a lot here, go figure). Needless to say, they were indeed answered, even some questions that I had but didn't think were important enough to write down, and many in ways I wouldn't have ever expected.
An awesome thing that happened after Conference was that for the Tuesday Devotional, Elder Bednar came to speak!!!! I was even in the choir that sang "Come Follow Me" that day!!! And it was so awesome, 'cause he said that this was the first time he had ever come to the MTC with something really prepared, but he felt that he should help us understand how to get more out of modern day prophets' words. He explained his method for studying the Ensign, which is looking for Doctrine (the thing learned about, answers the "why" of the Gospel)/ Principles (answers "what" we can do), then for an invitation, then for the promised blessings, which he emphasized that since they came from people that hold all the keys of the Priesthood, who what they bind on earth will be bound in heaven, those blessings are assured. But he told us that he doesn't just write down the words that the speakers say, but what the Spirit tells him. I'm already trying to apply this to my Personal Study time, and after just the first 2 sections in the first lesson in Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel, it's AMAZING what I got out of it! I definitely want to keep using that sort of technique.
I just want to say how much help you all have been with my tough situation I've had here with some people from my district, your Dear Elders were great. I want to let you know that it is already improving. I had to apply a few things from Conference, such as learning to enjoy my time right here right now WHILE working (which hit me hard in Pres. Uchtdorf's first session talk), and I also swallowed the pride I was starting to feel and apologized for any offense I might have given to the Elder who I'm sure I irritated as much as, if not more than, he did me. That was just before yesterday's dinner, because I felt a huge prompting from the Spirit when I had an opportunity to do so, and let me just say the changes so far have been so relieving. Less stress, a lot more enjoyable time here, and just a better feeling in the work. I'm not saying there won't be more difficult times, but I know that if I do what the Lord would have me do, it will all work out. But I'm still gonna study in a different classroom, it's just a lot easier when it's only me and my companion. :)
Anyway, Kaden: on the card y'all sent me, you asked if we do anything for Halloween involving candy? The answer is, sadly, no. But we have MORE than enough in our drawer of consecration to last us through December, at least. I wouldn't worry too much. ;) And you have a choir concert this week? THAT'S AWESOME!!! Bocc'a lupo! Good luck! (literally, "mouth of the wolf", a common expression in Italy). You'll do great!
Cameron: if you feel like quitting piano was the best option for you right now, I'm sure you're right. You are a very good boy, and are doing all that God wants you to do, so even if you don't realize it, the Spirit directs you. Elder Bednar gave a Devotional last year (I saw a video) where he said "You be a good little boy, keep all the commandments, and God will inspire you, and you won't know it". At least, that's the main gist of it, and he gave several examples from his own life, which were fantastic. I do hope you will want to return to it, but school is important, and I'm especially proud of you working hard in that. That's really inspiring to me here. Puoi farlo! (You can do it!)
Cole: From the card - where did "Dr. Swag" come from??? Let Kaden know he has to pound that vocabulary out of you before you go out in public again! Hahaha! Congrats on joining 11-year-old scouts! If you use it right, you can crank out like half of the merit badges you need for an Eagle this year! Of course, when I did that, I also had an influential leader (Sis. Guthrie) who helped us a lot, so hopefully you get that!
Dad: Me and my companion for some reason didn't teach an investigator for about a week and a half, so that's been weird. But the investigators we have are our teachers (and very recently one of our district members for a different kind of practice), and the teachers take on the personality of people they taught on their missions. For each companionship, they keep the same identity, so it's like we have an actual investigator. Which is really cool, 'cause after our teaching drought, yesterday we got a "baptism"!! Federico (Fratello Merrell) agreed that when he knows the church is true (and he said he would come to church Sunday to see if it was, since he's already felt good about our teachings), he would agree to be baptized! It may not be totally real, but I like to think of it that way. :D
Mom: Wow! It's so amazing how many people are instantly affected by that change in age! I'm super excited to see the effects that it will bring in the coming months, that huge wave that'll probably come starting December to the MTC. I probably won't directly see the effects until around March, though, when those people will be coming to Rome. And no, I'm not gonna have my time here cut by 1/3, I heard that will start in a few months, which makes sense, 'cause the MTC just doesn't have the amount of teachers needed for that, especially in the Italian area. But that's so awesome!

Ci vediamo!
-Anziano Walker

3rd P-Day in MTC

Hey Fam!
I love that I'm gonna get a package tomorrow! That's honestly one of the best part of the days here, after meals, 'cause it's like a game when the District Leader goes off to get mail. At least, that's how I think of it. It helps, cause if nothing was in there, then it's easy to say "oooh, almost," and then move on. But anyway, the earplugs were a nice thought! If they work, that'll be genius! Although I had a discussion with Fratello Bulloch last Friday (they occasionally take us aside one at a time to see how we're holding up), and he gave me the suggestion to go in a completely separate room for each of the study times, which has been working wonders! The only problem is, it's not always a viable option, if it's only for like 10 minutes, so the earplugs could definitely help. And I'm not always sure my companion WANTS to go into another room, cause he's having so much fun in that room, and then I come in as the boring, studious type and say "hey, let's go work our butts off or at least try to instead of enjoying ourselves in here 'cause we're on the Lord's time and we have a lot to learn yada yada yada...." I don't ACTUALLY say all of that, but I'm pretty sure that's how the others in the class see it. Sometimes I feel very separated from everybody in my district. Which isn't very good, because my companion and I were called as Zone Leaders here, and I really want to do my best to love everybody else and do my best at that assignment, but I dunno if they even want me as a Zone Leader. And nobody takes the calls seriously here, cause their always joking to my companion about "Oh, he's the ZONE LEADER, you better watch what you say to him, or else he'll......" fill in the blank. And that's another thing, nobody acknowledges that I'm the other Zone Leader like that, so there is a definite separation of cliques, where I'm kinda by myself in the District, occasionally talking to the sisters or this one other elder going to Rome who is really nice.
Ok, I think I made that sound worse than it is, but yeah. But life is good here, just going through, trying to learn as much as I can in the short time we have here. It's weird after the older districts left on Tuesday morning, because now there's only 16 Italian missionaries here, whereas there used to be 44. Crazy switch.
Gym is a fun time here, 'cause our whole district usually plays basketball together. We're all pretty even, which is nice. The only thing is there's this one Elder who probably learned how to play from street ball, and he ALWAYS defends me when we're on opposite teams, and because he learned on the street, he fouls like none other. He doesn't realize it, though, which makes it worse. If I ever try to roll around him to get open, he uses his arms to stop me, and is always pushing me. What's funny, though, is that if the guy with the ball is coming down the center with an opening all the way to the basket, he won't switch guys to stop an easy lay-up, he'll even move AWAY if I do. I would like to let him know all of that, but he is the one elder that is the hardest for me to get along with in our district, and I'm pretty sure he's the only one who actually doesn't like me at all. I'll admit, some of that is reciprocated, but I am really trying to fix that. It's just really hard when he never talks to me without a slightly angry tone, and then I accidentally say the wrong words when I'm trying to say something and he jumps on it like it was an attack against him. I dunno, I guess I've gotta look for more opportunities for service for him specifically, cause I don't want there to be any serious problems.
Ok, spiritual thought before I go: we were reading 2 Nephi 2 as a class this week, and we were talking about the Fall. A lot of interesting points were being raised, and we just got deeper and deeper into the material. Near the end of the discussion, I remembered something that Bro. Tolley talked about in Institute: you can go as deep as you want in the scriptures, as long as you can relate it back to Christ. I then tried to find some way to relate the story of the Fall to Christ, which is hard, cause I have always had a hard time interpreting stuff in that way. Suddenly, I thought "ok, where have I heard about a tree with some fruit before?" Immediately, I remembered Lehi's dream. The Spirit brought that to light, I'm positive, cause the connection was staggering: because Adam and Eve "ate the fruit", another tree had to be planted before they could "eat the fruit" of the "tree of life". The tree of the Love of God (Christ's Atonement) was planted, and because of that, we can go back and live without sin after this life. Since the Tree of the Love of God is completely symbolic, then perhaps the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is symbolic as well. And it all ties back to Christ beautifully. I was dang impressed at how the Bible and the Book of Mormon worked together that well. Anyway, love you all!

Ci vediamo! (See ya!)
Anziano Walker