Less than a week...

Ciao!

Well I have less than a week before I leave for ITALY!! Crazy! We're pretty excited here! It's kind of sad though, leaving the MTC. It is such an amazing place with a powerful spirit! I just love missionaries so much! :)

Last Thursday for TRC we skyped with real Italian members in Italy! That was pretty exciting. Sorella Pulli and I talked with a brother but the connection was really bad so it was hard to hear and understand him. We felt kind of down after that. But we received a tender mercy when they had another member volunteer to skype so we got to do another one! This time the connection was so much better and we were actually able to talk and teach! We talked with Valeria and Gabriella who live in the Rome mission somewhere It was such a cool experience! They were so nice! When were telling our teachers about TRC, we found out that Sorella Preston knew them!

Friday we got our flight plans! Yay! We leave at 6 Tuesday morning, fly to Chicago, then Frankfurt, Germany and then Milan! It's so exciting! The only thing we're sad about is Anziano Yee isn't coming with us. He's from Canada and has to go to Canada to pick up his visa, so he'll be going there for a transfer when we leave to go to Italy. We're so sad he won't be travelling with us and experiencing Italy when we do! But I tell him that he'll probably have to teach an Italian in Canada so they need him there. Who knows!

 We also had a great lesson in class on Friday with Fratello Gessel and Sorella Preston. We talked about raising the bar and seeing God's vision for us. I love the quote "Ff you don't raise the bar, how will you know how high you can go?" or something like that. If we make our standard higher, we'll learn more and improve faster. As a district we really decided to speak Italian as much as we can, because our time before going to Italy is quickly disappearing!

It truly is amazing how much we've learned here. I'm sure it won't seem like that once we get there, but it will come! The first day Fratello Gessel told us that we'll know we're ready to leave the MTC once we can understand everything they say. Well I can! I can't speak it as well as they can, but I can still have full on conversations with one of the teachers all in Italian! I think another way to know you're ready to leave the MTC is if you prefer speaking Italian than English. I absolutely LOVE speaking Italian and would speak it nonstop if I knew more words! But it's still fun with what I do know.

Saturday we kind of had an unexpected lesson with Valeria because her husband, Rosario, also met with us! So that was fun. We were a little flustered, and it probably could've gone better, but it was good to kind of have an experience with that kind of situation. Saturday night Fratello Gessel wasn't really up to teaching (I don't blame him. How fun is it to be a college student and have to work on Saturday night...?) so we just had a Q&A session! It was a blast! We asked all sorts of questions about missions, Italy, and some of his experiences in Milan! We're going to have a full on culture day on Saturday with all the teachers where they just tell us all about Italy, their investigators, and answer more questions! We're pretty excited!

Sunday was amazing like always! President Willis (our branch president) had us sing Sono un figlio di Dio again, but at the temple! I loved it! The spirit was so strong as we sang that right next to the temple! So many people stopped and listened. It had snowed the night before so we all wore our coats, and guess what? Sister Willis (who is actually from Rome!) asked me where I got my coat and said it was the exact type of coat you need in Italy! She just got back from Italy and said that was the style there! So yay! Now I know that we got the right type of coat!  (Mom's note--and THAT is a miracle because the buying of it was a PROCESS!!)

 In choir Brother Eggett asked me to say the prayer. I'm only really saying this because I had to say it in English! What?! weird! It had been WEEKS since I said a prayer in English.. The first week we had choir he told someone who was leaving that week that you know it's time to leave the MTC when you'd rather say the prayer in your language. Well I guess I'm to that point!

Sunday night one of the videos they had playing was Legacy in Italian! So of course our whole branch (except the ones going to Romania) watched it! I couldn't totally understand it... but I was able to pick out quite a few words and phrases! And it was easier to understand it since I knew the story.

Yesterday the devotional was the Bishop Causse from France! It was amazing! and guess what? He had a guest come who was from ITALY!!! They played a piano duet together. It was so beautiful! and then afterward about half of our zone went up to talk to the brother from Italy! It was only for a few minutes, but he spoke to us in Italian! We haven't gotten to hear from an apostle yet, but we did get to talk to a member from Italy on our last Tuesday devotional!

Well, I'm almost out of time. Tempo vola! The MTC is great and the energy is so high in our district because we're all so excited to leave! We've all probably gone a little crazy because there have been some funny moments, but I love it because we really are family! 

Vi voglio un mondo di bene!!!

Sorella Dixon

Companions!

Nine seconds of happiness and literally music to my ears! :)

Not nearly long enough, but we will take what we can get! :)