Sorella Rebekah Tiffany Acton: Week 4

Friday February 15, 2019

How has it already been a week?? The time is speeding up here at the MTC and in two weeks I will be packing to leave for Italy!! I'm so excited but extremely nervous as well.

Last Saturday was a long day, they always feel long because it's the day after P-day and you know Sunday is going to be the next day. We had a lot of memorization and by the end of the night our heads felt like they were going to explode. We also had to teach a lesson to our teacher that day, which went pretty well. My collega(companion) and I are pretty hard on ourselves, when our teacher asked us how we thought we did afterwards we weren't very positive. But our teachers, being amazing like they are, gave us wonderful advice. He told us that we needed to quit comparing things to the others, that as we try our best Heavenly Father will bless us. It will be hard and take a lot of effort but one day, we will be able to say everything we would want to say in an English lesson, in Italian. And it will be amazing!
Sunday was a wonderful day as well. I felt the spirit so much throughout the entire day. We have meetings and places to be from 8:30am to 9:20 at night, but they are all so uplifting!! My favorite part was choir practice. For choir we were singing a medley of Primary Songs-When I am Baptized, I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ, I Love to See the Temple,and I'm Trying to be Like Jesus! Our choir teacher is amazing and tells us such cool stories. This time he shared a story about missionaries in Africa. The Mission President got a call from two missionaries who were saying there was guy who wanted to get baptized right now, but it was a Sunday. They told him it would have to wait but he said he had to be baptized right now. The Mission President asked to talk to him and he said that he had a dream where his momma and papa were so far apart(they had died a few years back). He asked his papa why they weren't together and his pops told him it was because they were not married here. The Mission President told the missionaries to baptize him right then. Then the very next day the same man was at the temple asking to go in and do the work for his parents but the temple was closed that day. And because of rules he couldn't do it for a while so the Mission President said they would take care of it and get the work done. A few weeks later the Mission President got a call from that man saying he had a dream where his momma and papa were together and thanking him. The Mission President told him that their temple work had just been finished yesterday. That was so moving and the spirit was so strong. Then that night we went and watched the Testament movie. It's based in the Americas and is where when Christ died and was resurrected he came and visited them. And the father who had waited all his life got blind through the movie and was so sad he would never see the Christ he had been waiting all his life to see. But it ends with the son of that man bringing him to see Christ and explaining what he looked like. Then Christ comes up and heals the father, and his dream of seeing Christ comes true. We all cried and it was an amazing experience to watch that with a room full of missionaries.
Monday was just a day of class and Italian study, nothing really exciting happened.
Tuesday we had another TRC where we taught charity in Italian, which was really cool. It is really neat to be able to teach a lesson in a language you hardly know and still feel the spirit. Then that night we had choir again where our choir teacher told us something really cool that related to the song. We can become more like Christ by being 5 things that spell out TOMAS. T:think O:observe M:meek A:ask how to be better S:seek the spirit. Then after this story we found out that another Apostle was coming that night, Elder Soares. He gave an amazing talk on serving with clean hands and a pure heart. He told us that the Lord has complete confidence in us and that we will be blessed as we are obedient and serve with our whole hearts. After devo on Tuesdays we have District Council where we talk about the devotional and that is always a great spirit. I love hearing everyone's testimonies.
Wednesdays are bluhh, haha. We have lots of class and workshops and it always feels really long, however we did get to teach a lesson to our teachers which is always fun and helpful. I am so grateful for the teachers that I have. We laugh and have fun but we also learn a ton and feel the spirit when we need to.
Thursday is service day, and I got to scrub toilets and sinks in practically a hazmat suit, haha. They use strong chemicals to clean so we have to wear gloves and goggles and stuff. Then we had a language assessment where we had to answer questions in Italian and my teacher reviewed them with us later that evening. He said I did really well, but to me it stressed me out with how much I didn't know. And it was Valentine's Day and everyone was rushing to the mail all day haha. Lucky for me Mom and Rachel sent me something so I could be one of those people.
I'm having a lot of fun here and I love feeling the spirit so strongly every day. It is a lot of work here learning a language and being in class but it is so worth it. It's crazy that I will be in Rome in two weeks and 4 days!! The more I learn about Italy and all the "sign language" and how dynamic they are, I'm so excited to go and fit right in!! I can't believe it is already P-day again and I'm so grateful that I get to be in the temple every Friday morning.
Hope you are all doing well!!!
Love you all!!

Sorella Acton

If you would like to email Rebekah her address is: rebekah.acton@missionary.org