Sister Arndt's Italy, Milan Mission: 2016-03-03 Well, Let's Add That Week Back In

we got news again that our departure date has changed back to the original, so I'm leaving on the 14th. So not in like 4 days but in like 11 days. the girls were all dramatic about that all over again and i was like augh it's not the 18 year old elders who are immature it's the sisters!! chill out! but lovingly. i've just had a couple sisters tell me it's really distracting when all anyone talks about is how bad they want our travel plans and frankly if you're thinking about that then you're not thinking about the ways you can be progressing in the situation at hand. our purpose is always to bring others to Christ and if you're thinking about travel plans only then you can't think about others. but they did calm down. it's kind of an emotional thing i guess. i know i was bummed but i tried to let it roll over me.

Italian is going well, my teacher says my report is that i'm above average but that doesn't mean much when about 50% of my Italian is still "ummmm" and i conjugate every other word incorrectly. This is my impression of Italian though: you don't sound like mario or luigi when you talk. it actually sounds a lot like spanish unless you really slow it down but just like any language, if you speak it well you don't speak it slowly. so it's nice but it's not like, breathtaking. also, they like to conjugate things. this is cool once you get the hang of it, probably, but for english speakers it feels like you're not using enough words, and you have to memorize a TON of endings.

for example: to eat - mangiare

i eat - mangio

i would eat - mangerei

so that's three words right there in english that can be one word in italian. and if your base verb is already long, and you're using the "we" form of the word, words can get reallyyy long. anyways, just fun facts about Italian. I'm glad we're not leaving early (we just got the news that we're going back to our original dates because of something to do with visas not letting us go early) because now we can get the language down better, even though i really wanted to peace out of here.

a cool spiritual thing i learned today is that, if you've been a missionary then it's been drilled into your head that you have to teach by the Spirit, the Spirit teaches not you, etc etc. but what i learned today about this basic doctrine is that the Spirit needs to literally be there in your lessons. My teacher, Fratello Sloan, said that He is one of your companions. You don't teach with the Spirit as if it's your tool, you teach with the Spirit as if he's teaching alongside you. so Sister Poletz and i have been getting better at not just talking and talking and talking but taking some time after scriptures and testimony to just sit and let the Spirit talk. This could sound like a strange concept but imagine being on a hike that's really really beautiful up in the mountains and it's early spring so there's not really anyone there but the birds twittering and the sun and the silence. if some loud group of teenagers comes walking down the other way, shouting and laughing and stomping down the mountain, it ruins the whole feeling you had. you can get it back, but the point is that as missionaries we should be more like the birds and less like noisy teenagers. i just made that analogy up, does it make any sense? You have to give the Spirit some time to speak.

eyebrows are coming in fierce and the Spirit is with us strong. ci vediamo (we'll see each other, literally "of us we see." two words for our four again, see haha?)