E-mail of 28 December 2011

Ciao Mamma!

 You should write your emails either on your email or in word document or something where they can be saved and then copy and paste them to the Dear Elder website or you can just send me emails and I can print them out and read them all of my P-day. I really want to hear more from you, so if that website keeps deleting your emails just stop using it and use a different method. Have you been getting my letters? Has dad been reading them along with my emails? He has not written me anything for a while... how are things going at home? Thank you so much for your Christmas present you are so sweet and I really liked what you wrote in the card, you are so sweet! I love you:) 

So start of week seven today, it is crazy to think I have been here for six weeks, sometimes it seems longer. There is a saying about time in the MTC, days feel like weeks and weeks feel like days, how true that is!

I have to tell you something so funny that happened yesterday, our district was practicing a door approach teaching a family, when it was the Elder's turn to do it (we only have two in our district) one Elder said this in Italian, "Siamo missionari dalla Chiesa di Gesu' Cristo dei santi degli UOMANI Giorni." (instead of saying ULTIMI) or in English, "We are missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of MEN-day saints" I burst out laughing and could not contain myself! Our teacher couldn't stop laughing either so he said start over, shut the door, start over, we had to take a minute to compose ourselves! It is so humbling to learn a new language, no worries the Anziano who said it laughed too:)

Today instead of going to the Temple we get to clean it! It is closed for the Holidays and I am so excited to be a part of the maintainance of that incredible edifice!

So we heard a talk on Sunday night that was delightful:) The orator was so funny! He told us a story about when he was Stake President he had to go and get a drink before a meeting. So he went to the drinking fountain, one of those with two right next to each other(one for the little people:)) and started drinking, well this little boy comes up and takes a drink too. We all know about how the water pressure in those darn fountains is so tempramental, so this Stake president decided to use this knowledge to play a joke on this sweet boy. He let go of his button and the water in the little boys drinking fountain squirted in his face! Well, the stake president looked around, to check if anyone was around and then pushed his button again to get a drink, the little boy came back for another and then the stake president let go of his button, allowing the water to splash in the little tyke's face. (no worries I am sure the little boy was having fun.)

 He likened this though to how Satan is pushing our buttons and he knows how to push them. And if we do not be careful he can push them so much to discourage us from continuing, he can make us want to quit. We cannot allow this to happen! Of course we are going to have trials, physical, emotional and spiritual, these trials will truly help us to become stronger if we go through them with faith. Christ's life was not a life of ease, why would our lives be? We need to have these difficulties to learn and grow. Just as a muscle needs resistence to become strengthened the same principle applys to us. And during these trials Satan is going to try and push our buttons, but remember with God nothing is impossible, so lean on him and you shall, I promise you, you will come off conquorer!

Oh I love you all so much! I hope you have a SUPER HAPPY NEW YEAR! I just want to let you know that I know that this Gospel is true! I know it because truly I have felt the peace that comes from following the commandments and going forward with faith. I have felt the Holy Ghost's witness of truth as I ponder the Savior's life. I know that we have  prophet on the earth today, this man who truly talks with our Lord. I know if we listen to him we can overcome any trials with tranquility and we will not quit when Satan pushes our buttons.

Love you tons!!!!

LOVE,

SORELLA COMOLLO

Christmas E-mail

Ciao Tutti!!!! Buon Natale!!!! (note, I know my spelling is no good, Italian is messing with my english brain, sorry:))

Well this has been a lovely week! I finally feel at home here, mostly because I put up a bunch of pictures of you all around my room and hung up christmas decorations (thanks Rosie for the lights, they are perfect:)!) Also, I am so excited for the gifts that you have so kindly sent to me:) You all are the best!

So I have decided to tell you a little something about my daily activities, fun huh! Well we get up and head to the classroom, or dungeon of learning, and study the scriptures(I love doing this, I never realized how wonderful the book of mormon is! It seems like every chapter has great insight on developing faith or another christ like attribute). Then we go to the cafeteria, or processed food cafe, and eat, then we go back to the DOL then back to the PFC then back to the DOL then back to the PFC then we head over to the gym, or hamster wheel, (I think I have run around that building a million times by now:)) then back to the DOL then back to the HW, but now it is set up for a devotional! then back to the residency, or house of sleep:) I really do love the MTC, no worries! I am learning so much. The only sad thing is that we do not get to see the sky since the little vias between the buildings are covered, so if you thought I was white before you should see me now(Olga remember how you thought I was wearing white tights once, but I wasn't, that is how my legs look now:))

So on Sunday something happened that got me thinking about Pres. Hinckley's quote, "Forget yourself and go to work." On Sunday morning I was actually doing my hair, instead of leaving it crazy curly. Well I was so enthralled with how I looked and trying to get my hair looking nice that by the time I left the residency to go to our daily activities I did not even notice that I forgot to put my tag on (the one that says Sorella Comollo chiesa di Gesu' Cristo dei santi degli ultimi giorni). This simple act of forgetting to put on my tag, Christ's name, over my heart in the morning got me thinking about if I am doing that spiritually. Am I following my baptisimal covenant and taking our savior's name upon me, remembering to put him over and in my heart everyday, or am I too worried about how I look or what I am going to say or whatever and not allowing him to lead my path? From that time I have been really working on forgetting myself and going to work. It really has made a difference, my morning prayers are more sincere, I feel like I am retaining my italian and gospel knowledge and I getting less discouraged. Putting Christ in my heart first and foremost is making all the difference.

In the devotional on Sunday there was a talk given about feelings, it was incredible! It seems like in this world we live in today disregards feelings, it has to be physically or scientifically proven in order to have merit, well this is not so with the things of God. I have a great example to illistrate this through the christmas story; When Lehi tells his family about the dream he saw Nephi desires to know the interpretation of the dream, specifically what is the significance of the tree. So the Angel says ok Nephi I will show you! So he shows him the chirstmas story, he shows him Jerusalam and the Mother Mary and the sweetest face of the most gentle of Babies, the Baby Jesus. The Angel then asks him, do you know what the tree means now. Nephi says yes. If I had not heard this story before I would be thinking, what? Angel you did not even tell him what it means you just showed him a nice scene. Well think about it this way, if you were to see that angelic baby face of Jesus what would you feel?

would you not feel, THE LOVE OF GOD! The love of God is exactly what the tree in Lehi's dream symbolizes. Is that not just beauiful, Human emotions or feelings are magnified and grow deeper as we follow the spirit!

I just thought I would share those things I learned with you:)

I love you all so much! Thanks for all of your support, your letters, and your prayers! I know that this gospel is true, I know it because I can feel a change, a happiness with in me when I follow the commandments and learn more about our savior!

I wish you the Merriest Christmas, for there is nothing better than the celebration of our Savior!

Love you tons!

Love,

Sorella Comollo!

E-mail of 14 December 2011

Carissimi!!!!

I love you all so much! I thought I would tell you that first! This week has been lovely:) after much diligence and prayer:) We had a tad tiff, my companion and I, but thank goodness for companionship inventory because we worked everything out and now instead of being just companions we are becoming friends, yippee! I truly believe that sharing spiritual experiances with each other is key to growing closer together, like what you learn from the scriptures or how prayer has helped you or what little miracles you witnessed throughout the day. I know that I will use this advice in my future companionships as well as in my eternal one;)

 We have had the most amazing speakers here this week! The daughter of Pres. Monson came, Sister Dibb. I just thought Rosie would like to know that Pres. Monson loves mincemeat pie, I would like Randy to know that Pres. Monson loves red heads and if there is ever a crowd he will always shake the hands of the red heads first;) and I want dad to know that Pres. Monson loves Haagin Daas Ice cream! You see we have more in common with this amazing man than we think!;)

We also had Sister Dalton come last night! It was the best discourse ever! I could not take notes fast enough! She talked about the Chirstmas story and gave new insight on it. For example, in Luke, before Mary was visited by the Angel she had just a regular life, with plans like you and I have, but when the angel says, "thou art highly favoured of the lord, fear not for thou hast found favour with God" Mary says she will do the Lord's will, give up the life she had planned. Would we believe the angel, that we are hightly favoured sons and daughters of the Lord, would we fear even after he said not to, to change our lives? The angel also says to Mary (Luke 1:37) "For with God nothing shall be impossible". These seven words are so profound. Are we willing to give up the life we have planned for the life that is waiting for us? I know that it is hard, but I have seen already in my life that following the promptings of the spirit can sometimes be hard and get in the way of our "plans", but in the end our lives WILL be better, they WILL be the best as we follow what God has planned for us. I have a great example of this in a lesson we taught to an "investigator" this week. We had taught him 5 lessons already and each time it seemed he was cosi cosi with everything. Now I am not a very bold person when it comes to giving advice to others. I usually beat around the bush, working hard not to offend them or make them feel uncomfortable, so when Jad, our investigator, was saying sure I will pray in the lessons nonchallantly(spelling?) I thought that was ok because I did not want to annoy or pressure him. Well finally in the 6th lesson I listened to the prompting of the spirit, I had the strong desire to ask him certain questions, questions that were bold and way out of my comfort zone. I decided to act on the spirit I felt. By the end of the lesson Jad was smiling(which is a first, he never smiles!), excited to pray and be a part of the Gospel. The things I had planned for the lesson did not work out, instead the Lord had something else in mind, it was more difficult to do, by far, but in the end way better. It was amazing! I love being a missionary. 

This reminds me of what my biology teacher, Temme said, he said to never be comfortable, or else you will never grow and learn, be comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable:) I think God would agree with this:)

Ahh I am out of time! I will end with my testimony!!! This gospel is truly the gospel of christ, it truly is the way that we can draw closer to God and have the most incredible and fullfilling time on this earth regardless of our trials!

I love you all so so so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want you to know that reading the scriptures and prayer is the best way to get the spirit and I encourage you to drink deeply from them daily! Especially the Book of Mormon, it truly is a book from God's prophets, exactly what we need in our day.

I love this gospel so much and I love that we are an eternal family!

Love you tons!

Love,

Sorella Comollo

P.S. I know what I want for christmas:) I would love if all of you, the whole family(Comollos, Getts, Williams and Babies) go and see the lights on temple square together and share in the spirit of Christmas, truly remembering why we celebrate it. Remembering the humble birth of our greatest example and blessing! Love you! 

E-mail #3

Ciao Carissimi!!!!

This week has been splendid, I have sure learned a lot about the importance of the Atonement and prayer. I have to tell you a story of how I found these things to be so wonderful. Now when I tell you this story you are not allowed to laugh too much, because it was a devestating episode in my life:)

So in my district we were learning about combined object pronouns and how to make them work in Italian, like saying he gives it to us, which in italian is ce lo da. Since I am so smart I picked up on it pretty quick;) but other were still trying to grasp the concept of the switched up order, so I took it upon myself to impart my wisdom to these struggling souls:) Well as I was teaching one the Elders this concept he kept backing away or turning his head when I talked.... I realized that he was doing it because my breath was so stinky! (Sam would probably descibe it as dead cat poop(Am I allowed to say that on a mission?))!!!! I was soooooooooooooooooooooo embarrassed! Usually I can take embarrassing moments with a laugh, but this time I was absolutely mortified! It ruined my whole day because I kept thinking, how can I go and talk to people for the next year and a half with such a problem and how can I ever teach anyone anything. Well, I decided that I needed to pray about this and ask Heavenly Father to help me. I know it seems silly, but I asked that these embarrassing feelings and this sense of inadequecy be taken away, I did not want to feel bad anymore. Guess what!? Almost immdiately, after I asked for help all those feelings went away and I started to laugh at the situation, taking it lightly. I learned that the Atonement covers everything! It covers guilt, sadness, embarrassment, even fear of hallitocis(:)) and so much more. I am still helping to teach others now, without worrying so much, needless to say with tic tacs in tow;)

This story of how we can use prayer to access the atonement reminds me of the story in Matthew 14 about Chirst walking on water and Peter coming out to meet him with faith, but then as the winds of the world crashed down on him he started to sink. While on his way down he still had the faith to call out to Christ, to pray to him in essence, Save me! And I love how in the scriptures it says immidiately Christ stretched forth his hand and helped Peter up. Faith in Chirst and prayer are the most important things we can work on to help bring the holy spirit into our lives! I think every one should read the Bible dictionary definition of Prayer this week:)!

My companion and I are still struggling to get a good language routine, we are great with everything else except language, we did better at speaking our language this week, but not nearly as good as I was expecting. I know that I am her companion for a reason though, I need to put my fears aside and reach out to her in love to help her to improve.

Well I am running out to time:( 

I love you all so much! 

Have a lovely week and I will be sure to write more in my letters today!

LOVE

SORELLA COMOLLO!

PS Olga everything you put on the list to eat I have access to here at the MTC, fruit, salad, veggies, etc. I did perfect yesterday and I promise to keep it up! You have inspired me, thanks so much for your help!!!! 

Eva’s email 11/30/11

Ciao Caro Famiglia!!!!

Mamma can you email Lauren Kane and ask for her address and Catherine Cromar's and let her know when I get it I will write her back:) Thanks!

So this week was hectic and lovely! I feel like my Italian is getting a tad better, only the vocabulary, my grammer still is not so great. I feel like I study it lots and then when I am in the moment of speaking to someone it all goes out the window and I probably sound like how indians sound to us, "how you? me happy." etc (I do not think that that is super PC to talk about indians, o'well:)) Anyhow, my companion and I have been struggling this week. She is getting really frustrated with her language skills and how she can never remember what she learns and then when I speak to her in Italian she gets annoyed that she cannot understand, then I get frustrated that I cannot practice my Italian and it goes on. But no longer is it like that! The Lord loves us:) I have been praying super hard to love her more and be her friend and have lots of patience and my prayers are being answered! Now I cannot help but  get super excited when she starts to speak even a little, high fives and hugs all around when she said in Italian for the first time, without looking at her notes, "Devo andare al bagno addesso!" Plus she got a blessing last night and it was a beautiful blessing of comfort that even comforted me:) Week three is going to be good I can feel it!

Thanksgiving went well, the food was disgust.... I mean great! And I was so grateful for it! Elder Russell M. Ballard came and gave a talk. It was cool because he mentioned the word for thanksgiving in greek is euchoirso, or something like that, which stems from the same root as eucharist, which is like the sacrament wich means sacred mind so during the sacrament you should be grateful. It reminded me of Dad and how he knows all the roots of words:)

So, remember how I told you I was the coordinating sister, guess what my job is??? It is to support the lovely sorelle in my branch, which there are only 6 and they are the ones supporting me and I am incharge of making sure there is a sponge in the bathtub in the handicap tub! What a responsibility if I do say so myself;)

Thank you sooooo soooo much for the yummy bread! You are so sweet to think of me:) I gave some of it to an Anziano from England, I think I told you about him, he has never had pumpkin bread before, those crazy brits!:)

So I must tell you the revelation I had while memorizing the first vision in Italian, which I receit beautifully. I always thought of the first thing God said to Joseph Smith was this is my beloved son hear him, but actually he calls him by name first! The first thing that God says to Joseph Smith is his name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is so incredible to me! God knows us, he knows our esigenze (needs), our hearts and our names! This made me think of how we start our lessons, in Preach my gospel (which I think everyone should start studying because it is amazing!), we start with making sure investigators and people in general know that they are children of God, that he loves them so much and that he knows their names and circumstances, then we start teaching about Christ and all of the happiness that comes from following him. Just like in the first vision, God calls him by name and then introduces Christ. I love the Gospel and all of the pensieri it gives to me!

I will tell you, going on a mission is a lot harder than I thought. Sometimes I get discouraged because I am not good at organizing myself to study or I do not know how to respond to our "investigators" in Italian. I have realized that I am super hardheaded(Dad was right all these years;)) and I want to do it my way, but it does not work that way, because without the help of the spirit their is no way I could last. I am so grateful I have been humbled to realize I do not have to do it all, I can lean on the Lord, while still working hard, to guide me.

Hopefully this all makes sense!:)

I love you all so so much! I pray for you always and think of you sempre! You are the best! Thanks for all of you support!

Love,

Sorella Comollo!

Eva's First E-mail

Oh sweet sweet Mamma and family!!!

I loved all of your emails! You should start using dear elder .com, it is super easy and free. You just write an email and the MTC prints it out the same day, if you send it before noon, and I get it with my mail:) You are so funny mom! Thanks for making my sound like a Micky d's commercial. I am glad you like to sit in my lovely room and think of me. I am just so great aren't I?!jk!

This week has been bittersweet. I have been truly humbled. I came in thinking that I would be so good at everything, Italian and teaching included. Well, my teaching skills need improvement I really have to study the gospel vocabulary and Italian grammer. It has been hard getting organized. Last night Elder D. Todd Christofferson came and spoke to the missionarys. His talk was AMAZING. One thing that stuck out to me is that when you are busy and doing something, be sure to recognize the fruits that are yielding from your work. This week I have felt busy all the time, but as I analyze my fruits I realize I do need to change what I am doing while I am busy so I can see the fruits of my labors. I need to increase my knowledge of PMG and of Italian. I also learned that if you pray for the spirit to help you change so you do see more results that he will help you:)

 I have never prayed some much in my life as I have this week! Mostly because here at the MTC we pray for everything, before we use the gym to exercise, breakfast, lunch and dinner, before starting class, or a fireside, before we start to practice teaching, before we do companionship study, before we do personal study, before we leave our room for the day, before we go to bed. I love it! The spirit is so strong here because of it, it is so exciting to see everyone so happy and working so hard!

I love my district so so much! We have only known each other for a week, but it feels like we are family. It was hard yesterday though because one of our elders was sent home. Even though I only knew him for a few days I was so close to him. We would always make each other laugh and helped each other with the language! Our branch president told us it was a blessing he came here for the short time he did because it gave him the courage to go to a priesthood leader and start the repentence process. And the elder said that he is going to go on his mission again, only when he does he will by truly ready. Even though I felt like a member of our family was gone and there was a hole in my heart, I am so proud of that elder and I am so grateful for the savior and the healing that he has given to us through his atonement.

Oh my goodness I have to tell you about my first morning last Thursday! It was awful, I accidently set my alarm for five in the morning instead of six, darn those face clocks. My alarm is so loud it woke up all of the five other girls in my room! I felt soooooo bad! Thank goodness everyone is so forgiving here!:)

My companion and I are getting a long pretty well. We are not as thick as thieves, but we are functional together! I think as time grows on and as I pray for more love for her we will be great chums! I am glad she is my comp though because she is miss workout! She gets up at five thirty and does like 100 push ups and sit ups and lunges. So I have been getting up too and doing it too...well not 100;) Plus when we go to lunch she eats so healthy, so I copy her:). I have been depriving myself of BYU chocolate milk, but I know it will be worth it!:)jk

I only have like three minutes left on the computer:( I want to write so much more! I will write you a letter too! I got you and dad birthday presents!

I love you with all of my gradually becoming healthy heart! I miss you lots! I am so happy you are my mamma!

Tell dad I love him so much and I pray for him everytime I pray, which as you see is a lot!

Love you! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Love,

Sorella Comollo

PS there is an Anziano from England and he is teaching me cool english words, here is one. You are the don!

She's Off!

Mission Call!

. . .My dad got the mail and Eva watched in anticipation as he looked through it and said "It's here!"

6:00pm finally came and everyone was gathered in the front room. Eva opened her letter and started to read.  She read about a sentence and then started to act really excited and read faster (we knew she had already seen the place where she was going and also got excited)... then she read it... "... Rome, Italy!!!!" We all jumped up and screamed with excitement! We could not believe it, she has been called to the exact place she was dreaming to be called.

I'm so proud of my sister for keeping the faith and for sticking to her decision to serve the Lord for 18 months of her life. I know that she will be blessed for this great service.