ARRIVEDERCI MARIA!!!!! COREY'S THIRD WEEK AT THE MTC!! :)

Ciao Tutti!  (La mia famiglia!)  5/22/2013

So I'm going on week four here at the MTC, and we leave in three weeks!!!  I am sooooo excited!  XD  We study so much every day, and I feel way more prepared to be in Italy than the day when I first arrived here.  I've been having a lot of day dreams too about Italy and about all of the fantastic people I will meet there.  Also, the devotionals here get me more and more pumped to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Per esempio:  Tuesday we had a nice devotional by a member of the 70 and his wife.  They were fantastic talks, but the Elder's talk was a bit more serious.  It made me think a lot about giving my all for my whole mission, and not wasting a single moment.  That may sound a bit cliche but, to quote the devotional directly, "Don't hold anything back from the Lord."  And after the devotional, our lovely Sorella Wiltbank (Vilt-bank in italiano ;) quoted this same line in our district meeting and added, "Don't hold anything back from the Lord because the Lord had not held back anything from you."  Wow, that really hit me; I need to get past my shortcomings so that I can be an effective missionary not for myself, but for Jesus Christ. 

ALSO!!!  :D  We had one of the best devotionals ever on Sunday by a Sister Mary Ellen Edmunds.  She was soooo funny and I felt like the things she said were directed towards me!  It was sooo crazy how her talk was basically an exact answer to many of the questions I had prayed about beforehand.  Wow, prayer really works, my friends, I tell you.  Haha, she was soooo funny though :)  I really appreciated her uplifting words and the fact that she let the Elders take off their suit coats in the meeting!  (Usually the Elders have to keep their suit coats on as a rule that they have in the devotional room.)  It's sort of funny though because the week before, when it was really hot, I was thinking, "If I ever gave a talk here, I would let the Elders remove their suit coats."  Funny, eh?  ;) 

Other than that, my comp and I are still really solid with teaching lessons, and with working well with each other.  I love her so much!  She does this creepy elmo voice thing sometime too, and I love it... Haha, reminds me of Alana a bit. ;) I just feel kinda out of place sometimes because I usually hang out with older people (one of my best friends is 27 :) and my comp is a year younger than me, and for the most part, so are the rest of the girls in my district.  They just like to talk about different things than I would talk about, is all :)  I really love them, however, and I would absolutely not exchange them for any other MTC district in the history of ever.  :)  They are seriously fantastic :)

OH!  :D  And I have to tell you about Elder Noho!!!  XD  So, Elder Noho is from Tahiti, speaks French, and is going to Chicago for an English-speaking mission.  When he got here, he did not know a speck of English and needed an interpreter just to get around, but as of the 2nd week here, he started coming up to our district and practicing door approaches/meetings with us.  It is so cool how much English he has learned and is able to speak with us!  :D  It makes me feel like I need to have more faith in myself when it comes to learning italiano.  :)  Communque...  Elder Noho approaches us often to practice his English.  And lately, he has been saying, (because he knows that we are an Italian district) "In my country, we have a song that goes "Arrivederci Mariiiiiiiiiaaaaa!!!  Buona Sera Signorrrraaaa!!!"  We all love it sooooooo much!  And whenever he sings it to us, he does this hip-dancing thing that is so awesome/funny!  And he started cracking up when Sister Stephens told him that we get his song stuck in our heads all the time :)  LOVE IT!  Not to mention, when Elder Noho is just talking to us of practicing a door approach, he does his distinctive hip-dancing thing then too!  He is fantastic :)

SO we have finally reached our "halfway" mark here at the MTC, and we get to be in Italy in less than 3 weeks.  I know I said that already, but I am soooo excited!  :D  Oh!  And I have seem quite a few of my friends here, :) including CHAUNTEL CROMMARY :)  who is getting married the week after I leave, I believe, and my friend Lauren Barden from MUN. :)  I see Sister Barden a lot, and she gave me an Asian Candy the other day that was wayyyy good!  (She is going to Taiwan on her mission).  I really love seeing my friends from BYU here.  Also, I have tons of new friends, and I make friends with random sisters in the hallways in the evenings!  It is so fun.  One of the sisters who I talk to a lot has red hair, is going to Latvia, and is sooooo nice!  She gave me a small pack of M&Ms the other day, and she always asks me how I'm doing.  Sooooo nice :) 

So, I should go now because I have barely any e-mail time left...  D:  Well, I love you, famiglia, and Ciao to everyone else out there!  :D

-Sorella Corey Cherrington

Corey and some wonderful sisters!!  :)

The beautiful mountains behind the Provo Temple!! :)

More beautiful scenery at the Provo Temple!! :)

A very bored elder!! :)

Elder Noho, the hip dancer??!! You have to read the blog!! :)

The elders and sisters in Corey's district!! :)

Second Blog Post From Sister Corey Cherrington - 5/15/13

Hey, Ma!  Annnndn Daddio and Andrew!!!  :D

What is up?!  I miss you guys :)  Here is my blog-appropriate post:

Ciao Tutti!  :D

I am loving the MTC and I have been improving sooooo much at Italian!!!  :D  People in my class still ask me for help a lot, and I am so glad to be able to help them through their struggles- even though I struggle at times myself.  It is sooo cool because I have witnessed the Gift of Tongues in action, and I know that I would not have been able to do two teaching appointments and two TRC meetings on one day (monday) without help from the Holy Spirit.  I know that God lives and that He speaks through His missionaries; I have experienced it firsthand while here at the MTC, and I haven't even gotten to Italy yet!  :D 

Lol, so sorry for any spelling errors, I am typing at the speed of light right now because I only have less than an hour!!!  D: 

Communque, class is pretty fun most days, but sitting through three hour block classes two times a day plus additional hours of study is a bit of a test to one's sanity... Lol, we make it really fun though :)  Per esempio, one of the girls in my District, Sorella Stephens, says "viscido" all the time, which means "creepy" in Italian.  (lol, at least that's what we think it translates to.)  So, the other night, she starts singing "Viscido, oh viscido"  in the tune of "I need thee, oh I need thee".  HAHA!!!  Soooo funny :)  And then my companion, Sister Matthews starts harmonizing with her, then Sister Kippen joins in... Lol, we had a very "viscido" chorus ;)  Lol, molto divertente! 

Oh!  And, Ma, you will LOVE This because you love this Apostle :)  Elder Russel Nelson gave the Devotional address last night, and it was amazing!  He talked about missionary work in terms of teaching people- not lessons.  His wife also spoke about the power of Family History work in line with Missionary work.  It was soooo cool!!!  :D

(Mom, I will send a letter with more about it :)

Other than that, our first investigator, "Raimondo Borg" actually ended up being our 2nd teacher here at the MTC, Fratello Carrington.  He is a very fun teacher because he is so dramatic and he has very animated facial expressions.  Fratello Taylor is awesome, too, but he maintains a different sort of mood about his class.  Both teachers are equally awesome, but in different ways.  :)  And because we are into our third week now, they began acting like they don't understand English!!!  :D  So fun!  lol "Non capisco inglese!"  Haha, Fratello Carrington always acts so shocked when one of us asks a question in English.  It is so fun :)  And, sorry to skip around so much, but after our devotional we had an amazing District meeting where we all shared our thoughts about Elder Nelson's words.  One of the Elder's Testimonies really touched my heart because he went around the room, calling each of us by name and saying "Sorella/Anziano ..... Jesus Christ loves you, and Sorella/Anziano.... jesus Christ loves you." It was so awesome.  And I shared my Testimony as well, and I felt the Spirit so strong.  (Family, I will include more in a letter to you guys later :)

Oh yeah!  And we had our first meetings at the TRC with members in Italian.  We did pretty well with our visiting experience, and the first lady we spoke to was very nice, and helped us out when we stumbled with the language.  For a moment I thought "Wow, I am so ready to go to Italy; I really think I will love talking to and teaching people there."  Haha, but theeeeen, my companion and I faced a humbling experience because the second lady we spoke with talked soooooooooo fast it was incomprehensible!!!   :O  We were both quite shocked, and were at a loss of how to respond to her a lot of the time.  We later found out that she was speaking troppo veloce because she was worried she would be late for work (she cut our lesson short to leave for work).  So no worries!  Lol, or at least that's what I think!  I'm sure that I will be humbled much more with my Italian skills in the near future... Oh well, that's how we progress, no?  We have to make mistakes every now and then to learn. 

Also, I had a fantastic time at the temple today, with the Sorelle from my district :)  Famiglia, I will write you more about it later.  It was one of the most beautiful experiences I have yet had at the temple. 

Annnnd, did I mention I love my District?  They are so awesome!  We have soooo much fun and sooo many laughs together :)  Their names are: Sorella Matthew, Slla. Stephens, Slla. Kippen, Slle. Pancheri and Wiltbank, And the Anziani are Jiminez, Apple, Loertcher, and Zemp :)  (the titles we have are Sorella and Anziano because they are the Italian equivalents of "Sister" and "Elder"  :) which are the typical missionary titles in our church.)  Well, that is all I have for now!!  I am loving life as a missionary right mow, and I am loving the MTC.  I am BEYOND excited to go to Italy though!!!  XD  (Only 4 more weeks until we go!)    Ciao for now!!!  :)

-Sorella Corey Anne Cherrington

This Plaque hangs in our church in Clearlake!!

Corey's Companion is Sister Mathews in the black skirt second from the right!! :)

This is Shannon, Corey's roommate from fall Semester at BYU!!  :)

This is one of the elders in her district.  :)

Another elder in her district. :)

Just outside the Provo Temple!!  :D

First official blog post from Sister Corey Cherrington from Provo MTC!!!

Today's Date:  May 8th, 2013

Caro i miei (dear mom and dad)

 

The first week at the MTC has been a blast!  :D  SUCH hard work, but a blast.  It's kind of cool because you expect the MTC to be one thing, and it is completely different from all expectations.  The Spirit here is so nice, and it just makes every day so much better than it would otherwise be.  We eat, sleep, and breathe Italiano; we spend around 6 hours in class a day (except for Sundays and Wednesdays [P-day]) and we have an hour of this language program called "Tall," AND we have about an hour and a half for language study aside from all that (lol, Mom, feel free to correct my spelling because I can't go back to look at it).  In one of the two three-hour block classes that we have every day, we have all been teaching a volunteer investigator in Italiano!  :D  It has been SUCH a great experience.  We had some good times and... not so good times teaching, but we learned through our mistakes that (1) We have to pray before every lesson or the Spirit is not with us.  AKA we have to invite the Spirit before it will come.  (2) It is best to study the Gospel first, and then the language because when you have the Spirit with you, you learn the language sooooo much faster.

 

At the end of our lessons with "Raimondo" he said "Granpiacere" and seemed very grateful for our lessons; he also said that he understood our lessons and asked how much experience we had with Italiano.  It was sooooo great; I wish I could tell you guys in person :) 

 

Another thing, I have been speaking Italian a LOT.  It is sooooo awesome!!!  :D  I love speaking this language so much, and I hope to be able to learn it well enough so that I can share my knowledge of the Gospel with others.  Gah!  I love Italiano!  I love Italian people, I love Italy... I can't wait to go there on June 11. :D  Oh!  And I am like the Italian guru in class because I've studied it so much before.  It is so cool to be able to help the people in my class with the language.  Sometimes, in language study hour, I constantly hear "Sister Cherrington, what is this?"  Or "Sorella, what is the meaning of 'egli'.  Lol, I love it :)  I just hope I will be able to continue helping others as we progress. 

 

So the day before yesterday, I went with a small group to Salt lake to process/sign Visa stuff.  I was in the only group that was able to meet the new mission president before we are actually in the field.  I feel so blessed to have been able to be there. :)   I thank the Lord for this great opportunity.  Communque...  the mission prez is wayyyyyyy cool!  :D  He is a very large person- being very tall.  His wife is sooo funny too!  :D  Lol, she does not know much Italiano, so she said, "You want to know what my favorite [Italian] word is??? BELLISIMO!!!"  Haha, I love them both already.  Lol, and on the way out of the consulate in SLC, the missionaries all took the stairs, while the Presidents took the elevators and when we arrived on the ground floor, we discovered that our Presidents and the Church Travel person, Katy, were no where to be found.  This lady came over to us, informing us that our peeps were all stuck in the elevator!  So she took us up to this random conference room up four flights of stairs to wait for them (we were very reluctant to do this...lol).  About 5 min later, she told us the elevator was fixed, and by that time, Katy thought that she had lost a whole slew of missionaries!  We went next door to this Sandwich place we talked about going to beforehand, and found her there looking for us.  We all laughed so hard about it all, haha.  It was sooo fun :)

 

Oh yeah, and I absolutely love my district; I feel like we are constantly LAUGHING!  Haha, I love it :)  I apologize ahead of time if I do not attach photos this week because the computers here are weird...  But I do have lots of photos for you guys.

 

Well, that is it for now.  I love you guys sooooo much!  Please Dear Elder me (dear elder.com)  because I love your letters :)

 

Ciao for now!   :D

Love,

Sorella Cherrington