Sorella Cherrington's Italy Rome Mission Blog! :D: Blog for 5/29/2013 and 6/5/2013

Ciao tutti! :D 5/29/2013

This week has been pretty great; we got to go to the TRC again to share a thought with some LDS Church members who volunteer each week. It is always nice. We also got to teach Fratello Taylor for the last time on Tuesday because he left for an internship he and his wife are doing in Italia! :D They actually leave a few days after we do, but they are heading up to Alaska first, I think. Communiqué, in our last class with il notro insegnante, Fratello Taylor guessed where each of us would go for our first area in Italia. It was really cool. :) He guessed that I would go to "una piccolissima citta" called "Mistretta" where the descendants of the first Italian to acquire a Book of Mormon live. It was soooo cool. I was the only one he guessed would go to Sicilia first from our class, so that was pretty interesting/cool/awesome. :) It was a great class period though: he invited his wife to our class so we could meet her, and they told us stories about how he proposed to her (Tangled-style on a river in a boat with floating lanterns around and the song from Tangled playing in the background. Our class thought he was "super pro" for that, lol). His wife (Hermana Taylor) also told us this really cool story about her mission in which she ran into a little boy, trying to give him a Book of Mormon. He said, "I don't need it- my Grandpa reads it to me every night." She and her companion, being shocked, asked him a couple of questions and asked him to be baptized. He agreed and was baptized two weeks later. the Crazy thing is that they almost didn't stop to talk to him because they were late for a lesson. Wow, right?! After Hermana (Sister) Taylor left, Fratello Taylor showed us TONS of really cool pictures of his mission in Italy and told us lots of funny/spiritual/awesome stories of his mission days. Hands down, best class-time ever at the MTC. After class, we were all stuck in a daydream of Italy-ness. Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to finally be there in Italia! Less than two weeks left at the MTC!

A couple days before all this (Sunday, I think) our District and a few recruits from the Romanian district die the "Eternal Life" Challenge where we ate an entire cafeteria-sized container of Life cereal. Holy cow. Crazy/funny stuff! One of the Elders in our Distretto ate NINE BOWLS of life!!! :O Then we had one sister and an elder who ate 6 bowls, and... it was crazy! I was not going to do the challenge at first because I am super health conscious with food, but my district got me to do it because I saw that they were suffering... literally, lol. They had about 3/4 to a half of the container left to go when they started saying, "Come on Sister Cherrington, go for it!" or "Come on Cherri!" Lol, so I got myself some almond milk and contributed to the cause. ;) After we had finished the container (yes, we succeeded!) Sorella Stephens said, "Yah, that was the best thing ever when you joined in!" So cool :) We have lots of fun in our distretto.

Buuuuut, we have noticed lately that we have reached our "Mid-MTC Crisis," as Sister Mathews calls it. We literally were starting to go nuts the other day during class when Frat. Guest was teaching. We have been kind of slugging along since then, but things are starting to look up. We have a new District leader who really wants to maximize our potential with study time, so that should be good. But, in all honesty, it has not all been fun and games this week. We are all wayyyyy tired because of our weird schedule, and we have been a bit all over the place lately. I think Fratello Taylor's awesome class yesterday uplifted us though, and I am so grateful for that. the devotional last night also helped a lot with that because it reminded us that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and His church, and we have set District goals for the week to have the classroom be a "learning zone" which I think will help a lot. I am excited to see the progress that we will make as we strive to study, thinking of the people of Italy and God first. It's all about forgetting yourself here. And, as some of us were discussing earlier, when you forget about yourself and go to work, you are far less likely to be offended. Interesting thought, that serving others can make one more peaceful.

Oh! And the other day, one of the Anziani (Anziano Brown- Morrone;) challenged me to a California Slang-off. He thinks that, because he is from Southern CA, that his slang is better than what we have in Northern CA. I said "No way!" And agreed to get together a list of the N.CA slang that I know that would be wayyy better than his! I am still working on it, but I am going to need all of the help I can get! So all of my N.CA buddies out there- help me out! That includes you, little bro and friend(Andrew+ friends) :) ANNNNNND Alana Conatser and Avri, Niz, Nai nai, etc. As long as it is appropriate, you can send it to me so we can win the challenge! Lol, just something goofy here that we are doing to stay sane. After all, it is tough to be in such a small space with so many other people for 6 weeks. Lol, "good times" as Elder Jensen used to say. :)

Felice questa Settimana! :D

So this week, I have been wayyyyy happy and I cannot explain why! Lol, actually I can. First of all, I have been focusing more of my time on reading the Book of Mormon and on studying the scriptures, which has greatly improved my mood and my receptiveness to feeling the Spirit. I have also been striving to learn by the Holy Spirit better by praying more often and by praying to read the things in the Book of Mormon that will help someone in Italy when I go there. When you pray for other people, you are truly more strengthened in yourself. It is amazing.

Other than that, I am learning tons here, making great friends, and having a great time serving the Lord. :)

Ciao for now!

Con amore,

Sorella Corey Anne Cherrington

Caro i miei (parents), 6/5/2013

Ciao, ciao, ciao! :D I miss you guys sooooo much! We had such a great week this week. Me and Sister Mathews taught some stellar practice lessons yesterday to Fratello Carrington and a new teacher (forgot his name). We invited our first "simpatizzante" (investigator) to be baptized and he accepted! :D so cool! And our second lesson was on the Restoration and the first vision. It went fantastically! :D and I also got to act as "un membro" (a church member) in Sorella Kippen's and Stephen's lesson. It was so great; in their lesson, when they gave "Danielle" a Book of Mormon, he tried to pay them for it and said (in italiano) "Do I have to pay money for this? I would be willing to pay." Lol, they had no idea what he was saying, so they just stared at him, al freaked out and what-not when I discretely shook my head "no" to them. They responded "no, no." Then, I told him, "It's a gift" in Italian, and he understood. And after the lesson, I was telling some other people in our District about how their investigator wanted to pay them for the Book of Mormon, and the two sisters I helped out said, "What?! He tried to pay for it!" it was pretty funny. I really love the Sisters in my district and I love helping them out. :) It is so fun!

Ahhhhh! And Sister Mathews and I think Sister Kippen have told me that the past couple of nights, I have been sleep talking in italiano!!! :D Wow! What a blessing! I am so excited to be making good progress with Italian. I really love this language. Also, I can express about 80-90 percent the things I want to say in Italian! It is so awesome! :D But I know that it is not just me, but that the Lord is helping me every step of the way. I know that I could not possibly have learned this much in 6 weeks on my own. It kind of reminds me of the "Footprints in the Sand" poem that Grandma Earlene always had hanging up in her house. I will never forget that. I've been thinking a lot about her this past week, by the way. I'm not quite sure why, but I think about her all the time. Interesante.

So we saw Elder Noho, Elder Interaminese (from Brazil), and their other MTC English-learning buddies! XD they always bring tremendous joy to our days! Lol, I love it! So Elder Noho taught us a five minute lesson in which he practiced what he would say in English if he were to talk to someone at a bus-stop. He did soooo great, and thought it was less than 10 min, both me and sister M. felt the trueness of his message. Sooo cool! And he used an analogy about prayer that we thought was cool. He said, "Do you like burgers? [a funny elder from the Philippines responded "No!" right then ;) ] No? Well, I like burgers! I realllllly like burgers. So, prayer is like burgers because we all have the same top, and we all have the same... [he looks over to one of his friends and asks "what is the one you call that is not the top?" Another Elder: "Oh! The "Down"! E. Noho, "Thank you!"] And we all have the same down. We may have different meats in the middle and we all add different things to them, but we always have the same top and the same down." It was really great! Lol, we love Elder Noho and friends :) they are such an inspiration to us because they came her knowing NO ENGLISH and now they are basically fluent and can share lessons and thoughts with us. I hope that I can speak italiano 100% fluently someday (maybe even sooner than I think!).

Last night after the Devozionale (Devotional), we got to have a District meeting with President Willis and his lovely Italian wife. It was probably the coolest Riunione del Distretto that we have had yet because they told us tons of stuff about Italy basically the whole meeting. It could not have went better because now we all know so much more about what to expect when we get to Italy. Also, Sister Willis pointed me out in the Middle of the meeting and said (in her beautiful Italian accent) something along the lines of, "Yah, you look like you could be from Northern Italy or Rome because there are so many redheads in Italy! Wow!!! How cool is that?! I know for a fact that there is no other place I could have gone on my mission except Italy. I know that my mission call was prayed about and inspired. It is great to be a missionary!

We made our last Temple trip today too. It was sooo nice, and we actually got to go with the Anziani (Elders) in our District this time because we coordinated better beforehand. :) It was very delightful. I always love the P-day temple trips. It will be our last temple trip for about 17 months though, so that will be crazy. We are all praying that the Rome Temple will be finished by the end of our missions though! It is not looking pretty right now because they are having some issues with the building standards being met 100%, so they have estimated a drawback, making the completion date sometime in 2015 D: But we still have time until the original completion date comes along, so we are hoping and praying that it will be finished in Summer 2014 or before then.

And OOOOOOHHHHHH MYYYYYYY GOODNESS!!! XD When we arrive in Rome, we will be staying at the Mission home, no? And this mission home just happens to be the ex-palace of Benito Mussolini! :O Holy goodness, right! There is soooo much history in Italia, and I am excited to finally be there! We are all way excited to find out what our first area to serve in will be! I cannot fully explain how awesomely-happy we all are!

One more story: So, the Sisters in our District like to prank the sisters in the other districts, and the other night we decided to target Sorella Jones. I had found a random gift bag in the give-away pile, we put an empty box of tissues, a fortune from a fortune cookie, a Mexican candy, and this creepy/hilarious note that Sisters Mathews, Stephens, and I collaborated on. Sister M wrote on it," SORELLA JOOOOONES! WE LUH YOU!", Sorella Stephens kissed it, and I put a mustache on it and drew a face around it. It was a pretty amazing gift. ;) So, we doorbell-ditched it to her, whilst we his in the room next door with some of the other Sisters from our Zone. Lol, when we left to go back to our room, Sister kippen had disappeared! Haha, Sisters Wiltbank and Pancheri said, "Sorella Jones Kidnapped her!" So, Sis. M and S. and I went to go get her back. We arrived at Sister Jones' room to see that S. Kippen was being forced to tell stories about her life... lol, so random. S. Jones called her Wendy Bird and had a pillow case halfway over S. Kippen's head. So we leave S. Jones' room with kippen, but Sister Jones insisted that she had to escort S. Kippen herself. She put the pillowcase all the way over "Wendy Bird's" head, and walked Sister Kippen back to our room. It was fantastic. Haha, we love Sorella Jones! XD

Communque, my time for e-mail has almost run out! Sooooo Arrivederci per adesso! the next time I e-mail, It will be from ITALIA!!! XD

Con Amore,

Sorella Corey Anne Cherrington