Ciao La Mia Famiglia!! [Sent from MTC -- March 24, 2009]

Ciaody!!!!

Sorry that's like my mix between howdy and ciao, cheesy i know. How is my wonderful family doing?!?! Thank you all for your letters. They all piled in yesterday which was way nice. So i'll try to pack in as much as possible into this letter. If mom you could forward to all the fam and peeps that would be nice. So this last week was way crazy as you know we taught in italian which by the way is nuts!!! Our first lesson didn't go too well. Anziano Collins in the very beginning got frustrated and walked out on the lesson, leaving me to teach is all by myself. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because i got more practice haha, but it is really hard teaching, number one in italian, but also by yourself. I now have realized the importance of having a companion when you teach. It is very helpful. We taught 2 more yesterday and we did much better. We both talked and bore our testimonies and all that good stuff. So there is this really funny guy in our district named Anziano Barthell. If you look in the pictures look for the most odd but funny guy in the picture and you got him. He has been homeschooled all his life... yeah you know the guy. To make it even better he is from minnesotta which adds to his funniness. He prounounces everything way crazy. But i have been trying to teach him some innocent slang to slowly introduce to the outside world haha. So i was like, Anziano Barthell say, "You eye ballin my piece 50 cent??" Mom and dad you'll have no clue what this meens but i'm sure the brothers and sisters will appreciate this haha. It is a line from the movie transformers, but anyway that really isn't the point of the story, so he looks at me with the funniest expression and says, "You EYE Balling my piece 50 cents???" And then he says, but those pieces are so rare now adays, reffereing to actualy 50 cent coins rather than the rapper, haha what a character. So that's Anziano Barthell for you. The reason for this story is i realize i really have talked to much about elders in the zone. Another really funny elder is Anziano Motley. He is the big ole black kid that i semi knew at BYU before. Me and him are real close. He's way funny. The other night we were way bored and decidecd to give everyone in our district harry potter characters that they reminded us of. So of course he was Lee Jordan the only black kid in the whole movie. He elected me to be Fred, one of the weasley twins haha. But anywho sorry i'm kind of going off on a tangent here haha. So anyways Buck and JayZ I got an Italian shirt today that i had ordered from tyhe book store and boy was i surprised when i didn't have to pay for it and on top of that i got some cadburry eggs! Thank you so much. I have a feeling the magical Jeanie was involved in the scheme as well so if you could thank her. I've actually only seen her once. I don't frequent to the book store too much. I get to get the mail everyday which is always an adventure haha. So guess who i heard from last P-Day??? Elder L. Tom Perry!! It was soo cooooooool. I love how the Apostles kinda let lose when they speak to us. He literally jumped to the stage it was so funny. He talked on companionship Unity which was exactly what I and the zone needed to hear. It was so great. The spirit was so strong through the whole meeting. It was a very helpful talk. I took like 3 pages of notes it was soo good. So back to teaching in italian. It is so nuts. We taught this guy for 35 minutes in italian!!! And we only shared like 4 scriptures. I am so grateful to the Lord for the gift of tongues. I took spanish for 4 years and if someone said talk for 30 i'd be like.... Che Cosa!?!? Which meens like whattttt? I was amazed when we ended the lesson and saw how long we taught. It is amazingly hard though. I don't want you to think that i'm like this italian master because i am far from it. When we teach it is very simple, which they say is the best way to teach. I almost feel like our first italian lessons have been better than last weeks english lessons. We really rely on the spirit when we teach in italian which is good. So the temple dedication was so cool. They locked all the doors in the gym and as they said, they made it an extension of the draper temple so the gym literally became a temple for 2 hours. The spirit was so strong at the end when we sang the spirit of God. What was way cool is when we went in it all all nasty outside, foggy and just kinda dark. And when we came out there was like a cirlcle of blue sky around the mtc with sun pounding down. We decided to eat lunch outside and by the time we had finished it was cloudy again. Right as we came out the BYU bell tower was sounding a hymn so it was way neat when we came out to a beatufil day. Sorry if my english is bad. Ever since this week i can't spell haha, i'm hoping some day that will go away. Q hurt his shoulder? Dang that dummy haha. That stinks though tell him i say hi. I don't really have time to write him this week. Were teaching 3 more lessons so i'm busy busy busy! Dad it sounds like Ed and Beth are amazing. That's so cool way to go you stud muffin! Buck congrats on makin level 2 tech. By the time i get back you'll be like level 60 haha. Luisa your Italian is coming very well. I am impressed. You actyually probably know more than i do haha. That will be way sweet if your fluent when i get home. You me and dad can all chat about the latest Gilato flavour haha. So there is this elder in my zone name elder ghalacher and he knits every night it is way cool. he says it is like the most relacxing thing ever. I want him to teach me how to knit. He makes these way cool beanies. Mum and Dad, Ian's play sounded pretty cool. He is a funny kid. Tell him to start reading preach my gospel haha. We read that like alllll day here it's so intense. So something that me and Anziano COllins have done is we always sing a Inni (hymn) to our investigators before we leave. It is always way cool. We can't sing too well but they say songs are like prayers so it really invites the spirit. So mom you asked about my P-Day. We get up at 6:15 run and grab a sacked breakfast come back and chill in the residence until 8. Then we do laundery and write letters till lunch at 11:30. Then after lunch we head to the temple. After the temple we have dinner and then we have normal class schedule and devotional. So we don't get too much extra to do besides letters and laundery. You asked about adjusting to the schedule. I have adjusted great. I am tired every morning but it slowy wears off by the time lunch rolls around. The best thing about the mtc is you can always be happy and people aren't like.... dudde why are you always happy???!? I remember in high school people would always be like, yo perkes why are you always happy?!?! Gosh ahah. I can honeslty say that i have been happy every day here in the mtc, and i still get the occasional yo perkes your goofy but i love it haha. So this cool thing in the RC this week. I talked to this lady and just talked to her about life and nothing special. I told her i wanted to her to have the missinoaries over and she said she would like that. She had been to temple square once, and i helped her realize the feelings she felt was the spirit. I told her i want her to pray to know if the missinoaries coming were the servants of the Lord and she said she would. She thanked me so much, and she said it would be okay if i called her this week to say hi. So i'll let you know how she is. Her name is Terrie. Well my wonderful family it is time to go. I only have one minute so i better be off. I love you all oh so much and thank you for all the love and support.

Amore!

Anziano Perkes