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Friday, March 29, 2013

Welcome to the MTC, Sorella-Ella-Ella Baer!

Sister Anderson from Alpine 3rd Ward 'tagged' Sorella Baer!

Sorella-Ella-Ella's District at the MTC map.

Studying during laundry. Kind of like college, right?

Felice Pasqua Mia Famiglia! (My Family, Happy Easter!)


Thursday, March 28, 2013 - Letter from the MTC 

Well it's about darn time y'all heard from me! 8 days later and all is well in Zion!

Now if you don't mind a few items of business:
1) DADDY-O, WELCOME HOME!!!!!! The Baer cave is more than thrilled to have you back, I'm sure!
2) My dear friends who've emailed me, what a wondrous sight to behold! However we have like 2 millisecs to check and respond to emails, so if y'all could use DEAR ELDER-- advertisement plug-- that'd be greatly appreciated! It's like getting mail erryday! love 'em!
3) Happy birthday, mia cara sorella! Heyyyyya folks, Irma Aubs turned the big 2-4!
4) SYDDIE PIE! 6 days, Babycakes! can't wait for to join me here!

Now, since I have little time to write, I'll just recap my past 8 days, by explaining what happened day-by-day (thanks to a post-it note I kept in each page of my planner!)

MERCOLEDI (Wednesday): holy 9.423 trillion things going on. That first day was CRAZY WONDERFUL! I ate "better than you know what" cake, made my day! I met my compie Sorella Ervin from Washington. She says "cray" and quotes 'Baby Mama' so we love each other. BUT. they say you and your compie are complete opposites, let me demonstrate: she's a vegetarian. I say no more. If you know me well enough you know how much of a vegetarian I'm NOT.

Also: Every two millisecs... "welcome sister! ciao sorella!" wahoo for a newbie sticker on my tag! My district is just lovely. They're from all over the place. We basically have a half-giant in our district, he's 6'7 but weighs a buck seventy, so he's like the world's thinnest, tallest man. Oh, and that sister missionary I met in Olive Garden - going to Milan is not only in my district, but my roommate-- so uh. God bless the OG.

GIOVEDI (Thursday): woke up, went to yoga at 6 AM, holla! World's best! So glad my compie loves yoga! The language is coming more and more and we had this remarkable fireside-type thing for all of the Italian missionaries. We're all brand new and we're a group of 50. (Biggest zone to head to Italy yet!) Ne'er been so stoked! VIVA ITALIA!

VENERDI (Friday): First of all, sweet Syd sent Sorella Holloway (a sister in my district) a letter telling her about me. Uhm, yeah, world's best. So sweet, and the first taste of home I got. We taught due lezione (two lessons) with our investigator Nico on Friday. ALL. IN. ITALIAN. Man, it was like... mega... not in English... which was cool...and hard. But my first weekend in the MTC. just feelin' so grand about now! Teaching is a high. And speaking Italian is a MEGA-HIGH! I looooove this language! I dream it. I pray it. I eat, sleep, drink, breathe Italian. Literally, I can't even pray in English in my head anymore because my sweet little cranial nerve things just wanna conjugate dem Italian verbs!

SABATO (Saturday): Our teacher, Fratello Carrington, walked into class and said, "Posso condividere un pensiero spirituale con voi?" which means "Can I share a spiritual thought with you all?" Lo and Behold, he shared the MOST NEEDED SCRIPTURE AND THOUGHT EVER. Literally all 10 of us in our district had tears. Even me. Yup dem dare. I cried. For the first time in like two weeks. (ref: Helaman 10:3-5... read it, you know you want to!) We SYL'd way hard (speak your language), like that's all we spoke... good times... basically we cut out like 82% of our daily conversation. OH, AND SIDE NOTE FOR MY BEST FRIENDS~ I introduced "Confession" to my district, we totes play it all the time. and they totesssss love it.

DOMENICA (Sunday): everyone and their dog kept saying, "Your first 4 days are tough, but just make it to Sunday, Sunday makes it soooo worth it!" and mercy, is that true. To be honest, the first days were hard. The language is well... foreign, the food- decent. But, I'll forever be grateful for that first Sunday. Since then, times FLOWN and I literally couldn't be happier. But anyhoots. Sunday, I went to choir practice where we had HUNDREDS of missionaries sing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer", remarkable. We sisters got to watch Music and the Spoken Word and then we had this incredible RS with every sister missionary in the whole darn MTC-- powerful! We even sang As Sisters In Zion! Incredibly powerful! Church was sooooo awesome with all of us Italian missionaries! We then went on a temple walk, which was like a reunion of anyone in the MTC with their significant other that lives in Provo. There were TONS of girls waiting at the temple for the missionary walk... so uhhh... yeah... bless their hearts. We ate din-din, (BYU ICE CREAM SHOUT OUT), and then had went to a devotional which was phenomenal! Ended the day with a video of Sherrie Dew's talk in '08 at the MTC. My spirit was fed. I honestly had no idea how thirsty my spirit was, until it was soooo nourished by the Spirit of the Lord. A memorable day for sure. ***Sidenote, sweet Sydney Jorgensen made me the world's coolest notebook out of paint samples, and everyone and their DOG compliments it. In the hallways, in the residence halls, every Italian missionary is jealous. So, uh yeah. 'ppreciate it Syddie Pie:) I love it!

LUNEDI (Monday): Gym-time! My sweet roommate and homie, Sorella Bollwinkel,-- love her-- had AB RIPPER X memorized, too! Wahootie! So we ripped out some P90 and did it with other missionaries, wayyyy fun! Sorella Ervin and I taught Nico "Il Piano di Salvezza" lots of vocab, but the Spirit was strong and one of my favorite topics! I memorized the First Vision in Italian, and recounting Joseph's account in Italian is beautiful!

MARTEDI (Tuesday): Well, first, I woke up blind. Literally, eyes swollen, tears every two seconds, like burning eyeballs. What. The. Crumb. So, seeing as I couldn't open my eyes one ounce, I looked like a crazy person, but I prayed with faith that the Lord would let me see, and lo and behold, I had vision by the end of the day! A teense scary for a while, but all is well! I headed on up to the Italian consolate in SLC to get my visa, with seven other Italian sisters, and one Anziano Budd! In our lesson today with Nico, we finished teaching about the Gospel of Christ and I started to close with my testimony. As I was testifying I felt such overwhelming love for this dear investigator. I felt the Lord's love for him and had such hopes for him. I started to cry, the Spirit flooded the room, and my mouth was filled with what to say. One of the coolest experiences yet. I'm sure gonna love my dear Italians!

MERCOLEDI (Wednesday): In our lesson today, Sorella Ervin and I felt like sharing out of 3 Nephi 17 (aka my fav chapter in the whole Book of Mormon) as we shared and testified, Nico (literally has as much emotion and personality as wallpaper) cried! Boy, was the Spirit there! We felt incredible! This work brings suchhhh joy and happiness! I absolutely love it! Wednesday was the best day yet! by far! Everyone was stoked about life all day! My district was already all received love fortunes and power animals--- so we got close fast!

That wraps up my week! This INCREDIBLE Anziano Lemmo is the world's dearest person. I quote movies like 98% of the time, and he's the only one that gets them! (For example: we quoted All That and Wild Thornberrys at breakfast!) Love him!

This is my work and my glory
:-) I couldn't be happier!

Tutto il mio amore (All My Love),
Sorella Baer

p.s. I love you.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Sorella B's First Letter

Kelsey's First Letter!

3-20-13, 10:15 pm

My Dearest Family:

Well, I MADE IT! I'm in my room with my darling sei altre sorelle (six other sisters) and I love it here. They keep us really busy but I wouldn't want it any other way. 

I feel more and more qualified every minute. The Spirit abides in every situation here if we allow it. 

My dear compie (or in Italiano, collega) is a champ! She says "cray" and we love each other a ton.

This work is bliss. It's still bizarre to me that it's finally here, but I simply couldn't be happier...well maybe if Chick-Fil-a catered the MTC cafeteria!

Tutti mio amore (All my love), Sorella Baer

PS - I love you.