Days and weeks go by here so fast

Snippets from Mitchell’s latest letter!

Well I no longer have a lot of time to write any more. Missions are very very busy after you leave the MTC. The mission field is definitely a lot more fun, more work and just more satisfying.

I am no longer able to do picture of the day, but I still write in my journal every day. That is really hard. 
Today is my 84th day in the field or week 12 out of 102 weeks pretty much since I’ll be leaving a couple of weeks early to catch the semester out at school. I found out that I can transfer early (6 weeks), but I will just leave on April 14th or so. I want my last day here to be a p-day so I can go see everywhere then leave the next day. We will see how it goes…

Yesterday we were teaching this guy named Ettore and his friend. His family was there, but not really part of our gospel conversation. Either ways, he is just an awesome guy. And his friend, I forgot his name, was cool too!....I actually understood what they were saying for once. It was really nice.

Honestly, the mission is starting to feel like a dream. Well, maybe not the mission, but the MTC feels like a long dream. Days and weeks go by here so fast. It’s incredible. I’m already half way through my first transfer. Sometimes it feels like there’s not enough time in the day to do everything. Writing in journals and letters is hard, but I do try.

Talking about going back to Idaho and running service programs…

Well, I don’t know what program I would want to run. I really want to coordinate like 3, but if I can’t be a coordinator, I will run any program they need me to.

So I definitely miss going to the temple. Nothing really to compare it to out here. I do like the landscape out here. It’s very beautiful. Really the closest thing we have to the temple is just reading my scriptures. I will finish the book of Mormon today or tomorrow then I will start the old testament in English and the book of Mormon in Italian. The book of Mormon is so much more interesting out here. I get a lot more out of it. It’s pretty cool.
Well I thought I’d tell you a little of what I did today. I got up and exercised this morning. Then, I started reading more of Ether. Well then we went out to downtown Napoli to order supplies. That took most of the morning. Came home, made food, had an appointment fall through, took a nap, went back out. Well we have an appointment at this house which is pretty far away and we spent 3 ½ hours trying to find it. We did. Well, after that we took a train back and we were outside our apartment pretty much and this guy wants us to come get ice cream again which was cool. Then we went and got pizzas and came home.

The language is going well. I am trying to open my mouth and talk with as many people as possible. It is hard to understand people here. Most speak with a thick accent, but I have gotten a lot better. I have noticed a great improvement in the month that I’ve been here. Today we talked with a lot…a lot of people. It was just a great day. Like the first guy I talked to said he believed in the Book of Mormon. Sounds simple? Probably not. I just met this guy today, hopefully we can see him again soon. We encounter a lot of strange stuff. For example this kid lucky belives in Joseph Smith, but he doesn’t know what that means. Golden investigators are still hard to work with, but I love it, haha. I love difficult people. 

This guy we were talking to for a while today said ciao bello to my comp and ciao bellissmo to me. Which is meant like by handsome. It’s not gay either, it’s normal. He said it in front of his wife and kid. People here love my blonde hair and blue eyes.

Oh I wish you could see the kids here. They are so funny but so screwed for life living here. I wish you understood Italians. They are so great. I just had a great day.