boun natale!

Hello family and friends!

I'm so stressed right now...emailing is one of the most stressful things of the week for me because of this timer they have here at the mtc. I literally have to plan out what exactly I'm going to say before. It's been a really fun week for me. Last week, I got to be Sister Glaus' host sister and show her around the MTC for the first hour she was here. I picked her up from the curb and saw her and Bishop Glaus and literally jumped up and ran to her car so I could be the one who could be her host sister...haha. It was fun but I definitely led her astray all over the MTC campus because I still don't know my way around here. haha. (I know, embarassing. But that is just my directionally challenged self). I've started to speak a lot more Italian this week which has been quite funny. Sometimes I'm too hard on myself and forget that I've only been studying this language for a month but most of the time, I just laugh at myself for the funny things I say. I accidentally called one of the other district's teachers fat in Italian--that was funny and now he won't let me live it down. Anziano Cox and I taught our first lesson in Italian yesterday for 30 minutes! I was super nervous right before but it actually went really well and I was able to say what I wanted to so it was good. I think my voice is starting to get used to singing tenor with my teachers and Anziano Cox. We always start class by singing a hymn in Italian and a couple weeks ago, my teacher let me pick my favorite hymn--which just happens to be "As Sisters in Zion" and so I had both Anziano Cox and Fratello Welch (my teacher) singing it! haha. It was pretty funny. They were good sports about it but I haven't been asked to pick the hymn since. haha. President Uchtdorf's wife came this week for Relief Society--it was awesome and my goodness, she is the cutest and funniest German lady ever. It's fun to get to here from apostles wives. I love everything about the MTC--except for the food still. I thought it would be kinda like BYU-Idaho because it's run by the church, but it's different. I'm just so happy all the time and I'm surrounded by people who are the same way and plus, we're all missionaries--maybe that's the difference between the MTC and BYUI. Sometimes I walk around and see a few missionaries and forget where I'm at and that I'm a missionary too. It'll be neat to be here on Christmas. There's a whole different schedule planned for Christmas day and we won't have classes so it'll be a nice little change. The Italians (all 10 of us) are going to act out the Christmas story in Italian so that'll be fun and then we have a couple devotionals too. That's about all I know so far. I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

Love,
Sorella Hashey