Letter #3 - 9/25/13

Ciao Mia Famiglia!

Okay so we just got back from the temple and I've decided computers just hate me because I cannot figure out how to attach pictures like I did the first week. I have no idea. SO I will try again right before I log off but I wanted to have enough time to write! This week was really good! The weeks are going by so fast but then the days never end. It's so weird haha but last Thursday I got your package, Dad! Thank you so much! I loved it!!! and so did the other sorelle haha but thank you thank you thank you! I loved it all :) especially the abnormally large pill case haha I'm sure Abbi just loves that. haha have you been getting my letters? I send one every Thursday so check the mail mom!! haha you need me to come back because no one gets the mail anymore now haha oh so funny story. The other night I was in bed before 9 pm and asleep by 9 pm. It was one of the best days ever. haha remember how I used to go to bed at like 3 am? Yeah no. here I'm the one that wakes everyone up in the morning and tells everyone it's time for bed. how weird am I? I know. oh so this week I was called to be one of the two Sister-Training Leaders in our zone. It’s me and then Sora Merkley (the red head haha love her) she is going to Romania and she is awesome. We have a lot of fun together because we are companions for all of our meetings now. But so basically Sister-Trainers are District leaders and then together they are responsible for the sisters in the zone. fun stuff. haha I'm still figuring it all out but so far things are going really well and I like it! Then I bought a mini Inni book this week (Italian hymn book) because we sing all the time and all our teachers told us we would want them in the field so we all got one from the bookstore and it is so nice. Singing in Italian is tough though haha they will just randomly have three words you song on one note and we all just laugh. it's great. One of the Anziani in our district left for Italy on Monday! He was in the group that was at the MTC before we got here and he got delayed but he finally got to leave! He was really excited and it was so weird to think that will be us in three weeks. I see people all the time here. It's great. I see Bonnie a lot which is such a blessing and then this week I got to see Mercedes! And Steven Jensen! And then today when we were walking home from the temple my companion and I were talking to one of the Anziani and I told him that my friend Dakota comes to the MTC today and that maybe we will see him. And then I was like actually, I really really want to see his mom. She is awesome haha And then literally 2 minutes later the Jones drove by, saw me, brought their car to a stop at the curb and got out and hugged me. It was literally the coolest thing ever. When we were in the temple I totally prayed to get a hug and then Sister Jones comes out of nowhere and gives me a huge hug and I almost cried. haha Oh but I totally went psycho sister missionary on Dakota because he got out of the car and came towards me to hug me and   I was like "AHHH I am not allowed to hug you!!" and stuck out my hand and my entire zone started laughing hysterically haha It was great. I felt so bad I couldn't hug him. I gave him a lot of handshakes though haha And I actually just saw him! He is on west campus so tell his mom he is on west campus! He was doing an assessment with his district and they all looked super nice! And he looked really happy so tell Sister Jones he is doing okay :) Sister McPeek only had one night terror this week...that we know of haha She just started screaming and I told her she was okay and to go back to sleep haha I've gotten to the point where I barely remember if they happen or not now. I'm so used to it haha she's the best. That is so cool you met her mom, mom!! haha I was reading your letter and was like "Sorella! Our moms are friends!" And she was like "NO WAY!" and I said "YES! Dammi Cinque!" which means "high five" hahahah we are so weird. But I love it. I saw Spencer again the other day! I love that he comes and checks up on me. Well I think that's all for this week! Sound like everything is going well back home! tell Abbi and Anna and will and Charlie I say hi and that I love and miss them! Tell Anna happy birthday for me next week :) The MTC is great, The spirit is so strong here and I am learning so much. I am so glad I have the opportunity to be a missionary for Heavenly Father and I can't wait to get to Italy :)

Love and miss you mom and dad!

Sorella Alli

Alli with Dakota Jones and his mom Shelley.  Dakota is from our home Stake and entered the MTC today - he is also in the West MTC and will serve in Iowa.

Letter #2 - 9/18/13

HI FAMIGLIA!!

Okay so this week was crazy, yet again. But it went by so fast. Thank you so much for your emails mom and dad!! I love them so much. And the pictures make me really happy :) Hopefully it's okay that I just respond to you both in one email. So i have exactly 60 minutes for email and we don't get to print out our emails...as far as I know. But we heard that we get 90 minutes once we get to Italy so fingers crossed for that. THANK YOU for the dear elders mom! I love love love them. every single day. They make me so happy. So this week Sorella McPeek only had one night terror. haha but it was the scariest one so far haha she woke up and started screaming that there was someone in our room and so I just told her no one was there and to go back to sleep. haha should I have gotten up to check and make sure no one was there? Probably. Did I? nope haha I just went back to sleep too. The other Sorelle said they remember hearing her screaming but they thought it was just a bad dream. Funny stuff. Oh so another story. Sora Brey, one of the sister missionaries in our zone going to Romania found which we decided to be a small shard of glass in her hamburger the other day. So that was really quite exciting. She took it up to them and they apologized and said they would report it to the place they got there meat.Gotta love the West Campus food. But not to worry, I overcame my fear of the community milk dispenser so now I have cereal at almost every meal. it's delicious. Today we got to go to the temple which was awesome. Love that place. The sweetest little grandma gave us a big hug which was so cute. We miss hugs here. haha Oh!! And last thurdsay I got your package!! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I love it! and i cant wait to open those cards! Best family ever. And the pumpkin bread is delicious. I shared some of the treats you sent with the girls in my district and they said to tell you thank you and that you are amazing. haha I agree. Did you ever get my letter I sent last week? Sorry we only get to write on P-day so it was like forever long haha Everything I had wanted to say all week put into one letter :) Mom did you have a good birthday??!?? It was so hard not being able to call and sing to you :( but it sounds like dad spoiled you! Good job dad! :) haha Oh and every one here says you look like you could be my sister so you better not be feeling old. Last week we memorized the first vision in Italian so we are pretty proud of ourselves haha and we have memorized our purpose and the baptisim invitation. Italian si coming along, but I am definitely learning a huge lesson about patience. I know the language will come, I just have to keep doing my best and be proud of the progress I am making. My teachers tell me I am really good at understanding the language. I can understand what they are saying like 85% of the time. But then actually forming my own sentences is a struggle haha But I am getting a lot better. I'll definitely have it down in about 17 and a half more months. hahaha Italian is really pretty though. Definitely better than french. haha remember how bad i was at french? Yeah well now that I don't need to know it, it will randomly pop up while I am teaching a lesson or saying something in class. haha so then my teachers just look at me and are like  "Francais?" and i just laugh and say "oops. my bad" just like dad taught me to haha Mom we definitely ate a whole bag of goldfish on sunday in honor of your primary class. It was delicious. I told the girls I pretty much eat a bag every week while you teach CTR 5's and they laughed. haha they are so fun. We all get along so well, i love it. Okay so funny story. My district finally got to experience their first "Random cry" with me. Classic. So what happened was i got the package from you and i was sitting on my bed reading the card from mom and then i opened up the second card you sent that i could open that day...and it was from charlie. And that plus the card from mom plus everything else totally triggered the tears. I just stared crying. Like legitimately weeping on my bed reading that card. And I'm like "GUYS! It's from my dog!!" And so they come in and they just watched and laughed. hahaha It was hilarious. Then they told the teachers the next day and they all had a good laugh for about 5 minutes. So I am glad that my random cries are appreciated here. haha Sister Carter in my district got food poisioning last night so we are alls uper tired today. we were up from about 12:30 to 3am. she was throwing up for like 20 minutes straight. so we took her out to the front desk and they called the on call doctor and got her some medicine. So that was really fun. But she is feeling a lot better now so it's okat :) we all felt so bad for her. Well I am almost out of time so I will go and try to send some more pictures! Thanks for all your love and support! I love and miss you all so much but i am so happy! Being a missionary is the best. Tell Kie i am so happy for her and to write me and ask me any questions! She will be a great missionary! I am so excited for her!! Love you mom and dad! Tell Abbi and Anna and will and charlie I say hi and that i love them! Have a great week!
 

Sorella Alli Yost

 

 

Alli and her district

 

 

Alli and her really good friend Bonnie Tantillo who is going to Brazil.

 

 

Alli with Brady Johnston from our ward.  He's headed to Mexico.

Letter #1 - 9/11/13

Ciao Mia Famiglia!

Okay so it's finally P-day! Thank goodness. This week has literally felt like a year. No joke. But it has been so good! Ah okay I don't know where to start. So last time you saw me I was walking away with Sister Harrison. I will probably never see her again. haha She is going to the Philippines and was super super nice. So after that they took me to this big assembly line where they give you your name tag and give you this huge bag of books and study materials and it's all great and wonderful. And I got to see Maryann and Bonnie! It was seriously an answer to prayer. I was so happy. And they both made me cry. Of course. And then turns out I am on West Campus aka Wyview/Raintree apartments and I actually love it. It is a lot smaller and open and we get to do a lot of walking. The only down side is the food. It isn't that great but they always have soup and stuff to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches so I am totally happy. Plus it helps me not get fat. So that's a plus. And we kind of have an agreement not to complain about the food too much while we are at the MTC because we are going to be in food paradise the rest of our missions. Soooo it's great :) Then I was taken to my new classroom with the rest of my district. My district consists of 4 Sorella, me and Sister McPeek and the Sister Woods and Sister Carter. They are all so awesome, we all get along great and have so much fun. Sister McPeek is from Arizona and she is literally the cutest girl ever. I adore her. And then Sister Woods is from Spanish Fork and is hilarious. We have this super creepy face we make to each other randomly across the classroom during language study and it's hilarious. Love her. And then Sister Carter is from California and she is super sweet. She is part Italian and is like literally amazing at the language. Its ridiculous. Oh! MOM I GOT ALL OF YOUR DEAR ELDERS. Every single one. So don't worry! Thank you so much! I am definitely the most loved person when it comes to mail in my district. So thank you mom! I LOVE YOU! And thank you so much for those cookies! They were amazing, my district loves you. Oh quick question? Do you know where you packed my converters for when I get to Italy? I couldn't find them when I was unpacking so I figured I should ask. Anyways, so the first day was super overwhelming. They just start speaking straight Italian the moment you walk through the door. No English. At all. None. So we are definitely learning haha we have a fake investigator that we started teaching on friday and yesterday we taught her a whole 30 minute lesson in Italian! And we got her to pray with us! Such a neat experience. The other companionship got her to commit to baptism but whatever. haha She's part Italian so it shouldn't count. hahaha just kidding. Oh so funny thing about my companion. She has night terrors. So....she had two the second night in the MTC. haha it was one of the most terrifying experiences ever. Luckily she kind of warned me about it the day before but then when she started screaming like bloody murder at 1:30 am I totally freaked out and started screaming too. Then when I pulled myself together and realized what was going on I was just like "Sorella, are you okay?" and she woke up from it and apologized and I just laid there in bed with my heart racing like 100 miles an hour haha then....like an hour later it happened again and this time she was yelling for her mom too. But oh you better believe I was ready this time haha i was just like "Sorella, You're okay. Just go back to sleep." And just like that she went back to sleep haha she felt so bad the next morning, but it was totally fine. I am just glad she warned me. She is the best companion for me. Seriously. It's great. Then on sunday I got to see Brady Johnson! So crazy. And I've seen Spencer twice Dad! He came into my class and took me out of class and checked in on me yesterday. He has been so nice. So there are 16 people in my branch, 13 going to italy and 3 going to romania. They are all super nice and so funny. We have a lot of fun. This morning half of us had to go to downtown SLC to meet with the Italian Consulate and sign some paperwork for our visa which was pretty fun. They didn't give us very specific instructions at all and we rode the trax and train so I really have no idea how we made it there and back haha then today we went to the main MTC campus because an Anziano in our district had a doctors appointment so we all went and ate at the main MTC campus so I finally got to experience the famous wrap bar. It was delicious. We all said we felt like we were in the great and spacious building because it was so huge and there were so many things compared to our little tiny cafeteria with one line haha they open up a second line if it gets too busy. Crazy. But we love it. Ah mom I found someone who watches the bachelor here! I didn't think that would ever happen haha sister carter watches it! So naturally we talked about our love for Des and Chris for like 15 minutes. Oh an Juan Pablo. Duh. haha best thing ever. Oh and I have this picture of charlie that I legitimately started talking to the other day. Like told him to sit and everything. The sorella started calling me pazzo which means crazy in italian haha thought you might appreciate that :) Thank you so much for all your letters and package! I feel so loved! I miss you all like crazy but know this is exactly where I am supposed to be! It is really hard. But so rewarding. I can already see how much progress I have made with Italian and how much my testimony has grown and I am going to make the most of the next 5 weeks here! There is so much more to learn. I am doing really good about not stressing too much and just going with the flow. I know the language will come eventually and that it's a process. Thanks for all your love and support! Don't forget to feed charlie! ;) Give everyone back home a hug for me and tell will to take it easy on Tyler haha LOVE YOU!!!

Sorella Alli

 

 Alli took one of her Dad's name tags from his mission to Switzerland.

 

 Alli vowed to never iron, guess she made it one day.

 

 Alli's first companion.  Sorella McPeek from Arizona.

 



Alli and her companion with the other companionship sharing their room.