Sorella Alli
View from our apartment in Florence.
My bedroom and bed.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Letter 7 - 10/29/13
Hi Famiglia! How are you? Well I survived another week here!
It was really good and we made some progress with some of our investigators.
They are all really, really awesome, it’s just so hard to get them to church
because it is so far away for them. My companion and I are over 5 cities in our
area. Our Branch is super small, we have about 15-20 active members and we meet
in the basement of a hotel in one of our cities called Incisa. It is super
expensive for people to get to church because a lot of them don’t have a car
and don’t live in Incisa so they would have to pay for the train in order to
come. So that is what we are struggling with right now. The cities we are over
are San Giovanni, Figline, Incisa, Arezzo and Montevarchi. The furthest from us
is Arezzo and it is an hour train ride away. But it’s through the hills of Tuscany
so it’s absolutely beautiful. Our branch president is awesome. He is super
supportive of missionary work and is trying so hard to help us. We just love
him. Our branch is called The Montevarchi Branch. So this week I tried gelato
for the first time and turns out everyone was right, it is amazing. Sooo good.
We have a little bit of a mosquito problem in our apartment and I woke up the
other day and my eye was completely swollen. I must have gotten bitten on the
eye in my sleep. haha classic. It was awesome, but it’s all better now so it’s
all good. I have gotten so good at killing them though. I can literally see it
on the wall and hit it with my shoe and it’s dead - pretty impressive actually.
My companion can catch them in the air with her hand. We make a good team. haha.
We are still living in Florence, no word on when our apartment in San Giovanni
will be fixed, but we are totally fine with that because we love the other
sorelle we are living with in Florence. We taught a lady that lives up on the
top of this hill outside of the city the other day and when we came out of the
lesson the sun was setting and it was literally one of the most beautiful
things I have ever seen; you could just see all of Tuscany and the houses and
the hills and it was just so pretty. And then we stopped to visit one of our
investigators in Incisa on our way home before the train came and we literally
had to run to catch the train to get home. It was so funny, we were booking it because
if we missed the train we would have been stuck for at least like 40 minutes in
Incisa and been late getting home. Since some of our cities are pretty small
trains don’t go in and out too often so we have to really plan it out and check
the train schedule. I am sending your letter out tomorrow so you should get it
next week! and I haven’t got your package yet but we have training tomorrow so I
might get it then. Thank you so much! :) I think that is it for this week. I
love being a missionary. It is so hard but so rewarding. I am learning so much
and have so much more to learn. I don’t know Italian super well so I am
learning to rely on the Spirit more than ever before. Our investigators are progressing;
we just have to get them to church. Thanks for everything you do for me, I love
and miss you!
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Letter #6 - 10/23/13
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD :)
HOLY COW. So I am living in Italy! It has been the craziest week of my life. Okay so first of all, I don't know italian. hahaha awesome. But my trainer promised me I will learn it so i am hopeful. But I am living in Florence right now and serving in an area called Montevarchi! It is so beautiful and literally in the hills of Tuscany. So pretty. Sorella Lopez and I have about 5 cities we are over and so we basically live on the train. It's pretty fun. Right now we are living with two other sisters in our Florence apartment. They are super nice. They are supposed to be serving in Siena but one of the sisters had an allergic reaction to the mold in their apartment so they had to move to Florence (Firenze in Italian) and so now they are temporarily serving as the Firenze sisters. Sorella Lopez and I are supposed to be living in San Giovanni (one of our cities) but our apartment didnt have gas or hot water for two weeks so they are having us live in the Firenze apartment too until they fix that. Basically we are all the misfits living together, haha, but its awesome, all the sisters are great and we get along really well. My trainer has been sick this past week so that made things kind of interesting. I taught my first lesson with one of the Firenze sisters and guess what I ate RAW FISH - oh my gosh. It was not good at all. But I just kept telling myself how big of a sacrifice it was for the investigator to give to me and I was able to eat it. Then yesterday at one of our appointments, I had to eat prune pudding, yup thats real. But the lady was so sweet I just couldn't say no. Teaching is super interesting here. You have people from all over, so some lessons are in italian...some are in italian/spanish...we have one investigator who speaks romanian....and then some from Nigeria who we teach in English. So a little bit of everything haha I am learning so much and humbled each and every day. I know this is Heavenly Father's work and the only way I will be able to do it is through him. This week has been hard. Really hard. But I know it is all worth it. I just have to have faith - I will learn it all with time. Did you get the package form Spencer yet? Do we know why our phone call was dropped yet? I think that maybe they think it was fraud because I had put the card in so many different times. When I tried to call back they said my card was rejected and then I had to run to my flight so I am not sure - that was all so confusing; I felt so bad. But I am so glad I got to talk to you! Thank you!
I am going to try and send pictures so you can see how pretty it is here. I love it. Tell Will, Abbi and Anna I say "hi" and that I love them! Oh and Charlie too :) haha. Love and miss you mom and dad! Thank you so much for everything you do for me! You are the best. Have a happy happy birthday Dad! I will be thinking of you! Love you!
Sorella Alli
Sister McPeek and I with our new necklaces (thanks Will) before we left the MTC.
Our German neighbors in the MTC
Our MTC classroom - 2nd floor to the left.
Trying really hard to learn Italian.
Two more MTC teachers (Teichert and Lehnardt) with sisters from my MTC district.
Sorella Miles, my amazing MTC teacher.
Our MTC District with two of our teachers.
Sister McPeek and I saying Goodbye to America.
Calling home from London Heathrow.
At the Duomo in Milano - my 1st day in Italy.
At the Ecco Florence.
With Sister Lopez (my new companion) at the Duomo in Florence.
The view from one of the train stations.
My first Italian purchase - matching purses.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Letter #5 - 10/21/13
Ciao Mia famiglia!
So it's my last week in the MTC!!! so crazy. We leave on
tuesday mornign! Our flight leaves around 12:30 so I will be calling sometime
before then! I am so excited to talk to you!! :) I will tell you all the
specifics of my itinerary in my letter I'll write today but we go from SLC to
Dallas to London to Milan. I bought a $5 calling card today so I can call you
from SLC and then save the International ones for our layover in London. So I
got to meet President Nally last week! He was super nice and told me how much
he loved Grandpa Yost. It was really cool. thank you so much for that story
about Grandpa Yost, dad! I loved that so much. I didn't know all of that.
really really neat. And last week I got your package mom! Thank you so much! I
LOVE that scarf! So cute. Thank you so much! And those sees candies are now my
own personal countdown to Italy. I eat one every night before I go to bed. haha
So I need to give what I don't want to bring to Spencer? I can just mail it
home if that's easier.They have a mail center on West Campus. But whatever is
easier for you! I think I want to keep my sheets and pillow and then send home
my blanket, unless I have room. And then I just have a few shirts that I tried
on that don't go with anything that i figure i shouldnt bring all the way to
Italy. OH and then we got a letter from President Dibb this week saying no
I-pods. So I have to send that home before I leave to. Let me know! Conference
was so good! It went by so much faster here in the MTC than it ever has before.
Probably because I wasn't taking notes for Seminary make up. haha I did miss
watching it with the family and the Rands though. That's a good tradition we
have. After conference on saturday night we got to watch the Relief Society
Broadcast and I got to watch it with Bonnie! Ahh it was so fun. She saved
sister Mcpeek and me a seat so we got to watch it together. Loved it. And then
on sunday night for our devotional vocal point came and performed for us which
was super cool! I had to say by to Bonnie which was super sad though. But she
will have such an amazing experience in Boston and Brazil :) I am so excited
for her. She is awesome :) Oh then todya guess what! I got to see Lauren!!! I
saw her right after she got dropped off and was waling away with her host. It was
totally an answer to prayers because I really wanted to see her and then right
before we were going to give up and leave and go back to west campus she was
there. So cool. She looked really happy and excited :) she is going to be such
a great missionary. So proud of her. Oh and this week we found steel wool in
our brownies at dinner. classic west campus. haha but i love it here. it'll be
so weird to leave but I am so excited! I have learned so much here at the MTC
and I have so many things to be grateful for. I know italy is where I am
supposed to be and I can't wait to get out there and give it my all. Here's
something in italian for you :) Io so il vangelo di Gesu Cristo e vero ed Io so
famigli puo essere insieme per sempre. Io so noi siamo figli di Dio ed lui
amore tutti noi. Io motto grato per tu amare ed vi voglio bene! Te amo mom and
dad! tell the family I say hi and that I love and miss them! Hi charlie!
:)
Love you!
Sorella Alli Yost
P.S. thank you so much for all the cards and pictures and dear
elders! I love them all :)
me and Bonnie after watching the RS broadcast together :)
my zone minus a few
I SAW LAUREN :) right when she was walking away with her host after getting dropped off
(Lauren is her really good friend she met at BYU last year. She is serving in Australia)
me and my district
me and my district with the statue of Samuel Smith the first lds missionary
found uncle Joe and aunt Barbara on the wall of the MTC haha
bonnie (her friend from here and BYU) and my nametags
501 verbs...this book is amazing. hahaha
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Letter #4 - 10/2/13
I FINALLY GOT THE PICTURES TO WORK!!!!!!!! Only took me a
month, no worries. haha So hopefully you enjoyed getting a thousand emails
because it only lets me send two at a time :) haha so Spencer came and found me
today and we called the bank and they said they got my travels plans all set to
go and then he had me sign a paper so that you can access my account and
everything from now on while I'm gone. We got to use the info you texted him
dad so thank you so much! I was so temped to text you but I resisted. haha So
tell Spencer thank you again for me! He was so helpful. Let me know if I need
to do anything else. Oh and he told me a really cool story about Grandpa Yost
and President Nally, the president of the MTC, but I don’t have a lot of time
because of sending all the pictures so I will write that in a letter today :)
Also today I got to host the new missionaries at west campus!! It was so much
fun. And guess who I got to host? BROOKE LEFEVER! So cool :) We totally made a
scene in front of the bus and everything and it was great. So tell her parents
she is totally okay and is on west campus with me and Dakota :) Oh and will you
please tell Jamie thank you so much for sending me her address so I can send
her letter from like two weeks ago and write her this week :) THANKS JAMES :)
so this week Sister Mcpeek only had one night terror...but we aren’t entirely
sure haha it's so funny. We wake up and will try and remember if she just
talked in her sleep or screamed. I'm so used to it now. It's crazy. This week
it started to get pretty cold so I had to pull out my space bag full of winter
stuff to get my coat. But now it's getting warm again so I don’t know if I'll
need it again. We will see. Then our zone is basically the best zone ever and
we play bump-lightning-blackout-elimination aka bump (there was a big dispute
on what the "real name" of the game is haha) during our gym time at
night and it is so fun. We all get really into it. And I totally won the first
game! haha Everyone was freaking out because I was making threes and getting
the elders out and they totally weren't expecting it at all. haha classic. But
we have a lot of fun. We are always the table at lunch that is laughing the
entire time. It's so fun and it'll be sad when everyone goes to their separate
missions in a week and a half. 8 of us will all go to Milan together though so
that's good :) Oh dad, you'll be so proud of me! I played the piano for my
branch on Sunday during Sacrament Meeting without even being asked to! It was
scary because I wasn’t planning on it at all and a member of the mtc Branch
presidency was there because one of the counselors was getting released but I
did it! :) We taught a man named Stephen in our TRC on Saturday and it was such
a cool experience. We didn’t think we were going to teach him that day and then
our teachers walked in and told us to grab our scriptures and go because we
have TRC so we didn’t have a lesson planned and so on our way in to the room we
decided to teach about the plan of salvation and so we started with a prayer
and I just kept saying, "Heavenly father, what should we teach
Stephen?" over and over again in my head and the word
"Atonement" came to mind and then I had all these ideas of what to
say and it was the coolest thing ever. The Italian just flowed and we were able
to teach him a lesson that I know Heavenly Father wanted him to hear and the
Spirit was so strong. I am so glad I have this opportunity to be a servant to
the Lord. It is the best calling in the world and the Gospel can bring people
so much happiness. Heavenly Father will always help us; we just have to ask :)
Tell Anna I hope she had an amazing birthday and that I love her :) Tell Will
and Abbi and Charlie I love and miss them too! thanks for all the cards and
letters and dear elders! I absolutely love them! THANK YOU!!!! Love and miss
you mom and dad! Thanks for everything!
Sorella Alli Yost
Sorella Alli Yost
My New Bed
My closet
my really cute work out outfit haha
"we made it to Sunday" on the first Sunday in the MTC :)
me and my district :)
how i really feel about ironing... sorry grandma :)
how i feel when i get home at night haha i always tell everyone to go to bed. hahahah sleep is precious
I miss my puppy. so i talk to a picture of him haha
telling charlie to sit :) hahaha
the girls waiting for the train to SLC
trip to SLC to see the consulate :)
famous map picture :)
really excited about my 1st package :) THANK YOU MOM AND DAD
one of the times i ran into Bonnie :) LOVE HER.
my classroom aka where I basically live every minute of every day.
we were really excited to wear pants haha
this is my stash under my bed haha
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