21

Wow, I love that MTC picture of Audrey!  Great colors!  That doesn't look like the MTC, though... I guess things change in a year and a half.

Yup, it's my last day of being 20.  Starting tomorrow I'll be an adult... I guess.  Ha!  If you say so, society.

This week was nice because of the weather, sopratutto.  It's been cloudy and grey and cool and I LOVE that.  It's like happy birthday present from God.  Especially since it hasn't rained, and rain really ruins the work.

This week has started well.  We've met some cool new people to teach on the streets and invited tons to our fun English Class.  We got to teach yesterday and did lots of games about phone calls.  It's hard enough to communicate in another language face to face, but on the phone?  Without facial expressions or hand guestures or anything?  I remember how nervous I was in Padova with my first Italian phone calls.  Now it feels like second nature.  "Pronto!"

Rung by rung

Thanks for the concern and prayers, those many of you who wrote to me about my lost scriptures.  So far they're not back, and there's no trace of them.  But hey, everything happens for a reason, I guess. Maybe somebody needed them more than I did.

Though this week felt really long, it doesn't feel like there's anything to write.  Things are going along fine.  Days fly by -- it feels like I'm jumping in and out of bed over and over, week by week.  I guess that's what happens when you do essentially the same things for 18 months.

Baggy Pants and Glasses

Transfer weeks are always longer, it seems.  I feel like I haven't written an email in ages.  Quite a bit of "negative" stuff happened this week, but I feel pretty good right now.  I'll just walk you through what happened:

During a scambio (companion exchange) in Modena where my Zone Leaders serve, I lost my nifty little scambio bag that Anziano Treadway gave me on the train.  It had all my needed toiletries in it, including my contact solution and case.  Since Italy is famously the Land of Inconvenience, I wasn't able to find a case to put my contacts in for a few days.  Thanks to sweat, heat, and allergies, they dried up really fast in my eyes and even started to shrivel.

13th of 16 Transfers

This week is a happy one, if unusually sentimental.  The last six weeks have been some of the best of my mission.  They have flown, as happy moments always do, and I can't believe I'm about to enter my 13th of 16 transfers.

We were confused when the transfer call came, telling me that Anziano Carter would stay a fifth transfer in Reggio while I was being transferred to Brescia.  We were puzzled, saddened, and tried to accept the news for over 24 hours until a second call came straight from the Assistants.  They told us there'd been a mistake in communication, and that in reality I am staying here in Reggio while Anziano Carter is going to Brescia.

We're both relieved at the truth, but the whole experience was just muddling.  I was trying to understand why I was only staying barely over a month in this wonderful place, having hardly started to get to know the members and investigators we frequently visit.  I can't explain here or anywhere else the strangeness of the feeling, especially when it was partly pacified and partly accented when the second call of apology and clarification came.

Either way, I'm staying here, and tomorrow I'll meet my new companion, Anziano Ty Smith.  I don't know a thing about him, except that Sister Jackman in my district and the Assistant, Anziano Johnson, says he's cool.

Bloom and Grow

Ancona was a disaster.  I didn't end up getting my Permesso last week.  The documents were successfully overnighted down to me (by DHL, Gentry!  They're everywhere!) but the Questura was closed and wouldn't let me pull any strings.  I got really angry, but Anziano Carter and I talked it out and I called the office in Milano and everything turned out okay.  We went home empty handed, and just yesterday we took a long train down to finally grab my Permesso and take a long train home.  Oh, well.  Everything happens for a reason, even if we don't get to see it now.

I sure love it here in Reggio Emilia.  The weather has been wonderful.  This time last year I was dying of heat in Ferrara.  Now there's an almost constant cloud cover and frequent sprinkles of rain that keeps it all cool.  The Italians are amazed.  They say they haven't seen a summer this cool for decades.  I'm so grateful, I can't stand the heat.

My sister Audrey is now the Sister Burton!  Or Hermana Burton, I guess.  That's so exciting.  I look forward to watch her bloom and grow as a missionary over the next year and a half.  I know she will be a great tool in the Lord's hands if she is obedient and chooses to be happy.  It's taken me a whole year and a half to get that into my head, so let's hope Audrey learns faster.  She's always been smart.

The Plan

Oh, boy.  Did I have a weird week.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!  Haha!

I'd love to make this a really trippy email, starting at the end and working my way back through the story like a Christopher Nolan film.  So I think I will.  Surprise of the week:  I'm writing this email from Ancona, in all the same clothes I wore yesterday, sweating over phone calls from a bunch of important numbers I don't know.

How did I get 260 kilometers from my assigned area of beautiful Reggio Emilia?  Well, it all starts several days ago when I got the call from office in Milan: "Your Permesso di Soggiorno is ready!"  Last time I heard that I was in Verona and traveled with Anziano Kessler to Padova to simply pick up the legal document that lets me stay here in Italy.  So when I got the call, Anziano Carter and I went to the train station, bought (really expensive) tickets for Tuesday, and went back to work.

Moments

First and foremost, big shout out to my little sister Audrey headed to the MTC a week from today!  Woohoo!  She'll be headed to Mexico to serve for 18 months as a sister missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I feel like I'm in the movie Legacy or something.  "This is my brother Johnny, my dear, dear brother Johnny!"  (That will be funny to such a small group of readers.)

Audrey, the MTC was still one of the best parts of my mission.  Enjoy every moment you have there, because by the time you're a few months into the field, it'll feel like it was only a dream.  If you start well at the MTC, your whole mission will benefit.  Be obedient!  And don't worry about the language AT ALL!