MtC week 3 Jan 27, 2014

Pictures from MTC week #3

Sorella Sorensen and I in front of the temple

Sora Bastidas! She was in mission prep with me at my ward in Hampton Court. Now we are in the same branch!

Mia Famiglia!

Ciao everyone! Thank you so so much for all of your dear elders and emails this week! I seriously am overwhelmed each P-day with the love and support I get from you guys. You are all too good to me! Mom, I got the package and everything in there was perfect! The pens are smudge free so my OCD senses can finally be at rest. So many thanks for that one. Also, I know you are all dying to know the status on the golden oreos, so I'll let you know that my District is officially converted. I think the entire package was eaten in one day. Haha mission accomplished! Allie I got your package too! Thank you so much! I absolutely love the PJ's...the first thing I do when we get in at night is put them on and the last thing I do before we leave in the morning is take them off. The greatest. While we're at it, thanks so much Mike for the send out card! All the sisters in my district are just about as obsessed with those pics of Madden Mike as they are with the golden oreos. And thanks so much Emerson, Finlay, and Merrick for the pictures! Those made my day, I absolutely loved them :)

Every week when it is time to e-mail I feel like there is so much I want to tell you all and never enough time to say it! So sorry if my e-mails are spacey and hard to follow. I'll do my best to try and squeeze it all in there. On your mark, get set, go!

This week everything that I learned about in the MTC was all about love. Funny that Elder Causse spoke at Dad's fireside, because he was our Tuesday night devotional speaker! So that is neat. His message with us was all about how we can make others feel the love of God. He used an analogy of an Italian gellato shop (can't wait for those) and how you test each of the flavors until you find one that you like. He told us that as missionaries, once we make people feel of God's love they will know that our church is what they want to be a part of. He also went on to tell us about how important it is for us to love our investigators with a Christ like love. Which tied in perfectly to a lesson Rachel shared with us in class. We were reading 1 Nephi 8 together when she pointed out that the first thing Lehi did when he partook of the fruit was call to his family to join him. Not just casually like "oh, hey guys. This is pretty neat. Maybe you should come try it." No, he was actively seeking them and trying to get them to partake of the fruit. Rachel then made the connection that in that story, we were Lehi and that our investigators were Lehi's family. When we are teaching our investigators we need to be teaching them as if they are literally our brothers and sisters. I need to be actively teaching the gospel to these people just as much as I would to any of my siblings, because they are just as important. 

Speaking of family - I had another cool experience this week. We did this thing where we practiced teaching lessons to each other as a district. Sorella Sorensen and I taught the Anziani, and they taught us. During their lesson Anziano Tanner talked about our ancestors and how much help we have on the other side. It reminded me of the night I got set apart and how Grandma Alice said she new Grandpa and Grandma Marsh were proud of me and supporting me from the other side, and all the times that Grandfather has said the same about Grandmother. I want you guys to know that I know that is true, and I am so grateful for it. 

So, moving on to our investigators! We got three news ones this week. Each of our teachers role plays an investigator they actually taught on their mission and we have to teach them lessons. This week Sorella Sorensen and I taught Julie, Marco, and Alberto. You guys are NEVER going to guess the problem we were having with teaching....I TALK TOO MUCH. What?! Who would have ever thought that the girl who used to not even be able to order her own food would spend the majority of a lesson talking. Haha turns out when I get in a lesson I just get super nervous, and I freak out and just say the first think that comes into my head then just keep rambling until I run out of Italian words. Then neither me, my companion, or my investigator knows what I am saying. Haha but we are getting so much better! We have been working on planning out our lessons so that I know what I am going to teach so I don't need to freak out, and so that she knows what she is going to teach so she knows when she needs to speak up. Sorella Sorensen is so great and has been so kind and patient through this whole ordeal. Heavenly Father definitely blessed me by having her be my companion. 

Teaching the lessons has been great though! It is a great experience and we definitely learn a lot from it. The spirit is always there so strongly when we teach a lesson, and it makes us so excited to get over to Italy to start helping the people. But the lessons can be pretty funny too...great things happen when you have to teach a whole lesson in Italian with the vocabulary of a three year old. In one of the lessons Sorella Vickers was trying to tell her investigator that she was giving him the Book of Mormon as a gift. The word for gift in Italian is "dono." What she actually said was that she was giving him a "dona" which is a woman. So that was a pretty great one. All in all Italian is coming along though! We definitely learn more and more each day. I definitely have a long way to go but it is crazy to think how far we have come! 

Okay so here are just some other random/neat things that have happened that I want to tell you about.

My companion got a priesthood blessing this week because she was feeling sick. The Aniziani in our district gave her the blessing, and it was such a neat experience. It was just so crazy to feel how strong the spirit was during the blessing. I am with those elders almost every minute of everyday, and I know that there was something different when they laid their hands on her head and gave her a blessing. The priesthood is real. And I am so grateful for it.

I saw Rachie in the temple today! That was the best EVER. I finished the session and saw her in the celestial room and ran over and gave her a hug and just instantly started crying.  It was the neatest experience.

Okay so one of my favorite things about the MTC is Relief Society. It is always such an incredible meeting! Also I love that before we get to watch Music and the Spoken Word. That is something that always makes me feel a connection to home and to Mom, so I love it. Anyway, this week our speaker was Janice Kapp Perry. In her message she had us sing some of her songs from the children's primary song book. The spirit was so strong in that meeting! It was just so incredible to see how the doctrines of the gospel put so simply can testify so strongly. And it was just a testament of how powerful the faith of children can be! It made me so grateful for all my little ones I have rooting and praying for me back home. 

In her message Sister Perry also talked about how a mission is a sanctification process for the missionary. Gosh do I believe that one. But something she said really stuck out to me. She said "if you do not participate in the work it will still go on with out you. It may be slower, but it will go on. But what will happen to you if you are not a part of it?" It tied in perfectly with another idea that Rachel shared with us earlier this week. She told us that God's work will go on. He will save His children. We are just lucky enough as missionaries to be the lifeguard. I want you guys to know that I feel so blessed to be a part of this work and to be a missionary. It has already changed me in so many ways and my testimony has been strengthened because of the work that I do. But I also want you to know that you can be a part of this work too. My purpose as a missionary that I say everyday twice a day is literally to invite others to come to Christ. You don't have to be set apart as a full time missionary to do that too. I know you already do so much of that in your daily lives, and I am so grateful for your examples. Keep it up everyone! We can all be a part of the work together :)

Sorry I don't have time to respond to everyone personally, but I just want to say thanks again to everyone for writing to me personally each week anyway. You are all so good to me. Dad, I hope that everything is going well with work and that you aren't too stressed out or busy! I swear you are headed to a new place every e-mail I get. Also, what is dad's email address? I would be more than happy to add him on here. Mom, keep up all your hard work as stake primary president. I am so grateful I have you as my mom and that I get to learn from your incredible examples. Ricky and Tisha thanks again for the drawings from the boys! I hope all is well with you guys! Doug and Kim I was laughing pretty hard at all your stories of watching the Smith kids...I'm sure you did it well! I can't believe how big Wendy is getting. She looks beautiful! Dantzel and Oliver good luck with work and your busy schedules! The hike you went on sounds incredible. I'm gonna miss the Utah mountains! Allie and Mike thanks for all the pics of Madden Mike! I was DYING over the ones of him with the dog. Cutest! Sonn atta girl with the anatomy! Keep that up! And eat lots of sweet potato fries :)

Love you all so much! Thanks for all your love and support. I am so grateful for you and for this gospel.

Until next week!

Sorella Marsh

Surprise Text

Today I came home from church and saw this text on my phone:

"Doing great this week also"

It is a friend of Sister Sorenson that sent me the first picture too.  I was SO happy to see this!  

I can't wait for tomorrow when I get to read her email!  I love Sorella Marsh!

MTC Week #2

CIAO!

first off i just need to say that the shift key on the keyboard that i am using doesn't work very well...so i apologize for the lack of capitalization. stick with me on this one.

also, once again i have to start out by saying that i have the greatest family! seriously i feel so blessed. thank you all so much for all your emails and dear elders! i absolutely love hearing from all of you. you guys are the best and i'm just the luckiest!

mom thank you so so much for my package! it's a little embarrassing how excited i was to get a whole box just filled with all of my favorite foods. you know me too well. i'm determined to get my district hooked on golden oreos. it's gonna happen.

today was a great day at the temple! i actually got to see the new film! it was so so great. i think the one we saw when i went through for the first time in draper is still my favorite...but still so neat. i love going to the temple. that is going to be a hard thing to give up in italy. fingers crossed the one over there gets finished soon!

it was another great week at the mtc! i feel like i have gotten much more used to the way things work here. we started off the week with a little field trip down to salt lake to go sign some paper work for our visas. we got to take the frontrunner up so that was a fun adventure. dont worry, i gave murray a little shout out as we went by! it was a little crazy to be out in the real world again. i forgot what it was like to be around people who aren't missionaries. i also forgot how to just be a normal person around other people. haha i'm in for a real shock when i get to italy. but on the bright side everything with my visa is all set! we should be getting them within the next week or so.

we were so blessed and for devotional on tuesday night we were able to have elder bednar come speak to us! it was so great. i sang in the choir for the devotional, and the song we sang was nearer my god to thee. one of my new favorites. at the devotional elder bednar answered some questions that missionaries had asked him when he was here on christmas. he addressed a lot of different subjects but one of my favorites was faith. he talked about the difference between belief and faith, and that difference is action. also he talked about how we often think that going through a "trial of our faith" means we have to go through a difficult time in order to gain a testimony. but that isn't how it works at all! going through a trial of our faith simply means putting our faith to the test by acting on our beliefs. then we will receive the evidence. so that was a neat thought, and something that felt very applicable to me as a missionary.

another thing that elder bednar talked about at the devotional was spiritual gifts. i think he was quoting elder hales when he said this but he told us to ask our families to pray for us every morning and every night to have the gift of tongues. i just wanted to ask you guys to do that for me! the italian is coming along, but i definitely need all the help i can get. i want so badly to be able to effectively teach and help the people in italy, and i need some help with the language if i'm going to be able to do that.

the rest of the week was more studying and learning! one neat story - when we were teaching "valeria" our last lesson with her we asked her if she would like to be baptised. she said that she was baptized in the catholic church. so we began talking about how baptisms in the catholic church and in our church are different. while we were talking i thought to myself "this would be the perfect time to show her my book with the picture of me and ricky on my baptism day!" i didn't actually have it with me, but it was just neat to see how applicable that will be in real life. so turn out the book was a brilliant idea! thanks again for doing that for me, i love that thing. it is always so great to be able to look back and read your testimonies and see how much support i have back home. your words are with me each and every day!

speaking of brilliant books...shout out to Allie. my outfit book is my saving grace out here! i absolutely love it. all the sisters in my room are jealous of it. so all ye who mocked and made fun...eat your words.

this week was also my first time doing my service cleaning time. i got to clean the stairs in our classroom building and restock the custodial closets. this sounds crazy...but i actually really enjoyed it. you know you are in the mtc when cleaning feels like a fun relaxing activity. 

It is so fun to have rachie as my teacher! she is absolutely incredible. all the elders and sisters in my district love her. at the mtc there is this thing called speak your language which just means we have to speak as much italian as we can as often as we can. i was speaking with the girls in my room one night and they were like oh my gosh... you just sounded exactly like sorella miles! greatest compliment i could have gotten. it's so great to have her as an example of the type of missionary and teacher i want to be. i am so blessed to have her as my teacher!

it was so fun to hear all the news from home! i cant believe the news about the new meadows ward bishopric! that is hard to lose bishop eyre but murray city is in good hands. and lets be honest... ster-dog, todd harris, and shane evertsen?! spiritual powerhouse! that is going to be the greatest.

Pappy i hope you have a great trip in Atlanta! thanks for all the hard work you do for our family! you are incredible. also i loved what you said about seeing your full time missionaries! i love that i can be associated with them now. tisha, thanks for thinking to email me! i cant wait to get the pictures that the boys drew. doug and kim, i hope you survived your week of being parents of five! im sure you were stellar. also...the mice. i died when i read that. that is the worst thing. i hope that has been resolved! dantzel and oliver i hope all is well in mont-ie! allie and mike i am happy to hear that madden is doing better! i hope you get a chance to make it to the mesa temple! and sonn, love ya bum. keep up all your hard work in school.

thank you all again for your love and support. i love you so much! being a missionary is hard work. there are a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but i know that it cant be easy because i am not working for something that is cheap. i am so grateful i have all of you supporting me back home. i am so grateful for all your prayers! you all are the best. thank you for everything. love you!

until next week!

Sorella Marsh

 and shout out to Jord! This is a German sister in my district. She is HILARIOUS. Turns out everything is funnier when you say it with an accent.

Shout out to big Linds! I live in the same residence hall as the Russians :)

Sister Lee! The sister who went through the temple with me.

 Field trip to salt lake!

Me and Elder Arnold in front of the temple! He was my co-worker at Papa's. He is off to Portugal tomorrow so i had to say goodbye to him today. I'm sad I wont see him around anymore but I'm glad I at least go to see him a few times!

Sorella Marsh and Sorella Sorenson

Here is a picture of Steph and her companion!

Letter #1

Ciao mia famiglia! 

First off, thank you thank you thank you for all of your dear elder letters and e-mails! And for the package too! I feel like the most blessed missionary! I loved hearing from all of you. Thank you all for thinking of me! I'm so happy to hear that all is going well with everyone. Also, Happy Birthday shout out to Tisha last week and Dad tomorrow! 

Life at the MTC has been just great! I'll admit, it took a couple of days of getting used to. The food was a little hard to get used to but I am learning to like it! They give me rootbeer so really what more can I ask for? The schedule was a little hard to get used to at first too. Lesson #1 I learned at the MTC - always sleep with your clock by your bed! The first night here we were all going to bed when a couple of sisters decided they were going to get up at 6:00 so they would have plenty of time to shower and get ready. But my companion and I decided we wanted to get up at 6:30. So we went to bed and then in the morning an alarm went off. I remember hearing it and just thinking there is absolutely no way...it cannot be time to get up yet! I was so glad I still had 30 more minutes to sleep. So I went back to bed then woke up a while later and I was just like oh my gosh...that was way longer than 30 minutes! I totally slept through my class! Then I realized that none of the other girls were up and I was like oh no we all slept through! So finally I climbed down my bed and dug through my bag to find my alarm clock only to find out that it was 4:43 in the morning. All that stress for nothing. Haha so now my clock has its own little place right next to my bed.

My district is great! We are made up on 6 sorelle and 2 anziani. So it's a little different than most but I really like it! Our zone its pretty much all girls too. I think we have 9 boys total. So crazy! It's been fun to get to know so many of the girls though. They are all so great. It's going to be a rough day when we get split up between Rome and Milan. 

So my companions name is Sorella Sorenson (crazy, right?) and she is from Lehi, Utah. Honestly I am so blessed to have her! She is a rock. We are very similar and get along very well, but we both have different strengths and weaknesses so we work well together as a companionship. I already have such a strong testimony of companions and why the Lord sends us out two by two. Just the other day Sorella Sorenson and I had companionship inventory and it was the greatest thing. It was just some time to talk about things that are hard about the MTC and missions in general and figure out what we can do to help each other. She has already been such a blessing to me and I feel like I can learn a lot from her.

Italian is coming along! As you have all heard I am the luckiest in all the land and I get SORELLA MILES as one of my teachers! Oh my gosh it is the best ever! Right now she is acting as one of our investigators (Valeria) so we have been teaching her lessons. It was such a cool experience the first day we taught her! I'll admit it was pretty tough. It was hard to know what I wanted to say to her and not be able to communicate it. But it was so incredible to see that even through the little and very poorly spoken Italian that Sorella Sorensen and I could say we could still feel the Spirit as we taught her. It was so great to experience something a little closer to what it will be like to teach people in Italy! After the lesson I was so pumped to get over there. It just felt so real! I could truly see Rachie as Valeria, someone who needed the gospel and I was there to help her! And I get to follow in the footsteps of my awesome cousin! I feel so so blessed.

Yesterday was a great day too, I absolutely love sundays at the MTC. My district has started referring to them as "spiritual P-days." Haha just such a great chance to feel the Spirit and learn more about the gospel. For our movie we watched the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar - look it up. SO good.

And of course today was temple day! That was the best ever! After the session Sorella Sorenson ran into her uncle's mom and she was the kindest sweetest lady.  As I was talking to her she said she felt like she needed to stay after in the temple for some reason, but she didn't know why. Turns out it was to talk to us! She just talked to us about how much our families will be blessed from our service, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. Then later I ran into Chase (Hannah's boyfriend) in the cafeteria and he said he is in Madie's ward at liberty square! Those were just both such comforting experience where I felt such peace knowing that even if I am not with you guys Heavenly Father is looking out for you. And I am so grateful for that! 

I have seen a few other people that I know in the MTC too! I ran into the girl who went through the temple with me, so that was super neat. I also saw Dalton Moller, my FHE dad from hampton court, my co-worker from Pappa Murphy's, and Dylan Ross from Murray. So lots of friendly faces!

I think that answers everything that you guys asked me...sorry if I missed a few questions! Hopefully next week I will be a little better about learning how to manage my e-mail time. Sorry I can't respond to everyone individually! But that you all so much for your letters. I love hearing from you. 

Thank you all so much for your love and support. Seriously it means the world. I love you all so much and I am so grateful that I get to be with you for eternity! 

Until next week!

Sorella Marsh

First word from the MTC!

I just got an email - not from Steph but from Steph's wonderful cousin Rachel.  She returned last April from the same mission as Steph and teaches at the Provo MTC!  Here is the latest on Sorella Marsh via Rachel!


"Guess what?! Steph is in my district!!!! I'm so pumped!! I just saw her today and yesterday, she is doing incredible. She is so happy, and is working so hard. She already speaks very well in Italian, and she is in one of the best districts I have ever taught.

Just thought I would give you a little update on your sorella marsh :) her p-day is Monday, so you should be getting her emails in a couple days.

Love you!
Rach"

Note from Stephanie's mother: Thank you all for your love, prayers and support of Steph.  It means so much!

The MTC Drop Off

Wednesday, January 8 was the day for Sorella Marsh to report to the MTC.  Rick, Laurie, Allie, Madden and Madie got to be the ones to drive to Provo with Steph.

We stopped at The Brick Oven for lunch and a few last pictures.

 It was actually snowing quite a bit so she broke out her new Christmas coat!  She will be nice and warm!

 Steph's "host" took a picture of us and helped her with the luggage.

 And she's off.  Best of luck Sister Steph.  We love you.

Sister Marsh gets set apart

January 7, 2014 Stephanie was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was an amazing experience.  We are grateful her Grandfather, stake president, Alice, parents and 2 sisters could be there!

 President Child

 Our bishop, who was inaugurated that day to become Mayor of Murray City stopped by after his very first city council meeting.

 April Buchanan, Steph's YW leader came by too.  So nice!

 Jordan and Jeffrey came and took Steph and Madie for one last run to Wendy's!

It was a spiritual experience, for sure.  We love you Steph!  You will be GREAT!

A Little Back Tracking

This is the picture we took for Steph to submit her mission papers. 

 Here she is with her mission call in hand!

 Madie and Steph

 First reaction to reading "Italy, Rome Mission"!

 Some of the people there to support Steph opening her call.

 Plus Ricky and family, Doug and family, Dantzel and family, Allie and family via FaceTime!

 November 9th was the day Steph chose to go through the Draper Temple.  What a wonderful experience!

 Enjoying dinner at Goodwood after.

Steph's Missionary Photos

This is a blog for Sorella Marsh!  She is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Italy, Rome mission!  She leaves January 8th.  We will put her letters and pictures on this blog if you want to follow her adventures.  We will start with just a few pictures from her mission photo shoot.

Best of luck Sister Steph.  We love you and will be pulling and praying for you EVERYDAY!