Adios CCM!

So to explain the subject, CCM is MTC in Spanish. That's right, I am leaving tomorrow. I can not even believe this time has come. I'm pretty sure every emotion is running through me right about now. I am way excited, scared, nervous, happy... EVERYTHING! I don't feel very prepared when it comes to Spanish but I can bear my testimony so hopefully that will work for now. I know my last weeks e-mail wasn't too full of stuff because I didn't have much time, sorry about that. As far as my leg goes, it is fine. They took an x-ray to make sure the clots weren't calcifying or whatever and he said they were ok, he saw something in the xray but said it wasn't a problem. I am just taking some blood thinners and have to massage my leg out every night but I will be just fine. It doesn't even hurt that bad anymore. As far as the fire alarm goes... well, it is a loooonnnggg story but to make it short, the alarm goes off at like 12:00 am, I jumped out of bed and started yelling at someone to turn it off... I was like pacing the room all mad that the alarm was going off. Who even knows why, then my roommate starts hitting the smoke detector and it took us about 3 min to realize it was coming from a big red box, not the smoke detector. So another roommates was like, I SMELL SMOKE. We all kind freaked out at this point, I grabbed my name tag and my blue care (which gets me food and such) and we left the building and went to the gym. We were all just sitting in the gym laughing about how funny the whole situation was. Come to find out there was not fire at all, some pipe had burst. It was grand experience. Really wonderful and funny to look back on. I didn't know a fire alarm could get me so worked up. Ha ha. This week has gone by SO fast! Nothing too exciting has happened, just been working hard to get all the things done that I need to. This P-day was VERY busy. A member of our stake presidency had us write our own "Declaration of Faith" before we leave for the field. Mine kind of sums up my feelings and goals here from the MTC so I thought I would put it in this e-mail. I love you all! Thanks for the letters and I can't wait to hear from you while I'm in New York! Feliz Navidad!!!!!!

Declaration of Faith
I will cheerfully go about doing good every day of my life. As I continue to rely on the spirit, I will always follow its promptings and never have the words, "I wish I would have listened..." come to mind. I will love the people I serve and I will teach them of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice and love for each one of us. I will bear my testimony often and work on my personal testimony every day. I will live worthy of the spirit every day. I will use the atonement everyday. I will live worthy of the title: daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, friend and one day wife and mother. I will work my hardest every day because I know my family, my companion, my investigators, my mission president and most importantly my Savior are counting on me. I will learn Spanish so I can teach effectively. I will remember my Savior every day and show gratitude for all the blessings in my life. I will never forget that I am a daughter of God and that he knows me personally and will remember that who the Lord calls, He also qualifies. I will come home knowing that I did everything in my power to fulfill my purpose.

Hope you enjoyed that. I have loved my time here at the MTC! I am sad to leave but excited to go. Thanks for all of you. Have a wonderful Christmas and never forget the reason we celebrate this wonderful time!
Love, Hermana Passantino
PS: Sis Uchtdorf spoke in Relief Society! It was awesome!
PPS: Rhandi and Rochelle, thanks you SO much for my Christmas packages! You rock!!! I will send you a letter from the plane. Love you!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!!

It's snowing! Who knew I would ever be so excited about snow. Well, it's actually cold but I think I am loving the snow because I have no need to drive in it. Ha ha. And it brings the Christmas spirit. Yesterday is the first day it actually felt like Christmas time. Since I was here before Halloween it hasn't felt much like Christmas. Wasn't the Christmas devotional fantastic? I love hearing from our Prophet. We are so blessed! This last week FLEW by! I can't believe it's Monday again. If my whole mission goes this fast it will be done before I know it. It was a really good week. Sister Lant, the General Primary President came and spoke on Tuesday and it was great. We got a new district on Wednesday and they seem pretty good. There were two new Hermanas in the group. They both have pretty rough family situations and it just makes me so grateful for the supportive family and friends that I have. So Wednesday we got called down to the health center (by "we" I mean my district). It turns out that there was another major outbreak of the swine flu here at the MTC. It hit 40 people in two days. So we all got the H1N1 vaccine.... how exciting. I hope everyone is staying healthy there! It seems that everyone at the MTC is sick. When we are all gathered together for devotional you hear someone cough every three seconds... it's gross. My teacher, Hno Hubers, grandpa died this week so he was really sad all week but he also felt at peace. I love how much the gospel can help us in times like those! What a great gift we have to know that we can be with our families forever! I had another physical therapy appt on Thursday. The physical therapist (who is neighbors with Nathan Melton by the way) wanted me to recheck with the doctor here and have my leg checked out. The doctor here didn't even look at it but is sending me to some Doctor in Orem to get all the fluid out of it. So I have that doctors appt tomorrow. It has been going down a lot the last couple days so maybe he won't have to do anything, I heard they have to stick a big needle in the get all the nasty fluid out. I guess we'll see! Darn trashketball! So we heard a rumor about Tiger Woods... I don't know if it is true, rumors run like wildfire here at the MTC. Everyone is dying for outside information. Ha ha. I get my travel plans this Friday! I am so excited. A lot of people have been writing me about Christmas packages so just as a general statement (I mean, whoever wants to can totally send me a package ;) Please send them to my New York address. It should be on my blog too. It will be easier for me to get them and not worry about the weight of my bags on the airplane. Some have asked what I want. The things I need are WARM CLOTHES! I am already freezing here in Utah and I can't even imagine what New York will be like. Sweaters and cardigans would be great. And stamps are always fantastic! Thanks for those of you who asked. (Wow, I hope that didn't sound rude like I expect anything, writing in here is just a lot easier than writing a bunch of letters because I can't e-mail everyone! Sorry!) I can't begin to express how grateful I am for the love I have felt from all my family and friends. I feel SO loved! I love the Christmas season and the joy that it brings. It breaks my heart to know I won't be with my family. They are what make Christmas perfect for me. I am grateful for the chance to try to make someone else have a fantastic Christmas! I bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting yesterday in Spanish. I was so nervous but it turned out ok. I think I can do this Spanish thing! Keep writing if you can. This free dear elder situation is only gonna last two more weeks :) Love you all! Have a fantastic week!
Love, Hermana Passantino
PS: I love when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang "Unto Us A Child Is Born!" It was amazing and it reminded me of my mom :)
PPS: My first companion (Sister Sanders that went to the Peru MTC) went home on a medical release. I don't know what is going on but please please keep her in your prayers!
PPPS: My major study topic this week is Faith!

3 Weeks to Go...

Hola! How is everyone doing this week? Well, my past week was really good. It was kind of weird having Thanksgiving because it sort of threw us off but it was such a good day. Well, let's start from the beginning... (ps: sorry, I know these weekly updates could get boring, when I am in the field they will be a lot better because it won't be the same thing every week) Anyway, the rest of P-day was good. I got 4 packages in the mail :) One from Mom and Dad, one from Kindra, a pumpkin pie from Alaina and her sister and one from Hna Sanders family! They sent me a big box of candy! They are so nice! Side note, I got a letter from Hna Sanders and she is the only North American sister in the Peru MTC. It's been pretty tough so if you could keep her in your prayers that would be great, oh and Elder Fogelman is in here district there... crazy! Anywho... Tuesday was awesome! I was singing in the choir for devotional and ELDER OAKS came! It was so awesome! I love when apostles come because they bring such an amazing spirit! Wednesday I had some more physical therapy (more on that later) and had subs as teachers, because it was the day before thanksgiving. Thursday, Thanksgiving, was great. We had our morning devotional with Elder Holland! It was so cool! A couple weeks ago we wrote out questions we would ask an apostle and he answered some of them. Then just talked about what he is thankful for. We did a humanitarian project which was great. I got to help out a lot because they had all the coordinating sisters help and so I got to spend some time with the MTC presidency which was really cool. We had a evening devotional and Pres Smith had anyone who wanted to talk about what they were thankful for. The meeting had the potential to be really good but some people just acted really dumb up there and so it was an interesting fireside. And they turned Christmas lights on at the MTC! You all know how much I love Christmas lights so that was really exciting! Friday I taught the first lesson for the first time in Spanish. I think it went ok, I knew a lot more than I thought I did so that was exciting. The frustrating thing is when I think I finally get somewhere in Spanish someone starts going all crazy speaking it and then I realize I don't know that much. Ha ha, but it's ok. I can see the improvement so it's all good. Saturday we went to the RC (the referral center where people who call in for something or who get on mormon.org and chat. We go in there and call people to make sure they got their free Book of Mormon, etc. or chat with people) anyway, we went there and I got to talk to two really cool people. Both of who accepted to have the missionaries come over, it was great! Sunday is always wonderful! I sang in church with the other Hermanas and that was ok I guess. I've been fighting a cold all week so my ears and nose were all plugged up and I couldn't hear myself, hopefully the spirit was there because it could have sounded bad! I got a letter from Shanelle today and she got transferred out of the city which means she probably won't be my trainer :( But that's ok, wherever I go will be great. I also don't think I will be going early, if I was I would probably know already. We are getting a new district in our zone this week and 3 new hermanas are coming! Woo Hoo! I am still doing physical therapy for my leg. Today the physical therapist worked really hard on it and it hurt so bad! He says he's not sure why it is not getting better. There is a part that is just full of fluid and then all these hard spots around it. One at t he bottom of it hurts really bad. He said he thinks those area blod clots but I guess there is another hard thing like floating around in the fluid part that he isn't sure of either... really assuring I know. Ha ha, but I am sure it will get better before I leave. I just wear an ace bandage around now. It's grand. I love you all a lot! Keep writing! And take advantage of dearelder.com, those free instant letters will only work for three more weeks :) Love, Hermana Passantino
PS: This week I'm studying Christlike attributes :)

Feliz el Dia de Accion de Gracias!

Hello to All! I hope that everyone is having a fantastic thanksgiving week! This week has been really good! The new hermanas and I have been getting along very well and we have a lot of fun together. Let's see... there wasn't a lot that happened this week. We had Sis Cook from the YW General Precidency spoke at RS this week and it was amazing. We got 700 new missionaries into the MTC this week so it was a little crazy. They don't have any new ones come in on Thanksgiving week so the doubled up last week. It has been very packed! Other events this week. I went to the doctor for my leg. It was still really sore and full of fluid so I decided to have it checked out. The doctor told me I need to do physical therapy soooo.... yeah. I have to do physical therapy twice a week. They put heat on it, then massage it out (which is SO painful) then I have to do all these stretches and exercises, then they do some sort of electro therapy something where they put electric shocks through my leg. It's very interesting. I guess I banged it up pretty bad. There are some really hard spots in my leg that the doctor said need to be taken care of or they might turn into some sort of calcium something. It's interesting but it's getting taken care of so no worries. It's just annoying to have to go twice a week. Oh well... it gets me out in the real world. And by real world I mean taking a 5 minute walk to the BYU health clinic. Ha ha. I have figured out that the MTC has given me a wonderful gift, and that gift is being able to take outside shots in basketball. I know, it's a miracle! I have avoided playing basketball in the gym because let's be honest, I am no good at outside shots. But I decided to join a game of knockout (they call it lightning here) and what do you know... I won! And it wasn't because they were being easy on me. We were playing from the three point line and I just kept making them. It has now become my favorite gym time activity. CJ, you would be proud of your sister! We'll see if this gift actually lasts. So I have decided that it would be fun to let everyone know what I am studying this week and then have whoever wants to study it too! And write me about what you studied! Sounds like a good idea right? So, this week I am studying two different things. One is the topic of grace and the other is the topic of obedience. I am studying grace because it's interesting and obedience because that is the topic I am writing my talk on this week. So write me if you have any insights you would like to share! I teach my first lesson in Spanish this week. Please pray for me, I don't know how I am even going to do it! It will be Thursday night, so any prayers are welcome :) Our favorite district in the zone left for Argentina today. We were all so sad to see them go. Then today we were walking to lunch and heard someone yell out, "Hermana Passantino!" I thought I was seeing things because there were the elders that were supposed to have left early this morning. I guess their plane got delayed till tomorrow. It's too bad for them but we were excited to see them back! It's like you get into a little family with your zone and it's so sad to see people leave. I have decided to make this week my week of gratitude so to end I just want to list off some things I have been feeling extra grateful for lately, in no particular order.
1. The restoration of the gospel
2. The temple
3. My family!
4. Good examples in my life
5. My families gourmet cooking
6. Health
7. Warm beds
8. The priesthood
9. Friends
10. The atonement
11. Knowing I am a daughter of God
12. The Book of Mormon
13. Letters :)
14. Friendly people
15. People who talk to me in Spanish, but talk really slow 16. E-mail 17. The snow 18. Joseph Smith 19. My companions 20. My membership in the church!
I hope everyone's Thanksgiving is fantastic! I know it will be a different one for me and my family but I am so grateful to know that I can be with them forever so really, one or two thanksgivings away won't be too bad! I love you!
Love, Hermana Passantino
PS: For all of you who think I hurt myself from being competitive... that's so not true. I was just trying to get my stupid eraser in the trash can... anyone else would have done the same thing!
PPS: Laurie... I love my Bidwell junior high shorts!

It Feels Like I'm Repeating Week 1!

Hello To All! Another week has passed me by and I'm about to hit the half way point here at the MTC... pretty crazy! This week was actually a really hard one. I knew I was going to miss Hna Sanders but I didn't realize how much I would! It strange how after three weeks of a constant companion I felt SO strange without one. I've been getting used to being a solo and the elders in the zone are really good about it. I pretty much switch from one companionship to another, it's funny and it's a good way to get to know people. The new hermanas are great! Once again, two of them moved up to a higher spanish class so we only have two new ones. They are awesome! Hermana Veazy is from North Dakota and going to the Oakland/San Fran mission and Hermana Wolfgramm is from Salt Lake and is going to Spokane Washington. We share a room and I do a lot of different activites with them so it's really fun. We are all pretty different but get a long very well. Luckily they are early risers like me and we get stuff done in the morning. I know Dad, I am sure you don't believe I am an early riser but I get up by 5:30 every morning so I have time to ready my spanish Book of Mormon out loud. Well, a little run down of the week. Monday was a good P-day, I felt very strongly that day of needing to be better and more diligent in my studies and I've tried really hard with that this week. We had a zone activity that night where some elders from the zone taught us to our needs and we taught them. It was really good and it was fun to be able to teach someone something that wasn't part of the first two lessons. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the first two lessons, but it was a good break. It was also nice to be taught as who I am. We role play ALL the time and always pretend to be investigators so it was nice to just be me.. Um, tuesday was a pretty crazy day. I almost went to the doctor for my leg. Don't worry, it's better now. It just started filling up with lots of fluid type of stuff and was getting us worried but I decided to wait it out and it's going down now. (PS: family I sent you a pic of it... it's great!) Wednesday I had to say goodbye to my dear Hermana Sanders... it was so sad. The whole day was pretty off for me but meeting the new Hermanas was fun. I got to do a little MTC orientation with them on Wednesday and it felt nice to be helping someone else out instead of worrying about myself so much. Hna Peterson (one of my teachers) paid me a very high compliment and said that I am at the same level with gospel understanding that she was when she returned from her mission. I think it was something that I needed to hear because I have been feel very inadequete latley. I like her a lot... I think one reason I'm going spanish speaking is because teaching in english is easy for me so Heavenly Father knew I needed a bigger challenge in my own life. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm trying to brag or toot my own horn or anything... cause I'm not. I just find that Heavenly Father knows us best and he knew I needed something that would challenge me. The rest of the week felt a lot like my first week in the MTC. It was just a lot of change and took some adjusting to. The teachers interview us once a week and it is nice to be reassured that they want to help us as much as possible. Thank goodness for sundays in the MTC! This sunday was amazing and something I needed! Sister Oaks (Elder Oaks wife) spoke at Relief Society and Sheri Dew spoke for our sunday night fireside. It was such a spiritually uplifting day! We also found out that Elder Holland is coming for Thanksgiving!!!! I'm so excited about that! The MTC is such a different experience but it is so good! My testimony grows every day and I am able to become closer to the Savior every day. What an amazing gift we have in the atonement! We are so blessed to know how much our Heavenly Father loves us! I know he loves every single one of us! Even if someone doesn't believe in him, He believes in them. It's so great! Oh, random note that is not related to what I was just talking about. Yesterday during our temple walk I was walking back to the MTC and I said to my companions, "You know, I just wish my friends would drive by so I could wave to them and not be breaking any rules." Then about 30 seconds later my name is yelled and there is Brianne, Chels, and Jenn waving and screaming from their car! It was crazy and sooo exciting! Totally made my day soooo much better! It was awesome. Ok, to end this e-mail here is a quote from True to the Faith... it is so good. Thanks for all the love! "If you have a difficult task before you, Heavenly Father is pleased when you get on your knees and ask for help and then GET ON YOUR FEET and GO TO WORK!" It's so true!
Love, Hermana Passantino
PS: Random note, if you use dearelder on Saturday I won't get it till Monday or Tuesday... just so ya know :) thanks for all the support from everyone!

Soon to be a Solo Sister 10/9/09

Hello again! What another great day it has been. I enjoy P-days here in the MTC but I feel like they are so busy, which is good, it's like any other day. Busy. Ok, let's go through the week. Tuesday was an interesting day. It was kinda hard because I still struggle with Spanish a lot. I have been feeling that the more I talk spanish the more I will understand. I recognize now that it is the spirit helping me out and letting me know how I am going to learn Spanish best. And silly me thought that it was my own thinking. It's important for us to understand that as we ask for help it's not going to magically happen, that the spirit will testify to us how we can make it better. Does that make any sense? I hope so. Devotional on tuesday was really good. President Rasband from the presidency of the seventy spoke. He was the mission president of my mission! He had all the people going to New York, New York North stand up. It was only me and Hermana Anderson. She was my original compenara but got moved up to the advanced class. So, that was some good times, standing up in front of the whole MTC. I love devotionals on Tuesday! Um, wednesday was pretty normal. I had a good chat with my teacher, Hermana Peterson and she helped me plan better so that my study is most effective and it's been helping a lot! We had another task at the TRC this week. We had to get to know someone, ask to share a message with them, set up an appt, and say a prayer in spanish. Then we taught lesson 1 in english. It went really well, well, the lesson did. The spanish was still way shaky but much better than the week before. We had an interview with Hermono Huber afterwards and he told us that we were doing good. He even got a little teary eyed when we was talking about it which made us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.Mitch came to visit me and it was great! I love that I get to see family! It makes everything so much nicer! Nothing really exciting happened Friday but ohhhhh Saturday. What a day on Saturday. So, we once again played the joyus game of trash-ketball. It is a class favorite and always enjoy ourselves while we play. So, just to have a visual, the room is set up so there are two desks where the plays "shoot" the erasers from and then the trashcan is hanging up on the chalkboard, you know where they have those clippy things where you can hang pics up on? Ok so, you guess the verb and then shoot your eraser, whoever gets it in first wins. So, I am obviously pretty competitive and randomly not too bad at the game. So, one shot I took got stuck up on the chalkboard or "backboard" and I thought I would do a cool move and just tip it in. Well, I tipped it in, but went up with too much force. I came down on the tray of the chalk board... well, my whole thigh came down on the tray of the chalkboard. I fell to the ground holding my leg in major pain. I was laughing because it hurt so bad and I didn't want to cry in front of everyone. Everyone else was laughing too until they noticed that I couldn't get up because my leg hurt so bad. So...I finally hoppled my way to the bathroom to look at the damage. There was an insta-bruise on my whole right thigh with a cut in it as well. It hurt so bad the tears just started rolling, it was so gross looking! So we went to the gym because they were the only medical staff around and they cleaned it up and wrapped it up to try to help with the swelling. Since then I have been walking around with a limp, which is so embarrassing! I can hardly sit because the bruise wraps around my thigh. It is sooo gross. Today it is starting to feel a little better but man, it looks nasty. I will send you pics fam! Don't even worry. It's kinda weird and lumpy but I don't think anything is wrong. I kind of ruined trash-ketball for the class. Hno Huber felt SO bad... Oh well, it's a funny story. I'm doing better today so I am sure it will heal soon. Sunday was super busy. I got called as coordinating sister for our Zone. The other sisters in our Zone leave tomorrow and Wednesday. I was going to be the only one! But we are getting 4 new hermanas which I am so excited about! I won't be the only one. Hna Sanders leaves early Wednesday morning. I am so sad to see her go. I was so worried about having a comp I liked and I got one and now she is leaving me :( Her family sent me a box with a bunch of canadian candy in it! She has gotten me addicted to candy which is NOT good. After she leaves I'm gonna have to slow down on the candy situation. Oh, I got a letter from Shanelle today and she said that she could prob be my trainer and she also said I might be going to New York early. The elders that are going home from NY are going a week early because they coulnd't get any flights, so they might be shipping me out there early, we shall see! That would be pretty sweet! I hope everyone is doing well. I miss everyone so much! Sometimes you forget the world is going on without you. It's wierd. I know that our Heavenly Father is looking out for each one of us! How exciting it is to know what we know! Go share it with someone! Everyone deserves to be as happy and feel loved! Thanks for the letters.
Love, Hermana Passantino
PS: I heard that my e-mail was wrong on the blog so if you tried to send me something it might not have worked. So re-send it please :)
PPS: The RC was awesome again this week. We had some really good chats and got to teach the plan of salvation to someone! It was so cool!

Note- The E-mail Address has been fixed, sorry!