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!

Hermanas Passantino, Veazy, and Wolfgramm, Melissa "Mom" of the district and fun at physical therapy!

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 :)

Group Pictures with the District before they left

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!

Finally... a few pictures.

The Injury !!!

The First Picture is Incident #1 (she's pointing the the ripped nylons), the second picture of of Incident #2. (Read previous letters for further details)