Email: chelsea.buma@myldsmail.net

Address: Sorella Chelsea Buma
Via Flavia 21
00055 Ladispoli (RM)
ITALY

Address for the mission home in Rome:
Italy Rome Mission
Piazza Carnaro, 20
00141 Rome RM
ITALY

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Week 7: Our awesome leader

Before the letter this week I'd like to encourage all of you to write Chelsea a quick note before she leaves the MTC. That gives you 2 weeks. With dearelder.com it's super easy. Just go to that address and click on write a letter--make sure you pick the Provo MTC under letter selection and then click write a missionary. Her info is Sister Chelsea Buma MTC box #116, Mission code=ITA-ROM, est. departure is 0406. It's easier than reading through this. Then you type your letter in the empty box and click send letter and you're done. She would appreciate it so much. Just take 10 or 15 minutes and let her feel how much you support her. 

Lois

Hey Fam Bam!  Just another week here at the mtc.  i can't believe how incredibly fast the entire thing has gone.  i leave 2 weeks from today so that is just the most insane thing ever.  I really just feel like i am never going to be ready.  Oh well!  i will learn italian better when i get there im sure.  Thank you for your letters this week!  I love it!  I don't get dear elders from friday night til monday night and I LOVE MONDAYS because all my family writes me.  its so great.  I have so much mail and just really feel of the love and support my family is sending me.  and this is a side note but im really excited to get to talk to you on the phone SO soon.  That will be amazing!  Everything seems to be under control and everyone seems happy and healthy for the most part!  aunt sandy, im so glad that everything is ok and that it was a false alarm with your heart!  Grandma buma and grandma joyce, get better!  I pray for you every night and hope that all is well, or at least getting there.  

Ok, well this was a really big week for the italian zone.  we received 38 new missionaries!  it was insane!  and so fun.  they are great. its so true that missionaries will just keep getting better and better. They are amazing!  they will be much better at the language than i.  the programs at the MTC are getting better and better too.  i had the opportunity to hear their testimonies on thursday night and teach them with the zone leaders a little bit.  it just brought me back to my first days at the MTC.  haha.  I was such a stress case.  I had no idea what i was doing, i was just happy to be here.  They all have such amazing testimonies but its cool to be 6 weeks ahead of them and know how much stronger those testimonies are going to be.  Having new missionaries is also a little more time consuming for me because i have to interview all the sorelle each week.  so instead of just 6, now i have 13...  haha.  needless to say, interviewing that many girls takes awhile.  I didn't do any studying at all on saturday.  and i had already completed 4 interviews prior to that...  I love my time with the sisters though.  I know they help me so much more than i help them and its interesting as the spirit prompts me to say something to them, it usually is something that i really needed to hear too.  it has been such a blessing for me to serve them and spend so much more time worrying about them and their needs than my own.  They are great!  I can't say that enough.  

on a more sad note, an elder from my district left for home on saturday because he needs to take care of a few things.  its interesting to see how close you really get to each other when someone leaves.  he is amazing and has been such an example to us.   One day ill have to tell you all the things that he has been through in his life.  He really was like alma the younger and went about destroying himself and the church.  anyway, he will be back with us in 10 months, i guess really a year because he is going to do to 9 weeks of the mtc again, but i will be SOOOOOOOOOO happy to see him again with us in rome.  that is going to be a happy day.  he left will a really good attitude though and knows that this is really what is going to make him a happy successful missionary and person through his entire life.  keep him in your prayers.  I know satan will be working really hard on him to make is so that he can't or won't want to come back and join us.  I realized this week why people say it is so much harder so leave the mtc than is to leave home.  not that i don't miss my family and friends, but those are people that i will come back to in 16 months.  I have gotten so close to the people here and it is just different.  this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for sure.  I need to make my last 2 weeks really count.  

Ok, next thing.  i want everyone to go to the distribution center and buy the dvd "special witnesses of christ" (something like that).  I had seen it before but i forgot about it kinda.  it is so powerful to hear the apostles, our special witnesses of christ, bear testimony that they know he lives.  I wish i had a dvd player and could watch it every week or something.  watch it for family night or something.  Its great!  i have never felt the desire more to share what i know to be true as when i watched that dvd and felt the spirit.  it is so motivating.  i want everyone in italy to know how to feel that way.  Their lives will be so much better with the gospel in them and knowing that they have a savior that suffered for them and truly knows how to bring them peace and comfort.  

Ok, another great experience.  and just something that i really needed after spending a lot of time with the other sisters and really wondering if i am doing any good.  Brother lamoureux (in our branch pres) is an army man through and through.  honestly when i first was here, i was SO scared of him because he always has a way he wants to correct us and he doesn't do it in a super loving way.  anyway, in branch council on sunday he just said he had something to say to me and just told me how good of a leader i am and how much he appreciates everything i do.  then i thanked him after for his kind words and he expounded more.  he said that in the army they call it leading from the middle.  he said that i am a true leader of the sisters.  he said other great things to me too and it was such a tender mercy from my heavenly father. I needed to hear that on sunday.  coming from him that meant the world to me.  his job is to teach people how to be good leaders!  I didn't mean that in a bragging way at all, it just felt good to know that my father in heaven and my leaders are happy with what i am doing.  

anyway, next.  and this is random.  but is there anyway that someone can get the MTC special that is going to be on during conference recorded so that i can see it when i get home?  If not its totally ok but it just a thought that i had.  They have been here filming a lot.  I think its going to be really cool.  Speaking of filming really quick, they pulled me and sorella lewis out of the lunch line and asked to come be in this movie thing they are making for the mtc.  i had to say my name, where im serving and what language.  and then say all that in italian.  easy stuff.  at least thats what i thought.  but i messed up the name of the church!!! hahah.  How am i going to be prepared to go to italy if i can't just say the name of the church???? They told me to do it again and i didn't mess up the second time thankfully:)  ummm.... i think that might be it for the week.  

I GET MY TRAVEL PLANS THIS WEEK THOUGH SO NEXT WEEK I CAN TELL YOU THE DETAILS!!!  oh man.  so scary haha.  i haven't been in the "real world" and i kinda like it this way:).  But that isn't why heavenly father called me on a mission!  Thanks again for everything!  I have the best support and i can't even tell you how much it helps.  Have a great week everyone!  I can't wait to hear from you!  Know that i have a testimony of this gospel.  I wouldn't be here if i didn't!  LOVE YOU!!!!!!
Love,
Sorella Buma

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