c'era una volta...

Well, luckily enough I was not arrested. Haha, thank goodness. All of my passport info is in the main computer here, so I think they just had to check that I knew my name and my birthday and where I was born or something and they left. Anziano Gurney, who had his permesso papers, his drivers' license, and his social security card had kind of a hard time however. Oh well, the police man left. Thursday it rained all day long and it was windy and we were sooo cold. We went to Ibla to try and find some inactives and do some advertising for the Testaments. And then the bus didn't come, so we did a whole lot of walking in the rain. We got to Sorella Puglisi's for lunch and our coats and hair were wet. When she left she told us we had to change into different coats when we got home. We were supposed to have a lesson with Barbara, our new investigator from last week, but she got a phone call from her ex boyfriend who may or may not have given her a black eye right before the first ...

This week I forgot to bring a passport or the photocopies of the thing for my permesso di soggiorno to internet. Oops. The police are here. And I have no documents. So hopefully they don't kick me out of the country in the next five minutes. The information from my passport is all in the computer here at least though, but I don't know why I forgot that especially since I need to check online if my permesso is ready yet. Mamma mia che paura. They're kind of arguing with the owners right now, hopefully it all goes okay in the end. I don't really need inhalers. I still think I prefer not breathing over a heart attack. Sooo, this week was pretty good, and pretty insanely busy. We had a Relief Society activity, and next year they're going to start doing one once a month. But we had two investigators there and our friend Heike from English course came. She's the one from Germany. Everyone really enjoyed being with a bunch of women. And we met Fratello Magrograssi'...

Hello Everybody! Well, I guess it's the week of colds, because I've got one. But I've been trying to not be too sick because my MTC district reunion is on Friday and I really want to go. I am still in Ragusa, woohoo! They didn't end up closing a city completely. They just have Mistretta and Palermo grouped together now, and the Sorella spend one week in one city and the next week in another. It's a lot of traveling, but at least Ragusa is still here, it was closed earlier this year already. We're hoping that means that we're getting new sisters at some point. We only have 12 right now, 8 on Sicilia and 4 on the mainland. But we're pretty excited to be here. And Sorella Robb is the coordinating sister this transfer and we're doing exchanges with the Sorelle in Palermo instead of the Siracusa ones. Fun. This week has been the week on changed plans. But it's worked out pretty well, I think. We gave Sorella Cascone a lesson about counting your blessi...

So one of my favorite people this week is Sorella Iacono. She had a son who died when he was fourteen and she met the missionaries right after. Her younger son who was only a baby when the other died is not active and his family doesn't go to any church, and neither is her husband. She would love to help more people and visit more people but her husband is pretty antisocial and doesn't want to be friends with people and thinks it's pretty ridiculous that she wants to help everyone. Plus she's in pain almost all the time because she has bad osteoporosis. But she is so cool. She's in her early 70s. She literally counts EVERYTHING as a blessing. She prayed the other day that her clothes would dry because it was really cloudy and she was worried they wouldn't, and they did and she prayed again and told us she has no idea why God blesses her so much, she just looks at every little thing and sees the blessings in all of it. I love visiting her because she's always...

Hello everybody! Happy almost Thanksgiving! I just have to tell you about Sorella Campo. She is the coolest member in the world. She's a convert, like everybody else here. And she really really wants to have an eternal family. But her husband left her years ago, her oldest son isn't interested in the gospel, her middle son is semi-interested but smokes a lot and lives in Lecce now, and her 13 year old daughter would love to be baptized but her dad won't let her. This woman works all day every day and then comes home and does a million other things. We asked her last week if she ever gets a chance to rest and she says that she just loves being with the sisters in the ward and working with the missionaries because she gets to recharge spiritually and that's all she needs. And she calls us to ask if we'll come with her to visit inactives, and even if she spent 14 hours on a bus the night before she'll still let us bring over an investigator for a lesson at her hous...

Hello everyone! Sounds like it's been a busy week. It's been pretty in Ragusa, it was above 25 degrees yesterday, it was amazing. I am currently wearing short sleeves. Dunno where this weather is from but I like it. Yesterday we were walking by this old lady and we always say buon giorno to everyone and she was no exception, we weren't going to try and talk to her or anything even, but I said buon giorno and she said it back all cute and sweet and stuff and then she looked sideways and saw that we were wearing skirts (she came up to like my waist, she didn't even see my targhetta) and she started screaming at the top of her lungs "VATENE VIA!!! ANDATEVENE VIA!" (ed. note: I think this translates to depart, or get lost) and we were already past her when she started screaming but then every person she walked past on the entire street she was like "buon giorno? buon giorno? they just said buon giorno to ME?" She was kind of insane, it was kind of funny....

Hello!!! Sorry my email is late today, but we went to Vittoria because there was a big fiera (fair) and we heard about it and wanted to find out if they had anything good for cheap. They did. So I have some more scarves and pants and stuff but we didn't find gloves so I'll still need to look for some. We also got a cake-pan like the kind you make angel food cake in that has a bunt cake attachment for only 5 euro. I don't make cakes because it costs money but it's cool anyway. And we're pretty excited that the socks we'll be wearing under our boots have stripes and stars and really bright colors. It was a pretty fun day. We talked to a guy from Peru who has talked to the Anziani before. And we also taught a lesson to our bus drivers. I'm kind of amazed at how well they drive in ridiculous conditions while holding meaningful conversations. The woman sitting next to us looked pretty ticked at him when he said that Jesus appointed people as saints. I think he wa...

This week was a really good week, we did a lot of work and hopefully we'll start seeing some investigators soon. We talk to tons of people, all the time. We still haven't quite mastered talking to everyone but we're both getting brave because we're both kind of quiet people. But everytime we walk somewhere we look for somebody to talk to, and on busses and all over the place. It's a lot of fun, people are really interesting even if they don't want to change. Sorella Palermo has been coming to Sacrament Meeting, we haven't been able to get her to Relief Society or Sunday School yet but she comes to Sacrament Meeting. And the women in the ward come and salute her and talk to her afterwards which is really good, she's getting fellowshipped. She usually sits next to me in Sacrament Meeting. She needs to come more, because she loves to sing but she hates that she doesn't know any of the hymns. This last Sunday Sorella Turtula came to church too! She wasn...

We received this note from Sister Toronto (the Mission President's wife). This photo is from two weeks ago in Ragusa. We have wonderful missionaries here. We love seeing them grow in so many ways. They are happy and well. Thank you for helping them be so amazing. Sorella Toronto

Hello everybody! So, I'm going to just start with Wednesday afternoon and work my way through the week. Wednesday evening we invited a lady from the Intermediate English Course to have dinner with all the missionaries and the Branch President's family. Anziano D'Auria and Anz Sapio are from Napoli, President Sorrentino is from Napoli, and Clorinda is also from Napoli. So, we had Napolitano food, and Clorinda had a good time chatting with Slla Sorrentino and the four kids. Then we did a lesson where we watched "finding happiness" and talked about where happiness comes from and asked Pres S and Anz D'Auria what gospel principles make them the most happy. Then we introduced the Book of Mormon and gave one to Clorinda, and we had all written her a note and a testimony and underlined a favorite scripture for her. She seemed really excited to get it, and maybe a little surprised that we had chosen her. She is a great girl, now that I have a new companion we'll h...

Hello! So I find out tomorrow who my new companion will be. Yikes. It's kind of nerve-wracking to just barely get to know the person you're living with 24/7 and because friends and start working well together and then have to switch. But hopefully it will be good. We aren't sure who will come to Ragusa, because there are four sisters who are going home after the next transfer who are going to probably stay in their own cities, so we aren't sure who's old enough to be switched around or who has been in a city long enough to need to be moved, etc. But we'll see. This week was actually really really amazing. Thursday we had our weekly appointment with Sorella Turtula, the inactive who is really just a sweet lady. The sisters have been visiting her for ages and have been working with her for months trying to get her to find a spare moments to kneel and pray and ponder. But she hasn't been able to find uninterrupted moments because taking care of her mom is so de...

Wow, those letters got to you REALLY fast. I think I sent them on Thursday or Friday! That's as fast as Utah to California. So I have decided that I'm really glad I'm not an immigrant. And I also think I must lack charity since all I can think of when I'm standing around the questura sandwiched between all these people who have no documents and are here to try and find work not because there is any work but because the immigration laws used to be very lax, is "I hope I don't get lice or some contagious and deadly disease". But the Questura people aren't very nice. They were okay to us, we speak Italian with decent accents and we had all the documents and extra passport pictures that we needed, but they were yelling at a lot of the people who were in line before us. I have never seen such high-tech finger printing material. And they had to get a palm print, and the guy at the computer made them redo it over and over because it is physically impossible f...

Hello! So, this week has been another fun one. We're always doing something exciting. Yesterday was CRAZY. So, apparently since I've been here everybody has been going crazy--I don't think I've had a single appointment without yelling or arguing or crying or making fun of spiritual things or something weird (keep in mind that in the time I've been here I've had maybe four appointments with investigators). But anyway, yesterday we went to this couple that is older and from all appearances they loathe each other. And he is super flirty with the sisters which is really disgusting, especially with how rude he is to his wife, but he always tries to kiss our hands when we leave. Anyway, the first time we went they fought. And this time they had just gotten back from a week long temple trip together in Spain, and so you'd think maybe they'd have a more eternal perspective or something, but no, they were actually worse. And they were just yelling and screaming ...