23 September 2009
SO let's see...I'm in Ragusa and it is beautiful. We didn't really do anything too exciting last Wednesday, but I met the Anziani who are in our city. Anziano D'Auria and Anziano Sapio are both Italian, from Napolia and a small city outside Napoli. They are both recent converts and older--A. D'Auria is 26 I think, and A. Sapio is in his 20s too. But they are really impressive Anziani, and they gave up a lot to come on missions, it's pretty cool to get to work with them. Plus it's proof that there are Italians waiting for the gospel.
Thursday was my first District Meeting. We met at church, which is a converted garage. It's a nice converted garage, but still a converted garage. It does have all the things that a regular chapel does though, just on a much smaller scale and the chapel itself subs as a cultural hall because it's the only big room. Our district is the Ragusa Sorelle and Anziani, and the Gela Anziani, so six people. The Gela Anziani cover a bunch of different cities, and actually are going to start staying in a hotel one night a week so they can have two full days in one of the other cities they work in. After our district meeting we got on a bus to Comiso, a city on the other side of the hill Ragusa's built on. We taught our investigator Esther. She's African, so we teach her in English, she's from Ghana, and she wants to be baptized after she has her baby in November. She's really sweet. She had a lot of questions about baptism for the dead last week though, because I guess they talked about it in Sunday School and she had never heard of it before and doesn't really get why people should get a chance to accept the gospel after this life. The Africans really like the Bible and I think they want us to tell them that there is a hell fire and damnation aspect of the church but there really isn't so they get confused. After our lesson with Esther we went to visit Sorella Turtula. She is inactive because she has to take care of her mom 24/7, and her mom isn't really all there so she can't really take her anywhere. And Sorella Turtula is having a really hard time because she pretty much can't have a life at all. But she made a pizza for us, and I think literally they just put anything on pizzas. She covered it with thinly sliced potatoes, hardboiled eggs, and fresh mozzarella. It sounds bizarre, but it actually ended up tasting pretty good. WE left her with a thought and a challenge.
Friday was my first branch party. It was wild. They had a pasta party, everyone made some kind of pasta and brought it to share. There were some great ones. I think their branch of 60 got more people to a party than our ward gets. And everyone talks to each other, it was so cool. Hard to understand 50 conversations at once, but I understood most of what was going on. Little kids and old people are harder to understand when you talk to them though.
Saturday we went to another inactive's house (she has actually come to church two weeks in a row now though). Sorella Palermo made us a pizza that was more normal--sauce and cheese and ham--and a cheesecake that's like the kind grandma Sommerfeld makes, kind of. Here, everyone eats things with knives and forks. EVERYTHING. Pizza included. And they don't just bite into fruit, they cut it with a knife, a slice at a time. It's interesting. Sorella Palermo is the only member in her family. She was an investigator for years, because her husband didn't really want her to be baptized, and her kids ate dinner with us but hey really don't want to hear about the church right now. Which is too bad.
Sunday was CRAZY. Relief Society was good. Then Sunday School they've been trying to figure out who does gospel principles I guess, and this week Sorella Lewis and I just taught and finished the plan of salvation, they had taught half of it the week before. It went really well, until we were DONE. And then one of the members, Dominic, who's African and actually a really strong member, raised his hand and started kind of attacking Sorella Lewis because she wouldn't say that a person who goes to the temple and feels the spirit and then goes inactive is going to be a son of perdition. Soo, Anziano D'Auria stood up and explained the kingdoms of glory in perfect English--just said this is how it is, this is what we know, THE END. Which was awesome. But it was pretty intense. Sacrament Meeting Sorella Lewis had to lead the music, translate, and give a talk. I just had to bear my testimony. You were right, I should have practiced piano. This branch has no pianist. We went to the Puglisi's for lunch. They are funny. They're in their 60s probably, and just really sweet. Their son who's about 25 and inactive though kind of argued with them in Sicilian during dinner. HE doesn't think the temple will actually be built in Rome, because Ragusa was promised a church building 20 years ago and still has none. So hopefully he's wrong and things for the temple will progress.
Monday we talked to a man in the street who started crying as he talked to us. He was just talking about how his life was a complete waste, he worked for years to get ahead and he has all sorts of money, but he's alone and he's scared. He told us we should give up and go home and have families because that's the most important thing. We said we plan on having families when we finish our missions. But he really just didn't want to hear anything about the gospel or God, because he thinks it's all God's fault that he's unhappy. Kind of sad, but hopefully he'll be okay.
Our branch is great. They're having us really work with the members a lot because they mission is working on transferring a lot of missionary work to the members I think. They want the members to step up and start sharing the gospel with their friends and have the missionaries just kind of in the background. The members are super strong and I know they can handle it, they just need to be taught how to do it. The ward mission leader is really great, he's a Cascone, and the two Cascone boys are pretty much legends in Ragusa because they served missions. But they're working on changing a lot of things, so it will be interesting to see how it all works out. Fratello Cascone is going to start teaching gospel principles this Sunday (thank goodness) and he's going to do it in Italian because he feels strongly that the Africans aren't going to learn it if we just talk to them in English all the time.
The rainy season has officially started I think. The good thing about Ragusa is that it's on a hill so no puddles when it rains. The bad thing is that it will rain a lot, for a long time. But oh well, I like rain. I need to find boots though. We're going to try to go to Ibla, and look at the churches that are there. That should be fun.
I love you all, have a wonderful week!
Eliza
Thursday was my first District Meeting. We met at church, which is a converted garage. It's a nice converted garage, but still a converted garage. It does have all the things that a regular chapel does though, just on a much smaller scale and the chapel itself subs as a cultural hall because it's the only big room. Our district is the Ragusa Sorelle and Anziani, and the Gela Anziani, so six people. The Gela Anziani cover a bunch of different cities, and actually are going to start staying in a hotel one night a week so they can have two full days in one of the other cities they work in. After our district meeting we got on a bus to Comiso, a city on the other side of the hill Ragusa's built on. We taught our investigator Esther. She's African, so we teach her in English, she's from Ghana, and she wants to be baptized after she has her baby in November. She's really sweet. She had a lot of questions about baptism for the dead last week though, because I guess they talked about it in Sunday School and she had never heard of it before and doesn't really get why people should get a chance to accept the gospel after this life. The Africans really like the Bible and I think they want us to tell them that there is a hell fire and damnation aspect of the church but there really isn't so they get confused. After our lesson with Esther we went to visit Sorella Turtula. She is inactive because she has to take care of her mom 24/7, and her mom isn't really all there so she can't really take her anywhere. And Sorella Turtula is having a really hard time because she pretty much can't have a life at all. But she made a pizza for us, and I think literally they just put anything on pizzas. She covered it with thinly sliced potatoes, hardboiled eggs, and fresh mozzarella. It sounds bizarre, but it actually ended up tasting pretty good. WE left her with a thought and a challenge.
Friday was my first branch party. It was wild. They had a pasta party, everyone made some kind of pasta and brought it to share. There were some great ones. I think their branch of 60 got more people to a party than our ward gets. And everyone talks to each other, it was so cool. Hard to understand 50 conversations at once, but I understood most of what was going on. Little kids and old people are harder to understand when you talk to them though.
Saturday we went to another inactive's house (she has actually come to church two weeks in a row now though). Sorella Palermo made us a pizza that was more normal--sauce and cheese and ham--and a cheesecake that's like the kind grandma Sommerfeld makes, kind of. Here, everyone eats things with knives and forks. EVERYTHING. Pizza included. And they don't just bite into fruit, they cut it with a knife, a slice at a time. It's interesting. Sorella Palermo is the only member in her family. She was an investigator for years, because her husband didn't really want her to be baptized, and her kids ate dinner with us but hey really don't want to hear about the church right now. Which is too bad.
Sunday was CRAZY. Relief Society was good. Then Sunday School they've been trying to figure out who does gospel principles I guess, and this week Sorella Lewis and I just taught and finished the plan of salvation, they had taught half of it the week before. It went really well, until we were DONE. And then one of the members, Dominic, who's African and actually a really strong member, raised his hand and started kind of attacking Sorella Lewis because she wouldn't say that a person who goes to the temple and feels the spirit and then goes inactive is going to be a son of perdition. Soo, Anziano D'Auria stood up and explained the kingdoms of glory in perfect English--just said this is how it is, this is what we know, THE END. Which was awesome. But it was pretty intense. Sacrament Meeting Sorella Lewis had to lead the music, translate, and give a talk. I just had to bear my testimony. You were right, I should have practiced piano. This branch has no pianist. We went to the Puglisi's for lunch. They are funny. They're in their 60s probably, and just really sweet. Their son who's about 25 and inactive though kind of argued with them in Sicilian during dinner. HE doesn't think the temple will actually be built in Rome, because Ragusa was promised a church building 20 years ago and still has none. So hopefully he's wrong and things for the temple will progress.
Monday we talked to a man in the street who started crying as he talked to us. He was just talking about how his life was a complete waste, he worked for years to get ahead and he has all sorts of money, but he's alone and he's scared. He told us we should give up and go home and have families because that's the most important thing. We said we plan on having families when we finish our missions. But he really just didn't want to hear anything about the gospel or God, because he thinks it's all God's fault that he's unhappy. Kind of sad, but hopefully he'll be okay.
Our branch is great. They're having us really work with the members a lot because they mission is working on transferring a lot of missionary work to the members I think. They want the members to step up and start sharing the gospel with their friends and have the missionaries just kind of in the background. The members are super strong and I know they can handle it, they just need to be taught how to do it. The ward mission leader is really great, he's a Cascone, and the two Cascone boys are pretty much legends in Ragusa because they served missions. But they're working on changing a lot of things, so it will be interesting to see how it all works out. Fratello Cascone is going to start teaching gospel principles this Sunday (thank goodness) and he's going to do it in Italian because he feels strongly that the Africans aren't going to learn it if we just talk to them in English all the time.
The rainy season has officially started I think. The good thing about Ragusa is that it's on a hill so no puddles when it rains. The bad thing is that it will rain a lot, for a long time. But oh well, I like rain. I need to find boots though. We're going to try to go to Ibla, and look at the churches that are there. That should be fun.
I love you all, have a wonderful week!
Eliza
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