c'era una volta...

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 ...

Hello! Well, I'm glad that things are almost done for dad's practice, that's a good thing. Sorry that it was such a mess. So my Ragusa address is: Via M. Buonarroti 201 97100 Ragusa Italia I should be here for a while, but if you were to send something big then you'd want to send it to the mission home still, this is just good for letters. It rained everyday from Wednesday to Sunday, now it looks like it might take a break for a while, which is good. I don't have rain boots and my shoes aren't really good in tons and tons of rain. Plus I don't feel like things ever really dry here, they're kind of damp even after they've been hanging to dry for three days it seems like. Members argue with each other in front of us in dialect, it's really weird. You'd think if they wanted to hide what they were arguing/ fighting about that they just wouldn't do it in front of people, but they just switch languages on you. They gave us the "virtue...