16 December 2009
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's fidanzata! She's way cute, her name is Gabriella and she's from North Eastern Brasil and she only speaks Portugese and she served a mission somewhere in Brasil that starts with an 'M' and is in the north east, in 2001 or something. But she really wants to work with the missionaries. She's really great. Portugese is slightly more difficult to understand than Spanish, but still understandable. Oh, and Lemon Jelly is really kind of gross.
Elvira has come to all of the activities at church, including Sunday meetings, this past week. But she has cancelled all of our appointments because for some reason she thinks we're starving or something and that she has to cook all day for us, and then she's too tired to meet with us. She says she wants to learn, but she doesn't give herself a chance because she talks constantly and doesn't listen, so we need to help her to allow other people to serve her, and to allow for new information rather than trying to explain what we tell her with the things that we already know. Luckily she is dieting and can't eat any of the food so she just gives it to us to take home because it lasts us forever. And I am not a huge fan of leftovers. Or salty desserts...anyway, people also give us zucchini and cucumbers, so at least we've got vegetables too.
We asked Esther, again, if she would be baptized. She was kind of surprised, and asked if we wanted just her or Justice too. Anyway, she said that she would pray about it, so we'll see how it goes.
We went to Catania on Friday, I went to the mission home and Sorella Robb went with Sorella White to work in Catania. The Christmas conference was amazing. It's really nice to be in a house once in a while, and my MTC companions are really great and it was nice to get a chance to catch up with them a little bit. It was also nice to see the anziani who were in our district, since they had been in the Puglia the whole time so we hadn't seen them. But we learned a ton of things and were challenged to ask lots of people to get baptized before the end of the year so we've got a lot of work to do. We also had a turkey dinner that made up for our lack of Thanksgiving. It was a ton of work for Sorella Taranto, so we're pretty grateful for them and their efforts. Lots of work too, because from the Puglia to Catania it's at least a 12 hour trip. I got your package, and we took out the cookies but I didn't see anything else, adn my companion is going to wrap the presents for me. I also got a package from Tammy Bitter. We watched the movie Nativity, it's a Hollywood movie I think, it's really well done. It was really weird to lie on the floor in sweats with all the Sorelle, and then all the Senior couples had the couches and the anziani were on the chairs. Fun stuff. We had a good time. My amazing companion also found a woman at the bus stop who was thrilled to hear about the church and get a Book of Mormon. Unfortunately we have NO idea where she lives, none of the cities she listed off that were nearby were missionary cities. But we'll call her.
We also talked to a really cute girl on the bus who lives in Modica but goes to school in Catania. Her name is Chiara Pianeta and she speaks perfect amazing English. She has an accent still, but she speaks amazingly well. We're going to go visit her some weekend.
We met with the Sorrentino family, minus president, on Saturday night, and had the kids bear their testimonies of Christ and of the Book of Mormon. They were a little shy but they did it, and it was amazing. Then we did a little activity where we ate candy in front of them and told them how great it was but didn't give them any, and compared it to us with the gospel, how we have something awesome but we have to invite people to share it with us, because they know that we have something special, but without us they can't do much about it. The next day they explained the activity to President Sorrentino, they were really excited about it, and committed to invite a friend or family to a family night at their house.
This Friday the Branch has put together something pretty huge. They've rented out a theater that's in the blood bank type thing, and they are going to show "The Testaments" three times, and give away copies of the Book of Mormon and have us there to answer questions, basically be temple square missionaries for an evening. They've spent a LOT of money on pubblicitĂ , so we're really working to get the word out so a lot of people come. My companion and Anziano Gurney are going to be in Catania for their Christmas conference, but Sorella Morgan is coming from Siracusa and Sorella Jenkins is coming from Palermo, and then we're going to have the anziani from Gela and Anziano Lewis from Agrigento here as well to help with it. Crazy stuff, I'll tell you how it goes. These next few weeks involve a lot of time on buses.
We gave our English students Christmas cards and invited them to take a Book of Mormon and hear the gospel, yesterday was our last class until 12 gennaio. They were way excited that all the cards were personal though, and we wrote scripture references on them for each individual person. But our class is the coolest of all the places. They're okay with the fact that we just talk and have fun and learn by talking, and they've all improved a whole lot. We do a little bit of grammar as well, and vocabulary. It's great. I've heard in other cities they want structure, thankfully they aren't worried about that here. But I really hope that we can get them more interested in the gospel over the next while. They are awesome people.
Cool, John's going to Laverne. It looked like a good school when it sent me five million things when I was graduating. I'm glad you got to go to Disneyland for Christmas things. :) I want to go someday!!!!
We still have nowhere to go for Christmas, it's kind of sad. We have a couple in our branch who said they'd invite us but they'll be in Palermo, and that's the best we've got. Except for our friend Genni who has a fruit stand and invited us for pranzo on the 26th. Eh, questa è la vita signora (Slla Turtula's mom tells us that ALL THE TIME). Hopefully someone will invite us over. We need to make more friends who are girls so that they can invite us over or offer us rides, we have lots of friends who are men but women have a tendency to like us a little less. It's kind of weird to be here at Christmas time, it's not like I really lived at home anyway but Christmas everybody goes home so it's slightly more nostalgic but oh well, we'll see what we can do to make it Christmasy.
We actually don't have spaghetti very often. And no proper Italian would EVER eat spaghetti and meatballs. They have meat in some sauces, sure. But meatballs are a separate dish. First you eat pasta, or gnocchi, something like that. Then you eat meat, or eggs, with bread and salad of some sort. Then you eat cheese. Then you eat dessert. Then you eat fruit. That's pretty much the routine. So you never ever take seconds of pasta even if it's really good because there will always be five courses after it.
I still have not a clue about Christmas phone calls, I assume I will be calling you between 8 and 11 am, since that's between 5 and 8 pm here. And there's a chance we won't be doing email next week, thanks to the Anziani in Agrigento needing us to go there for a zone bust next Wednesday. Not very excited to travel all the way to Agrigento and not get to email and not even get to see the temples, but we'll see how it goes. I'd kind of prefer to stay in Ragusa since we haven't been here hardly at all the last couple weeks and our people need us. Oh well. I think we'll try and email on Tuesday because really we don't know about phone calls or anything, and not like we can skip President's letters next week.
I think the police will not be arresting me today, thank goodness.
Well, the work here is going well. We made a list of attributes of a good friend with our English course last night. And then for our spiritual thought (cut kind of short by a lack of electricity in the building...but they didn't run away, they just pulled out their cell phones :) ) we talked about how Christ is really our best friend, how he has all those attributes and how he is always just waiting for us to remember that he's there for us. And it's true. I'm really grateful for the atonement for lots of reasons but it's especially nice to know that no matter what we don't ever have to be alone, we've got a best friend who will never judge us unfairly and who will always be there when we need help. And because of him we can do anything, all we have to do is believe in him and trust him. So Merry Christmas!
I love you all, have a wonderful week!
Eliza
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's fidanzata! She's way cute, her name is Gabriella and she's from North Eastern Brasil and she only speaks Portugese and she served a mission somewhere in Brasil that starts with an 'M' and is in the north east, in 2001 or something. But she really wants to work with the missionaries. She's really great. Portugese is slightly more difficult to understand than Spanish, but still understandable. Oh, and Lemon Jelly is really kind of gross.
Elvira has come to all of the activities at church, including Sunday meetings, this past week. But she has cancelled all of our appointments because for some reason she thinks we're starving or something and that she has to cook all day for us, and then she's too tired to meet with us. She says she wants to learn, but she doesn't give herself a chance because she talks constantly and doesn't listen, so we need to help her to allow other people to serve her, and to allow for new information rather than trying to explain what we tell her with the things that we already know. Luckily she is dieting and can't eat any of the food so she just gives it to us to take home because it lasts us forever. And I am not a huge fan of leftovers. Or salty desserts...anyway, people also give us zucchini and cucumbers, so at least we've got vegetables too.
We asked Esther, again, if she would be baptized. She was kind of surprised, and asked if we wanted just her or Justice too. Anyway, she said that she would pray about it, so we'll see how it goes.
We went to Catania on Friday, I went to the mission home and Sorella Robb went with Sorella White to work in Catania. The Christmas conference was amazing. It's really nice to be in a house once in a while, and my MTC companions are really great and it was nice to get a chance to catch up with them a little bit. It was also nice to see the anziani who were in our district, since they had been in the Puglia the whole time so we hadn't seen them. But we learned a ton of things and were challenged to ask lots of people to get baptized before the end of the year so we've got a lot of work to do. We also had a turkey dinner that made up for our lack of Thanksgiving. It was a ton of work for Sorella Taranto, so we're pretty grateful for them and their efforts. Lots of work too, because from the Puglia to Catania it's at least a 12 hour trip. I got your package, and we took out the cookies but I didn't see anything else, adn my companion is going to wrap the presents for me. I also got a package from Tammy Bitter. We watched the movie Nativity, it's a Hollywood movie I think, it's really well done. It was really weird to lie on the floor in sweats with all the Sorelle, and then all the Senior couples had the couches and the anziani were on the chairs. Fun stuff. We had a good time. My amazing companion also found a woman at the bus stop who was thrilled to hear about the church and get a Book of Mormon. Unfortunately we have NO idea where she lives, none of the cities she listed off that were nearby were missionary cities. But we'll call her.
We also talked to a really cute girl on the bus who lives in Modica but goes to school in Catania. Her name is Chiara Pianeta and she speaks perfect amazing English. She has an accent still, but she speaks amazingly well. We're going to go visit her some weekend.
We met with the Sorrentino family, minus president, on Saturday night, and had the kids bear their testimonies of Christ and of the Book of Mormon. They were a little shy but they did it, and it was amazing. Then we did a little activity where we ate candy in front of them and told them how great it was but didn't give them any, and compared it to us with the gospel, how we have something awesome but we have to invite people to share it with us, because they know that we have something special, but without us they can't do much about it. The next day they explained the activity to President Sorrentino, they were really excited about it, and committed to invite a friend or family to a family night at their house.
This Friday the Branch has put together something pretty huge. They've rented out a theater that's in the blood bank type thing, and they are going to show "The Testaments" three times, and give away copies of the Book of Mormon and have us there to answer questions, basically be temple square missionaries for an evening. They've spent a LOT of money on pubblicitĂ , so we're really working to get the word out so a lot of people come. My companion and Anziano Gurney are going to be in Catania for their Christmas conference, but Sorella Morgan is coming from Siracusa and Sorella Jenkins is coming from Palermo, and then we're going to have the anziani from Gela and Anziano Lewis from Agrigento here as well to help with it. Crazy stuff, I'll tell you how it goes. These next few weeks involve a lot of time on buses.
We gave our English students Christmas cards and invited them to take a Book of Mormon and hear the gospel, yesterday was our last class until 12 gennaio. They were way excited that all the cards were personal though, and we wrote scripture references on them for each individual person. But our class is the coolest of all the places. They're okay with the fact that we just talk and have fun and learn by talking, and they've all improved a whole lot. We do a little bit of grammar as well, and vocabulary. It's great. I've heard in other cities they want structure, thankfully they aren't worried about that here. But I really hope that we can get them more interested in the gospel over the next while. They are awesome people.
Cool, John's going to Laverne. It looked like a good school when it sent me five million things when I was graduating. I'm glad you got to go to Disneyland for Christmas things. :) I want to go someday!!!!
We still have nowhere to go for Christmas, it's kind of sad. We have a couple in our branch who said they'd invite us but they'll be in Palermo, and that's the best we've got. Except for our friend Genni who has a fruit stand and invited us for pranzo on the 26th. Eh, questa è la vita signora (Slla Turtula's mom tells us that ALL THE TIME). Hopefully someone will invite us over. We need to make more friends who are girls so that they can invite us over or offer us rides, we have lots of friends who are men but women have a tendency to like us a little less. It's kind of weird to be here at Christmas time, it's not like I really lived at home anyway but Christmas everybody goes home so it's slightly more nostalgic but oh well, we'll see what we can do to make it Christmasy.
We actually don't have spaghetti very often. And no proper Italian would EVER eat spaghetti and meatballs. They have meat in some sauces, sure. But meatballs are a separate dish. First you eat pasta, or gnocchi, something like that. Then you eat meat, or eggs, with bread and salad of some sort. Then you eat cheese. Then you eat dessert. Then you eat fruit. That's pretty much the routine. So you never ever take seconds of pasta even if it's really good because there will always be five courses after it.
I still have not a clue about Christmas phone calls, I assume I will be calling you between 8 and 11 am, since that's between 5 and 8 pm here. And there's a chance we won't be doing email next week, thanks to the Anziani in Agrigento needing us to go there for a zone bust next Wednesday. Not very excited to travel all the way to Agrigento and not get to email and not even get to see the temples, but we'll see how it goes. I'd kind of prefer to stay in Ragusa since we haven't been here hardly at all the last couple weeks and our people need us. Oh well. I think we'll try and email on Tuesday because really we don't know about phone calls or anything, and not like we can skip President's letters next week.
I think the police will not be arresting me today, thank goodness.
Well, the work here is going well. We made a list of attributes of a good friend with our English course last night. And then for our spiritual thought (cut kind of short by a lack of electricity in the building...but they didn't run away, they just pulled out their cell phones :) ) we talked about how Christ is really our best friend, how he has all those attributes and how he is always just waiting for us to remember that he's there for us. And it's true. I'm really grateful for the atonement for lots of reasons but it's especially nice to know that no matter what we don't ever have to be alone, we've got a best friend who will never judge us unfairly and who will always be there when we need help. And because of him we can do anything, all we have to do is believe in him and trust him. So Merry Christmas!
I love you all, have a wonderful week!
Eliza
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