13 January 2010
Hello!
We didn't actually make it to the living presepe [creche], purtroppo [unfortunately]. We were a little sad. Genny wasn't having a good day, and she wasn't in Ragusa, and the friend who knew where to find it had other commitments. Ah well. We found something to do, but I can't remember what.
Thursday was a busy day. We usually do weekly planning on Friday, but I don't think we've done it on Friday this whole transfer because there have been a million other things on Friday. This week was no exception, we did planning on Thursday. It's hard to plan when you haven't been in your city or seen your investigators much since the last planning time. We were able to meet with Sorella Iacono and talk to her a bit about serving other people by just loving them and even just saying hi to a couple of new people at church on Sunday. That's one of our main things for members in these days, is to just be happy and be nice to each other and new people too. We finally had Correlazione for the first time since before Christmas. It was necessary. The anziani have an investigator, Giuseppina Palermo, who is getting baptized on Friday. She is 78 years old and she's known the church for about thirty years but it just never really clicked until now. She says she's very content and a little excited to get baptized. She's a way cute lady.
Friday morning we found out that even if Esther and Justice had made an effort to keep their baptismal date they wouldn't have been able to. There's a little bit of a legal problem with their marriage that will require a lot of paperwork and a trip to the Ghana embassy in Roma for it to be made legal, and they don't have the money for that sort of thing. So hopefully one day we'll be able to see them again and ask them about all of this stuff. It'll be a while before they get baptized anyway. And we had district meeting with the zone leaders and they didn't even bring us our conference liahonas or mail, so that was a fun day. We also went to see Elvira, and she told us basically that she's too afraid of what people will think to even try and learn anything. Even though she thinks her true friends are the members of the church and she still wants to come to church. It was an interesting day. But we got a ride home from Sorella Campo, who was smiling even though her mom has cancer and was preparing for surgery, and we made it in before the rain, and we wrote down all the good things about the day.
Saturday was a lot better. We think it's because we counted our blessings. We made Genny cry by taking her a card that told her all the things we think are great about her. It's probably kind of a mean thing to do to somebody who's working. It was kind of cool though, just to see that she really needed to hear that she was special and we were able to help her a little. We then went to lunch at Sorella Turtula's. We ate too much. Her mom remembered us though, even though it had been a month! She was sooo excited to see us, it was awesome. We got there and she said to Slla Turtula "You didn't tell me that I KNEW them!!!" Supercontenta.
We helped a member who was uberstressed clean her house. It's ridiculous though, that we had to. She has two very capable returned missionary sons living at home that could do something, but invece [instead] no. I walked around the corner after doing something and she looked at me and said "It seems so strange", I said "what?" she said "to have help!" I was pretty much disgusted by the fact that the 22 year old had the nerve to tell us thank you. I don't care what country you live in the whole men don't do anything in the house idea is STUPID. And that's all I have to say about that.
Sunday, Anna came to church. She's read a little out of the Book of Mormon. She was in Società di soccorso [Relief Society] but then had to go home and make lunch for the guy she works for. She had never heard of anything other than the trinity and was a little confused about the first gospel principles lesson for that reason. I think we kind of take for granted in the US the fact that we generally know at least a little about other religions than our own.
And Sorella Palermo came to church!!! Yay!
Monday we were able to meet with Sorella Colombo, it was the first time I had seen her, at her house, since I got to Ragusa. You just have to knock on her door at like 4:30 pm and she'll let you in, easy. She's really an interesting lady.
We also gave Francesco, the 11 year old, to the Anziani. Hopefully they'll be able to help him be more responsible--he doesn't have a dad so we decided it's about time he gets some kind of male influence in his life. He needs lots of help.
Yesterday and today we went to the Questura to try and get my permesso. HAHAHA what a joke. They say it's in there but I don't have time to leave every morning at 7 and wait for 2 hours to try and get on the list and get an appointment to try and get it out assuming it actually is there. Especially when it's raining and you have to stand outside with a group of way desperate people. I just don't feel like I'm as desperate to be here as these people, my home country's pretty decent. Oh well. I have to go back at some point but not this week. Hopefully Slla Campo can call her friend and get me an appointment.
We did get a pretty cool blessing yesterday. Emmanuel in our branch sent mission papers to Germany about a month ago (they don't have them translated into Italian yet or something so they can't do them online? I don't know, it seems weird) and it never got to Germany. Possibly because there was a little arsony in the post office in Catania a little over a month ago around the time he sent them. So he had to refill them and the Anziani took them to Catania yesterday and brought back MAIL! and Conference Liahonas. Both were really exciting. SO I got the ward letter and a letter from Aunt Kathy and some letters from Alex. And then for corso d'inglese we talked to Heike about the science of happiness. It was a good day. The mail was much appreciated.
It's raining. In fact, me and my collega are pretty much soaking wet. We went to Scicli today, because we had heard it's pretty. Well, in the rain it's pretty exiting anyway. We laughed a lot. The anziani from Gela bought umbrellas for 7 euro, because we couldn't find any cheap ones and they didn't have men selling them on the street like they do here. It was fun anyway.
We're excited for Giuseppina to get baptized. And then Sunday is Branch Conference. And tomorrow is transfer calls, so we'll see if I'll still be here. It's always crazy with sisters--we have one new one coming in this week which means there will be a trio somewhere and we just have no idea where or with who.
But lots of busy and exciting things here.
Gotta go, I love you lots
Sorella Eliza Stevenson
We didn't actually make it to the living presepe [creche], purtroppo [unfortunately]. We were a little sad. Genny wasn't having a good day, and she wasn't in Ragusa, and the friend who knew where to find it had other commitments. Ah well. We found something to do, but I can't remember what.
Thursday was a busy day. We usually do weekly planning on Friday, but I don't think we've done it on Friday this whole transfer because there have been a million other things on Friday. This week was no exception, we did planning on Thursday. It's hard to plan when you haven't been in your city or seen your investigators much since the last planning time. We were able to meet with Sorella Iacono and talk to her a bit about serving other people by just loving them and even just saying hi to a couple of new people at church on Sunday. That's one of our main things for members in these days, is to just be happy and be nice to each other and new people too. We finally had Correlazione for the first time since before Christmas. It was necessary. The anziani have an investigator, Giuseppina Palermo, who is getting baptized on Friday. She is 78 years old and she's known the church for about thirty years but it just never really clicked until now. She says she's very content and a little excited to get baptized. She's a way cute lady.
Friday morning we found out that even if Esther and Justice had made an effort to keep their baptismal date they wouldn't have been able to. There's a little bit of a legal problem with their marriage that will require a lot of paperwork and a trip to the Ghana embassy in Roma for it to be made legal, and they don't have the money for that sort of thing. So hopefully one day we'll be able to see them again and ask them about all of this stuff. It'll be a while before they get baptized anyway. And we had district meeting with the zone leaders and they didn't even bring us our conference liahonas or mail, so that was a fun day. We also went to see Elvira, and she told us basically that she's too afraid of what people will think to even try and learn anything. Even though she thinks her true friends are the members of the church and she still wants to come to church. It was an interesting day. But we got a ride home from Sorella Campo, who was smiling even though her mom has cancer and was preparing for surgery, and we made it in before the rain, and we wrote down all the good things about the day.
Saturday was a lot better. We think it's because we counted our blessings. We made Genny cry by taking her a card that told her all the things we think are great about her. It's probably kind of a mean thing to do to somebody who's working. It was kind of cool though, just to see that she really needed to hear that she was special and we were able to help her a little. We then went to lunch at Sorella Turtula's. We ate too much. Her mom remembered us though, even though it had been a month! She was sooo excited to see us, it was awesome. We got there and she said to Slla Turtula "You didn't tell me that I KNEW them!!!" Supercontenta.
We helped a member who was uberstressed clean her house. It's ridiculous though, that we had to. She has two very capable returned missionary sons living at home that could do something, but invece [instead] no. I walked around the corner after doing something and she looked at me and said "It seems so strange", I said "what?" she said "to have help!" I was pretty much disgusted by the fact that the 22 year old had the nerve to tell us thank you. I don't care what country you live in the whole men don't do anything in the house idea is STUPID. And that's all I have to say about that.
Sunday, Anna came to church. She's read a little out of the Book of Mormon. She was in Società di soccorso [Relief Society] but then had to go home and make lunch for the guy she works for. She had never heard of anything other than the trinity and was a little confused about the first gospel principles lesson for that reason. I think we kind of take for granted in the US the fact that we generally know at least a little about other religions than our own.
And Sorella Palermo came to church!!! Yay!
Monday we were able to meet with Sorella Colombo, it was the first time I had seen her, at her house, since I got to Ragusa. You just have to knock on her door at like 4:30 pm and she'll let you in, easy. She's really an interesting lady.
We also gave Francesco, the 11 year old, to the Anziani. Hopefully they'll be able to help him be more responsible--he doesn't have a dad so we decided it's about time he gets some kind of male influence in his life. He needs lots of help.
Yesterday and today we went to the Questura to try and get my permesso. HAHAHA what a joke. They say it's in there but I don't have time to leave every morning at 7 and wait for 2 hours to try and get on the list and get an appointment to try and get it out assuming it actually is there. Especially when it's raining and you have to stand outside with a group of way desperate people. I just don't feel like I'm as desperate to be here as these people, my home country's pretty decent. Oh well. I have to go back at some point but not this week. Hopefully Slla Campo can call her friend and get me an appointment.
We did get a pretty cool blessing yesterday. Emmanuel in our branch sent mission papers to Germany about a month ago (they don't have them translated into Italian yet or something so they can't do them online? I don't know, it seems weird) and it never got to Germany. Possibly because there was a little arsony in the post office in Catania a little over a month ago around the time he sent them. So he had to refill them and the Anziani took them to Catania yesterday and brought back MAIL! and Conference Liahonas. Both were really exciting. SO I got the ward letter and a letter from Aunt Kathy and some letters from Alex. And then for corso d'inglese we talked to Heike about the science of happiness. It was a good day. The mail was much appreciated.
It's raining. In fact, me and my collega are pretty much soaking wet. We went to Scicli today, because we had heard it's pretty. Well, in the rain it's pretty exiting anyway. We laughed a lot. The anziani from Gela bought umbrellas for 7 euro, because we couldn't find any cheap ones and they didn't have men selling them on the street like they do here. It was fun anyway.
We're excited for Giuseppina to get baptized. And then Sunday is Branch Conference. And tomorrow is transfer calls, so we'll see if I'll still be here. It's always crazy with sisters--we have one new one coming in this week which means there will be a trio somewhere and we just have no idea where or with who.
But lots of busy and exciting things here.
Gotta go, I love you lots
Sorella Eliza Stevenson
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