3 February 2010
As of 1 July 2010, there will only be two missions in Italia—Milano and Roma!!!
Yes, it's crazy. We're down to only 60 missionaries in our mission and it's going to be staying that way, and with six stakes in Italy and hopefully a Sicilia stake coming soon they have decided to consolidate. They think we'll probably stay down here for a while, but I would be pretty excited to go up north too...it's crazy! So we not only get a new mission president in July, we get a new mission. It'll be interesting. I can send you what President Taranto said about it too.
So I was talking to a man on the bus about the Restoration on Thursday, and I asked him a few questions and then what he thought about it at the end because he had kind of been staring ahead and I didn't know if it was because he didn't really want to listen or if it was just so his ear was closer to my mouth so he could hear better. He replied “I think I'm ignorant for never having heard of these things”. That was a new one. Sfortunatamente the phone number was not on the back of the opuscolo [brochure] I gave him but at least when he looks online like he said he was going to he'll have some place real to go.
Friday we did a really long and detailed planning because following the conference with Anziano Causse we decided we needed to be a bit better at that. I also spilled almost boiling water on my hand, but don't worry, I think it's okay. It burned for a day and there are red marks between my fingers but I can wear a ring so I think it's fine and there's no blister. Then when we went out in the afternoon we had a purpose—to find a family with young kids. Well, we did some casa in a few different places but it's kind of like being a phone salesperson. But then we had an appointment with Gabriella, our investigator, who has a beautiful family with young children and who has been reading and who plans on getting baptized when she knows the church is true. And she marked her calendar for everyday that we can come teach her in the next three weeks. She's way cool. That was a good lesson. The one after it the girl kind of got defensive because I'm pretty sure she's scared of change, people just don't get so defensive when they're apathetic. And she still wants to see us, she just doesn't feel any reason to know that anything is true right now. Her mother-in-law is a member of our branch, and reads scriptures with her grandkids and sings hymns with them. We'll see how it goes with her.
Saturday we went out to a little paesino [village] to find a woman who is a referral from Rimini. Her daughter-in-law is a member and she wants to get baptized, but she's kind of out there so I'm not sure if she will be (she's old and has some memory problems) but we set a date! There was also a baptism for the Sigonella Branch. Sigonella is the military base here, the members there have a branch that meets in our chapel. So this man, Jay Singa (sp?) is from Sri Lanka, and my companion found him on a bus and then the Crawfords taught him (the senior couple who works in the office and is over the Sigonella Branch) and he got baptized. It was way weird to be with Americans, and Italians just don't make chocolate chip cookies the same as Americans. But it was really great. I was really impressed with one of the brothers in the branch, who talked to the kids for a minute right after the baptism and said “you young ones, can you feel the difference? After a baptism I always feel the spirit stronger.” and then he explained a little bit about that the spirit comes in a feeling of peace and said that's one emotion that the devil can't fake. And then he asked the kids “who wants to get baptized?” It was cute. I thought it was a cool idea to just make sure they recognize that it is the spirit that's present after a baptism.
Sunday there was a man in Sunday School who told my companion that he was really impressed with us and how calm we are. He said “I'm used to everybody yelling! We live our lives always angry, and the thing that's cool about you is how peaceful and tranquil you are. Right now I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort to be angry all the time or to keep coming here.” That was pretty cool. Sunday there was a baptism for a little Italian girl. It started at “5” which translates to 6:05. Italians are always late...But it was good. We shared the Restoration video, and our testimonies, and the dad of the daughter sent us chasing after a few of his friends. It was good. It took the whole night but oh well.
Sunday night we got a text message about the Missione Italiana di Catania being dissolved and we basically didn't sleep.
Monday we got soaking wet and were freezing. But we had another lesson with Gabriella that went really well, she really is an incredible person. Then we did some area book because ours is a mess and pretty much unusable and it's going to drive me crazy.
Yesterday we taught a lesson to a member's mom. She just wanted to complain a lot. Soo after a few tries I succeeded at redirecting the conversation to some verses about faith. She listened until her sister came in. Then in the afternoon after some more casa because there was nobody on the street because Italians are bigger wimps about cold than I am (weird, I know) we went to visit Sorella Sciacca. She doesn't feel needed. But we read the “Mind the Gap” talk with her and told her that it really is important and we really do need her in church. We think she thinks that all the sisters in the branch are already best friends and that she wouldn't fit in. It isn't true though, we totally need her. We're going to try to visit her with the Relief Society President. English course went pretty well. Superlatives. My companion gave me some pretty nice compliments about how she's way impressed with how I can turn the conversations around and that my voice is calm so they stop being angry. My companion is way cool, by the way, she thinks she's afraid of doing lots of things but you can't even tell, she just goes up to everybody and starts talking and it's great.
This week is the week of Sant'Agata day. She's the patron saint of Catania. You should look up her story, it's pretty interesting. Anyway, there's a great big festivity and lots of markets and I bought all three Lord of the Rings movies for only 15 euro in Italian/English. I didn't have any of them, I figured it was a great deal and nobody else has “Il Signore dei Anelli”. Everybody's out on the streets though. THEY PICKED UP THE TRASH IN FRONT OF OUR APARTMENT TODAY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I GOT HERE!!! Oh man. It took them an hour and a half and they had a claw, like the kind in the games where you try to pick up a stuffed animal, only way way bigger. We're pretty excited that it's finally gone and that it was raining so they didn't keep burning it. :)
It's true about my big fat greek wedding. We were talking about that yesterday in fact. Raymond's mom on “Everybody Loves Raymond” is not even an exaggeration. If anything she's too uninvolved in her children's lives.
This work is amazing, we're working on finding the people that we know are out there looking for us and it takes a while but it will happen. I have to give a talk on Valentine's day so if you have anything that would get members excited about doing missionary work feel free to share.
I love you all!
Sorella Eliza
Yes, it's crazy. We're down to only 60 missionaries in our mission and it's going to be staying that way, and with six stakes in Italy and hopefully a Sicilia stake coming soon they have decided to consolidate. They think we'll probably stay down here for a while, but I would be pretty excited to go up north too...it's crazy! So we not only get a new mission president in July, we get a new mission. It'll be interesting. I can send you what President Taranto said about it too.
So I was talking to a man on the bus about the Restoration on Thursday, and I asked him a few questions and then what he thought about it at the end because he had kind of been staring ahead and I didn't know if it was because he didn't really want to listen or if it was just so his ear was closer to my mouth so he could hear better. He replied “I think I'm ignorant for never having heard of these things”. That was a new one. Sfortunatamente the phone number was not on the back of the opuscolo [brochure] I gave him but at least when he looks online like he said he was going to he'll have some place real to go.
Friday we did a really long and detailed planning because following the conference with Anziano Causse we decided we needed to be a bit better at that. I also spilled almost boiling water on my hand, but don't worry, I think it's okay. It burned for a day and there are red marks between my fingers but I can wear a ring so I think it's fine and there's no blister. Then when we went out in the afternoon we had a purpose—to find a family with young kids. Well, we did some casa in a few different places but it's kind of like being a phone salesperson. But then we had an appointment with Gabriella, our investigator, who has a beautiful family with young children and who has been reading and who plans on getting baptized when she knows the church is true. And she marked her calendar for everyday that we can come teach her in the next three weeks. She's way cool. That was a good lesson. The one after it the girl kind of got defensive because I'm pretty sure she's scared of change, people just don't get so defensive when they're apathetic. And she still wants to see us, she just doesn't feel any reason to know that anything is true right now. Her mother-in-law is a member of our branch, and reads scriptures with her grandkids and sings hymns with them. We'll see how it goes with her.
Saturday we went out to a little paesino [village] to find a woman who is a referral from Rimini. Her daughter-in-law is a member and she wants to get baptized, but she's kind of out there so I'm not sure if she will be (she's old and has some memory problems) but we set a date! There was also a baptism for the Sigonella Branch. Sigonella is the military base here, the members there have a branch that meets in our chapel. So this man, Jay Singa (sp?) is from Sri Lanka, and my companion found him on a bus and then the Crawfords taught him (the senior couple who works in the office and is over the Sigonella Branch) and he got baptized. It was way weird to be with Americans, and Italians just don't make chocolate chip cookies the same as Americans. But it was really great. I was really impressed with one of the brothers in the branch, who talked to the kids for a minute right after the baptism and said “you young ones, can you feel the difference? After a baptism I always feel the spirit stronger.” and then he explained a little bit about that the spirit comes in a feeling of peace and said that's one emotion that the devil can't fake. And then he asked the kids “who wants to get baptized?” It was cute. I thought it was a cool idea to just make sure they recognize that it is the spirit that's present after a baptism.
Sunday there was a man in Sunday School who told my companion that he was really impressed with us and how calm we are. He said “I'm used to everybody yelling! We live our lives always angry, and the thing that's cool about you is how peaceful and tranquil you are. Right now I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort to be angry all the time or to keep coming here.” That was pretty cool. Sunday there was a baptism for a little Italian girl. It started at “5” which translates to 6:05. Italians are always late...But it was good. We shared the Restoration video, and our testimonies, and the dad of the daughter sent us chasing after a few of his friends. It was good. It took the whole night but oh well.
Sunday night we got a text message about the Missione Italiana di Catania being dissolved and we basically didn't sleep.
Monday we got soaking wet and were freezing. But we had another lesson with Gabriella that went really well, she really is an incredible person. Then we did some area book because ours is a mess and pretty much unusable and it's going to drive me crazy.
Yesterday we taught a lesson to a member's mom. She just wanted to complain a lot. Soo after a few tries I succeeded at redirecting the conversation to some verses about faith. She listened until her sister came in. Then in the afternoon after some more casa because there was nobody on the street because Italians are bigger wimps about cold than I am (weird, I know) we went to visit Sorella Sciacca. She doesn't feel needed. But we read the “Mind the Gap” talk with her and told her that it really is important and we really do need her in church. We think she thinks that all the sisters in the branch are already best friends and that she wouldn't fit in. It isn't true though, we totally need her. We're going to try to visit her with the Relief Society President. English course went pretty well. Superlatives. My companion gave me some pretty nice compliments about how she's way impressed with how I can turn the conversations around and that my voice is calm so they stop being angry. My companion is way cool, by the way, she thinks she's afraid of doing lots of things but you can't even tell, she just goes up to everybody and starts talking and it's great.
This week is the week of Sant'Agata day. She's the patron saint of Catania. You should look up her story, it's pretty interesting. Anyway, there's a great big festivity and lots of markets and I bought all three Lord of the Rings movies for only 15 euro in Italian/English. I didn't have any of them, I figured it was a great deal and nobody else has “Il Signore dei Anelli”. Everybody's out on the streets though. THEY PICKED UP THE TRASH IN FRONT OF OUR APARTMENT TODAY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I GOT HERE!!! Oh man. It took them an hour and a half and they had a claw, like the kind in the games where you try to pick up a stuffed animal, only way way bigger. We're pretty excited that it's finally gone and that it was raining so they didn't keep burning it. :)
It's true about my big fat greek wedding. We were talking about that yesterday in fact. Raymond's mom on “Everybody Loves Raymond” is not even an exaggeration. If anything she's too uninvolved in her children's lives.
This work is amazing, we're working on finding the people that we know are out there looking for us and it takes a while but it will happen. I have to give a talk on Valentine's day so if you have anything that would get members excited about doing missionary work feel free to share.
I love you all!
Sorella Eliza
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