17 March 2010
Carissima famiglia mia,
Well, let's see...we did, in fact, see Heberne on Thursday. I can't remember why he said he couldn't make it on Tuesday, but we saw him on Thursday and he left for Paris on Friday and will be back tomorrow or something so we'll see. It was a really intense lesson, he has a lot of questions and he's a scholar and tries to look at everything logically and it was just crazy. But one thing we're learning is to just teach a little principle and then bear testimony that we know it's true. They want to know how we know, of course, so we tell them, it's really cool though that testimony just changes a situation from horrible to amazing. It went well. He left us homework, to study about the will of God versus agency or something along those lines.
I am keeping track of addresses and last names. We're working on it. Because without them, it's way hard. It's super super easy to ignore a phone call. But when you know that we've sat on a bus for an hour after walking an hour to the bus stop just to see you it's a little harder to refuse to see us. But our area book has soooo many people without last names or addresses and they're impossible to contact.
One thing that we're trying to do with our members is to do the lesson before you eat. We're pretty sick of the whole eat for hours and then in the five minutes before you have to leave "the missionaries have to give their little thought". When in fact, we are not doing little thoughts, we are doing lessons. And when everyone is half asleep after big meals, it's hard to do a lesson. So we'll see how this goes. It's a little different here with the whole member thing though, they don't have calendars or invite us over, we invite ourselves over. It's kind of bizarre at first, but you get used to it.
So Thursday we saw Tina Messina. And she is a nut. She talks so much. But we'll see where it goes. She had a fever of 40 degrees on Wednesday and she thought about canceling on us but then she thought she'd just see how she felt. So on Thursday it was down to 36 degrees and so she thinks it's a miracle and a sign that God wants her to hear what we have to say. We agreed wholeheartedly. We're working on being bold, by the way. These people say whatever they think so we need to just say what we know.
Then we talked to Stefania and Valentina from English course and that went pretty well. Valentina prayed at the end, cool.
For English course, we got started a little late and we forgot the grammar stuff so we decided to just get started with our spiritual thought. We've been going through the lessons, but we decided to do a little review and watch the Restoration video. So we did a little intro about prophets and the apostasy and then we watched the movie, and then after the movie we bore testimony that we know it's true and invited them to read the Book of Mormon. And then we asked if there were any questions and they all said no so we decided we'd play an English game, but then we sat down to play the game and they all started asking questions. So that was pretty cool. We got to answer them and talk about who we are, what we're really doing here, etc etc. Cool cool.
It was pretty cool during the movie too at the very end where they're reading Moroni's promise that the spirit was just super strong. It's true, no doubt about it.
Friday, holy cow, it was insane. So the day started out beautifully and sunny and we did our weekly planning and then we ate a sandwich to run out the door to go to the hospital where a Sorella works and well, there was a strike that day so no buses. And the weather changed to freezing and cloudy. SO we walked and walked and walked and walked and finally decided to just wait at the bus stop anyway and she came to pick us up around two. We went to her house, and she has a ridiculous dog, and she made us food. And way too much of it. And so we ate and ate and ate and then had one of the most ridiculous member lessons of all time. And she drove us home so we were home in Catania at 7. So after five hours, she tells us "next time you need to pick a day when you don't have other commitments and you can stay without worrying". I don't know what in the world these people think we are here to do, but it most certainly is not to eat or to hang out all day. I could do that at home with people I already know. Mamma mia. And she was not nice to her grandson and it made me really kind of upset but oh well...
Sorella Williams turned 22 on Saturday! Saturday we visited Lillian again and read Moroni 7 with her and it was really cool, we just discussed the verses and then challenged her to pick one of the attributes and work on it during the week. Then we were going to go to a less-active but we have a two year old branch list and she's still on her mom's address or something and so we bought tickets we don't need for a place that we can actually walk to, who knew, and she said to not worry about it and come another day. :P
So we went to another Sorella and had a good discussion with her for a bit and a lot of walking...
Sunday I gave my first talk in Italy. The theme Sunday was missionary work, the subject of my talk was the Sister Matsumori one from general conference about helping others to recognize the promptings of the spirit. The talk went well, I was congratulated on my language, it was a good meeting. Well, the talks were good. The branch is working on being more reverent this year. It's a really necessary goal...
Then we walked for about three hours on Sunday night and talked to a whole bunch of people and that was fun.
Monday we had a really good consiglio di distretto. Our study plan for this transfer is the plan of Salvation and also chapter 6 in Preach my Gospel, the Christlike Attributes chapter. So we all went off in little corners of the chapel and did the activity at the end of the chapter and set some goals to improve and then in six months we'll do it again. The Anziani also played a really good joke on us, and told us that because we're going to be in the Rome mission we have to speak the language like they do and use "loro" (them) instead of "voi" (y'all) with the missionaries of the opposite gender and we fell for it. Sad...
Then we went to Sorella Meli in the afternoon and after a whole lesson about what a testimony is she still didn't get it so we'll have fun with her...Crazy crazy, she also spent half an hour (maybe a little less, I hope) talking about how she's going to tell some other members in the branch that they can't take the sacrament because their house isn't clean enough. I've been in the house, it's fine, it needs new light bulbs but that's it.
Va bene. We had a good lesson with Sorella Catania and Sorella Amato and Anna Rita's little girls. I like going to Sorella Catania's house because we do the lesson first, then if we're out of time at the end she gives us food to take home.
Yesterday we went to find this couple that we had found on Saturday and made an appointment with and they weren't at home. So we found a nice man from Sri Lanka instead. Crazy morning though, lots of walking. Then we went and found Cristina Spina and it's a little over an hour walk to her house--luckily she gave us a ride to English course. She's really cool though, she needs to come back to church. Her eight year old boy likes me a lot.
Not much else going on around here. Actually there are a lot of things, every day, it's just hard to remember everything...
I love you guys, thanks for everything!
Eliza
Well, let's see...we did, in fact, see Heberne on Thursday. I can't remember why he said he couldn't make it on Tuesday, but we saw him on Thursday and he left for Paris on Friday and will be back tomorrow or something so we'll see. It was a really intense lesson, he has a lot of questions and he's a scholar and tries to look at everything logically and it was just crazy. But one thing we're learning is to just teach a little principle and then bear testimony that we know it's true. They want to know how we know, of course, so we tell them, it's really cool though that testimony just changes a situation from horrible to amazing. It went well. He left us homework, to study about the will of God versus agency or something along those lines.
I am keeping track of addresses and last names. We're working on it. Because without them, it's way hard. It's super super easy to ignore a phone call. But when you know that we've sat on a bus for an hour after walking an hour to the bus stop just to see you it's a little harder to refuse to see us. But our area book has soooo many people without last names or addresses and they're impossible to contact.
One thing that we're trying to do with our members is to do the lesson before you eat. We're pretty sick of the whole eat for hours and then in the five minutes before you have to leave "the missionaries have to give their little thought". When in fact, we are not doing little thoughts, we are doing lessons. And when everyone is half asleep after big meals, it's hard to do a lesson. So we'll see how this goes. It's a little different here with the whole member thing though, they don't have calendars or invite us over, we invite ourselves over. It's kind of bizarre at first, but you get used to it.
So Thursday we saw Tina Messina. And she is a nut. She talks so much. But we'll see where it goes. She had a fever of 40 degrees on Wednesday and she thought about canceling on us but then she thought she'd just see how she felt. So on Thursday it was down to 36 degrees and so she thinks it's a miracle and a sign that God wants her to hear what we have to say. We agreed wholeheartedly. We're working on being bold, by the way. These people say whatever they think so we need to just say what we know.
Then we talked to Stefania and Valentina from English course and that went pretty well. Valentina prayed at the end, cool.
For English course, we got started a little late and we forgot the grammar stuff so we decided to just get started with our spiritual thought. We've been going through the lessons, but we decided to do a little review and watch the Restoration video. So we did a little intro about prophets and the apostasy and then we watched the movie, and then after the movie we bore testimony that we know it's true and invited them to read the Book of Mormon. And then we asked if there were any questions and they all said no so we decided we'd play an English game, but then we sat down to play the game and they all started asking questions. So that was pretty cool. We got to answer them and talk about who we are, what we're really doing here, etc etc. Cool cool.
It was pretty cool during the movie too at the very end where they're reading Moroni's promise that the spirit was just super strong. It's true, no doubt about it.
Friday, holy cow, it was insane. So the day started out beautifully and sunny and we did our weekly planning and then we ate a sandwich to run out the door to go to the hospital where a Sorella works and well, there was a strike that day so no buses. And the weather changed to freezing and cloudy. SO we walked and walked and walked and walked and finally decided to just wait at the bus stop anyway and she came to pick us up around two. We went to her house, and she has a ridiculous dog, and she made us food. And way too much of it. And so we ate and ate and ate and then had one of the most ridiculous member lessons of all time. And she drove us home so we were home in Catania at 7. So after five hours, she tells us "next time you need to pick a day when you don't have other commitments and you can stay without worrying". I don't know what in the world these people think we are here to do, but it most certainly is not to eat or to hang out all day. I could do that at home with people I already know. Mamma mia. And she was not nice to her grandson and it made me really kind of upset but oh well...
Sorella Williams turned 22 on Saturday! Saturday we visited Lillian again and read Moroni 7 with her and it was really cool, we just discussed the verses and then challenged her to pick one of the attributes and work on it during the week. Then we were going to go to a less-active but we have a two year old branch list and she's still on her mom's address or something and so we bought tickets we don't need for a place that we can actually walk to, who knew, and she said to not worry about it and come another day. :P
So we went to another Sorella and had a good discussion with her for a bit and a lot of walking...
Sunday I gave my first talk in Italy. The theme Sunday was missionary work, the subject of my talk was the Sister Matsumori one from general conference about helping others to recognize the promptings of the spirit. The talk went well, I was congratulated on my language, it was a good meeting. Well, the talks were good. The branch is working on being more reverent this year. It's a really necessary goal...
Then we walked for about three hours on Sunday night and talked to a whole bunch of people and that was fun.
Monday we had a really good consiglio di distretto. Our study plan for this transfer is the plan of Salvation and also chapter 6 in Preach my Gospel, the Christlike Attributes chapter. So we all went off in little corners of the chapel and did the activity at the end of the chapter and set some goals to improve and then in six months we'll do it again. The Anziani also played a really good joke on us, and told us that because we're going to be in the Rome mission we have to speak the language like they do and use "loro" (them) instead of "voi" (y'all) with the missionaries of the opposite gender and we fell for it. Sad...
Then we went to Sorella Meli in the afternoon and after a whole lesson about what a testimony is she still didn't get it so we'll have fun with her...Crazy crazy, she also spent half an hour (maybe a little less, I hope) talking about how she's going to tell some other members in the branch that they can't take the sacrament because their house isn't clean enough. I've been in the house, it's fine, it needs new light bulbs but that's it.
Va bene. We had a good lesson with Sorella Catania and Sorella Amato and Anna Rita's little girls. I like going to Sorella Catania's house because we do the lesson first, then if we're out of time at the end she gives us food to take home.
Yesterday we went to find this couple that we had found on Saturday and made an appointment with and they weren't at home. So we found a nice man from Sri Lanka instead. Crazy morning though, lots of walking. Then we went and found Cristina Spina and it's a little over an hour walk to her house--luckily she gave us a ride to English course. She's really cool though, she needs to come back to church. Her eight year old boy likes me a lot.
Not much else going on around here. Actually there are a lot of things, every day, it's just hard to remember everything...
I love you guys, thanks for everything!
Eliza
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