c'era una volta...

Hello again! So about this whole Mother's Day business coming up--I have no idea what time your ward starts or what time you want me to call you...We've got a little bit of a time difference so I have to call you guys before church, but I don't know around when would be good or necessary. I don't have the package yet. I need to get a codice fiscale, and we tried, but to get the codice fiscale I need my permesso, which I've also tried to get and will try again not this Monday because we have a zone meeting but the next. Hopefully then I can get my codice fiscale and ritirare my package from the dogana. Mamma mia. Che confusione. But oh well, the questura in Ragusa evidently is open Monday afternoons just for the people who are here for motivi religiosi (woulda been nice if we had known that months ago...) and so me and Sorella White will go to Ragusa to get those things and our companions will do scambi. And the Agenzia dell'Entrata or whatever it's called is...

Hello family! Did you send a package of something? It's stuck in Milan in customs, I think they want people to just write "mission supplies" when they send stuff nowadays, but my companion has one up there too so we have to go to the mission home tomorrow and get it all worked out. Fun Fun. So, I have officially been out nine months as of Thursday and I got my call a year ago last Friday. Thursday we spent the whole morning running church movies to the Anziani and waiting for a bus that didn't come for three hours so we could talk to the Relief Society president about how we can help the Relief Society. We taught some lessons at the station, but wow that bus took a long time to get there. The meeting with the presidentessa was good, it showed her that we want to help and that we're here to work together. But she thinks we're here to visit old ladies, but what can you do? I dunno... It was pretty good though. Luckily we got a bus back to Catania so we could ...

CHIESA DI GESÙ CRISTO DEI SANTI DEGLI ULTIMI GIORNI MISSIONE ITALIANA DI CATANIA P.zza E. Vittorini, 7 (Parco Inglese) 95030 Sant’ Agata Li Battiati (CT) Tel. uff. 095/411009 – 411054 Fax uff. 095/411244 15 April 2010 Dear Brother and Sister Stevenson, We are happy to report that Sorella Stevenson has been made a senior companion. This is an important calling and comes because of her proselyting and teaching skills and her diligence in studying and learning the Italian language. Her familiarity and study of Preach My Gospel is an important component in her knowledge and understanding of the missionary lessons and doctrines of the church. We are pleased with her overall growth and development as a faithful servant of the Lord. It will be important for your daughter to rely on the Spirit for inspiration on how to conduct the work in her area. As senior companion, she will be responsible for the missionary work of her companionship. We are confident of her abilities as she has show...

Good morning! It's actually almost three pm. We've had a busy week, lots of traveling and not lots of sleep. Luckily Catania is the only sister city that was unaffected by transfers this time so I didn't have to worry about packing or anything. Let's see...Thursday we had every intention of having a normal day but with internet and then reading and giving our suggestions for the changes that should be made from the old branch mission plan and a whole bunch of other things it ended up being not so normal. We did, however, teach a decent number of lessons. Our English course lately has been interesting...we only have a few girls who come (age 18-30 ish) and we've had lots of gospel discussions in questi giorni. But it's been fun. We talked about the importance of faith in Jesus Christ on Thursday. On Friday morning bright and early we went down to the bus station to catch a bus to Mistretta. Actually, a bus to Nicosia and then we were supposed to catch another...

Here are your lovely daughters as they performed for three different audiences in Sicily this last week. They are tired today, but they did a wonderful job. They had a really good sized crowd in Catania. I wasn't present for the other two. They performed a variety of songs from different genres and had gospel messages throughout the program. Thank you for raising amazing daughters and then sharing them with us. We love and appreciate them. They are always so happy and obedient. Love, Sister Toronto

Well, It's been quite the week, we've done about five million things I think. Did I ever tell you that my companion sang in choir with Nina in High School? Emily Williams. We did a lot of advertising for our concert last week, and got to talk to some interesting people too. On Thursday we went up into a zone a little above our house, and we had been praying to find a family and that we'd be able to recognize them and they would recognize us. Well, we rang a doorbell (the door was open so we didn't have to worry about citofoni, yay) and the lady asked through the door who we were, so we started explaining a little that we had a message about the family and how we can be more united and happy, etc. And she said to hold on a sec (un attimo) and then opened the door and looked at me and said "ci conosciamo, mi sembra" (it seems to me like we know each other). But I had never seen her before. But then they said they knew Sorelle Pead e Miller, and told us their las...

Hello family! Well this week has been...funnnn... Let's give the big news/disaster of the week first--Thursday night we went to use the computer in the church that we knew the password to so we could make publicity stuff for the concert we're doing to find new investigators (we're teaching the first lesson between songs). So, the Anziani were doing a lesson near the genealogy center and there was a member there talking to us and we didn't want to disturb the lesson by talking so we unfortunately took the computer with us to the kitchen and plugged it into an outlet with some weird currents or something, and that was the end of the computer. So we called people and told them what had happened, and they aren't happy. They didn't lose any files, the other computer is just too old for the new program or something, or else it's just not installed. Who knows. But the woman who gave us the password hates us, and would like to kill us. Va bene. The Anziani called u...