14 April 2010

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 one there to go to Mistretta. Unfortunately the bus was late in Catania and we missed the bus in Nicosia by literally about 5 seconds (it left right as our bus stopped). So we went to ask when the next one would be and the guy in the bar said at 8 am the next day. HAHAHA. Luckily the Branch President's wife from Mistretta came to pick us up, it was awfully nice of her seeing how it's a 45 minute drive in a car. So that was basically the whole day. Then we did the concert in Mistretta which went really well. There weren't a lot of people there--there aren't a lot of people in Mistretta and it was a cold and rainy. But it went well. Then we ate pizza with the Branch President's family, and transfer calls came. They closed Palermo to sisters! So sad, I really wanted to see Monreale if I ever got the chance to serve there. And they had some good things happening, but the Anziani will have to cover it. And there were just a whole lot of phone calls going on--the branch president's daughters were a little frustrated with all the English that was happening I think. Poor girls. And they were quite upset that Sorella White was leaving. So anyway, that was Friday.

Saturday we missed the train to Palermo and had to wait for it a long time. Fortunately the train station in Santo Stefano has a beautiful view of the ocean so it isn't frustrating to wait. It finally came, we finally got to Palermo, etc. The concert there went well too. A few members were a little concerned about the fact that the sisters are getting taken away, and it was kind of like a grand farewell since Slla Wendorf is now home and Slla Jenkins is now in Bari. But it was good. Catania had the best turnout though. And then we just went home and went to sleep.

We had to leave at 7 am on Sunday to catch an 8 am bus to Catania. We got to Catania at about 10:40, and then luckily the assistants came to pick us up so we got to Sacrament Meeting. And Sacrament Meeting was amazingly reverent following an announcement about being reverent. I think if they do announcements each week it will get a lot better. I still don't get why half the branch leaves after sacrament though. Sunday night we saw the Buonafede at the Pappalardo's house. That was fun. Both families are ridiculously amazing. The Buonafede unfortunately don't have tons of time, but they are AMAZING. It was a great lesson, they had great comments and questions, and it was basically just awesome.

On Monday morning we had consiglio di distretto, we thought it would just be us and the anziani since the assistants were doing transfer stuff, but it was our whole district and then all the dying missionaries who were there and the people who were waiting for companions to go through Catania on to other destinations. It was pretty fun. We made a long list of all the blessings and doctrines that were restored with the gospel. We're really grateful for this Restaurazione, and we're working on letting people know just how important it is, because it really is important.
Then we had to go down to the station to get Sorella Hashey who had to wait for Sorella Smith to get down from Taranto, and ended up taking Sorella Robb and Sorella Pickett home with us too, because there wasn't a bus from Nicosia to Mistretta in the afternoon. So we had another day with lots of sisters. We ended up doing splits in the evening, I went with Sorella Robb to Sorella Seminara's and Sorella Williams and Pickett went to find an inactive. It was a lot of fun to work with Sorella Robb for a little bit, and to see how much we've both learned. It seems like a million years ago that we were companions, but it was way fun to work with her again. In her words "it's like they assign you best friends, and then when there are transfers you have to give your best friend to somebody else". It was a good night. And I got all the Ragusa updates which was fun too. Genny our friend from the fruit stand is going to have a baby. And I wrote letters to all the people I took pictures with before I left, and gave them the pictures, and Sorella Robb had just passed them out and I guess everyone loved them, so that was good.

Those girls left yesterday morning at 5:40 or something to catch a 6:15 bus, and I was completely out of it because we just had such a crazy week with no sleep. I woke up for their alarm but went back to sleep and didn't hear them leave. I like earplugs...
Then we had to do weekly planning since we didn't have a chance last Friday...ha.
It went well. We then walked to Acicastello, not actually that far away all things considered, to see Sorella Di Mauro. She's awesome. I like awesome people.
Corso d'inglese did not involve English yesterday. It was only Stefania at the beginning and she asked some question that we were answering when Giordana came in, and then that led to more conversation which continued when the other Stefania came, and basically we just talked about religion until the end of the class and testified a lot and invited them to pray and to learn more. It was really interesting, they're really interesting girls. And Giordana said the prayer at the end, and that was a big step. People here don't close their eyes when they pray though, it's kinda different.
I'm pretty glad that in public schools in the US teach the basic beliefs of all main religions, and that I've taken a bunch of classes about religion at school. Here they have Catholic religion classes that everyone has to go to, and they teach that there are two religions: Christian (which in Italy equals Catholic) and Protestant (which is everything else?). It's kind of interesting.
And we've decided to go over our weekly goals every night during planning so we actually remember the things that we wanted to work on. yahoo.

This morning we went and played beach volleyball. I actually didn't play...I wrote letters. I don't really care about beach volleyball. Plus I got out of paying the 6 euro for the hour they were playing.
After this we are going to go to the Crawford's, Sorella Crawford is making us tacos. And then we've got correlation at 7. Fun stuff.

Life is really good, the church is true! I'm really grateful for the scriptures, and that we have them and can read them. And I'm kind of glad we get to stay in our city for a little bit and catch up on everything.

I'm glad Brendan's baptism was awesome! He's a cool kid. And I'm glad you got to visit all of those people. I didn't read the whole email yet, but I will I promise.

I love you all!!!

Eliza