21 April 2010
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 get to English Course! We went in with Advanced and that was pretty fun. We asked them what they would take if they were stuck on a desert island. Somebody thought that meant "what would you take from the desert island" and there was a little argument but other than that it was pretty normal.
Friday was planning and not much else purtroppo. They were going to show the Saturday morning session of conference at the church, and luckily our investigators didn't show because they couldn't figure out how to run it. They were hooking up to the satellite for some reason, I don't know why since the session was on a videocasette. We ended up cleaning out our area book a little bit.
Saturday we helped a family who recently moved to clean their house. I cleaned the fridge, that's a really dangerous job. There were little headless fishes staring at me and mold all over. It's always more fun to clean when you can clearly see the difference. We're going back to help some more this Saturday I think. It's really kind of sad though, the sister was working with us, it's not like she doesn't work, but in most families here the kids don't do anything so even though all her kids were home they weren't helping. I'm going to teach my kids to do chores. Mamma mia. It was fun though.
Then Fratello Di Mauro bought us happy meals. There are like 6 McDonald's in this city. That's a whole lot I think. And they didn't give me fries in my happy meal!
Then we went to see the famiglia Sciacca, we hadn't seen them in ages and ages. We're going to take over the program for quitting smoking next time, he said he wanted to try--he doesn't feel like he should be coming to church unless he's keeping all the commandments. I think that it would be difficult to get anybody to church if we all felt like that. But we'll see what happens.
Then we saw Cristina Spina, who is really a great girl. She needs to stop smoking too. Lots of crazy things are happening in her life right now and she's way nervous and all over the place and hopefully we'll be able to get back and see her, because she's really great. She has a hard time, she had a kid when she was 15 and she never got a chance to be a kid, so she's kind of stuck between trying to be a good mom and wanting to be young.
Sunday was good. Church was interesting, Relief Society is always an adventure. And our Principi Evangelici teacher doesn't use the Book of Mormon ever. But Sacrament Meeting was about missionary work, and a kid who was baptized a year and a half ago gave a talk and it was awesome. He was way nervous, but very straightforward and just a great talk overall. And my companion spoke, and Anziano Tate, and it was a good meeting.
We made cheesecake brownies for Anziano Tate's birthday.
Then at 4:30 we headed over to the Di Mauro's, they had gotten a gelato cake for Anziano Tate's birthday, but they didn't tell us why we were going there, just that we all had to come. It was kind of fun, we washed their dishes, even though they really tried to make us stop.
Then the Anziani dropped us off at Ognina and we walked down Lungo Mare to the station and back up and talked to some cool people. There are a lot more people from Catania on Lungo Mare than there are on Via Etnea, but I'm sure that we'll change as summer comes. We're in Siracusa today and there are very few Italians anywhere.
Monday we went to Zone 30, to look for some inactive sisters we've been wanting to look for for a while. We found the son of one of them, he was really nice, he took the talk we'd brought for her and gave us her phone number. And she called us later in the afternoon when she came home from work and said we could come over. So we set up an appointment for Tuesday.
Then we went to Sorella Bacchetti and had an interesting lesson. She's got a fun Milan accent, and she talks a LOT.
Yesterday we met Sorella Recupero. She's pretty cool, I don't know if she remembers what the church is all about but that was fun anyway. And fast, woohoo. But we're welcome to come back and to talk to her family. She hasn't been to church in 30 years because her husband wouldn't let her when they were first married. But we'll see what happens.
Then we had to run to English course. We left her house at 6:05 and corso starts at 7 and we were more than an hour away. BUT. We caught a 721, and then a 443, and then a 628 and then a 237 that left the station 10 minutes late just so that it could come up right behind our bus and we could make a switch. Yahoo. We got up near our house at 7:45 and were really excited that we could probably be almost on time, started walking, and then some students drove by and gave us a ride. That was pretty cool. Only Stefania showed up to English course though, so we didn't really speak English. But oh well.
Today we are in Siracusa, everything is free this week because it's some kind of Italian culture week. So we decided to come down, since it's only an hour away by bus, and in our zone. Fun stuff! We've seen a Roman amphitheater so far, and Dionyses' Ear. But the Greek amphitheater they're doing some kind of concert in soon I think so it's pretty much destroyed--covered by modern stadium seating. I have no idea WHAT they're doing but it's not right, you can't just go and do that it's ridiculous. Va bene. What can you do?
Well, I love you guys. I hope that everything is going wonderfully well. I say that you find somewhere big and sunny to do school. I don't know. I'm outside all the time and it's pretty weird, I'm already getting a tan and I only started wearing short sleeves this week. I'm still whiter than most people though, no worries. It's been sunny with a nice cool breeze, perfect weather.
Well, I love you, gotta run, Ciao!!!
Eliza
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 get to English Course! We went in with Advanced and that was pretty fun. We asked them what they would take if they were stuck on a desert island. Somebody thought that meant "what would you take from the desert island" and there was a little argument but other than that it was pretty normal.
Friday was planning and not much else purtroppo. They were going to show the Saturday morning session of conference at the church, and luckily our investigators didn't show because they couldn't figure out how to run it. They were hooking up to the satellite for some reason, I don't know why since the session was on a videocasette. We ended up cleaning out our area book a little bit.
Saturday we helped a family who recently moved to clean their house. I cleaned the fridge, that's a really dangerous job. There were little headless fishes staring at me and mold all over. It's always more fun to clean when you can clearly see the difference. We're going back to help some more this Saturday I think. It's really kind of sad though, the sister was working with us, it's not like she doesn't work, but in most families here the kids don't do anything so even though all her kids were home they weren't helping. I'm going to teach my kids to do chores. Mamma mia. It was fun though.
Then Fratello Di Mauro bought us happy meals. There are like 6 McDonald's in this city. That's a whole lot I think. And they didn't give me fries in my happy meal!
Then we went to see the famiglia Sciacca, we hadn't seen them in ages and ages. We're going to take over the program for quitting smoking next time, he said he wanted to try--he doesn't feel like he should be coming to church unless he's keeping all the commandments. I think that it would be difficult to get anybody to church if we all felt like that. But we'll see what happens.
Then we saw Cristina Spina, who is really a great girl. She needs to stop smoking too. Lots of crazy things are happening in her life right now and she's way nervous and all over the place and hopefully we'll be able to get back and see her, because she's really great. She has a hard time, she had a kid when she was 15 and she never got a chance to be a kid, so she's kind of stuck between trying to be a good mom and wanting to be young.
Sunday was good. Church was interesting, Relief Society is always an adventure. And our Principi Evangelici teacher doesn't use the Book of Mormon ever. But Sacrament Meeting was about missionary work, and a kid who was baptized a year and a half ago gave a talk and it was awesome. He was way nervous, but very straightforward and just a great talk overall. And my companion spoke, and Anziano Tate, and it was a good meeting.
We made cheesecake brownies for Anziano Tate's birthday.
Then at 4:30 we headed over to the Di Mauro's, they had gotten a gelato cake for Anziano Tate's birthday, but they didn't tell us why we were going there, just that we all had to come. It was kind of fun, we washed their dishes, even though they really tried to make us stop.
Then the Anziani dropped us off at Ognina and we walked down Lungo Mare to the station and back up and talked to some cool people. There are a lot more people from Catania on Lungo Mare than there are on Via Etnea, but I'm sure that we'll change as summer comes. We're in Siracusa today and there are very few Italians anywhere.
Monday we went to Zone 30, to look for some inactive sisters we've been wanting to look for for a while. We found the son of one of them, he was really nice, he took the talk we'd brought for her and gave us her phone number. And she called us later in the afternoon when she came home from work and said we could come over. So we set up an appointment for Tuesday.
Then we went to Sorella Bacchetti and had an interesting lesson. She's got a fun Milan accent, and she talks a LOT.
Yesterday we met Sorella Recupero. She's pretty cool, I don't know if she remembers what the church is all about but that was fun anyway. And fast, woohoo. But we're welcome to come back and to talk to her family. She hasn't been to church in 30 years because her husband wouldn't let her when they were first married. But we'll see what happens.
Then we had to run to English course. We left her house at 6:05 and corso starts at 7 and we were more than an hour away. BUT. We caught a 721, and then a 443, and then a 628 and then a 237 that left the station 10 minutes late just so that it could come up right behind our bus and we could make a switch. Yahoo. We got up near our house at 7:45 and were really excited that we could probably be almost on time, started walking, and then some students drove by and gave us a ride. That was pretty cool. Only Stefania showed up to English course though, so we didn't really speak English. But oh well.
Today we are in Siracusa, everything is free this week because it's some kind of Italian culture week. So we decided to come down, since it's only an hour away by bus, and in our zone. Fun stuff! We've seen a Roman amphitheater so far, and Dionyses' Ear. But the Greek amphitheater they're doing some kind of concert in soon I think so it's pretty much destroyed--covered by modern stadium seating. I have no idea WHAT they're doing but it's not right, you can't just go and do that it's ridiculous. Va bene. What can you do?
Well, I love you guys. I hope that everything is going wonderfully well. I say that you find somewhere big and sunny to do school. I don't know. I'm outside all the time and it's pretty weird, I'm already getting a tan and I only started wearing short sleeves this week. I'm still whiter than most people though, no worries. It's been sunny with a nice cool breeze, perfect weather.
Well, I love you, gotta run, Ciao!!!
Eliza
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