7 April 2010
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 last name, which was one that I recognized
from the area book--a family we didn't have any contact information
for. So she recognized us and we recognized her. It was way cool.
We've got an appointment with her and a family in our branch Sunday
evening. Yahoo!
Then in the afternoon we went to see Richa and it went really well.
In corso d'inglese we watched "to this end was I born" with all the
classes combined, and then Sorella Williams and I closed with our
testimonies of the Savior and it was just really awesome. I got my
Easter package, thanks so much! I really love the necklace, it's so
cute.
Friday we did exchanges with the Siracusa sisters. Sorella Morgan, who
was in the MTC at the same time as Alex and goes home next week, came
to Catania with me and Sorella Williams went to Siracusa with Sorella
M. Miller (we've got two Slla Miller in our mission). We had to type
up a survey for our concert, purtroppo that took a little time, but
then we went to see the Smedila family and they are so awesome. It's
really fun to go to good families and to see good examples and get
good ideas of things to do with your own family. But those little
girls are so smart, mamma mia, so much fun. We taught them half of the
first lesson and then they taught us. And they fed us dinner, and not
too much because she served in the Padova mission and knows what it's
like. She also drinks rootbeer (most Italians hate it) and listens to
Iron Maiden. Weird.
Saturday morning Sorella Morgan and I went and dropped by Gabriella
unannounced, and she was excited to see us and super cute. She's
struggling with teaching her kids about Christ and that religion is
important because her husband doesn't believe anything (PRIMARY would
be good) and she thinks commandments are kind of dumb and doesn't get
answers to prayers about them because, in her words, she thinks
they're dumb and doesn't really want an answer. She's so awesome
though, so hopefully she'll progress again soon. We need her kids to
get to Primary for sure.
Then we talked to a lady from England on the street, but we
unfortunately did not get any contact information. She was cool
though.
The young women session of conference was SO GOOD!!! We loved it, that
was so cool. Do you think if I do the stuff for the virtue value I can
get a new necklace? I didn't find mine when I went through all my
stuff last summer, and the new one's pretty cool. :) But wow, we
looooved Presidente Uchtdorf's talk, that was awesome. The thing about
"I knew that to go to Rome from New York, you fly East, and so no
matter how hard someone tried to convince me to fly south, I knew they
were wrong" was so clear, and so great.
And then conference. Just so great. We loved that Sister Beck quoted
from Preach my Gospel pg 10 to tell if you're succeeding at life.
Sunday we didn't go to anybody's house for lunch, because with
conference times and everything it would have been pretty difficult.
The Anziani gave us a colomba, their Easter version of panetone, and
we had that and sandwiches for our Easter lunch. Conference was worth
it though. We had an appointment with the Branch President at 1, after
Priesthood session, and then at 2 pm the Saturday Afternoon session
started. So good. we had a break from 4-6 pm and practiced for the
concert a bit and then Valentina from English course came at 5 and
stayed for part of the Sunday morning session (which began at 6
pm...not quite morning for us). I don't know what happened in the
Sunday afternoon session, we don't get to watch it, so I'll have to
wait until July when we get the conference Liahona (unless you want to
send me one in the mail!) I love how much they talked about learning
from everyone, I love how much they talked about loving people and
becoming more like Christ, basically conference is incredible all the
time and I wish that more people would come. We were way proud that
some of our members skipped EASTER PRANZO to watch conference. Wow. It
was a good Easter though, and conference was great. I want to learn to
set better goals, and make a personal study plan to learn about the
atonement, and make an extra effort to write things down when I learn
them. And to be grateful and positive and find joy!
Monday we had interviews and zone conference #2 this transfer. They're
practicing ways to do interviews to avoid killing the new mission
president when he comes and will never ever be home because he has to
interview. Zone conference was awesome, President Taranto talked about
the plan of salvation and it was just super great.
Tuesday we had our first concert! We practiced with the Sorelle from
Mistretta and Palermo for pretty much the entire day, and then at 7 pm
we did our concert. It went really well. There weren't a ton of
potential investigators there, but there was a surprising number of
members, and they loved it and loved that we taught the first lesson
during it, and they just thought it was awesome. In fact, the
genealogy Sorella who was so mad at us last week was nicer to us than
she's ever been. But it was way fun. My collega played her violin,
Slla Pickett and White played piano, and we all (me and Slla Jenkins
and Wendorf) sang too. I sang Moon River with Slla Pickett and Slla
White and I sang Only Hope, and we all sang Come Thou Fount (in
Italian). And after every group of two or three musical numbers we
taught a principle of the first lesson. It was awesome. Sorella
Taranto came, and it was just SO fun.
Yesterday we woke up way early, the other Sorelle slept over and had
to catch a 7 am bus to Palermo for Zone Conference, and then the
assistants picked us up about 7 to go catch an 8 am bus to Etna. Etna
was pretty cool. We sat in some craters in the sun and somebody
brought a football and we were very American except for our two
Italians, one Spaniard, and one Peruvian. But the other people there
were British or German or from the north. Anyway it was fun. We all
got a little sunburned, and we were walking on ash all day which is
kind of like walking on sand, so our legs are a little tired. But that
was our big zone p-day of the transfer, we've never done one of those
before.
You need to send current pictures of you guys, so I can kind of keep
up on what you look like. :)
Life is good this week, transfer calls are tomorrow but we're not
planning on getting one, since we're both new here. But there will be
some changes because we're officially going from 14 sisters to 12 this
transfer, so we don't know what city will close. And every city but
Catania and Mistretta would be up for change anyway, so we'll see what
happens!
Tomorrow night is our concert in Mistretta, and Saturday in Palermo.
Fun stuff. Hopefully we'll be able to find some investigators from
them.
Well, I love you all, and I hope you're all feeling better and that
you have a great week.
Love you!
Eliza
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 last name, which was one that I recognized
from the area book--a family we didn't have any contact information
for. So she recognized us and we recognized her. It was way cool.
We've got an appointment with her and a family in our branch Sunday
evening. Yahoo!
Then in the afternoon we went to see Richa and it went really well.
In corso d'inglese we watched "to this end was I born" with all the
classes combined, and then Sorella Williams and I closed with our
testimonies of the Savior and it was just really awesome. I got my
Easter package, thanks so much! I really love the necklace, it's so
cute.
Friday we did exchanges with the Siracusa sisters. Sorella Morgan, who
was in the MTC at the same time as Alex and goes home next week, came
to Catania with me and Sorella Williams went to Siracusa with Sorella
M. Miller (we've got two Slla Miller in our mission). We had to type
up a survey for our concert, purtroppo that took a little time, but
then we went to see the Smedila family and they are so awesome. It's
really fun to go to good families and to see good examples and get
good ideas of things to do with your own family. But those little
girls are so smart, mamma mia, so much fun. We taught them half of the
first lesson and then they taught us. And they fed us dinner, and not
too much because she served in the Padova mission and knows what it's
like. She also drinks rootbeer (most Italians hate it) and listens to
Iron Maiden. Weird.
Saturday morning Sorella Morgan and I went and dropped by Gabriella
unannounced, and she was excited to see us and super cute. She's
struggling with teaching her kids about Christ and that religion is
important because her husband doesn't believe anything (PRIMARY would
be good) and she thinks commandments are kind of dumb and doesn't get
answers to prayers about them because, in her words, she thinks
they're dumb and doesn't really want an answer. She's so awesome
though, so hopefully she'll progress again soon. We need her kids to
get to Primary for sure.
Then we talked to a lady from England on the street, but we
unfortunately did not get any contact information. She was cool
though.
The young women session of conference was SO GOOD!!! We loved it, that
was so cool. Do you think if I do the stuff for the virtue value I can
get a new necklace? I didn't find mine when I went through all my
stuff last summer, and the new one's pretty cool. :) But wow, we
looooved Presidente Uchtdorf's talk, that was awesome. The thing about
"I knew that to go to Rome from New York, you fly East, and so no
matter how hard someone tried to convince me to fly south, I knew they
were wrong" was so clear, and so great.
And then conference. Just so great. We loved that Sister Beck quoted
from Preach my Gospel pg 10 to tell if you're succeeding at life.
Sunday we didn't go to anybody's house for lunch, because with
conference times and everything it would have been pretty difficult.
The Anziani gave us a colomba, their Easter version of panetone, and
we had that and sandwiches for our Easter lunch. Conference was worth
it though. We had an appointment with the Branch President at 1, after
Priesthood session, and then at 2 pm the Saturday Afternoon session
started. So good. we had a break from 4-6 pm and practiced for the
concert a bit and then Valentina from English course came at 5 and
stayed for part of the Sunday morning session (which began at 6
pm...not quite morning for us). I don't know what happened in the
Sunday afternoon session, we don't get to watch it, so I'll have to
wait until July when we get the conference Liahona (unless you want to
send me one in the mail!) I love how much they talked about learning
from everyone, I love how much they talked about loving people and
becoming more like Christ, basically conference is incredible all the
time and I wish that more people would come. We were way proud that
some of our members skipped EASTER PRANZO to watch conference. Wow. It
was a good Easter though, and conference was great. I want to learn to
set better goals, and make a personal study plan to learn about the
atonement, and make an extra effort to write things down when I learn
them. And to be grateful and positive and find joy!
Monday we had interviews and zone conference #2 this transfer. They're
practicing ways to do interviews to avoid killing the new mission
president when he comes and will never ever be home because he has to
interview. Zone conference was awesome, President Taranto talked about
the plan of salvation and it was just super great.
Tuesday we had our first concert! We practiced with the Sorelle from
Mistretta and Palermo for pretty much the entire day, and then at 7 pm
we did our concert. It went really well. There weren't a ton of
potential investigators there, but there was a surprising number of
members, and they loved it and loved that we taught the first lesson
during it, and they just thought it was awesome. In fact, the
genealogy Sorella who was so mad at us last week was nicer to us than
she's ever been. But it was way fun. My collega played her violin,
Slla Pickett and White played piano, and we all (me and Slla Jenkins
and Wendorf) sang too. I sang Moon River with Slla Pickett and Slla
White and I sang Only Hope, and we all sang Come Thou Fount (in
Italian). And after every group of two or three musical numbers we
taught a principle of the first lesson. It was awesome. Sorella
Taranto came, and it was just SO fun.
Yesterday we woke up way early, the other Sorelle slept over and had
to catch a 7 am bus to Palermo for Zone Conference, and then the
assistants picked us up about 7 to go catch an 8 am bus to Etna. Etna
was pretty cool. We sat in some craters in the sun and somebody
brought a football and we were very American except for our two
Italians, one Spaniard, and one Peruvian. But the other people there
were British or German or from the north. Anyway it was fun. We all
got a little sunburned, and we were walking on ash all day which is
kind of like walking on sand, so our legs are a little tired. But that
was our big zone p-day of the transfer, we've never done one of those
before.
You need to send current pictures of you guys, so I can kind of keep
up on what you look like. :)
Life is good this week, transfer calls are tomorrow but we're not
planning on getting one, since we're both new here. But there will be
some changes because we're officially going from 14 sisters to 12 this
transfer, so we don't know what city will close. And every city but
Catania and Mistretta would be up for change anyway, so we'll see what
happens!
Tomorrow night is our concert in Mistretta, and Saturday in Palermo.
Fun stuff. Hopefully we'll be able to find some investigators from
them.
Well, I love you all, and I hope you're all feeling better and that
you have a great week.
Love you!
Eliza
Comments