12 May 2010

Famiglia Mia,

It was great to talk to you and Dad too, but I don't think I can be your wake up call every week unfortunately. Haha. But it was a good week, and I'm glad we got to call. Time flies.

Let's see, this week...Thursday we went to see Lillian, and she is just wonderful. Her dad died last week, he was in his 90s, the oldest man in their village. She just got home from Nigeria a couple months ago so she can't go back for the funeral and she's sad, but she said that when she was there last she told him all about the gospel and he accepted Jesus Christ. And she told him that when he died, he just had to remember that and accept him again, and that he needed to look for the missionaries over there (after he dies) so they can teach him the gospel, and he said he'd do it. So she's really peaceful and knows she'll see him again and has a great testimony. She was really glad to see us though, she needs friends.
Then Thursday night was our "American Party" for the end of English course--we're done for the summer. That was fun. We made sugar cookies and everybody really likes them because they're colorful, one member asked me for the recipe so he can make them for carnevale. That was fun though, we just played some games and people brought food and mingled, and a few members showed up. And a few students were walking out and said "we're never going to see you again!!!" and Francesca said, "why not? we're here every Sunday from 9:30 to 12:30" So maybe some people will come to church.

Friday we saw Sorella Bacchetti and planned and did a few other things, nothing too exciting. Sorella Bacchetti likes to talk though, a lot a lot. And her voice is loud. But her accent is fun because she's from Brescia, which is up by Milano.

Saturday there were supposed to be splits with members in the morning. The Branch Mission Leader announced it and asked the auxiliaries and quorums to find people to go. The RS president wasn't there, but got the announcement, and called us to tell us who we could call and ask. Well we called who she suggested and anyway we didn't have anyone to go with on Saturday morning. So we went looking for people, and that was fun. We were going to try and drop by an inactive but we missed the bus by a few seconds and the next one didn't come for a long time so we ended up doing other things. It was fun.
Then we were supposed to have an appointment with Cristina in the afternoon and we were going to take Francesca with us, but Cristina had to cancel because she's moving and had a house appointment. Sooo, we took the 830 to go try and find the inactive we had been wanting to see in the morning. She may or may not have been home, her sister in law was talking to us from the balcony and told us she was going to see if she was home and then disappeared and didn't answer the citofono. Weird. So we took another bus and tried to find somebody else, and called a bunch of people to try and get an appointment, and finally we ended up getting food because Francesca hadn't eaten lunch and it was getting late, and she suggested we go to Sorella Catania's and maybe Anna Rita would be there. She wasn't, nobody was, but it was good because we got to talk to Francesca and help her out a bit. She needed it.

Sunday was church, it was pretty good. The Anziani gave talks about missionary work and their moms, and then the Branch President gave a talk about how in the mission sometimes missionaries just miss their moms, at least he did sometimes, but they aren't there, so the Branch needs to be the replacement mom while we're far away from our real moms. This, he said, does not mean feeding the missionaries. It means helping them do missionary work and introducing them to friends, etc.
Then we ate lunch at Sorella Bacchetti's with her and the Battezzato family, and her husband who is like a character from a really weird children's movie. I would love to take a picture of him but I don't know what he would think. That was good, she's good at not feeding us too much.
Then we went to the church, I called you, that was fun. It's always weird to hang up though. But I love you guys!
After that we went and talked to people by the beach for a while, down on Lungo Mare, and then came back to the church for my companion to call. We got home pretty late but it was a good day.

Monday morning we went down by lungo mare again and found some cool people. We talked to a man whose name I can't remember who likes to give compliments, especially to women, because he feels like the art of compliment giving has been lost in the new generation and that it's so wrong, that people need to get compliments. He told us we're two angels and if we have boyfriends they're really lucky.
Then we had district meeting, and we watched "How Rare a Possession". It's a good movie.
We went to the Rizzo's on Monday night, it was their turn to teach us. Well, they invited a friend of Fratello Rizzo who he's known all his life and his seven year old daughter who's way cute. And the friend is kind of going through a hard time right now, he just got divorced etc etc and is drinking a lot and has been in prison at least a couple times in his life. But he's seen how his friend has changed his life and he wanted to know what made the difference. So Fratello Rizzo started off with the prayer, and explained how we pray, and then went straight to it, and said "it's the Savior that's helped me to change and to be happier, and he wants that for you too." And then they read a chapter from the scriptures with Fllo and Slla Rizzo explaining and it was a really cool lesson. We just added our testimonies at the end. Awesome. Then they fed us, and it was delicious, we had a salad that was NOT soaked in oil, and a fruit salad, and pasta first of course. Fllo Rizzo is going to bring Rosario to church on Sunday and then we'll see them again on Monday. Cool.

Yesterday we helped Sorella Bruno do a little bit of cleaning in her front room of the house. We didn't do tons, we just cleaned the big window that she's too small to reach and shined and dusted. She's a cute lady though. Her mom is a member and always loved the missionaries, but she's had a couple of strokes that make it hard for her to understand things or to be understood. However when she sees missionaries she still gets way excited, it's cute. That was fun, they invited us to lunch on Sunday as a thank you.
In the afternoon we walked around and found some people again, while we were waiting for the bus up to Cristina's. And we had a pretty good lesson with her. She gets really distracted and so does Salvo, her 8 year old, but it was a good lesson anyway and she's been reading the scriptures and so we'll see what happens. She wants to come to church, so hopefully she will start doing that regularly and turn her life around. She's a great girl.

Today, we went to the Castello Ursino. It's big and old and beautiful. I really enjoyed it. It was fun to be in a real museum. We also went to the Duomo di Sant'Agata, and it's the most boring Duomo I've seen so far. It's very pretty and big, but not very extravagant. There's nothing painted on the ceiling or anything. But oh well. It looks like there might have been frescoes on some of the walls at some point.

This afternoon we're going to get gelato with some girls from English course. I would like a p-day where we just do internet and shopping and take a nap, but oh well. For some reason we do everything with the Anziani these days and it's fun but like occasionally after going non stop every day of every week for months you kind of want a break, you know?

Oh well. It's going to be weird to not have English course anymore. But I think it will be good, we need to find some investigators so we have something to do during the day and at night and all the time.

Well, I love you! The church is true and this work is so good. I'm happy to be here.
Thanks for being a wonderful family,

Eliza