26 May 2010
Well hello,
Thursday we went back to Ragusa on the 6 am bus. Che gioia! We left our apartment at 5, and there was luckily a bus down to the station so we didn't have to walk for an hour. When we've gone to catch an 8 am bus before the buses weren't running yet. So that was nice. We really should have been wearing coats though, we figured it was just cold because it was so early and that it would warm up when the sun came out but it was FREEZING in Ragusa, and we were waiting outside the Questura for a few hours. Oh well. They took in groups by numbers we'd gotten when we called to see if it was all ready, and when they got to the group that would have been right before me there were a bunch of people not there when their number was called so I got to go in. They didn't let my companion in though--the guy isn't a big fan of Americans or those who aren't Catholic. Fortunately he gave me the Permesso without trouble. Woohoo. I'm officially legally in the country after nine months. Too bad the dumb thing expires in October and I have to go through the whole thing all over again. Oh well. Don't worry, it's not the package's fault, I had to do all this stuff anyway. But we got the permesso on Thursday and were back in time to go with Sorella Catania to visit an inactive and get to the family night for all the investigators so that was good. We were freezing the whole day though, it was cold and windy and rainy. Odd weather for May. The Anziani did forget to tell us that we were going to dinner with President and Sorella Taranto, and the Crawfords and some friends of the Tarantos who were visiting. We went to a Moroccan restaurant, that was cool. We had to sit on weird chairs and our legs didn't fit under the table and the food was good. Sorella Williams and I were exhausted though.
Friday we planned in the morning and then had pranzo with Sorella Amato and her parents. That was the saltiest salad I have ever eaten with my life, and I have never seen turkey cooked that way or that texture, but it was good I guess. I'm not a big fan of lunch appointments, I'd prefer the language study and nap time.
We have not been transferred, but our district is down to just the Assistants and us which means we're the only missionaries that stay in the city all the time. Fun fun. Anziano Tate went home and Anziano Acerson got transferred to Lecce.
On Saturday we decided to hunt down some inactives in the morning, and we found a few houses where the people actually still lived and picked up some accurate phone numbers. And then we started talking to a whole bunch of people. It really was an awesome day. We don't have any new investigators from it unfortunately, but who knows, maybe one day they'll be interested. We walked by this guy on the street who was silent until we were right next to him and he started singing "SKY OF BLUE, AND SEA OF GREEN, IN OUR YELLOW SUBMARINE". Haha. Fun fun.
We saw some inactives. He's interesting. They don't quite get the half an hour appointment thing, or the see us more regularly for shorter appointments and you'll learn more thing, but oh well. We keep working with them and doing what we can. The Fratello is one of those people who thinks he can figure out what makes a restaurant's food good by eating at every other restaurant. And he likes to talk assai assai. I like to listen to people but it helps when what they say makes sense and when they're not just talking because they don't want to listen to what anyone else has to say. I edited out the names just so nobody thinks I'm mean or something. We were there FOREVER though listening to him talk about nothing.
After that appointment we went down and talked to some more people. We met a lady from Ukraine who didn't want to give us any contact info but was really grateful that we talked to her and started to cry. It's fun being answers to prayers even if they don't want to listen. And then we talked to this man who we'd seen a few times before--he has long gray hair and a beard and dirty hands and smells like wine, but his eyes are really nice. I had seen him on the bus in the morning and wanted to talk to him, and we same him at a bus stop and decided to do it. He's a nice guy, rough life, not a fan of evangelicals because he lived next to an evangelical church and they played music all night every night and so he didn't sleep for a few years and the police didn't do anything about it. We let him know how much Heavenly Father loves him and we invited him to church.
So Sunday was pretty normal, the sunday school teacher licked his lips 87 times in 20 minutes, and all was well. We got to Sacrament meeting and a Fratello came out and said "there's a signore here with a beard who says you invited him". It was Armando!!! The guy from the bus stop Saturday! He came, and we got a few people to salute him, but in the words of Fllo Battezzato the grande, "nobody ever salutes anybody on their first day here!!! we have this horrible habit."
Then we went to a Branch correlation that was way too long and then we went to Sigonella's sacrament and met a few Americans and English speakers. That was pretty cool. The English hymnbook is a lot heavier than the Italian one.
I can't remember what we did Sunday night, sorry. We did find a concert to commemorate the death of Justice I can't remember his name who was killed by the mafia in 1998 or something. But it didn't start until an hour later so we didn't see it.
Monday we got my Codice Fiscale!!! Don't ask me for an English translation or what it's for because I honestly have no idea, but we all need to have them nowadays so I got it. As we were headed to the Agenzia delle Entrate in the morning we passed a guy sitting by a building who stood up and said "Good morning, Seesters! Have a nice day! My name is Peter!" I don't know if he knew anything else in English, but that was fun. Then we visited an ex-investigator from 12 years ago who would love to see the missionaries but has no time and doesn't think she wants to get baptized anyway so she doesn't want to prend us in giro. Um. Take us for a ride is probably the closest you can get to "ci prende in giro". But she's way cute, and her daughters are too, so maybe we can work with them.
In the afternoon we looked for a referral, she wasn't home but her mom was and wasn't interested. Sigh.
And then we talked to some people, some boys who aren't religious currently because they don't like that the pope has so much money and that in Italy you're a freak if you aren't Catholic. He thinks there's a problem though with the fact that everybody sees the problems with the organizations of all these churches and just decide to be atheist instead. He might come to church sometime. Vediamo.
And then we saw Biaggio, his wife was sick so she wasn't in the lesson. But he seems like he wants to learn. He wants to become like Jesus. He likes the Madonna a lot because he thinks that she loved Jesus the most and if he can love Jesus even a little like she did then he'd be the best man on earth. We've got an appointment for next Monday. Hopefully Irene won't be sick anymore. We tell everyone in the first lesson nowadays that we know that when they listen to the lessons and get answers to their questions they'll want to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized with the autorità giusta.
I don't know how missionaries did anything in this country back when they had to memorize discussions. It's not like people sit quietly and listen to a presentation. That would have been weird. Ha.
Yesterday we went with Angela Mazzarella to see Cristina Spina. That was a bit interesting. It was great to have Angela there, she's awesome, and it was great to get to know her a little better. Cristina is still young, she never quite grew up after having a kid at 15. I don't know if she's going to be mature enough to make the changes that she wants to make in her life, but we're going to keep working with her.
Then we had district meeting, Anziano D'Auria is my district leader again--he was in Ragusa too. It's weird to be in a district of 4, I've always been in 6.
IN the afternoon we had an awesome lesson with a girl we met in the park who is just really cool and gave us her phone number and actually understood what the Book of Mormon is and wanted to read the intro so we left it with her, and we need to call her soon to meet her again.
We also had a lesson with Sorella Catania and her granddaughters, that was fun. We taught the girls to look up the scriptures at the bottom of the hymns. They like scripture hunting. It was a good day. We worked hard and had some good quality lessons. I found a quote from the MTC from Elder Groberg that says success is not measured in baptisms but in how many times you bear your testimony. So we're working on testifying a lot. It's all we can do, and we know it's true. All we can do is share that and ask people to try and find out for themselves.
Today we just went to the market with the Anziani and the ones from Malta too. I would love to win a shopping spree to the market, it would be a great thing. But how I would get things home I don't know. We found a store where they sell things in bulk for the market, so I could get 20 dresses for 60 dollars. That seems like a pretty good deal to me, although I don't know what I'd do with all the leftovers.
I hope everything's going well. I'll try and ask President about sending something to tell those scholarship people, if you want though I think it's just the email they send pictures stuff from.
I love you guys! Thanks for all you do and for being an awesome family!
Eliza
Thursday we went back to Ragusa on the 6 am bus. Che gioia! We left our apartment at 5, and there was luckily a bus down to the station so we didn't have to walk for an hour. When we've gone to catch an 8 am bus before the buses weren't running yet. So that was nice. We really should have been wearing coats though, we figured it was just cold because it was so early and that it would warm up when the sun came out but it was FREEZING in Ragusa, and we were waiting outside the Questura for a few hours. Oh well. They took in groups by numbers we'd gotten when we called to see if it was all ready, and when they got to the group that would have been right before me there were a bunch of people not there when their number was called so I got to go in. They didn't let my companion in though--the guy isn't a big fan of Americans or those who aren't Catholic. Fortunately he gave me the Permesso without trouble. Woohoo. I'm officially legally in the country after nine months. Too bad the dumb thing expires in October and I have to go through the whole thing all over again. Oh well. Don't worry, it's not the package's fault, I had to do all this stuff anyway. But we got the permesso on Thursday and were back in time to go with Sorella Catania to visit an inactive and get to the family night for all the investigators so that was good. We were freezing the whole day though, it was cold and windy and rainy. Odd weather for May. The Anziani did forget to tell us that we were going to dinner with President and Sorella Taranto, and the Crawfords and some friends of the Tarantos who were visiting. We went to a Moroccan restaurant, that was cool. We had to sit on weird chairs and our legs didn't fit under the table and the food was good. Sorella Williams and I were exhausted though.
Friday we planned in the morning and then had pranzo with Sorella Amato and her parents. That was the saltiest salad I have ever eaten with my life, and I have never seen turkey cooked that way or that texture, but it was good I guess. I'm not a big fan of lunch appointments, I'd prefer the language study and nap time.
We have not been transferred, but our district is down to just the Assistants and us which means we're the only missionaries that stay in the city all the time. Fun fun. Anziano Tate went home and Anziano Acerson got transferred to Lecce.
On Saturday we decided to hunt down some inactives in the morning, and we found a few houses where the people actually still lived and picked up some accurate phone numbers. And then we started talking to a whole bunch of people. It really was an awesome day. We don't have any new investigators from it unfortunately, but who knows, maybe one day they'll be interested. We walked by this guy on the street who was silent until we were right next to him and he started singing "SKY OF BLUE, AND SEA OF GREEN, IN OUR YELLOW SUBMARINE". Haha. Fun fun.
We saw some inactives. He's interesting. They don't quite get the half an hour appointment thing, or the see us more regularly for shorter appointments and you'll learn more thing, but oh well. We keep working with them and doing what we can. The Fratello is one of those people who thinks he can figure out what makes a restaurant's food good by eating at every other restaurant. And he likes to talk assai assai. I like to listen to people but it helps when what they say makes sense and when they're not just talking because they don't want to listen to what anyone else has to say. I edited out the names just so nobody thinks I'm mean or something. We were there FOREVER though listening to him talk about nothing.
After that appointment we went down and talked to some more people. We met a lady from Ukraine who didn't want to give us any contact info but was really grateful that we talked to her and started to cry. It's fun being answers to prayers even if they don't want to listen. And then we talked to this man who we'd seen a few times before--he has long gray hair and a beard and dirty hands and smells like wine, but his eyes are really nice. I had seen him on the bus in the morning and wanted to talk to him, and we same him at a bus stop and decided to do it. He's a nice guy, rough life, not a fan of evangelicals because he lived next to an evangelical church and they played music all night every night and so he didn't sleep for a few years and the police didn't do anything about it. We let him know how much Heavenly Father loves him and we invited him to church.
So Sunday was pretty normal, the sunday school teacher licked his lips 87 times in 20 minutes, and all was well. We got to Sacrament meeting and a Fratello came out and said "there's a signore here with a beard who says you invited him". It was Armando!!! The guy from the bus stop Saturday! He came, and we got a few people to salute him, but in the words of Fllo Battezzato the grande, "nobody ever salutes anybody on their first day here!!! we have this horrible habit."
Then we went to a Branch correlation that was way too long and then we went to Sigonella's sacrament and met a few Americans and English speakers. That was pretty cool. The English hymnbook is a lot heavier than the Italian one.
I can't remember what we did Sunday night, sorry. We did find a concert to commemorate the death of Justice I can't remember his name who was killed by the mafia in 1998 or something. But it didn't start until an hour later so we didn't see it.
Monday we got my Codice Fiscale!!! Don't ask me for an English translation or what it's for because I honestly have no idea, but we all need to have them nowadays so I got it. As we were headed to the Agenzia delle Entrate in the morning we passed a guy sitting by a building who stood up and said "Good morning, Seesters! Have a nice day! My name is Peter!" I don't know if he knew anything else in English, but that was fun. Then we visited an ex-investigator from 12 years ago who would love to see the missionaries but has no time and doesn't think she wants to get baptized anyway so she doesn't want to prend us in giro. Um. Take us for a ride is probably the closest you can get to "ci prende in giro". But she's way cute, and her daughters are too, so maybe we can work with them.
In the afternoon we looked for a referral, she wasn't home but her mom was and wasn't interested. Sigh.
And then we talked to some people, some boys who aren't religious currently because they don't like that the pope has so much money and that in Italy you're a freak if you aren't Catholic. He thinks there's a problem though with the fact that everybody sees the problems with the organizations of all these churches and just decide to be atheist instead. He might come to church sometime. Vediamo.
And then we saw Biaggio, his wife was sick so she wasn't in the lesson. But he seems like he wants to learn. He wants to become like Jesus. He likes the Madonna a lot because he thinks that she loved Jesus the most and if he can love Jesus even a little like she did then he'd be the best man on earth. We've got an appointment for next Monday. Hopefully Irene won't be sick anymore. We tell everyone in the first lesson nowadays that we know that when they listen to the lessons and get answers to their questions they'll want to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized with the autorità giusta.
I don't know how missionaries did anything in this country back when they had to memorize discussions. It's not like people sit quietly and listen to a presentation. That would have been weird. Ha.
Yesterday we went with Angela Mazzarella to see Cristina Spina. That was a bit interesting. It was great to have Angela there, she's awesome, and it was great to get to know her a little better. Cristina is still young, she never quite grew up after having a kid at 15. I don't know if she's going to be mature enough to make the changes that she wants to make in her life, but we're going to keep working with her.
Then we had district meeting, Anziano D'Auria is my district leader again--he was in Ragusa too. It's weird to be in a district of 4, I've always been in 6.
IN the afternoon we had an awesome lesson with a girl we met in the park who is just really cool and gave us her phone number and actually understood what the Book of Mormon is and wanted to read the intro so we left it with her, and we need to call her soon to meet her again.
We also had a lesson with Sorella Catania and her granddaughters, that was fun. We taught the girls to look up the scriptures at the bottom of the hymns. They like scripture hunting. It was a good day. We worked hard and had some good quality lessons. I found a quote from the MTC from Elder Groberg that says success is not measured in baptisms but in how many times you bear your testimony. So we're working on testifying a lot. It's all we can do, and we know it's true. All we can do is share that and ask people to try and find out for themselves.
Today we just went to the market with the Anziani and the ones from Malta too. I would love to win a shopping spree to the market, it would be a great thing. But how I would get things home I don't know. We found a store where they sell things in bulk for the market, so I could get 20 dresses for 60 dollars. That seems like a pretty good deal to me, although I don't know what I'd do with all the leftovers.
I hope everything's going well. I'll try and ask President about sending something to tell those scholarship people, if you want though I think it's just the email they send pictures stuff from.
I love you guys! Thanks for all you do and for being an awesome family!
Eliza
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