2 June 2010
Hey family,
I would say if you send a package today or this week maybe then send it to the Catania mission home. If not then you should probably send it to Rome but even if it gets there in two weeks I won't get it until the end of July or maybe August probably. I really don't think that the mail is going to get to us easily from Rome, but what can you do?
It's been a good week. We've been really working hard on just talking to people more in general and being friendlier and more open, and it's made a difference. We've also been carrying the Book of Mormon in hand and it makes a big difference--people ask questions and we remember that we're here to talk to everybody. It's been great.
We've had some interesting lessons with people who think that God is withholding blessings from Italy--fewer missionaries and who knows why else they think that, but they think Italy is going straight downhill and that God is stepping away. They don't quite understand that that is obviously not true since they're getting a stake at the end of the month and they're working on getting the temple started in Rome. I tried really hard to stop listening during that lesson, she was making me sick. Some people refuse to see anything good in the world and it's really kind of stupid. But we saw Lillian Thursday morning and she is always amazing. She understands that you need to apply the Book of Mormon to your life, and learn lessons from everything. That woman is great.
Then we had the Family night we're doing with investigators and members every Thursday night, and that was great. We gave the lesson, we talked about the Army of Helaman and how the lessons that they learned at home helped them even when they were away from their parents and even when life was hard and they had "received many wounds" they remained faithful and obedient to the commandments of the Lord. And we invited the people who were there to strengthen their families--we just had some singles there this time, who are the only members in their family, and we just invited them to strengthen the relationships they have with family members, etc. It was good.
Friday morning was Maira's husband's funeral. It's always interesting to see what different people do at funerals. He was baptized a year ago but never really came to church because he had been sick for about four years--I think he was around 50. It was a good funeral though. They clap for people here as a final salute, his brother got up and said that he wasn't really able to talk, but just started clapping, and everyone started. Kind of neat. (Maira is the lady that had us sing hymns to her mother in law).
Then Friday night we had a lesson with Sorella Seminara and she wants to hunt down all her inactive friends, because she's been a member for 30 years, and invite them to the conference where the district becomes a stake.
Saturday morning we went to see Rosanna Palla by the beach. Fun fun. It was a good lesson, she seems like a really nice girl, she says she has a testimony and that she reads the scriptures and stuff, but she doesn't come to church because her husband works from 7 am to 10 pm everyday but Sunday and she wants to see him occasionally. So we invited her to the conference and we'll try and see her occasionally and we told her we know she'll get a lot of blessings for her family by coming to church, but this whole 6 day a week of work and school system really makes it so nobody wants to go to church.
Saturday evening we went to the Pappalardo family, they're fun. They have three little boys--twins that are 9 I think and one who's four and they're great kids. We played memory with them. Then we did a little lesson to introduce our plan to teach one lesson and have them teach the next, etc, and then give us a referral, and that was fun. We had the boys draw a picture of themselves with their feet and compare it to missionary work--that at first it's uncomfortable and maybe doesn't go so well, but we know there are people without hands that can draw and paint and sew really well with their feet because they've practiced and learned to do it that way, and we know that the same thing applies to missionary work. And then we read Alma 17:2-3, and talk about how the sons of Mosiah were such good missionaries because they studied the scriptures and they prayed and they worked hard. Anyway, they seemed excited to do the program, and it was fun.
Sunday morning for the fifth Sunday class we were all together of course and there was kind of an open forum about people's thoughts regarding the stake. HA. That was interesting. We've got a lot of great people that really get it, it's nice. A lot of people raised their hands and said things like "this is not the end, we can't just say, 'yeah, we made it, we've got a stake!' and leave it at that. Instead having a stake means we're going to have to work a lot harder because God trusts us more." It was fun...Some people are concerned about it for reasons like the May Liahona hasn't arrived yet. (Speaking of the May Liahona, if you could send one I'd be really grateful!!! We still don't have March...) But everybody for the most part seems really excited and willing to be put to the test.
Cristina came to church and Salvo too! Woohoo, we didn't think she would. I had Salvo's CTR ring (SIG ring, really) and he was way excited. But Cristina wanted a blessing so we told the branch mission leader and he got some members together and they organized everything. And then Angela, who came with us to the lesson last Monday, invited her over for a family night on Monday. YEAH. I was so proud of our members for taking care of things!
Monday we went to try and hunt down a contact, but she was gone in Agrigento because her husband had surgery on his shoulder or something. We called to confirm our appointment with Biaggio and Irene and he said it wasn't going to work out...man. But we had some good lessons with some people whose buses unfortunately came before we could get contact information, and then with a nice old man who told us that we need to stay in Italy after our missions because Italian girls are pretty but we're prettier, and sure there are some handsome American guys but the Italian men are better looking. HAHAHA. He was a nice guy though, simpatico. We talked to a woman who had a cool diet in a magazine.
We had a really great consiglio di distretto, Anziano D'Auria told us at the end that if he can appreciate us so much, knowing us only a little bit, he can only imagine how much Heavenly Father, who knows us perfectly, appreciates us.
Then during lunch we got a phonecall from Angela saying that Andrea her husband was sick so we couldn't do the family night (yes, Andrea is a boy's name). So that killed our plans for the night. We went to try and contact a referral but nobody was home so we did some house in the neighborhood and tried again in an hour and still nobody. So we went around by Sanzio and talked to a bunch of people. And then our bus didn't say what number it was when it left so we had to wait another half an hour to get home, and we went and walked around the fiera that's by Sanzio this week. Cool stuff. We bought dried tomatoes.
Yesterday was another day where all of our plans fell through, but it was good anyway. We went down to Mario Rapisardi and tried to visit some inactives in the morning, and met a really cute girl who wants to be a singer and seemed pretty open to hear more about the gospel. And in the afternoon we were supposed to see an inactive but she ended up having to work, so we went to see Cristina, just for a minute. Kind of a critical minute, she came and picked us up and there's a little crisis occurring in her life right now but hopefully it will all be okay. After that we went down in centro and talked to a bunch more people, including some sixteen year old girls who after about five minutes realized we were Mormons and that they have to do a presentation in school about Mormons this week, so they started asking us questions for the presentation and a few seriously interested ones too. That was fun. We figured if they have to do a presentation it may as well be a good one, and so we answered their questions and left them the first opuscolo and mormon.org/ita.
And today we really need to clean our apartment, and it's a holiday. We're not sure exactly what for. When we talked to Cristina about it yesterday we asked, "it's a festa tomorrow, right?" and she seemed shocked that we didn't know what it was and so we asked her what it's for and she had no idea either. She said "va be' it's only been around for three years or something, it's not like it's been around forever."
Anyway, it's been a good week, lots of good stuff. We're working hard. We don't have any investigators, usually they're really friendly and like talking to us and hearing what we have to say but don't really want to learn more, but we're working hard to find the people who are prepared for the gospel. And it's been a lot of fun to do this 40 day fast, today is day 10. It's really easy, we need to remember to look up words we don't know more, instead of talking or reading around them, but it's good to have the motivation to speak more in Italian and it doesn't feel hard after a couple days of doing it it's just normal and weird to speak English with people. We're in Italy anyway, we may as well speak Italian. Except for with people from Sri Lanka and other countries who don't speak Italian well yet.
Well, I love you guys! Thank you for all that you do. The gospel is true, thanks for teaching it to me and giving me the chance to find out for myself. You're all awesome! Vi voglio bene,
Eliza
I would say if you send a package today or this week maybe then send it to the Catania mission home. If not then you should probably send it to Rome but even if it gets there in two weeks I won't get it until the end of July or maybe August probably. I really don't think that the mail is going to get to us easily from Rome, but what can you do?
It's been a good week. We've been really working hard on just talking to people more in general and being friendlier and more open, and it's made a difference. We've also been carrying the Book of Mormon in hand and it makes a big difference--people ask questions and we remember that we're here to talk to everybody. It's been great.
We've had some interesting lessons with people who think that God is withholding blessings from Italy--fewer missionaries and who knows why else they think that, but they think Italy is going straight downhill and that God is stepping away. They don't quite understand that that is obviously not true since they're getting a stake at the end of the month and they're working on getting the temple started in Rome. I tried really hard to stop listening during that lesson, she was making me sick. Some people refuse to see anything good in the world and it's really kind of stupid. But we saw Lillian Thursday morning and she is always amazing. She understands that you need to apply the Book of Mormon to your life, and learn lessons from everything. That woman is great.
Then we had the Family night we're doing with investigators and members every Thursday night, and that was great. We gave the lesson, we talked about the Army of Helaman and how the lessons that they learned at home helped them even when they were away from their parents and even when life was hard and they had "received many wounds" they remained faithful and obedient to the commandments of the Lord. And we invited the people who were there to strengthen their families--we just had some singles there this time, who are the only members in their family, and we just invited them to strengthen the relationships they have with family members, etc. It was good.
Friday morning was Maira's husband's funeral. It's always interesting to see what different people do at funerals. He was baptized a year ago but never really came to church because he had been sick for about four years--I think he was around 50. It was a good funeral though. They clap for people here as a final salute, his brother got up and said that he wasn't really able to talk, but just started clapping, and everyone started. Kind of neat. (Maira is the lady that had us sing hymns to her mother in law).
Then Friday night we had a lesson with Sorella Seminara and she wants to hunt down all her inactive friends, because she's been a member for 30 years, and invite them to the conference where the district becomes a stake.
Saturday morning we went to see Rosanna Palla by the beach. Fun fun. It was a good lesson, she seems like a really nice girl, she says she has a testimony and that she reads the scriptures and stuff, but she doesn't come to church because her husband works from 7 am to 10 pm everyday but Sunday and she wants to see him occasionally. So we invited her to the conference and we'll try and see her occasionally and we told her we know she'll get a lot of blessings for her family by coming to church, but this whole 6 day a week of work and school system really makes it so nobody wants to go to church.
Saturday evening we went to the Pappalardo family, they're fun. They have three little boys--twins that are 9 I think and one who's four and they're great kids. We played memory with them. Then we did a little lesson to introduce our plan to teach one lesson and have them teach the next, etc, and then give us a referral, and that was fun. We had the boys draw a picture of themselves with their feet and compare it to missionary work--that at first it's uncomfortable and maybe doesn't go so well, but we know there are people without hands that can draw and paint and sew really well with their feet because they've practiced and learned to do it that way, and we know that the same thing applies to missionary work. And then we read Alma 17:2-3, and talk about how the sons of Mosiah were such good missionaries because they studied the scriptures and they prayed and they worked hard. Anyway, they seemed excited to do the program, and it was fun.
Sunday morning for the fifth Sunday class we were all together of course and there was kind of an open forum about people's thoughts regarding the stake. HA. That was interesting. We've got a lot of great people that really get it, it's nice. A lot of people raised their hands and said things like "this is not the end, we can't just say, 'yeah, we made it, we've got a stake!' and leave it at that. Instead having a stake means we're going to have to work a lot harder because God trusts us more." It was fun...Some people are concerned about it for reasons like the May Liahona hasn't arrived yet. (Speaking of the May Liahona, if you could send one I'd be really grateful!!! We still don't have March...) But everybody for the most part seems really excited and willing to be put to the test.
Cristina came to church and Salvo too! Woohoo, we didn't think she would. I had Salvo's CTR ring (SIG ring, really) and he was way excited. But Cristina wanted a blessing so we told the branch mission leader and he got some members together and they organized everything. And then Angela, who came with us to the lesson last Monday, invited her over for a family night on Monday. YEAH. I was so proud of our members for taking care of things!
Monday we went to try and hunt down a contact, but she was gone in Agrigento because her husband had surgery on his shoulder or something. We called to confirm our appointment with Biaggio and Irene and he said it wasn't going to work out...man. But we had some good lessons with some people whose buses unfortunately came before we could get contact information, and then with a nice old man who told us that we need to stay in Italy after our missions because Italian girls are pretty but we're prettier, and sure there are some handsome American guys but the Italian men are better looking. HAHAHA. He was a nice guy though, simpatico. We talked to a woman who had a cool diet in a magazine.
We had a really great consiglio di distretto, Anziano D'Auria told us at the end that if he can appreciate us so much, knowing us only a little bit, he can only imagine how much Heavenly Father, who knows us perfectly, appreciates us.
Then during lunch we got a phonecall from Angela saying that Andrea her husband was sick so we couldn't do the family night (yes, Andrea is a boy's name). So that killed our plans for the night. We went to try and contact a referral but nobody was home so we did some house in the neighborhood and tried again in an hour and still nobody. So we went around by Sanzio and talked to a bunch of people. And then our bus didn't say what number it was when it left so we had to wait another half an hour to get home, and we went and walked around the fiera that's by Sanzio this week. Cool stuff. We bought dried tomatoes.
Yesterday was another day where all of our plans fell through, but it was good anyway. We went down to Mario Rapisardi and tried to visit some inactives in the morning, and met a really cute girl who wants to be a singer and seemed pretty open to hear more about the gospel. And in the afternoon we were supposed to see an inactive but she ended up having to work, so we went to see Cristina, just for a minute. Kind of a critical minute, she came and picked us up and there's a little crisis occurring in her life right now but hopefully it will all be okay. After that we went down in centro and talked to a bunch more people, including some sixteen year old girls who after about five minutes realized we were Mormons and that they have to do a presentation in school about Mormons this week, so they started asking us questions for the presentation and a few seriously interested ones too. That was fun. We figured if they have to do a presentation it may as well be a good one, and so we answered their questions and left them the first opuscolo and mormon.org/ita.
And today we really need to clean our apartment, and it's a holiday. We're not sure exactly what for. When we talked to Cristina about it yesterday we asked, "it's a festa tomorrow, right?" and she seemed shocked that we didn't know what it was and so we asked her what it's for and she had no idea either. She said "va be' it's only been around for three years or something, it's not like it's been around forever."
Anyway, it's been a good week, lots of good stuff. We're working hard. We don't have any investigators, usually they're really friendly and like talking to us and hearing what we have to say but don't really want to learn more, but we're working hard to find the people who are prepared for the gospel. And it's been a lot of fun to do this 40 day fast, today is day 10. It's really easy, we need to remember to look up words we don't know more, instead of talking or reading around them, but it's good to have the motivation to speak more in Italian and it doesn't feel hard after a couple days of doing it it's just normal and weird to speak English with people. We're in Italy anyway, we may as well speak Italian. Except for with people from Sri Lanka and other countries who don't speak Italian well yet.
Well, I love you guys! Thank you for all that you do. The gospel is true, thanks for teaching it to me and giving me the chance to find out for myself. You're all awesome! Vi voglio bene,
Eliza
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