9 June 2010
Hello hello,
Well, let's see what's new...not tons.
Correlation was cancelled again on Wednesday so we were left with no plans. Mizzica.
We met some members from Piemonte on Thursday and they had a Chinese baby. They were really nice, they both served in the Rome mission (back when it was little because there was still the Padova mission) and think it's way weird how big it's going to be now. And it was pretty cool to see an Italian couple that would adopt a child of a different race. Anyway...we also did our FHE with investigators and members. Some of the members think that we're doing it for singles for some reason. Not true. Anyway, Valentina came and her dad stayed, that was a first for him. We're hoping to start teaching Valentina the lessons when she gets out of school and stops studying constantly. She told us she's been hanging out with sister missionaries for a long time and heard spiritual thoughts in English course but nobody ever asked her if she wanted to hear the missionary lessons. She's a nice girl.
The sorelle from Bari slept at our house on Thursday. They were here for something with Sorella Jenkins' permesso but there was a little mix up where somebody in the office forgot to tell everyone else about it so they stayed with us and they're day trip turned into a weekend I think--they stayed in a hotel in Palermo and hopefully they're back in Bari now but we haven't heard.
We went to give a Spanish Book of Mormon to Sandra from the Domenican Republic, and we ended up giving it to her friend Jessica from Ecuador instead--she doesn't work and she likes studying religion so she decided she'd have more time to read it. She seems really cool, we need to call her today and see when we can see her. We did weekly planning all together on a Friday morning without breaking it up for the first time in months! WOOHOO. I thought that was a major accomplishment. And not surprisingly, our week has been much more organized.
We had a lesson with the Smedila family on Friday night and the 7 year old twins taught us the lesson, it was awesome. And they took our copies of the Book of Mormon to give to some of Slla Smedila's colleagues (all the other ones have them I think). We've been carrying around the Book of Mormon in hand everywhere we go, and we've given more out in the past couple weeks than the rest of my mission combined I think. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's made a big difference.
Saturday we went to see the Relief Society president. She lives in a little paesino so we were on buses forever and that took most of the day. Not to mention the fact that she had to cook an enormous meal and make homemade gelato etc etc. She started cooking yesterday. I wonder if anyone has ever told these people that the way they like to feed us classifies as torture. It's all good food, but it's not like we taste or enjoy any of it. You just eat and hope you don't die or throw up. The appointment overall was a lot better than the last one. We talked about a lot of sisters. She doesn't really know anyone because she's from the Calabria, and she lives in a paesino, and she likes staying at home so much that she doesn't ever leave (seriously. She's not shy, she just likes staying home. It's nuts). But we talked about a lot of sorelle and hopefully we'll get some new less active sisters to work with because this is the same list from forever (like years maybe) and I've met only one of the women on it still and not for lack of trying.
We saw the Rizzo family as well. They're always fun. Gabrielle is nuts, he's the wildest little boy on the planet, especially compared to the other kids that are pretty tranquil. But they're fun. They're trying really hard to start fasting, they've been trying for a while but never succeeded, and we told them they could start just fasting for one meal so they fasted Sunday morning. Cool. I think I need to cut my fingernails, it's kind of hard to type...
We had a really interesting lesson in Relief Society about fasting where the teacher got up and said the topic made her laugh because there was a point where she got a testimony of fasting so she started fasting every other weekend, then every sunday, then every other day, then for days at a time, then she completely threw off her metabolism and destroyed something in her digestive system because she was fasting so much so she hasn't fasted for years. Pazza. Then she told about her mother who fasted every fast Sunday even when she was old and feeble and said that she was a great example for her, and maybe she's going to start trying to fast again.
Some guy who wants to date us (I think he just wants to date somebody in general and people figure we're like nuns or something so we must be desperate) came to church on Sunday. For some reason he has it in his head that learning about the gospel means he'd need to become a missionary and he "just doesn't feel the motivation to become a missionary". I told him he didn't get it and tried explaining and he said no he understood and still no inclination to be a missionary. After which I told him he definitely didn't get it and I don't think he wants to date ME anymore anyway. I wasn't very pleased with receiving two phone calls around midnight, oh well. He's not a creep he's just not all there.
We went to the Sigonella branch too, and that was good. They changed the Branch Presidency because the President is going on a three month vacation with his family in the US before they're transferred up to Napoli, and the Crawfords have to go up to the office in Roma. Sooo. It was a good meeting though. I don't know how to spell the new President's name but he's the guy who asked the kids if they recognized the spirit at the baptism back in February, he's a good guy. They like having sisters there, we're going to try and go every other week. There are a few families in the Branch who are people living here who speak English better than Italian, and sometimes they bring family and friends so it's a good place to fellowship.
The Crawfords had us over for dinner with them and Lillian, that was great. They're good people.
Well, Monday morning before district meeting we met a guy named Paolo. He seems really with it. We started talking to him and he said "no no, I'm from another religion not yours" and I said "oh yeah, what religion?" He said "I'm Christian, not Jehovah's Witness" I said "NEITHER ARE WE!!! Perfect!" and we started talking. Ha. It was way weird to talk to somebody taller than me, I'm not used to looking up. And I'm not even that tall!
I taught a lesson about the relationship between commitments and conversion in consiglio. That went pretty well. And we're trying to figure out how we can get the kids who are always playing soccer at church and breaking things and smoking and stuff to be interested in the gospel. They're pretty good kids when you talk to them on their own. Vediamo.
In the afternoon we went to Parco Gioeni, the biggest park in Catania, for the first time. It has an amazing view of the ocean, it's gorgeous. And it's big and so even though there are lots of people there aren't too many and it was fun. We talked to a few interesting people. We were talking to some guy and said something about how God's given us a prophet because he wants us to have a guide to return to him, a "guida", and he said "my name's Guido! If you want I can guide you to the exit of the park and we can get something to drink". We said no thanks. Ha.
Then we had an appointment with Biagio and Irene and we took Sorella Pappalardo with us because she lives right next to them. It was her first time ever teaching with the missionaries, which was a bit shocking to us because we know she's spent a lot of time with the missionaries, and she did great. It went well, they don't really understand the apostasy quite yet and Biagio loves Maria a lot, but it was good, and it was nice to get to know Irene a little better too. Sorella Pappalardo was beaming at the end of the lesson, she was so happy to have had the opportunity to share her testimony and to help out. That was great.
Yesterday we went to visit an inactive. We had gone to find this person, because we're kind of slowly visiting the inactives to give us reference points when we find people, and we left a note with our phone number. Usually they don't call or anything, but Gaetana's daughter called and invited us over for Tuesday morning. So we went having no idea what to expect or how old these people are or anything. But we met Gaetana and her daughter Sara, who is also an inactive, and awesome, and we had a great lesson and set up an appointment for next week. She seems great, she stopped coming to church when she got married and even though they've been separated or divorced for a long time she never got back in the habit of coming. But we're excited to get to work with her a bit. We sang her a hymn and she loved it. (by the way I am allergic to Sicilia in the spring/summer time and I have had a sore throat caused by allergies for more than a week it's way gross. And I'll have to send you a picture of my first mosquito bites before Slla Smedila gave me "la Fargan"--there are Tiger Mosquitos or something and the bites just get HUGE. It's nasty.)
Then we had lunch at Sorella Barresi's. After the pasta and the fried junk she gave us a plate of salad and a piece of meat and bread and I looked at it and realized that that would have been an entire filling dinner at home and it was really kind of depressing. It just keeps coming and of course you can't serve yourself. I was way good at saying no in Ragusa, I need to practice again.
We went to see Ingrid in the afternoon. Her son got married a month ago in the US, and she showed us the pictures. And she had to call another son who's at school and had a test and we talked to him to ask if he's been going to church or seeing the missionaries. He's a nice kid. All her boys seem great, the whole family just went inactive when the parents got divorcced and now she's going to church and really wants her sons to. The oldest one that just got married is active, but the other three no. Her youngest is coming to visit soon and he's not baptized in any church, so she's wanting the anziani to meet him. :) She's really cool.
Great day yesterday though, we talked to TONS of people and met a few really cool ones.
Today we switched p-day to the afternoon and worked in the morning because Cristina was home in the morning but wouldn't be at any other point in the day. She set some goals with us to help turn her life around, and hopefully things will be good. She knows what she needs to do, and we're going to help her to do it.
One thing that I've been learning is really important lately is tolerance. There are so many people here who are so unhappy because they've been victims of racism or they've been intolerant themselves or whatever. This week we've talked to people from Nigeria, India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, the Congo, Mauritius, Albania, Romania, the United States, the Philippines, Australia, Tunisia, Italy of course, and a whole bunch more. And we're all different. And you know what, God loves every single one of us, we're all his children and we're all important and special to him. It's amazing to see and to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for his children, and how much we as people don't get it and all the problems we cause by dividing people up and not even trying to see who they really are. But God really does know us and love us and he gives us as missionaries the chance to see people as he sees them and it's really a cool opportunity.
Well, I love you all! Have a great week!
Well, let's see what's new...not tons.
Correlation was cancelled again on Wednesday so we were left with no plans. Mizzica.
We met some members from Piemonte on Thursday and they had a Chinese baby. They were really nice, they both served in the Rome mission (back when it was little because there was still the Padova mission) and think it's way weird how big it's going to be now. And it was pretty cool to see an Italian couple that would adopt a child of a different race. Anyway...we also did our FHE with investigators and members. Some of the members think that we're doing it for singles for some reason. Not true. Anyway, Valentina came and her dad stayed, that was a first for him. We're hoping to start teaching Valentina the lessons when she gets out of school and stops studying constantly. She told us she's been hanging out with sister missionaries for a long time and heard spiritual thoughts in English course but nobody ever asked her if she wanted to hear the missionary lessons. She's a nice girl.
The sorelle from Bari slept at our house on Thursday. They were here for something with Sorella Jenkins' permesso but there was a little mix up where somebody in the office forgot to tell everyone else about it so they stayed with us and they're day trip turned into a weekend I think--they stayed in a hotel in Palermo and hopefully they're back in Bari now but we haven't heard.
We went to give a Spanish Book of Mormon to Sandra from the Domenican Republic, and we ended up giving it to her friend Jessica from Ecuador instead--she doesn't work and she likes studying religion so she decided she'd have more time to read it. She seems really cool, we need to call her today and see when we can see her. We did weekly planning all together on a Friday morning without breaking it up for the first time in months! WOOHOO. I thought that was a major accomplishment. And not surprisingly, our week has been much more organized.
We had a lesson with the Smedila family on Friday night and the 7 year old twins taught us the lesson, it was awesome. And they took our copies of the Book of Mormon to give to some of Slla Smedila's colleagues (all the other ones have them I think). We've been carrying around the Book of Mormon in hand everywhere we go, and we've given more out in the past couple weeks than the rest of my mission combined I think. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's made a big difference.
Saturday we went to see the Relief Society president. She lives in a little paesino so we were on buses forever and that took most of the day. Not to mention the fact that she had to cook an enormous meal and make homemade gelato etc etc. She started cooking yesterday. I wonder if anyone has ever told these people that the way they like to feed us classifies as torture. It's all good food, but it's not like we taste or enjoy any of it. You just eat and hope you don't die or throw up. The appointment overall was a lot better than the last one. We talked about a lot of sisters. She doesn't really know anyone because she's from the Calabria, and she lives in a paesino, and she likes staying at home so much that she doesn't ever leave (seriously. She's not shy, she just likes staying home. It's nuts). But we talked about a lot of sorelle and hopefully we'll get some new less active sisters to work with because this is the same list from forever (like years maybe) and I've met only one of the women on it still and not for lack of trying.
We saw the Rizzo family as well. They're always fun. Gabrielle is nuts, he's the wildest little boy on the planet, especially compared to the other kids that are pretty tranquil. But they're fun. They're trying really hard to start fasting, they've been trying for a while but never succeeded, and we told them they could start just fasting for one meal so they fasted Sunday morning. Cool. I think I need to cut my fingernails, it's kind of hard to type...
We had a really interesting lesson in Relief Society about fasting where the teacher got up and said the topic made her laugh because there was a point where she got a testimony of fasting so she started fasting every other weekend, then every sunday, then every other day, then for days at a time, then she completely threw off her metabolism and destroyed something in her digestive system because she was fasting so much so she hasn't fasted for years. Pazza. Then she told about her mother who fasted every fast Sunday even when she was old and feeble and said that she was a great example for her, and maybe she's going to start trying to fast again.
Some guy who wants to date us (I think he just wants to date somebody in general and people figure we're like nuns or something so we must be desperate) came to church on Sunday. For some reason he has it in his head that learning about the gospel means he'd need to become a missionary and he "just doesn't feel the motivation to become a missionary". I told him he didn't get it and tried explaining and he said no he understood and still no inclination to be a missionary. After which I told him he definitely didn't get it and I don't think he wants to date ME anymore anyway. I wasn't very pleased with receiving two phone calls around midnight, oh well. He's not a creep he's just not all there.
We went to the Sigonella branch too, and that was good. They changed the Branch Presidency because the President is going on a three month vacation with his family in the US before they're transferred up to Napoli, and the Crawfords have to go up to the office in Roma. Sooo. It was a good meeting though. I don't know how to spell the new President's name but he's the guy who asked the kids if they recognized the spirit at the baptism back in February, he's a good guy. They like having sisters there, we're going to try and go every other week. There are a few families in the Branch who are people living here who speak English better than Italian, and sometimes they bring family and friends so it's a good place to fellowship.
The Crawfords had us over for dinner with them and Lillian, that was great. They're good people.
Well, Monday morning before district meeting we met a guy named Paolo. He seems really with it. We started talking to him and he said "no no, I'm from another religion not yours" and I said "oh yeah, what religion?" He said "I'm Christian, not Jehovah's Witness" I said "NEITHER ARE WE!!! Perfect!" and we started talking. Ha. It was way weird to talk to somebody taller than me, I'm not used to looking up. And I'm not even that tall!
I taught a lesson about the relationship between commitments and conversion in consiglio. That went pretty well. And we're trying to figure out how we can get the kids who are always playing soccer at church and breaking things and smoking and stuff to be interested in the gospel. They're pretty good kids when you talk to them on their own. Vediamo.
In the afternoon we went to Parco Gioeni, the biggest park in Catania, for the first time. It has an amazing view of the ocean, it's gorgeous. And it's big and so even though there are lots of people there aren't too many and it was fun. We talked to a few interesting people. We were talking to some guy and said something about how God's given us a prophet because he wants us to have a guide to return to him, a "guida", and he said "my name's Guido! If you want I can guide you to the exit of the park and we can get something to drink". We said no thanks. Ha.
Then we had an appointment with Biagio and Irene and we took Sorella Pappalardo with us because she lives right next to them. It was her first time ever teaching with the missionaries, which was a bit shocking to us because we know she's spent a lot of time with the missionaries, and she did great. It went well, they don't really understand the apostasy quite yet and Biagio loves Maria a lot, but it was good, and it was nice to get to know Irene a little better too. Sorella Pappalardo was beaming at the end of the lesson, she was so happy to have had the opportunity to share her testimony and to help out. That was great.
Yesterday we went to visit an inactive. We had gone to find this person, because we're kind of slowly visiting the inactives to give us reference points when we find people, and we left a note with our phone number. Usually they don't call or anything, but Gaetana's daughter called and invited us over for Tuesday morning. So we went having no idea what to expect or how old these people are or anything. But we met Gaetana and her daughter Sara, who is also an inactive, and awesome, and we had a great lesson and set up an appointment for next week. She seems great, she stopped coming to church when she got married and even though they've been separated or divorced for a long time she never got back in the habit of coming. But we're excited to get to work with her a bit. We sang her a hymn and she loved it. (by the way I am allergic to Sicilia in the spring/summer time and I have had a sore throat caused by allergies for more than a week it's way gross. And I'll have to send you a picture of my first mosquito bites before Slla Smedila gave me "la Fargan"--there are Tiger Mosquitos or something and the bites just get HUGE. It's nasty.)
Then we had lunch at Sorella Barresi's. After the pasta and the fried junk she gave us a plate of salad and a piece of meat and bread and I looked at it and realized that that would have been an entire filling dinner at home and it was really kind of depressing. It just keeps coming and of course you can't serve yourself. I was way good at saying no in Ragusa, I need to practice again.
We went to see Ingrid in the afternoon. Her son got married a month ago in the US, and she showed us the pictures. And she had to call another son who's at school and had a test and we talked to him to ask if he's been going to church or seeing the missionaries. He's a nice kid. All her boys seem great, the whole family just went inactive when the parents got divorcced and now she's going to church and really wants her sons to. The oldest one that just got married is active, but the other three no. Her youngest is coming to visit soon and he's not baptized in any church, so she's wanting the anziani to meet him. :) She's really cool.
Great day yesterday though, we talked to TONS of people and met a few really cool ones.
Today we switched p-day to the afternoon and worked in the morning because Cristina was home in the morning but wouldn't be at any other point in the day. She set some goals with us to help turn her life around, and hopefully things will be good. She knows what she needs to do, and we're going to help her to do it.
One thing that I've been learning is really important lately is tolerance. There are so many people here who are so unhappy because they've been victims of racism or they've been intolerant themselves or whatever. This week we've talked to people from Nigeria, India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, the Congo, Mauritius, Albania, Romania, the United States, the Philippines, Australia, Tunisia, Italy of course, and a whole bunch more. And we're all different. And you know what, God loves every single one of us, we're all his children and we're all important and special to him. It's amazing to see and to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for his children, and how much we as people don't get it and all the problems we cause by dividing people up and not even trying to see who they really are. But God really does know us and love us and he gives us as missionaries the chance to see people as he sees them and it's really a cool opportunity.
Well, I love you all! Have a great week!
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