14 July 2010
Buon giorno famiglia mia,
This week has been another good one in the sticky hot smelly summer of the little city of Taranto. The space tab on this keyboard squeaks and it throws me off a little bit every time that I type. I haven't gotten my Ensign yet (and for some odd reason the Puglia hasn't gotten any of the magazines that we had in Catania a month ago but what can you do...) We have zone conference tomorrow though so we should get the mail from the mission offices tomorrowwww. We also get to meet the new mission president and his wife and have interviews and stuff.
Let's see, last Wednesday we went to see the famiglia Locorotondo. It's an odd name, the crazy rounds. But they're nice people. Loco doesn't mean crazy in Italian of course, but that's a way to remember. In every city there are dominant last names that you see everywhere and they change from city to city, so you get lots of names you've never heard before, after thinking that there were only five last names that existed in the world. Okay, it's not that dramatic, but you know.
Thursday was pretty good. We went to see a girl named Viviana who just got back from some kind of piano thing in Salt Lake where she went to temple square and talked to a girl who's really from Argentina but has lived in Italy so got called as an Italian speaking Temple Square missionary. Anyway, she talked to her and she said she found herself really well in Utah, that the people were all incredibly nice and that she just had a great time. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said we'll hear from each other on the phone...hopefully one day we really will hear from her again. But she's a sweet girl, 22, it would be awesome to teach her.
Then we missed the bus from Roccaforzata to Taranto, so we decided to walk to San Giorgio to get one from there. It was only a twenty minute walk, but it was pretty fun, down a country road with lots of olive trees and fields on the sides of it. Beautiful. And it was a slightly higher elevation so it wasn't so stinking hot.
Pretty much after that we got to hunt down some people, and we had an appointment with the Miccoli family, who are really cute and excited to help do some missionary work.
Friday was pretty normal, we just did a little bit of casa before planning. Then we walked around a lot in the evening and went to see a member who was in the hospital because she got in a car accident. It's so hard to get appointments and it really stinks because it's way hard to be outside walking around too. We're talking to some great people but the problem is that it's very rare that they see us again, even if they do end up being willing to give a phone number. Sigh.
Saturday we had an appointment! We ate lunch, but it was okay, she told us about five hundred times that we didn't have to eat anything. She kept saying "everybody always says that you can feed missionaries anything, but I'm sure that's not true, you're people too and there are things you just don't want to eat. I know if I were at somebody's house and there was food I didn't want it would be next to impossible to eat it, so don't worry if you leave things." Haha. The Casti family. They're nice. They're going to share their tesimonies with someone this week.
We had correlazione with the Vescovo (the bishop) on Saturday evening. The ward mission leader has been sick, he was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and got out Friday morning I think, but he wasn't there. But it was a decent meeting. The vescovo is a little hard of hearing. And an inactive guy named Cristiano brought a guy from Ghana in to the church to prove that he could find homeless people to do a homeless people dinner. Luckily Paul doesn't speak Italian yet so he didn't know what was going on. He seems like a really nice guy, we invited him to English course. But he lives in Bari. I really love the people from Ghana, they're super faithful and not afraid to tell you so.
Hmmm...Sunday was church. We watched the Mediator film in Relief Society. It was a good meeting. Lot's of good people here. We also passed around a calendar for the sisters to write down when they're free in case we need to call them to take them with to an appointment. We need to have investigators to use it though...But they'll come, they always do. Just takes a lot of hard work, and not taking the easy way out. Somebody is smoking in this building even though that's illegal and I'd like to hit them.
We had an appointment with Jlenia after church. She's going to work on talking positively about her family members for two weeks, it's one of the things in Divine Nature in the personal progress book.
Then we did mostra di sera. I don't know if I ever explained what the mostra is, it's this thing with three hanging panels, like a triangle display thing with a panel about the family, a panel about the Book of Mormon, and a panel that needs to be changed to something else because it really doesn't make any sense. But we set it up and talk to everybody who walks by. It's kind of fun. I talked to a really cute girl from Turkey, Istanbul. Not about the gospel too much in the end, because she's Islamic and I don't want her to die or something. Her husband is still in Turkey, and most of her family, but she and three of her five sisters are here working for a few years. There were a lot of cute families out too. It was a pretty good day.
Monday we had an appointment with the Relief Society president to talk about the work, etc. It was good. She has a really cute seven year old daughter and a really cute puppy. Then in the evening we had an appointment with a member and her inactive daughters, and that took the whole night because we had to walk 40 minutes to the bus stop, then wait 20 minutes for the bus, then be on the bus for 40 minutes, and it just took a long time. I did enjoy the dinner we ate though--bruschette with a tomato and basilico salad. It was really good. And the three year old daugher, Manila, of Alessandra, is adorable and a chiacchierone!!! She just talks and talks, three year olds are always on the go. Mamma mia.
And she repeats everything everyone says to her, so it's a good thing that they don't say bad things, because you would know.
Yesterday we went by Clementina, the old woman. Unfortunately she didn't hear when I told her on the phone that we couldn't eat lunch with her, and instead that that we were going to eat lunch with her at 10:30 in the morning. We had to catch a bus at 11 so that didn't work. Oops. We met an inactive named Anna LaTagliata. It was kind of cool. We had been looking on Saturday for people to see in San Giorgio before or after our lunch appointment, and she was a member that lives in San Giorgio so we decided to call her to see if we could see her Saturday. She said no, and we set up an appointment for Tuesday instead. We got there and she said that even though she doesn't come to church she still feels like a member, and she was praying a lot on Saturday for something, I can't remember, and then we called. We were an answer to her prayers and we didn't even know it, we were just trying to find someone to see! It was kind of cool though.
The bus was late and we didn't get to another inactive on time so she left. Mizzica.
Di pomeriggio we went and did a lot of talking to people, and it was pretty fun. We called the Relief Society President's non member brother and he said maybe he and his wife will see us on Friday, they're busy though, so he doesn't know.
Corso d'inglese was interesting. We have an inactive who thinks that he can prove all religion wrong with science, although hes never gone to school and doesn't know anything he was talking about. Oh well. The other students were telling him he was wrong the whole time. It's too bad he comes though, sometimes, because the other people don't really get what's going on when he goes off and he's just destroying his own peace. Ohhhh well. He was mad at us because we wouldn't show Snoopy because we can't watch it.
There was a gorgeous sunset yesterday. Taranto has beautiful sunsets.
Today we're going to Grottaglie, they have pretty ceramics there from what I hear.
It's been overall a really good week. It's exhausting to go out and work and have no investigators, but we keep working hard and we're having a good time too. The church is true, and all that we can do is let people know and let them pray. Knowledge is not all physical, and there is a lot of knowledge that you can't get through other people, you have to get it for yourself. Spiritual knowledge is like that. You start with a little desire, you get a lot of faith, you keep moving forward and then you just know. And then you repeat for other things.
So that's going to be crazy with Tommy coming home New Years Eve...who's going to come to Utah with me? School starts 4 January. I have to ask Pres. Kelly tomorrow when my release date is, I still don't know.
Well, I love you a lot. Until next week!!!
Eliza
PS I think that I'm okay after the stair experience. The bruises are almost gone and the scab on my knee is almost gone too (and I don't pick scabs). But I need to do yoga. Ha. Ciao ciao ciaociaociaociaociao
This week has been another good one in the sticky hot smelly summer of the little city of Taranto. The space tab on this keyboard squeaks and it throws me off a little bit every time that I type. I haven't gotten my Ensign yet (and for some odd reason the Puglia hasn't gotten any of the magazines that we had in Catania a month ago but what can you do...) We have zone conference tomorrow though so we should get the mail from the mission offices tomorrowwww. We also get to meet the new mission president and his wife and have interviews and stuff.
Let's see, last Wednesday we went to see the famiglia Locorotondo. It's an odd name, the crazy rounds. But they're nice people. Loco doesn't mean crazy in Italian of course, but that's a way to remember. In every city there are dominant last names that you see everywhere and they change from city to city, so you get lots of names you've never heard before, after thinking that there were only five last names that existed in the world. Okay, it's not that dramatic, but you know.
Thursday was pretty good. We went to see a girl named Viviana who just got back from some kind of piano thing in Salt Lake where she went to temple square and talked to a girl who's really from Argentina but has lived in Italy so got called as an Italian speaking Temple Square missionary. Anyway, she talked to her and she said she found herself really well in Utah, that the people were all incredibly nice and that she just had a great time. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said we'll hear from each other on the phone...hopefully one day we really will hear from her again. But she's a sweet girl, 22, it would be awesome to teach her.
Then we missed the bus from Roccaforzata to Taranto, so we decided to walk to San Giorgio to get one from there. It was only a twenty minute walk, but it was pretty fun, down a country road with lots of olive trees and fields on the sides of it. Beautiful. And it was a slightly higher elevation so it wasn't so stinking hot.
Pretty much after that we got to hunt down some people, and we had an appointment with the Miccoli family, who are really cute and excited to help do some missionary work.
Friday was pretty normal, we just did a little bit of casa before planning. Then we walked around a lot in the evening and went to see a member who was in the hospital because she got in a car accident. It's so hard to get appointments and it really stinks because it's way hard to be outside walking around too. We're talking to some great people but the problem is that it's very rare that they see us again, even if they do end up being willing to give a phone number. Sigh.
Saturday we had an appointment! We ate lunch, but it was okay, she told us about five hundred times that we didn't have to eat anything. She kept saying "everybody always says that you can feed missionaries anything, but I'm sure that's not true, you're people too and there are things you just don't want to eat. I know if I were at somebody's house and there was food I didn't want it would be next to impossible to eat it, so don't worry if you leave things." Haha. The Casti family. They're nice. They're going to share their tesimonies with someone this week.
We had correlazione with the Vescovo (the bishop) on Saturday evening. The ward mission leader has been sick, he was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and got out Friday morning I think, but he wasn't there. But it was a decent meeting. The vescovo is a little hard of hearing. And an inactive guy named Cristiano brought a guy from Ghana in to the church to prove that he could find homeless people to do a homeless people dinner. Luckily Paul doesn't speak Italian yet so he didn't know what was going on. He seems like a really nice guy, we invited him to English course. But he lives in Bari. I really love the people from Ghana, they're super faithful and not afraid to tell you so.
Hmmm...Sunday was church. We watched the Mediator film in Relief Society. It was a good meeting. Lot's of good people here. We also passed around a calendar for the sisters to write down when they're free in case we need to call them to take them with to an appointment. We need to have investigators to use it though...But they'll come, they always do. Just takes a lot of hard work, and not taking the easy way out. Somebody is smoking in this building even though that's illegal and I'd like to hit them.
We had an appointment with Jlenia after church. She's going to work on talking positively about her family members for two weeks, it's one of the things in Divine Nature in the personal progress book.
Then we did mostra di sera. I don't know if I ever explained what the mostra is, it's this thing with three hanging panels, like a triangle display thing with a panel about the family, a panel about the Book of Mormon, and a panel that needs to be changed to something else because it really doesn't make any sense. But we set it up and talk to everybody who walks by. It's kind of fun. I talked to a really cute girl from Turkey, Istanbul. Not about the gospel too much in the end, because she's Islamic and I don't want her to die or something. Her husband is still in Turkey, and most of her family, but she and three of her five sisters are here working for a few years. There were a lot of cute families out too. It was a pretty good day.
Monday we had an appointment with the Relief Society president to talk about the work, etc. It was good. She has a really cute seven year old daughter and a really cute puppy. Then in the evening we had an appointment with a member and her inactive daughters, and that took the whole night because we had to walk 40 minutes to the bus stop, then wait 20 minutes for the bus, then be on the bus for 40 minutes, and it just took a long time. I did enjoy the dinner we ate though--bruschette with a tomato and basilico salad. It was really good. And the three year old daugher, Manila, of Alessandra, is adorable and a chiacchierone!!! She just talks and talks, three year olds are always on the go. Mamma mia.
And she repeats everything everyone says to her, so it's a good thing that they don't say bad things, because you would know.
Yesterday we went by Clementina, the old woman. Unfortunately she didn't hear when I told her on the phone that we couldn't eat lunch with her, and instead that that we were going to eat lunch with her at 10:30 in the morning. We had to catch a bus at 11 so that didn't work. Oops. We met an inactive named Anna LaTagliata. It was kind of cool. We had been looking on Saturday for people to see in San Giorgio before or after our lunch appointment, and she was a member that lives in San Giorgio so we decided to call her to see if we could see her Saturday. She said no, and we set up an appointment for Tuesday instead. We got there and she said that even though she doesn't come to church she still feels like a member, and she was praying a lot on Saturday for something, I can't remember, and then we called. We were an answer to her prayers and we didn't even know it, we were just trying to find someone to see! It was kind of cool though.
The bus was late and we didn't get to another inactive on time so she left. Mizzica.
Di pomeriggio we went and did a lot of talking to people, and it was pretty fun. We called the Relief Society President's non member brother and he said maybe he and his wife will see us on Friday, they're busy though, so he doesn't know.
Corso d'inglese was interesting. We have an inactive who thinks that he can prove all religion wrong with science, although hes never gone to school and doesn't know anything he was talking about. Oh well. The other students were telling him he was wrong the whole time. It's too bad he comes though, sometimes, because the other people don't really get what's going on when he goes off and he's just destroying his own peace. Ohhhh well. He was mad at us because we wouldn't show Snoopy because we can't watch it.
There was a gorgeous sunset yesterday. Taranto has beautiful sunsets.
Today we're going to Grottaglie, they have pretty ceramics there from what I hear.
It's been overall a really good week. It's exhausting to go out and work and have no investigators, but we keep working hard and we're having a good time too. The church is true, and all that we can do is let people know and let them pray. Knowledge is not all physical, and there is a lot of knowledge that you can't get through other people, you have to get it for yourself. Spiritual knowledge is like that. You start with a little desire, you get a lot of faith, you keep moving forward and then you just know. And then you repeat for other things.
So that's going to be crazy with Tommy coming home New Years Eve...who's going to come to Utah with me? School starts 4 January. I have to ask Pres. Kelly tomorrow when my release date is, I still don't know.
Well, I love you a lot. Until next week!!!
Eliza
PS I think that I'm okay after the stair experience. The bruises are almost gone and the scab on my knee is almost gone too (and I don't pick scabs). But I need to do yoga. Ha. Ciao ciao ciaociaociaociaociao
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