4 August 2010
Hello family,
Well, it's been a long week. It's been good. Training isn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but it'll be good. She's a great missionary, but her idea of missionary work that she received from the MTC is that you are outside knocking doors and talking to everyone on the street from 8 am to 9 pm, even on p-days. And it's a little different than that but she'd like me to just skip studies and pranzo and work all day. And that's not how it works, so she's having a hard time adjusting.
Anyway, it was kind of weird to get rid of Sorella Hostetter. Thursday morning I got on a bus to Bari and we basically waited around for the new missionaries all day. We had a lesson with the Bari sorelle's investigator who is in her seventies and we taught the Word of Wisdom. She kind of freaked out because she drinks coffee and she doesn't agree that that could ever be bad for her. I don't know how she'll end up. Interesting old lady though, likes to talk just like the rest of them. Then we saw some girls from Turkey that the sorelle had tried to teach a little bit, and they want us to learn how to belly dance. At least the one who comes from, as Slla Jenkins put it, an "inactive Muslim family". Ha. They gave the Sorelle all their food because they were headed back to Turkey. Then we went to the train station and got the verdine. They hadn't told us which one we were getting, so it was a little unusual, but I got Sorella Askew. She's a cute girl, from Draper Utah. She studies neurology I think, she's only said it in Italian and they changed what she said to neurologia so I'm not sure what it's called in English. We had to sleep in Bari, which was kind of a pain since they didn't go to sleep until like midnight, which is just way too late for meeeee.
Friday morning we missed the 8 am bus :P so we had to wait for the ten am bus. That was fun. We got home, and we went to work for an hour until lunch time. The lunch time thing is a little hard for my companion, she still doesn't realize that there really is nobody out there during lunch and that we need language study and rest time. And they didn't teach about working with members or less-actives! All she knew about was being on the streets. We did go to visit a member, and it went well. It's just hard to teach what really happens in mission life when they don't really talk about the day to day schedule AT ALL in the MTC and then it's a total culture shock once they get to the mission.
Saturday we had to do weekly planning. It took 5 hours! Yay...they don't teach about area books in the MTC. Or how to plan. Ugh. And I don't know how to teach somebody about it because I don't remember anyone ever teaching me, they just showed it to me and I figured it out. So in the end we went to start the stop smoking program with Annamaria, the woman who was at Clementina's house last week, and it went pretty well. We ended up talking a lot about how much Heavenly Father loves her and wants her to be happy and healthy. Anyway, she hasn't quit smoking yet, but she still wants to.
Sunday was pretty good, church went well. We ate with Sorella Pastano. That was good, my first Sunday lunch appointment since I got here. The Pastanos are a cool family. Her daughter just started her first transfer in the missione Italiana di Milano. She's kind of missing her, but excited that she's serving at the same time.
We did mostra again. That was good. I talked to a Ukrainian woman and she wants a Book of Mormon. She doesn't speak Italian super well, but she seemed interested. I also talked to a man who wants to marry a 20 year old when he's 100 and live until he's at least 175 years old.
Monday we had to go to the Agenzia delle Entrate to get Sorella Askew's codice fiscale, and then go to an appointment to get her documents all worked out for the permesso. The Christian worker's association of Italy puts it all together. Luckily. Ha. They had to call the Questura and ask for permission. I was kind of concerned because if they hadn't have gotten permission then we would have been just like any immigrant worker off the streets trying to go to the Questura and apply, and I don't think that would really have worked well so thank goodness they let us do it! We didn't do the CNA appointment in my city, we did it the first night in Italy, President Taranto took us. At least I assume that's what that was, since we never had a CNA appointment otherwise. But that all worked out really well, thank goodness!!!
Monday afternoon we talked to a bunch of people and taught five lessons. My companion doesn't think we're talking to enough people. HA. We also got gelato, I think that was necessary. Although we sat next to a woman who told us we shouldn't talk to people we don't know, which is what all the women say and you just have to say okay and change the subject but my companion tried to talk her out of it instead and you just cannot talk an old Italian woman out of her longheld beliefs. It was a good night though.
Ummm...yesterday we had to go to the post office to do permesso stuff. We didn't talk to people on the way which made Slla Askew a bit unhappy, but we had to be in church for consiglio at 12 and we just barely made it doing what we did.
Unfortunately in the afternoon AnnaMaria's daughter made her babysit her grandaughter so she couldn't come to the Relief society activity with us. We went for a bit anyway, to try and take pictures of the sisters, but we weren't able to take a ton because they didn't think that they were pretty enough.
Afterwards we hit the streets and still taught five other lessons. MADO'. I talked to this guy named Guglielmo, and it was really cool, we almost walked by but I turned around and he was just a nice, down to earth person. I think it's because he wasn't wearing skinny jeans. He has a Book of Mormon and he we gave him our little paper with the questions of the soul and the references to look up and he said he'd do it, and also look at the website. So that was cool.
This is kind of rough. Not gonna lie. She knows what she was taught in the MTC was right, but it hasn't quite hit that we DO the things they talked about in the MTC. So I feel like she thinks we haven't done any work because we have no investigators, and it's really frustrating for me because I already have a hard time with the fact that I have been working really really hard to talk to SO MANY people and we still never see them again. So this will be interesting.
I am glad to have her here though, she's excited to be here and SH just was kind of done with the city and even the region of the country. We've had a lot of good experiences, I just want Slla Askew to realize how special they are and to not just keep thinking it's not enough!!! Because there have been SO many special things this week and it's hard to remember them because she's so focused on what we aren't doing well enough and I have no idea how to refocus her and I hope you can edit this a little before you post it online.
Anyway. The work is amazingly good. Honestly, I am thrilled with how this week has gone aside from the fact that my companion is disappointed with everything we have done. Anyway, I have to go.
I love you lots!!!
Liza
PS I just really want you to know that I am really glad to have my new companion, I can learn a lot from her excitement (because I am just almost never visibly excited and I need to learn how to be) and she has a ton of faith and I really think there are going to be a lot of miracles this transfer. There already have been. This city is going to turn around, it can be done! I'm excited to see what will happen.
Well, it's been a long week. It's been good. Training isn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but it'll be good. She's a great missionary, but her idea of missionary work that she received from the MTC is that you are outside knocking doors and talking to everyone on the street from 8 am to 9 pm, even on p-days. And it's a little different than that but she'd like me to just skip studies and pranzo and work all day. And that's not how it works, so she's having a hard time adjusting.
Anyway, it was kind of weird to get rid of Sorella Hostetter. Thursday morning I got on a bus to Bari and we basically waited around for the new missionaries all day. We had a lesson with the Bari sorelle's investigator who is in her seventies and we taught the Word of Wisdom. She kind of freaked out because she drinks coffee and she doesn't agree that that could ever be bad for her. I don't know how she'll end up. Interesting old lady though, likes to talk just like the rest of them. Then we saw some girls from Turkey that the sorelle had tried to teach a little bit, and they want us to learn how to belly dance. At least the one who comes from, as Slla Jenkins put it, an "inactive Muslim family". Ha. They gave the Sorelle all their food because they were headed back to Turkey. Then we went to the train station and got the verdine. They hadn't told us which one we were getting, so it was a little unusual, but I got Sorella Askew. She's a cute girl, from Draper Utah. She studies neurology I think, she's only said it in Italian and they changed what she said to neurologia so I'm not sure what it's called in English. We had to sleep in Bari, which was kind of a pain since they didn't go to sleep until like midnight, which is just way too late for meeeee.
Friday morning we missed the 8 am bus :P so we had to wait for the ten am bus. That was fun. We got home, and we went to work for an hour until lunch time. The lunch time thing is a little hard for my companion, she still doesn't realize that there really is nobody out there during lunch and that we need language study and rest time. And they didn't teach about working with members or less-actives! All she knew about was being on the streets. We did go to visit a member, and it went well. It's just hard to teach what really happens in mission life when they don't really talk about the day to day schedule AT ALL in the MTC and then it's a total culture shock once they get to the mission.
Saturday we had to do weekly planning. It took 5 hours! Yay...they don't teach about area books in the MTC. Or how to plan. Ugh. And I don't know how to teach somebody about it because I don't remember anyone ever teaching me, they just showed it to me and I figured it out. So in the end we went to start the stop smoking program with Annamaria, the woman who was at Clementina's house last week, and it went pretty well. We ended up talking a lot about how much Heavenly Father loves her and wants her to be happy and healthy. Anyway, she hasn't quit smoking yet, but she still wants to.
Sunday was pretty good, church went well. We ate with Sorella Pastano. That was good, my first Sunday lunch appointment since I got here. The Pastanos are a cool family. Her daughter just started her first transfer in the missione Italiana di Milano. She's kind of missing her, but excited that she's serving at the same time.
We did mostra again. That was good. I talked to a Ukrainian woman and she wants a Book of Mormon. She doesn't speak Italian super well, but she seemed interested. I also talked to a man who wants to marry a 20 year old when he's 100 and live until he's at least 175 years old.
Monday we had to go to the Agenzia delle Entrate to get Sorella Askew's codice fiscale, and then go to an appointment to get her documents all worked out for the permesso. The Christian worker's association of Italy puts it all together. Luckily. Ha. They had to call the Questura and ask for permission. I was kind of concerned because if they hadn't have gotten permission then we would have been just like any immigrant worker off the streets trying to go to the Questura and apply, and I don't think that would really have worked well so thank goodness they let us do it! We didn't do the CNA appointment in my city, we did it the first night in Italy, President Taranto took us. At least I assume that's what that was, since we never had a CNA appointment otherwise. But that all worked out really well, thank goodness!!!
Monday afternoon we talked to a bunch of people and taught five lessons. My companion doesn't think we're talking to enough people. HA. We also got gelato, I think that was necessary. Although we sat next to a woman who told us we shouldn't talk to people we don't know, which is what all the women say and you just have to say okay and change the subject but my companion tried to talk her out of it instead and you just cannot talk an old Italian woman out of her longheld beliefs. It was a good night though.
Ummm...yesterday we had to go to the post office to do permesso stuff. We didn't talk to people on the way which made Slla Askew a bit unhappy, but we had to be in church for consiglio at 12 and we just barely made it doing what we did.
Unfortunately in the afternoon AnnaMaria's daughter made her babysit her grandaughter so she couldn't come to the Relief society activity with us. We went for a bit anyway, to try and take pictures of the sisters, but we weren't able to take a ton because they didn't think that they were pretty enough.
Afterwards we hit the streets and still taught five other lessons. MADO'. I talked to this guy named Guglielmo, and it was really cool, we almost walked by but I turned around and he was just a nice, down to earth person. I think it's because he wasn't wearing skinny jeans. He has a Book of Mormon and he we gave him our little paper with the questions of the soul and the references to look up and he said he'd do it, and also look at the website. So that was cool.
This is kind of rough. Not gonna lie. She knows what she was taught in the MTC was right, but it hasn't quite hit that we DO the things they talked about in the MTC. So I feel like she thinks we haven't done any work because we have no investigators, and it's really frustrating for me because I already have a hard time with the fact that I have been working really really hard to talk to SO MANY people and we still never see them again. So this will be interesting.
I am glad to have her here though, she's excited to be here and SH just was kind of done with the city and even the region of the country. We've had a lot of good experiences, I just want Slla Askew to realize how special they are and to not just keep thinking it's not enough!!! Because there have been SO many special things this week and it's hard to remember them because she's so focused on what we aren't doing well enough and I have no idea how to refocus her and I hope you can edit this a little before you post it online.
Anyway. The work is amazingly good. Honestly, I am thrilled with how this week has gone aside from the fact that my companion is disappointed with everything we have done. Anyway, I have to go.
I love you lots!!!
Liza
PS I just really want you to know that I am really glad to have my new companion, I can learn a lot from her excitement (because I am just almost never visibly excited and I need to learn how to be) and she has a ton of faith and I really think there are going to be a lot of miracles this transfer. There already have been. This city is going to turn around, it can be done! I'm excited to see what will happen.
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