22 September 2010
Hello famiglia mia,
Well, another week has past. Did I tell you we still have mice? We do. One ran across my companion's foot this morning as she was cleaning the bathroom. Hahaha...I probably shouldn't laugh but she screamed so loud! Mamma mia.
Weeks go by fast. And things rarely go as planned. :) Last Wednesday for p-day we went on a tour of the Aragonese Castle by the Ponte Girevole. It was pretty cool, the Anziani were late so we talked to the marines who run the tour for a while, they got to practice their English. The 18 minute movie, in English that was not by a native English speaker was kind of painful. But then we went on a tour of the whole castle, and saw a cat they had found in the corner and all the towers, and maybe a torture chamber, and acquaducts. It was pretty interesting. It was a military fortress, not a princess castle.
After that we were going to go see Sorella Basile, so we got on a bus...the wrong bus...the bus that takes 2 hours to do it's giro. Oops. But we did talk to some people on the bus so it wasn't a wasted night, even though we weren't able to see Sorella Basile in the end.
And then my companion made me a chocolate cake for my birthday in Italy. :) That was fun, she bought a "1" candle and everything.
Then Thursday we had an appointment with Irene, a referral from the Anziani, and we got to her house and nobody answered. Then we got a phone call from the members in our ward who have a panificio not super far from her house, and said that she had just been there and wanted us to know that she wouldn't be home. Nice of her to let us know, at least, I suppose.
So then we went to San Giorgio to eat pizza at our ward mission leader's pizzeria. Artichokes on pizza are really good, by the way. That was pretty fun, he is kind of worried about his family going inactive (he's one of 11 children and his dad's inactive) so he asked us to go visit them sometime. We were planning on trying to see Anna LaTagliata anyway, so we decided to make it a San Giorgio afternoon. Anna wasn't home, but we went to see the Casti family, who are super forte and make me laugh so much. They're happy people, it's nice to see that every so often. Sorella Casti thinks I look happier this transfer than the last. Fratello Casti thinks I look sneaky. They're great.
After that we decided to go try Anna again, and still nobody, but the door was open and she lives in the same palazzo as the Palotta family, so we went and saw them. They seem really cool, it was fun to meet them. Hopefully the husband will start coming to church again soon.
We finally taught a lesson to Lorena, our friend on the bench! Yes. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she seems really interested. Happiness is not something she's good at right now--her husband left her almost a year ago and his new girlfriend is pregnant and she has very little money. But she's a sweet person, and hopefully soon we'll be able to really teach her. She was waiting until her kids started school to invite us over to her house, and they started this week.
Friday morning we had correlation as usual. It went pretty well. Our vescovo is a character, good guy though, really great. And he gets things done. This Sunday all four of us in the ward get to give talks. Haha. Anziano Smith isn't very excited because he just did one last month.
Then we went to follow up on some house that we had done near the church. The woman who had invited us back was home, but said her husband didn't want us to come in. Sad day. But we talked to a few other people in the 19 story palazzo with four apartments on each floor. Then there were some salesmen who came and it was kind of weird to do house with them there too so we left. IN the afternoon we tried to find Annamaria again. Still not home. So we went to the other Annamaria who is Tina's friend who wanted to quit smoking. And she was home, but she's not the happiest of all the people in the world, and doesn't listen. Sigh.
Then we went back to that huge palazzo to see someone who had asked us to come back, but they weren't home! Oh dear. Comunque, it was a good day.
On Saturday morning we planned. And in the afternoon we went to see Sorella Ferreri and her niece. That was interesting. The lesson didn't go exactly as planned because Slla Ferreri talks assai assai, but oh well. It was fun anyway. And then we tried to stop by a few people who live in that area. We went and saw Enza, she is not ready to come to church but she has definitely become more friendly and I have high hopes for her. She's preparing for a mass for the birthday of her son who passed away 6 months ago, and so she's a little preoccupied with that.
Then we were walking through Piazza Dante just about to go home because the day had just been full of nothing, and there was a woman on a bench next to a boy. And we walked by and I though "well what if they'd listen" and so we went back and talked to them. They were really sweet. The two little boys are way cute, and the mom is a nice woman as well. She sees many many things that are wrong with her religion and believes in very little of it but she doesn't think there's anything else out there. But we had a good lesson there by the bench, and that was a good way to end the night.
On Sunday in principi evangelici we talked about obedience and then the talks in Sacrament Meeting were on the same thing. It's much easier to focus in Sacrament meeting when there aren't ants crawling all over the place.
We did service again on Sunday, at the Catholic food kitchen, not quite as fun this time because the woman in charge complained about EVERYTHING, literally, and most of it didn't even matter. Then we were supposed to see Patrizia, but she ended up having to do somebody's hair for a wedding on MOnday, so she wasn't able to see us. :(
But we met a nice woman named Loredana, who would love to here more except she works literally all day long and can't. Dang. But we might meet her and walk home from work with her sometime, vediamo.
Monday we were on our way to Sorella Vitiello's house (the RS President) when she called us to tell us that they were getting the locks changed on the doors so her husband was going to be home so we couldn't go over (he doesn't let anybody from the church visit). Dang. I can't remember what we ended up doing--I know we visited the candy shop man who doesn't listen to a word we say...We also taked to a woman named Elisa who was super sweet, hopefully she'll call us. And a man named Pierpaolo who will come to English course.
Then we had consiglio di distretto, Anziano Garcia gave a really good lesson on Hope and Faith, way cool.
In the afternoon we were supposed to go see a Sorella whose mother died last week, but she ended up not being able to see us. So we decided to go visit Sorella Mandorino, she's 90. She doesn't speak Italian really well, she speaks in dialect. And so does Sorella Calderone. They were there making lace together, that's what the old ladies do here, it's really cool. And they were really funny, Slla Calderone would get a little angry and start half yelling and Slla Mandorino would giggle and wink at us. They were fun. And when Slla Calderone left Slla Mandorino showed us about 500 pictures of her daughter the nun, among other family members.
Yesterday we went to see Sorella DeAngelis in the morning. She's always interesting. She gave us two new testimonies that she's written. We also met her daughter who recently reconverted to Catholicism. Sorella Pastano went with us. That woman is incredible, seriously one of the most amazing members I have ever met. She brought Slla DeAngelis a flower for her birthday that was last week, and then she dropped some stuff off at another Slla's house on the way home. She is just a great woman.
In the afternoon Jlenia and Patrizia both said that they couldn't see us. So I made a whole bunch of phone calls, to every potential investigator and less active and a few members, and maybe three people answered their phones, and finally I saw Slla Galeandro's name and called her and she said we could come. On the way there we saw Carlotta, the girl who works at the gas station that I have been wanting to talk to. She is AMAZING. We're pretty sure she's going to get baptized pretty soon. She's just very very cool and very down to earth, we're excited about her.
Slla Galeandro was excited to see us, she talked and laughed and talked and laughed...I think my companion was a little overwhelmed. I told her not to worry, because the next time she goes SG will share the same stories, so she may understand them more. Only old ladies want to see us though, how sad.
We got on a bus down to the end of C Battisti, and some 14-16 y/o girls asked if we were nuns and talked to me a little. Then after they left the girl sitting in front of me turned around and said she had a friend in high school who was Mormon, and we talked to her a little bit. As we were getting off the bus a little boy named Francesco asked me to pray for him because his mom died last month. THen he walked a different way so I didn't get to talk to him more. We went and left a birthday card for Sorella Lecce, and then as we were walking up the street I saw Francesco again! So we stopped and talked to him, and then a man came and told us he went to church 40 years ago when he was in the military, but wasn't interested in hearing from the missionaries again, purtroppo. Then Francesco called his dad over and we talked to him a little bit. Francesco wants to come to English course, and in fact he told us that he wanted to come to our church and never go to that other one again. He wants to go to Scouts too, so we'll have to look into that for him.
Today I got to go to the Questura to do my fingerprints to renew my permesso. Walking 2,5 miles and then standing still for an hour and a half is exhausting, did you know? But we met a girl from West Virginia who's here with her fiance who's Italian, and she liked having somebody to talk to because she can understand Italian pretty well but she can't speak it. Cool girl. And the Questura here is really quite organized, I'm impressed. I still have green eyes. We walked through the market on the way home, and went shopping, and now we're doing pday. Not anything exciting, just writing and getting icecream because Slla Burt in the office says we have to after we finish permesso stuff.
Well, it's been a fun week. My companion is just fantastic, and we're meeting lots of new people everyday. I'm really impressed with Sorella Jones, her first week here she just thought she was bad at talking to people on the street, and then this week she's just started talking to everyone. It's way cool.
Well, I love you a lot!
Eliza
Well, another week has past. Did I tell you we still have mice? We do. One ran across my companion's foot this morning as she was cleaning the bathroom. Hahaha...I probably shouldn't laugh but she screamed so loud! Mamma mia.
Weeks go by fast. And things rarely go as planned. :) Last Wednesday for p-day we went on a tour of the Aragonese Castle by the Ponte Girevole. It was pretty cool, the Anziani were late so we talked to the marines who run the tour for a while, they got to practice their English. The 18 minute movie, in English that was not by a native English speaker was kind of painful. But then we went on a tour of the whole castle, and saw a cat they had found in the corner and all the towers, and maybe a torture chamber, and acquaducts. It was pretty interesting. It was a military fortress, not a princess castle.
After that we were going to go see Sorella Basile, so we got on a bus...the wrong bus...the bus that takes 2 hours to do it's giro. Oops. But we did talk to some people on the bus so it wasn't a wasted night, even though we weren't able to see Sorella Basile in the end.
And then my companion made me a chocolate cake for my birthday in Italy. :) That was fun, she bought a "1" candle and everything.
Then Thursday we had an appointment with Irene, a referral from the Anziani, and we got to her house and nobody answered. Then we got a phone call from the members in our ward who have a panificio not super far from her house, and said that she had just been there and wanted us to know that she wouldn't be home. Nice of her to let us know, at least, I suppose.
So then we went to San Giorgio to eat pizza at our ward mission leader's pizzeria. Artichokes on pizza are really good, by the way. That was pretty fun, he is kind of worried about his family going inactive (he's one of 11 children and his dad's inactive) so he asked us to go visit them sometime. We were planning on trying to see Anna LaTagliata anyway, so we decided to make it a San Giorgio afternoon. Anna wasn't home, but we went to see the Casti family, who are super forte and make me laugh so much. They're happy people, it's nice to see that every so often. Sorella Casti thinks I look happier this transfer than the last. Fratello Casti thinks I look sneaky. They're great.
After that we decided to go try Anna again, and still nobody, but the door was open and she lives in the same palazzo as the Palotta family, so we went and saw them. They seem really cool, it was fun to meet them. Hopefully the husband will start coming to church again soon.
We finally taught a lesson to Lorena, our friend on the bench! Yes. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she seems really interested. Happiness is not something she's good at right now--her husband left her almost a year ago and his new girlfriend is pregnant and she has very little money. But she's a sweet person, and hopefully soon we'll be able to really teach her. She was waiting until her kids started school to invite us over to her house, and they started this week.
Friday morning we had correlation as usual. It went pretty well. Our vescovo is a character, good guy though, really great. And he gets things done. This Sunday all four of us in the ward get to give talks. Haha. Anziano Smith isn't very excited because he just did one last month.
Then we went to follow up on some house that we had done near the church. The woman who had invited us back was home, but said her husband didn't want us to come in. Sad day. But we talked to a few other people in the 19 story palazzo with four apartments on each floor. Then there were some salesmen who came and it was kind of weird to do house with them there too so we left. IN the afternoon we tried to find Annamaria again. Still not home. So we went to the other Annamaria who is Tina's friend who wanted to quit smoking. And she was home, but she's not the happiest of all the people in the world, and doesn't listen. Sigh.
Then we went back to that huge palazzo to see someone who had asked us to come back, but they weren't home! Oh dear. Comunque, it was a good day.
On Saturday morning we planned. And in the afternoon we went to see Sorella Ferreri and her niece. That was interesting. The lesson didn't go exactly as planned because Slla Ferreri talks assai assai, but oh well. It was fun anyway. And then we tried to stop by a few people who live in that area. We went and saw Enza, she is not ready to come to church but she has definitely become more friendly and I have high hopes for her. She's preparing for a mass for the birthday of her son who passed away 6 months ago, and so she's a little preoccupied with that.
Then we were walking through Piazza Dante just about to go home because the day had just been full of nothing, and there was a woman on a bench next to a boy. And we walked by and I though "well what if they'd listen" and so we went back and talked to them. They were really sweet. The two little boys are way cute, and the mom is a nice woman as well. She sees many many things that are wrong with her religion and believes in very little of it but she doesn't think there's anything else out there. But we had a good lesson there by the bench, and that was a good way to end the night.
On Sunday in principi evangelici we talked about obedience and then the talks in Sacrament Meeting were on the same thing. It's much easier to focus in Sacrament meeting when there aren't ants crawling all over the place.
We did service again on Sunday, at the Catholic food kitchen, not quite as fun this time because the woman in charge complained about EVERYTHING, literally, and most of it didn't even matter. Then we were supposed to see Patrizia, but she ended up having to do somebody's hair for a wedding on MOnday, so she wasn't able to see us. :(
But we met a nice woman named Loredana, who would love to here more except she works literally all day long and can't. Dang. But we might meet her and walk home from work with her sometime, vediamo.
Monday we were on our way to Sorella Vitiello's house (the RS President) when she called us to tell us that they were getting the locks changed on the doors so her husband was going to be home so we couldn't go over (he doesn't let anybody from the church visit). Dang. I can't remember what we ended up doing--I know we visited the candy shop man who doesn't listen to a word we say...We also taked to a woman named Elisa who was super sweet, hopefully she'll call us. And a man named Pierpaolo who will come to English course.
Then we had consiglio di distretto, Anziano Garcia gave a really good lesson on Hope and Faith, way cool.
In the afternoon we were supposed to go see a Sorella whose mother died last week, but she ended up not being able to see us. So we decided to go visit Sorella Mandorino, she's 90. She doesn't speak Italian really well, she speaks in dialect. And so does Sorella Calderone. They were there making lace together, that's what the old ladies do here, it's really cool. And they were really funny, Slla Calderone would get a little angry and start half yelling and Slla Mandorino would giggle and wink at us. They were fun. And when Slla Calderone left Slla Mandorino showed us about 500 pictures of her daughter the nun, among other family members.
Yesterday we went to see Sorella DeAngelis in the morning. She's always interesting. She gave us two new testimonies that she's written. We also met her daughter who recently reconverted to Catholicism. Sorella Pastano went with us. That woman is incredible, seriously one of the most amazing members I have ever met. She brought Slla DeAngelis a flower for her birthday that was last week, and then she dropped some stuff off at another Slla's house on the way home. She is just a great woman.
In the afternoon Jlenia and Patrizia both said that they couldn't see us. So I made a whole bunch of phone calls, to every potential investigator and less active and a few members, and maybe three people answered their phones, and finally I saw Slla Galeandro's name and called her and she said we could come. On the way there we saw Carlotta, the girl who works at the gas station that I have been wanting to talk to. She is AMAZING. We're pretty sure she's going to get baptized pretty soon. She's just very very cool and very down to earth, we're excited about her.
Slla Galeandro was excited to see us, she talked and laughed and talked and laughed...I think my companion was a little overwhelmed. I told her not to worry, because the next time she goes SG will share the same stories, so she may understand them more. Only old ladies want to see us though, how sad.
We got on a bus down to the end of C Battisti, and some 14-16 y/o girls asked if we were nuns and talked to me a little. Then after they left the girl sitting in front of me turned around and said she had a friend in high school who was Mormon, and we talked to her a little bit. As we were getting off the bus a little boy named Francesco asked me to pray for him because his mom died last month. THen he walked a different way so I didn't get to talk to him more. We went and left a birthday card for Sorella Lecce, and then as we were walking up the street I saw Francesco again! So we stopped and talked to him, and then a man came and told us he went to church 40 years ago when he was in the military, but wasn't interested in hearing from the missionaries again, purtroppo. Then Francesco called his dad over and we talked to him a little bit. Francesco wants to come to English course, and in fact he told us that he wanted to come to our church and never go to that other one again. He wants to go to Scouts too, so we'll have to look into that for him.
Today I got to go to the Questura to do my fingerprints to renew my permesso. Walking 2,5 miles and then standing still for an hour and a half is exhausting, did you know? But we met a girl from West Virginia who's here with her fiance who's Italian, and she liked having somebody to talk to because she can understand Italian pretty well but she can't speak it. Cool girl. And the Questura here is really quite organized, I'm impressed. I still have green eyes. We walked through the market on the way home, and went shopping, and now we're doing pday. Not anything exciting, just writing and getting icecream because Slla Burt in the office says we have to after we finish permesso stuff.
Well, it's been a fun week. My companion is just fantastic, and we're meeting lots of new people everyday. I'm really impressed with Sorella Jones, her first week here she just thought she was bad at talking to people on the street, and then this week she's just started talking to everyone. It's way cool.
Well, I love you a lot!
Eliza
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