c'era una volta...

Mamma mia, che settimana! But can I please start with today, because today was way cool. Actually, I'll just say the CRAZIEST part of today. So, we were in the Vatican, looking at St. Peter's after having walked up the the cupola and stuff but I'll talk about that later. And I was taking a picture and somebody says "hi Sister" and I looked to see who it was expecting to see some member from the USA because we see them every p-day, and I looked and the face looked very familiar and she said "I'm Sister Beck." !!! Wow. What are the chances. And then she talked to me for a minute--her husband served a mission in Italy 40 years ago (and he speaks Italian VERY well still) and her son-in-law served in Milan about 15 years ago so they were visiting. So cool. She told me to tell my parents thank you for letting me come on a mission. So THANK YOU. What are the chances, going to the Vatican and meeting a general authority who's just on vacation. So awesom...

Hi! We're in an internet place that doesn't check documents...how weird and illegal. It's hidden in little streets and I'm writing on a laptop and my fingers are having such a hard time using it, it's so different. But more comfortable. However, typing is annoying, my rings are too big and they spin around and I'm actually kind of afraid of losing them from my fingers. Sigh...cosa posso fare [what can I do]? Well last Wednesday we went to the "Bone Church" really the Cappucin crypt or something, it's really quite fascinating. They had to move the crypt at some point so they just decided to use the bones to create these rooms of art and such--apparently the decorations made of bones are supposed to symbolize their hope in the resurrection. It was really quite fascinating, thousands of people's bodies were used for that thing, they had chandeliers made out of hipbones. Mamma mia, I don't know what they were thinking but it's pretty coo...

Hello! Well, what a week. Last P-day was way cool, we rented bikes for three hours and rode around and saw a whole bunch of things--la Fontana di Trevi, the Pantheon (and unfortunately half of the facade is covered by scaffolding che triste), a couple of other fountains, piazza del Popolo, the Spanish Steps, I don't know what else, but it was a lot of fun to zip around on the bikes and ring those annoying little bells at people so they'd jump out of the way. Luckily my collega only ALMOST got hit by a taxi. Fun fun fun. We had an appointment with Claudia in the evening, she is awesome, she understands a whole lot more than the average bear and she is interested in learning. Unfortunately she wasn't able to come to church this Sunday because she went to Padre Pio Puglia. HAHAHA. Oh dear. Thursday Anziano and Sorella Marcucci came over for Anziano Marcucci to fix our shower so it's actually like a real shower and has a curtain and everything che incredibile! And we were...

I really like this city. So last week for p-day we went to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. SO INCREDIBLE. Mamma mia, I'm so glad that I have a companion who wants to see everything, I think if I had one who just wanted to stay home and write letters I would die. Thankfully even though she's been in Rome for a while Sorella Zeller is willing to go everywhere. Don't worry, I'm going crazy on the photos. I figure I have not a lot of weeks left and I still have about 4 gb of scheda left so I'm going to just take pictures of everything. Don't worry, I'm taking a few of myself as well. But WOW this place is a dream. The Colosseum is fantastic, I am just so in awe at how it's built so perfectly and solidly and has been here forEVER, mado' it's amazing! An investigator told us the other day "we used to be able to build things that last thousands of years, now we build a palazzo and it crumbles in 10" Wednesday night we went to see a girl na...

So, the most exciting thing of this week was definitely the temple groundbreaking. It's starting!!! But a lot of awesome things have happened this week actually. We started another 40 day fast from English on Thursday. It's going well so far, and I'm glad to have the chance to speak Italian again after a few transfers of not speaking it much. We're all enjoying it. We had a really good lesson with Zohra on Thursday, about coming to church. She needs to work on some things but she understood pretty clearly that it's a commandment and that whether she feels somebody else is spiritual enough or not, if she's not going to church than she isn't really doing the things that she expects of other people either. She's cool. We then went to a lesson with Massimo and Fior di Maria. I'm still not sure exactly where we found them, but they are amazing. They are retired and their kids are grown up and they actually like spending their free time together. Their ho...