c'era una volta...

Managgia, I forgot my agenda. That really stinks, it makes it really hard to remember what in the world I did this week because last Wednesday was a really long time ago. We'll see what I can remember... Hmm...nope, nothing. Wednesday night actually we had a pretty good lesson with an investigator who I guess they've had since October or something and she finally came to church for the first time the Sunday before I got here and she just had some questions about the organization of the church, so we taught her about prophets and their responsibility and all that good stuff. Some Sorella in the Branch came and helped us and then showed her the genealogy center. She seemed pretty interested in that. I can't remember what she asked us to do, it really helps a lot to have planners guys. After that we went and visited a girl named Ylenia (yes with a 'Y', nobody knew until Saturday that that's how you spell it). She doesn't really want to do anything but with this...

Well hello wonderful family of mine. I've been transferred! I am no longer in Ragusa, I am in Catania. It's a pretty big change, from a teeny tiny freezing cold city to a big one with a beautiful view of the ocean and I don't even have to wear a coat! It's really kind of miraculous. We wear coats at night, actually, just not in the day. I'm pretty excited about being here, I needed the change. My branch mission leader in Ragusa told me before I left that the Ragusani are more depressed and less friendly, they're friendly of course but a little more formal, and the people in Catania are warmer and more open and maybe a little crazier. This was proved a little the first night when a man walked up to us and said “Excuse me, a testimony...” and started saying something about the Bible and wickedness and stuff and then at the end said “thank you” and walked away. It was pretty funny. But Catania has a lot of good work going on and I'm pretty excited to be here an...

Hello! We didn't actually make it to the living presepe [creche], purtroppo [unfortunately]. We were a little sad. Genny wasn't having a good day, and she wasn't in Ragusa, and the friend who knew where to find it had other commitments. Ah well. We found something to do, but I can't remember what. Thursday was a busy day. We usually do weekly planning on Friday, but I don't think we've done it on Friday this whole transfer because there have been a million other things on Friday. This week was no exception, we did planning on Thursday. It's hard to plan when you haven't been in your city or seen your investigators much since the last planning time. We were able to meet with Sorella Iacono and talk to her a bit about serving other people by just loving them and even just saying hi to a couple of new people at church on Sunday. That's one of our main things for members in these days, is to just be happy and be nice to each other and new people too. We ...

Hello everyone, Another crazy week has gone by. But it was pretty good. Email was the last thing we did on Wednesday night because we didn't get home from Modica until around 7-ish. Thursday was quite a day. We went to see Anna, who decided she wanted to read the whole Book of Mormon after reading the chapter we gave her, which is a pretty big change from when we met her and she didn't even want to look at it. We went to Comiso on the 3:40 bus so we could see Esther and Justice at 6, because there isn't a later bus. On the bus we met a guy who is generally interested in religion but was more interested in us. Ha. Well at least he wasn't creepy or anything. Then we went to see someone the sisters had taught a while back, who we had seen once before. This time her son and niece were home too...I have never seen a six year old who hates prayer and can flip somebody off in so many ways. His mom just said "that's how things are these days", which isn't true...

Well, luckily enough I was not arrested. Haha, thank goodness. All of my passport info is in the main computer here, so I think they just had to check that I knew my name and my birthday and where I was born or something and they left. Anziano Gurney, who had his permesso papers, his drivers' license, and his social security card had kind of a hard time however. Oh well, the police man left. Thursday it rained all day long and it was windy and we were sooo cold. We went to Ibla to try and find some inactives and do some advertising for the Testaments. And then the bus didn't come, so we did a whole lot of walking in the rain. We got to Sorella Puglisi's for lunch and our coats and hair were wet. When she left she told us we had to change into different coats when we got home. We were supposed to have a lesson with Barbara, our new investigator from last week, but she got a phone call from her ex boyfriend who may or may not have given her a black eye right before the first ...

This week I forgot to bring a passport or the photocopies of the thing for my permesso di soggiorno to internet. Oops. The police are here. And I have no documents. So hopefully they don't kick me out of the country in the next five minutes. The information from my passport is all in the computer here at least though, but I don't know why I forgot that especially since I need to check online if my permesso is ready yet. Mamma mia che paura. They're kind of arguing with the owners right now, hopefully it all goes okay in the end. I don't really need inhalers. I still think I prefer not breathing over a heart attack. Sooo, this week was pretty good, and pretty insanely busy. We had a Relief Society activity, and next year they're going to start doing one once a month. But we had two investigators there and our friend Heike from English course came. She's the one from Germany. Everyone really enjoyed being with a bunch of women. And we met Fratello Magrograssi'...

Hello Everybody! Well, I guess it's the week of colds, because I've got one. But I've been trying to not be too sick because my MTC district reunion is on Friday and I really want to go. I am still in Ragusa, woohoo! They didn't end up closing a city completely. They just have Mistretta and Palermo grouped together now, and the Sorella spend one week in one city and the next week in another. It's a lot of traveling, but at least Ragusa is still here, it was closed earlier this year already. We're hoping that means that we're getting new sisters at some point. We only have 12 right now, 8 on Sicilia and 4 on the mainland. But we're pretty excited to be here. And Sorella Robb is the coordinating sister this transfer and we're doing exchanges with the Sorelle in Palermo instead of the Siracusa ones. Fun. This week has been the week on changed plans. But it's worked out pretty well, I think. We gave Sorella Cascone a lesson about counting your blessi...