c'era una volta...

Well hello again! No, I didn't get my package yet, but the mail has been a little slow lately I think. So I'm sure it will be here soon. Vediamo cosa è successo sta settimana... [Let's see what happened this week . . ] Mercoledì was the activity for the Società di Soccorso. That was pretty fun. The Relief Society presidency all gave talks. We were a little late because it started at five and we were trying to get grocery shopping and stuff done before p-day ended (it ends at 6) and there is only a bus to church every 80 minutes so we had to walk and missed the Presidentessa's talk, but it was really a cool program. Maira spoke about how we need to be our own miracle, I think it was President Monson that said we shouldn't pray to do our best, we should be praying to do what we've been called to do, then the things you do won't be miracles, but YOU will be a miracle. And then she shared an experience that she had the week before when she was taking care of he...

Carissima famiglia mia, Well, let's see...we did, in fact, see Heberne on Thursday. I can't remember why he said he couldn't make it on Tuesday, but we saw him on Thursday and he left for Paris on Friday and will be back tomorrow or something so we'll see. It was a really intense lesson, he has a lot of questions and he's a scholar and tries to look at everything logically and it was just crazy. But one thing we're learning is to just teach a little principle and then bear testimony that we know it's true. They want to know how we know, of course, so we tell them, it's really cool though that testimony just changes a situation from horrible to amazing. It went well. He left us homework, to study about the will of God versus agency or something along those lines. I am keeping track of addresses and last names. We're working on it. Because without them, it's way hard. It's super super easy to ignore a phone call. But when you know that we...

Hi! Well it's been another crazy week. The weather decided to go back to rainy, luckily today it's almost sunny again. Things are going well here. She's currently having some problems with her joints and can't walk a lot which makes life a little interesting, but life is pretty good. I was a little sad to lose Sorella Hirsh though, she's way too cool to just be colleghe for six weeks. Eh...pazienza. I didn't go back for Esther and Justice's baptism. I didn't ask, I know there are other people who have gone for baptisms but I didn't really feel like that was necessary. It's not about me, the cool thing is that they got baptized regardless of who was there. I bought shoes at the market today for 6 euro. I have to get inserts for them but they aren't plastic soles which is a plus. They probably won't last super long though, but the flats season is starting so eventually there will be flats on sale and hopefully some of them are black...

Well, welcome to another new transfer, and another new collega! Sorella Williams is now my comp, she was in the MTC with me, in the group that came in the transfer before us. I think it'll be a fun transfer. Sorella Hirsh is now in Bari. So last week was interesting. We taught Gabriella the word of wisdom, we actually ended up taking Ingrid with us, the less active who we had practiced teaching the word of wisdom too. In the end I think it went pretty well. However, she will not be seeing us for 6 weeks evidently, she has to do some kind of meetings at her twins' school, so we'll see what happens this transfer, should be interesting. Libero arbitrio [free will], right? She deleted her facebook and her account where she was friends with an ex-missionary on skype so she won't be talking to anybody else either I guess. Who knows. Thursday we walked around a lot but in the end not a lot happened. The people we had appointments with weren't home... Friday we had break...

Well, buon giorno famiglia mia! Another week has gone by and we've been learning a lot and doing lots of work. Lots of interesting things happening. Thursday we had a lesson with the Branch President's wife and their baby who has had bronchitis for a while so Sorella LaFerla couldn't come to church. It was a good lesson, we don't really know their family very well so it was nice to meet her and talk to her a bit. We read the “I love Loud Boys” talk with her and just invited her to find someone at church who needs a friend and welcome them. She thought it was a really good idea. It was a fun long walk to her house, down a street with lots of big old beautiful houses that are so different than all the apartments that are everywhere else. We also found some pretty good cheese that tastes like garden herb triscuits. Before corso d'inglese we had a lesson with a couple of girls from the course. They mostly just have a lot of questions, the one seemed more sincere than th...

Hello famiglia mia! It has been a crazy week. Both Sorella Hirsh and I have colds and the people above us are redoing their house and hammering even during pranzo (unheard of!) so we can't nap or anything. And well, some disappointments with people and getting sprayed with stupid carnevale foam. Lent has begun, so we don't have to worry about big feste for a while. So Gabriella, we're not sure what she's up to right now. We had an appointment on Wednesday that went great, and then she came to church on Sunday and it was great, but I think somebody said something about the fact she was wearing jeans and she's kind of stubborn and so she decided it's ridiculous that people feel compelled to wear jeans and then people sent her some fun websites to look at and she talked to a member in the branch on facebook who told her that if she had questions about why we wear skirts to church and why we don't drink tea or coffee then she probably isn't ready to get bapt...

That missionary sounds like a really dumb kid. Punto [period]. Maybe he should look for investigators or use his list of real inactives that the bishop gives him, it might be slightly more effective. So this week has been another adventure. Sant'Agata day is quite the adventure. We weren't able to make it down for any of the fireworks or to see the saint, purtroppo [unfortunately], but we did see the saint on tv at a member's house for a couple minutes. They don't want us to get away without seeing their city's biggest tradition. Wednesday Gabriella canceled her lesson so we were going to walk down to the Duomo to see the Sant'Agata fireworks and talk to people on the way, but we started talking to lots of people and realized when we got to the bus station that it was 8:25 and we needed to start walking home. It was a good night though. It was cloudy anyway so the fireworks weren't as clear, I'm sure. The anziani have videos. Kids here are so indoctrinat...