c'era una volta...

BY THE WAY!!! Ragusa is getting their chapel!!!!! They will start building in September, and then it will take 14 months, but it's finally coming, alleluia!!! Woohoo!!!

Hello Famiglia Mia! Well let me just tell you about this week...Haha...It's been an interesting one. Wednesday evening was incredible, seriously. We went to see Jessica, the woman from Ecuador who we gave the Spanish Book of Mormon to when we were going to give it to her friend Sandra from the Domenican Republic. Anyway, we saw Jessica, and she had read up to 1 Nephi 8 and had a lot of good questions. She told us a story about how her sister had been involved with another religion for a while and how before studying with them she'd just been a really sweet girl and after she left them she was just a totally different and unhappy person and so after seeing that she hasn't wanted to hear anything about any other religions. Her husband had a copy of the Qur'an at home for ages and she never even wanted to look at it. But we walked into her friend's store with the Book of Mormon and she saw it and wanted to read it. She says she's been reading it and imagining eve...

Dear Mom, Haha, don't worry, I still love you even if my birthday card will be late. Just don't send it to Catania (mission home or my apartment) (because this transfer is only five weeks, and then the next one is only five weeks, to get us on track with the Rome mission's transfer schedule--and I've been here since January and with Slla Williams since March so we're going to change in a week and a half or else we're both going to be here forever). I've bought some clothes...I figure I gave many of mine to Christy and I need some when I get home so...thanks for the birthday money!!! The news of the week is that it is now summer. When we woke up this morning it was 85 degrees in our bedroom, without sunlight, and this is only the beginning. Another reason why leaving Catania might be nice. :) It's a hot city. It's hot...it's survivable outside I guess, and if you're next to the window on the bus and there are no stoplights there's a nice...

Hello hello, Well, let's see what's new...not tons. Correlation was cancelled again on Wednesday so we were left with no plans. Mizzica. We met some members from Piemonte on Thursday and they had a Chinese baby. They were really nice, they both served in the Rome mission (back when it was little because there was still the Padova mission) and think it's way weird how big it's going to be now. And it was pretty cool to see an Italian couple that would adopt a child of a different race. Anyway...we also did our FHE with investigators and members. Some of the members think that we're doing it for singles for some reason. Not true. Anyway, Valentina came and her dad stayed, that was a first for him. We're hoping to start teaching Valentina the lessons when she gets out of school and stops studying constantly. She told us she's been hanging out with sister missionaries for a long time and heard spiritual thoughts in English course but nobody ever asked her if sh...

Hey family, I would say if you send a package today or this week maybe then send it to the Catania mission home. If not then you should probably send it to Rome but even if it gets there in two weeks I won't get it until the end of July or maybe August probably. I really don't think that the mail is going to get to us easily from Rome, but what can you do? It's been a good week. We've been really working hard on just talking to people more in general and being friendlier and more open, and it's made a difference. We've also been carrying the Book of Mormon in hand and it makes a big difference--people ask questions and we remember that we're here to talk to everybody. It's been great. We've had some interesting lessons with people who think that God is withholding blessings from Italy--fewer missionaries and who knows why else they think that, but they think Italy is going straight downhill and that God is stepping away. They don't quite under...

Well hello, Thursday we went back to Ragusa on the 6 am bus. Che gioia! We left our apartment at 5, and there was luckily a bus down to the station so we didn't have to walk for an hour. When we've gone to catch an 8 am bus before the buses weren't running yet. So that was nice. We really should have been wearing coats though, we figured it was just cold because it was so early and that it would warm up when the sun came out but it was FREEZING in Ragusa, and we were waiting outside the Questura for a few hours. Oh well. They took in groups by numbers we'd gotten when we called to see if it was all ready, and when they got to the group that would have been right before me there were a bunch of people not there when their number was called so I got to go in. They didn't let my companion in though--the guy isn't a big fan of Americans or those who aren't Catholic. Fortunately he gave me the Permesso without trouble. Woohoo. I'm officially legally in the c...

Hello famiglia mia, It's been another crazy crazy week. Mamma mia. We've done a whole bunch of stuff. Thursday we went to visit a woman in a store, and she wasn't there but her husband who I had invited to English course once upon a time was there, and some old guy who saw our tags and pulled out his Book of Mormon and said he had a question for us. We asked if he'd ever talked to missionaries about the book and he said no, he just reads it when he has free time at work. Ha. It was kind of an interesting thing. The one guy started talking about the Bible and how he thinks that churches are made just from people's interpretations and how he doesn't judge them and there was a lady who had walked in and said yeah you shouldn't judge since you don't even read the Bible and he said "well I don't judge people, but YOU judge all the time". The woman left and he's like "she's testimoni di Geova". That was a weird experience. It wa...