c'era una volta...

Mado' it's HOT. Yay summer!!! I'm ready for winter I think, I have lots ofwarm clothes. Although these people are really far more prepared for summer than anywhere I've ever seen, largely because they put out everything that is cool, without being concerned about if long shorts or short shorts are in style--whatever is cool is out. And we don't even look that weird because lots of people walk around in long flowing skirts in the summer. Shorter skirts and boots are for the winter. Well, last Wednesday night there was a Relief Society pizza party. We went because we thought a bunch of our inactives were going to go, but in the end none of them could make it. It was okay though, I guess. I guess I wrote in the morning last week. We went to Grottaglie. We didn't really see any of the buildings, we just went to look at the ceramics. I bought a presepe, the nativity scene. I really like it. And, it was made by a man who has been making ceramics since he was 7 years ...

Buon giorno famiglia mia, This week has been another good one in the sticky hot smelly summer of the little city of Taranto. The space tab on this keyboard squeaks and it throws me off a little bit every time that I type. I haven't gotten my Ensign yet (and for some odd reason the Puglia hasn't gotten any of the magazines that we had in Catania a month ago but what can you do...) We have zone conference tomorrow though so we should get the mail from the mission offices tomorrowwww. We also get to meet the new mission president and his wife and have interviews and stuff. Let's see, last Wednesday we went to see the famiglia Locorotondo. It's an odd name, the crazy rounds. But they're nice people. Loco doesn't mean crazy in Italian of course, but that's a way to remember. In every city there are dominant last names that you see everywhere and they change from city to city, so you get lots of names you've never heard before, after thinking that there were...

Hahaha...well...about the running...you're right it's probably not good for my knees and I think it's pointless unless something's chasing me, however I tried it for four days. I quit on Saturday because I fell down a flight of stairs on Friday and just didn't feel like going outside and running the next morning. It's definitely summer here. It's gross. I feel like I smell all the time, but I guess it's okay considering that they do too! But sweat is gross. Really. Very. Fortunately we got a remote control for the air conditioner last Wednesday so we can now use it. Hooray! It's just a wall unit in the bedroom/study room, and so we pretty much live in there. On Wednesday we didn't do anything too exciting. I went to my first ward council here. That was exciting, we were there for an hour and a half. Actually it wasn't too exciting, I have a hard time staying awake in those things until they start arguing. I liked the guy at the end who told...

Well hello again! I am no longer in Sicilia. Sad! I'm now in the Puglia, the heel of the boot, in Taranto. Well, let's see what else happened last week. The Varicella kind of took over everything, we were able to make phone calls and even had an investigator that made progress but that was pretty much the whole week--we didn't do much. But we did get to watch some Disney movies for language study, that made the time go a little faster...and we got a whole lot of food from the mission home and the Crawford's apartment because they were all getting ready to move out and had to get rid of everything. Tomorrow the world changes and we become the Rome mission. Kind of fun...I need a second plaque thing to hang up in church guys! hehe. Oh dear. Well. The Anziani brought us peanut butter bars on Friday, that was exciting...And told us transfer calls wouldn't be until Saturday morning, even though they already knew everything they wouldn't tell us anything. But I knew t...

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...