c'era una volta...

Hello famiglia mia, Well, another week has past. Did I tell you we still have mice? We do. One ran across my companion's foot this morning as she was cleaning the bathroom. Hahaha...I probably shouldn't laugh but she screamed so loud! Mamma mia. Weeks go by fast. And things rarely go as planned. :) Last Wednesday for p-day we went on a tour of the Aragonese Castle by the Ponte Girevole. It was pretty cool, the Anziani were late so we talked to the marines who run the tour for a while, they got to practice their English. The 18 minute movie, in English that was not by a native English speaker was kind of painful. But then we went on a tour of the whole castle, and saw a cat they had found in the corner and all the towers, and maybe a torture chamber, and acquaducts. It was pretty interesting. It was a military fortress, not a princess castle. After that we were going to go see Sorella Basile, so we got on a bus...the wrong bus...the bus that takes 2 hours to do it's giro. ...

Carissimi, So this has been a good week. Last Wednesday basically all we did was clean, that was tons of fun. Then Wednesday nigth we packed all of Sorella Askew's stuff into the zone leaders' car and drove up to Bari. In spite of having a suitcase in the middle of the seat, that was a lot more fun than a bus ride would have been, I think. Plus, we got to go to the Bari Poggiofranco ward's GANS activity (GANS=giovani adulti non sposati= YSA) and learn how to make panzerotti. Fun stuff. I think it's really cool that Sorella Jenkins is serving in Bari, we've been able to see each other many times during the mission and it's been great to continue to be friends with her even after the MTC. We had to wake up bright and early on Thursday morning, Anziano Hansen came at 6 to get Sorella Askew and drive up to Foggia to pick up a mini missionary Sorella and to continue on to Rome. And Sorelle Jenkins, Tinoco and I went to the train station to say goodbye to Anziano Fern...

Ehi ciao famiglia mia, Come state? I'm glad you liked the card. I figured she'd like that dog. Ha. Yay she's fourteen, how crazy is that that we're all so stinking old. We've had a pretty good week. I think that my collega finally realized how important it is to be with the members when we got a half hour lecture from a Fratello in the ward about how we really just need to show people that we love them. I have noticed that the times we've seen members since then she has spent much less time looking at her watch. Yay. Last Wednesday we went to see Sorella Taconelli. She's really having a hard time because the girls in the ward are excluding her 14 year old daughter, and she doesn't like that her daughter isn't happy obviously. Her daughter is a sweet heart though and a way smart girl, not sure how we can help the young women to integrate more, but we just encouraged her and told her how awesome we think her daughter is. We still haven't told he...

Cool, I didn't know that Grandma and Grandpa were going to the temple dedication. That is nice that they get to be there. So I guess when we meet Ukrainians this week I can tell them that my grandparents are there right now. I don't know how to say Kiev so that they understand what I'm saying though. Haha. Well last week we met with some peope for a first appointment, we had met them on Lungomare one SUnday and we got permission to go to Statte to teach them because Grazia didn't really like the idea of Anziani that she doesn't know coming to her house. But we went and they were very open and very sincerely interested, and just amazing people. It was exciting. It'll be interesting down the line, they both smoke and they've got a nice little bar in their house and coffee and stuff going on so we'll have some word of wisdom stuff to deal with. And they have been together for 17 years and have four kids but they aren't married, and I don't know if ...

Haha...I know what Christy's talking about...that part when she's writing letters and says "dear john, i mean wally, work harder" or something like that... We're still struggling it out. It's rough. She thinks she's the only one having a difficult time so she likes to say things like "I feel miserable whenever I talk to you" and I dunno, I'm just kind of holding on and hoping that I'm not with her for a long time because it's just really discouraging and exhausting. Last Wednesday we met a less-active named Sorella Bargelloni. I can't figure her out. She's a returned missionary but she married a man who isn't a member and evidently told the sisters before us that she didn't come to church because her husband wouldn't let her, but she said he's fairly open it's just that he's atheist when she talked to us. But she's nice. And it was kind of nice to see a house that wasn't perfect and children t...

So this week has been pretty decent. My companion still gets frustrated and thinks that if she doesn't do everything then it isn't going to get done, but I'm trying to be more patient with her compulsive need to be in control. Last Wednesday we had a lesson on Lungomare with a little old man named Mimo. He's not a very happy person and after we tried to teach him for half an hour and he just told us a long list of how many people had done wrong things to him in his life I felt like I needed to talk to the man on the other side of him. He wasn't the happiest man either, but he was nice. Not a fan of religion because he worked in the bank with money exports and thinks all religions are just monetary organizations and not really religious. But he was very interested in hearing that God knows who he is personally and that was kind of neat. Before meeting Mimo we had been talking to a man on a bench and then an old lady from our ward came and sat next to us right as we w...

Hello family, Well, it's been a long week. It's been good. Training isn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but it'll be good. She's a great missionary, but her idea of missionary work that she received from the MTC is that you are outside knocking doors and talking to everyone on the street from 8 am to 9 pm, even on p-days. And it's a little different than that but she'd like me to just skip studies and pranzo and work all day. And that's not how it works, so she's having a hard time adjusting. Anyway, it was kind of weird to get rid of Sorella Hostetter. Thursday morning I got on a bus to Bari and we basically waited around for the new missionaries all day. We had a lesson with the Bari sorelle's investigator who is in her seventies and we taught the Word of Wisdom. She kind of freaked out because she drinks coffee and she doesn't agree that that could ever be bad for her. I don't know how she'll end up. Interesting old lady ...