This last week has been really good. After I wrote to you last week we ran to go get produce. Here in Italy they have produce in supermercati but they have little produce stands all over the place and they are very inexpensive and often have better fruit and vegatables. There is a new one in Fidene, where we live, and when we went to the cash register to pay the man just rattled off to me in Italian with a big grin on his face. Of course I have no idea what he is really saying because I barely understand most people speaking Italian and he is from south-east asian and spoke really fast, so I just smile and nod while I give him the money. We walk out and Sorella Pickett is just laughing her head off and it takes her a minute or two to answer what was so funny. Turns out the cashier said "Oh my goodness! I am in the presence of an angel!" or something ridiculous like that. Sometimes they use flattery to get business and being a natural blonde in Italy is often funny like that. Also, for the past couple of weeks Sorella Pickett has had this on going joke about the face I always make in pictures and when I am demonstrating something. I am sure you have all seen it, I stick my bottom lip out with attitude or something like that. So Sorella Pickett always says "Sorella LeCates with her scarf (apple, makeup, backpack . . . )" Then she immitates the face I make. Now we just do it to each other all the time. So after the encounter at the produce stand she of course says "Sorella LeCates as an angel" and makes her little face. She is so kind to me haha!
Thursday we had a very busy day planned. We had to go to a CNA appointment in southern Roma to apply for a renewal for Sorella Picketts Permesso to stay in the country. It had expired the previous day, but no matter how hard we tried, we could not get an appointment for Wednesday. Luckily it was the day after so she was fine. After we were done we decided to take the stairs for no real reason, Sorella Pickett just went that way. So we go down the five flights and at the very bottom I hear Sorella Pickett exclaim "Pina" at a girl walking up the steps towards us. The girl, Pina, jaw drops and says dumbfounded "Non ci credo!" (I do not believe it!) Pina is a girl from Mistretta, a tiny little town of 5,000 in the mountains of Sicilia. Sorella Pickett had met Pina at english course in her very first transfer (March of 2009) when she was serving in Mistretta. They caught up for a few minutes and realized that Pina is currently living in Fidene really close to us. From a tiny town of 5,000 to a city of 5,000,000 and we happen to run into her. Accident? I do not think so, especially since for no real reason, we could not get an appointment until that Thursday. We are hoping that we will get the opportunity to teach her the gospel :) She was awesome and could really use the gospel. She is about 20 and attending school at the University here in Roma. We had an appointment on Monday afternoon with her, but it fell through. Not sure why, but we will just have to set up another. After the CNA appointment we ran to the office to pick up somethings and then ran to the post office to finish Sorella Picketts paperwork for her Permesso. We then hopped on another train to go to a hospital to visit a less active member who was having a heart procedure done. Sad thing is, she has an allergy that they need to work around, so she was not actually there. We called her anyways and made sure she was okay, than hopped on the same train and headed back to the church for correlation and English Course. English course went well and we even had a new student today! His name is Damian and his friend, Leon, is a member of our ward. He seemed really interested and enjoyed the class. At the end he came up and asked us more about the church. He is coming again this week! After class a new convert, Ghemil, came in and asked for a short lesson from us. He is 16 and has been having hard time with his friends. We shared with him Alma 48 and the verses about Captain Moroni. He really liked that :) We then showed him all of the war chapters and was excited to read them. He was much brighter when he left.
Friday was quite the experience. We have been phone stalked by a woman named Patrizia Gabrielle who lives in a Casa di Cura (a home for those mentally unstable). She calls us 30 times a day and we would usually just ignore her but now she is having her friend call us who is a member. We cannot ignore him so we agreed to go to the Casa di Cura to bring Patrizia a Bible. So that is what we did this afternoon :) It was actually a really cool building, used to be a castle and as soon as we passed through the front door, there was Patrizia! We went off into a smaller room, right off of the social room where they have a TV, and talked to her a little bit, at least Sorella Pickett did. A little old lady came over to me and bacced me (the kissing cheek thing) and sad down and I showed her all of my family photos. She kept saying "Oh Bella!" or "Sono molto contenta!" Then I pulled out the gospel art book which just is full of church pictures. She started to cry as I showed her pictures of Christ, especially those where he was with the children. He asked if we could bring her one next time we came. I said sure! At the end we sang "I am a Child of God" in Italian and again that little lady began to cry with her head on my shoulder and her arm through mine. And during the prayer she again kept saying "Sono contenta!" What a sweet lady! I feel so bad that she is a little out of her mind and all alone . . . But I am glad we were able to make her day a little brighter. On the way home from the Casa di Cura, a woman fell on the bus and all of her groceries went flying. She cut up her knee pretty bad and was in shock, but the moment she fell everyone on that bus went to her rescue. Every single one. This is something I really love about the Italians. When someone is in need, they do not take a second thought, they go and help them in anyway they can. They all helped her up, the bus driver stopped the bus and came back also. We all had to get off and the bus driver told us that that was the end of the line for his bus. We got off, he sat down with the woman and wrote down all of her information and made sure she was okay. Sure it was inconvenient for the rest of us and not the most efficient, but these people have the correct things as their highest priority :)
Saturday we had our long awaited "MTC" activity with the ward. Anziano Pesci (the district leader) and Sorella Pickett have been rather stressed out about the whole thing but it went great! The idea was to introduce the members to "Predicare il Mio Vangelo" because many of them want to share the gospel with their friends, they just are not quite sure how to go about it. So that night we had two different classes, one that introduced the manual and the other to explain what the manual says about the importance of members in this work. I was with Anzian Pesci, Anziano Schwint, and Fratello Conzachi (our ward mission leader) and we taught about member missionary work. I even got to have my own 5 minutes to give a personal experience from home and introducing a friend to the gospel. It was rough, and far from perfect, but when I sat down the members all said "Brava!" at my attempt to speak. I guess they understood, regardless of the fact that I speak worse than a 2 year old Italian! We had some funny little skits at the end about the ridculous things that occur as missionaries. One was contacting on the street. Fratello Rochira (assistant ward mission leader) was walking and the elders went up to him and all he would say was "Non interesse". Right after the elders walked away, Sorella Pickett and I came up to him and he got really excited and gave us his name, number, and asked if he could bring friends. Another skit was based off of bus contacting. Italians are often really open about blatantly staring at your name tag, but we do not mind because it gives us ample opportunity to begin a conversation. Funny thing is, as soon as you make eye contact or say hello their eyes dart away and they ignore you. Sometimes they even get off the bus at the next stop. We demonstrated that situation as well. Oh the joys of missionary work! At the very end we had a musical number of the the EFY medley in Italian. All the Anziani were worried it would be terrible because they claim they are not musically talented, but Sorella Kelly insisted that it would be great. Right before we started we invited the three youth who had come to the activity to come up and sing with us. They did great and the spirit was really strong as we sang. Even Anziano Pesci admitted it went really well and he was the most worried about it.
Sunday was another great day. I was a little disappointed because we had no investigators coming to church, but Saturday night I had read a letter from Skyler Hardy and in it he mentioned having the same discouragement one week so he prayed to Heavenly Father, that he would send someone to church that Sunday. Following that example, I did the same thing. Sunday morning we had no new investigators show up, but instead we had 3 inactives show up for all three meetings! I was so excited! Yes, they already have the gospel, but we all need to continue to grow and learn each and every day of our lives! Sunday night was also Carnivale (Italian equivalent of Halloween). Kids dress up in costumes for up to 3 weeks prior to this day and so we have been seeing kids in costumes for weeks now but the night finally came. We did not have any appointments that night unfortunately so we were out doing some work and it was fun to see all the little kids out with their parents. They even had this little truck/train that had cars attached full of kids. It was all lit up and had music playing. Italians are also really big on using confetti for festa. So of course, the streets were covered in it.
Monday morning we had Consiglio di Distretto (as always) and I got to choose the hymns. I took full opportunity to choose hymns that Sorella Pickett will not let us sing for companionship study. One was "Master the Tempest is Raging". I have been wanting to sing it for a while because in the MTC, Fratello Stubbs told us that it was the most difficult song to sing in Italian. When Sorella Pickett realized what song it was she made a face and jabbed her finger at me as if she were poking my eyes out (we do that a lot to each other haha). She was not very happy because she had to play the piano and I guess that song gets tiring when you have to play all of the verses. We did not do much better singing it either. Fratello Stubbs was not lying, it was not an easy song to sing and Anziano Pesci made us sing all the verses so that we would have enough time to redeem ourselves. Oh well, I thought it was funny and even fell out in the second verse because I was laughing. That night we had a family night with a family from the ward, the Rondinellis. We do not really know them and were unsure of their strength and the church and all that but we decided to teach them about temples with the Liahona from last October. But the moment we walked into their apartment we had to laugh because I have never seen so many pictures of temples in any home. They even had their sealing certificate hung up on the wall and a Styrofoam model of the Rome Temple complex on their floor. Fratello Rondinellis sister came that night and she, turns out, is the Stake Relief Society President and Fratello Rondinelli himself is the first councilor in the Stake Presidency! Not going to lie, they are about the strongest family I have met so far in Italy. Both Sorella and Fratello Rondinelli have served missions and their kids are awesome! We began the lesson with asking each member of the family what they would take with them if they were stuck on a desert island. Valentina, the 9 year old daughter, told us she would take thoughts of Jesus. So cute :) Children really do reflect the overall atmosphere of a home, and the Rondinellis have a good one :)
Yesterday we met with Rosa Rivera again to continue with her "Predicare il Mio Vangelo" reading assignments. This time we discussed the Book of Mormon and left her the assignment of giving a Book of Mormon away before next week. She gladly took up the challenge and already told us who she was going to give it too! I love members like her :) After that we had an appointment with Brenda and Livio Tempesta. They are a cute little newly wed couple in the ward who invited us to dinner. Only problem is, Brenda is quite the talker. By the end we barely had time to give her a Predicare il Mio Vangelo, explain the layout, pray, and leave. Luckily we did make it home on time, but barely. She is awesome though and so nice. Her husband is great too and so hospitable. We will just have to lay down the law next time and share our message haha.
Today was fun. For P-day we ventured out to Ostia which is out on the coast, just south-east of Roma. We went to Ostia Antica which used to be the old major port of Rome before the sea receded. It was just full of old ruins that were quite extensive. We went with the Ladispoli Sorelle and the Anziani from Ostia. We had a lot of fun climbing over the ruins that went fairly well preserved for how old they were. We also accidentally climbed some that were not supposed to be climbed because the steps were blocked off. We had to find another way down which was not easy in a skirt. But we made it back safely. Tonight we have an appointment with Alessandra and Carolina and it will be the last time we get to teach Carolina before she leaves for Guayaquil :( we will miss her but are hoping for the best tonight! Last time we challenged her to be baptized, and when she said no, she said she would pray to know if she needed to. We will see if she kept the commitment!
Love you all a ton! Glad you are all doing well and I am so grateful for your prayers and support! La chiesa รจ vera!
Vi amo!
Sorella LeCates
