Buon Giorno di Preparazione!
So last Wednesday we went to our appointment with Alessandra and Carolina -- our last one with Carolina :( -- and we went with the Marcuccis (one of the office senior couples). It went REALLY well. We watched Elder Hales talk from last converence on agency in spanish with them. They both really seemed to like it. Alessandra (the mom) really sat and listened I think she was even praying through most of it. Afterward we all sat at the table and Sorella Pickett asked them some really inspired questions to get them to think. Neither of them are really talkers, but the spirit was so strong they did not need to say much. I have been a member my whole life, I have never really lived without the Gift of the Holy Ghost, but the spirit in that room was so strong that it brought tears to my eyes. The truthfulness of the gospel could not be denied by a single soul. If I felt the presence of the spirit that strong I cannot even imagine what it must have felt like to them. After the lesson I told Sorella Pickett that they had been "pulverized by the spirit" because I could think of no better word. We challenged them to be baptized again, and though they did not say yes, I am pretty sure it had finally hit them that when they do finally kneel down in sincerity, ready to commit to serving the Lord, they will receive the confirmation we have all felt as members of the church. We were able to get Carolina's address in Guayaquil so we will happily send a referral :) Hopefully they can both overcome their fears of change and finding the truth because they have no idea how badly they need the gospel of Jesus Christ, how much we each need to know about the plan our loving Father in Heaven has for each and everyone of us.
Giovedi we had "Specialized Training Meeting" a.k.a. zone conference in every sense of the word, minus interviews. It was fun because I was able to see almost all of the missionaries who came over from the MTC with me! There were just two, Sorella Salyer and Anziano Luke, that did not come because they are in Sicilia. Usually we just have conference with the Roma Zona but this last week the Napoli Zone came up here. Presidente Kelly talked to us about our thoughts. He really stressed the point that the Adversary does not get into our lives by placing bad thoughts in our mind, but the opposite, he prevents good thoughts from staying. He talked a lot about positive thinking and always remembering our goals that we can see where we want to be and accomplish them. Sorella Kelly talked to us about stress relief and gave us all smiley face stickers to put on the back of our tags so that every morning when we put our tag on we remember how much our Savior wants us to be happy, to enjoy this work. The Zone leaders each took turns discussing a case study we were all given about a sister missionary in Pennsylvania that used the members in her ward in miraculous ways! It was quite inspiring and we discussed how we can all implement her ideas in our own member work. That night we had English course and though we only had three in advanced, I really enjoyed it. Sorella Pickett got into a discussion with Andreà about driving and road/highway construction and I talked to the other two, Giuseppe and Marco, about the temple. It was really fun to see their faces light up as we talked about eternal families and temple sealings. I had also brought the October 2010 edition of the Liahona (the one with all the temple pictures) and showed them. Marco knows a lot about the church and has been coming to our enlish courses for years and I was even more surprised when he said "They do not have my favorite temple in this magazine. I will always love the San Diego Temple best." Yes, that is right, this came from a non-member in Italia! He also knows all about Salt Lake City planning and Brigham Young using the grid system centered around Salt Lake! Maybe we can find out what is holding him back from us teaching him . . .
Friday I made a vegan carrot cake (Sorella Pickett used to be Vegan) and we brought some with us to Bocchignano. We teach an english course on Fridays out in the hills about an hour drive outside of Roma and goodness gracious it is BEAUTIFUL! I stood outside the car staring at the little towns on top of the hills and had my arms held out wide glorying in the nature around me and did not realize Sorella Pickett had taken pictures and a video of me . . . lame! Oh well, it really was gorgeous! We actually teach two courses, one at 4:30 and one at 6:30. Marco lives out in Bocchignano so we were able to see and talk to him Friday and had a good lesson with pronunciation and tricky vocabulary. He brought his mother who he takes care of. I guess she suffered from a stroke and now cannot be alone because she gets nervous and is not always aware of her surroundings. He is so nice to her and acted embarrassed that he had to bring her but we did not mind at all! There was another girl there, though I do not remember her name. She kept laughing at us though because we have a tendency to ramble about pretty much nothing the whole time we are there. In advanced English course it is mainly just conversation and you all know how my conversations usually go. I talk about just about anything that comes to mind. But I guess it was good because she was laughing. After we ran to the store to get water because Anziano Schwing (the two Anziani came out with us and Anziano Schwing drove) was dying of thirst. He is too funny and actually has a bit of road rage in him. He does not get upset about anything, or at least I had thought. Turns out everyone in a car around him drives him bananas. He even yelled out "That is my lane you stupid idiot!" in his classic German accent :) Together with him and Anziano Pesci they keep things lively and entertaining. The second English course is held in a little library in a town right by Bocchignano that is ancient. Unfortunately no one came to that one because the time has been changed from 7:00 to 6:30. We will have to pick a day to go out there and do pubblicità so that we can build up the number of students in both classes. But because no one showed up for the second class we went to visit a family that lives in Bocchignano, the Vaccaronos. They are a truly awesome family. Fratello Vaccarono is actually in Novembers Ensign in the picture of the Rome members translating conference. He speaks English very well and always comes to talk to us after church. He was not home when we got to their house but I had the opportunity to meet his wife, Patrizia, because she does come to church. She immediately stopped what she was doing, got up, gave us food (just like every Italian, haha) and talked to us for the next 30 minutes. They also have the cutest little girl named Giorgia and three boys varying from 13 to 7. We ended up leaving the carrot cake I had made and they actually liked it. I had heard that Italians do not like carrot cake because it is too complicated. Maybe it was because it was vegan minus the cream cheese icing, haha.
Saturday morning we went to visit an elderly woman in the ward who is less active. She is British but speaks Italian and Spanish fluently. I have not met her yet but Sorella Pickett has visited her several times. We brought her the March Liahona and of course, CARROT CAKE! But she was not home. Instead we left her a note with the pages marked in the Liahona of articles we were going to share with her. She was not the first appointment that did not occur. We had three appointments that night, two with less active members and one with a older couple who came to our MTC activity the other week. They all live in the same area so it was going to work out perfect, but of course, all three appointments fell through :S But we had taken the time to go out to that area so why not do finding work? Yay! We then proceeded to do house and had quite a variation of reactions from people. My favorite is when people say "Chi è?" over the citofono and rather than waiting for your reply, they buzz you through their gate so that you have access to the entire apartment complex. This happened several times. The last apartment complex a man buzzed us in but then we remembered a family that lives in Fidene right by us, in the apartment below the Anziani in fact, who were past investigators and that we wanted to go see. While we were discussing this the man who had buzzed us through the gate comes around the corner and just sees two American girls speaking excitedly in English with little black tags on. He looked rather confused and slowly backed away. Oh well, he will forever remember the missionaries! We will definitely have to go back another day ;) So we headed back to Fidene at this point to go and visit that family. Luckily they were home and as soon as Mauro, the husband, opened the door he smiled hugely, said "Benvenuti!" and waved us inside. It was quite a warm welcome. His wife, Annamaria, is a sweet woman and we even got to meet their daughter, Francesca, who is 18. Mauro had to go to work but we taught a short little lesson to Annamaria and Francesca. They stopped seeing the missionaries about 6 months ago and they were never quite sure why the missionaries stopped coming. Tonight (Wednesday) we plan on stopping by and following up on their assignment we left of reading 3 Nephi 11.
Domenica we had to be at the church at 8:30 and were able to catch a ride with the Marcuccis who live a 2 minute walk from us. All of the missionaries in the ward are going to sing a song on Easter called . . . I do not remember, but the chorus goes "Lord, my Redeemer, thou has done so much for me . . . " It is a really pretty song but Sunday was the first practice we had ever had and the Soprano part goes . . . really high. Not going to lie, it sounded a bit rough and everyone there knew it. Norma Selerno, a woman in the ward, was there setting up with her husband and Sorella Burt (another Senior missionary) called her over to help us. Her response was priceless! "Yes, I was over there listening and well, you all sound like you are straining." Gotta love the honesty of the Italians! Maybe now we will sound awesome! We had a ton of vistors in church today. One man had on a John Huntsman Business School sweater from Utah State and I asked him if he went there. His response was that he is a professor there! It is such a small world when you are a member of the church, what are the chances of running into a professor from your business school in Italy? I also finally got to bare my testimony in church. Anziano Pesci gave a talk and then Sorella Pickett and I bore our testimonies. Mine was rather rough and my face began to burn, but what else is new? I have come to accept that flaw in my anatomy, personality, or whatever it is that causes people to blush. Pretty sure it will never go away sigh . . . Did make me laugh though because when they announced Sorella Pickett, they called her Anziano Pickett. She will never live that one down :D Another bright point was Rebeca Ingrassia. I think she is about 7 years old and the cutest little thing in the world! I had never met her before, but they were sitting in the row ahead of us. During the rest hymn I was standing behind her and she is looking up at me and all of a sudden just wraps her arms around my waist and hugs me. During the rest of Sacrament meeting she drew us pictures and kept saying "Sei Bellissima!" I love flattery haha! Sorella Kelly was a dear, literally I love her, because she invited us to lunch after church at the Villa. She was not expecting President Kelly to be home yet from one of his trips and wanted us to eat with her. Turns out he got home early so we had a nice little lunch with them. She is a wonderful cook and made a really good Tuscan tomato soup! Mmmmmm . . .
Monday we had Consiglio di Distretto as always and got to spend most of it practice teaching. Sorella Pickett and I got to teach the Marcuccis who were "Annamaria" and "Mauro" for the time being. It was good, because despite my discomfort with role playing, it really does help with teaching the actual lesson and you both learn a lot while you do it. That night we also got a family night! We tried so hard to find a family to go and visit and the Di Tomas welcomed us graciously. They were one of the appointments Saturday that fell through, but I was glad we were able to go over that night. They are new converts and we decided to watch "Legacy" with them. They seemed to really enjoy it, despite its cheesiness :)
Martedì sera we were expecting guests so we had to clean the house before today. So the morning we cleaned out the fridge, took out all the recycling and trash, mopped and swept, cleaned the bathroom, and got out our two extra beds and put sheets on them and all of that jazz. Once that was finished and studying we went on a less active hunt in Fidene! We have all of these addresses of members that have not been to church in ages and we hunted them down that morning. We even found 3 of them. Sure none of them were interested in talking to us because they were "busy" but we left a picture of Christ and a little note on their doorsteps after they told us to go away. What can it hurt? We are missionaries, its what we do! Again, both of our appointments fell through that night so we went back to check some more of the less actives who were not home that morning and again, they were not interested. We ended up giong home to do area book while we waited for two Sorelle from Milano to come. Sorella Mondelli is from Battipaglia (just south of Napoli) and she has been called to serve a mission in Chicago, but due to Visa problems she began her mission in Milano while she waits for her papers to go through. Her and her companion, Sorella Ryan, had to come down to Roma so that she could present herself at the US embassy to move her paper work along. They stayed with us last night and their appointment at the embassy was this morning. It was fun to see other sisters that are not serving in our mission. Sorella Ryan was even in the MTC with Ryan Kimball and they served in their first area together. Also, Sorella Willey, my MTC roommate, is her current roommate in Milan and Anziano Wilkinson, an elder from my MTC district, is in her district now! Yay for missions! She says they are all doing amazingly (no surprise) and she will tell them hi when she sees them.
This morning we we had to leave early to get to the Embassy on time, but of course we were still late :S oh well, everything turned out all right and I was super excited being so close! It was like being home! I know that is weird to say but I have come to really appreciate and love our country despite its imperfections. I love Italia but we truly are fortunate to live in the country that we do. After we dropped them off we went to see a few sights, Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, Pantheon . . . I think that was it. Now I am wet, but not cold thankfully. It has been pouring rain all night and all today. We still have to go grocery shopping and we have an appointment with Louisa at 5:00 but I will survive! Woot! Just another day right? But I honestly think my P-days are the most exhausting . . . Wish us luck! Thank you so much for the prayers, support, and love! Cannot do it without you!
Muah! Vi Amo!
Sorella LeCates
