So last Wednesday we did Scambi with two other copias of Sorelle in our zone. I stayed in Roma 2 with Sorella Askew who is currently in Ladispoli. She was Sorella Picketts companion just before me and I know her pretty well. But I gotta say, it was weird not seeing my companion for so long! I really missed her! But the scambi went well. We had an appointment that night with the Lopez family from Peru. Their daughter, Donatella, is getting baptized at the end of May so we have been teaching her the lessons to prepare. She is the cutest thing and really gets involved. That night we were teaching her the Plan of Salvation and started out by going over the entire plan with the diagram. After that it was JEOPARDY time! Fratello and Sorella Lopez were on one team and Saul, their elder son, and Donatella were on the other team and WOW, that was competitive. Sorella Lopez and Dontella were sitting next to each other and I thought there could possibly be bloodshed! Luckily they all had fun though and Dontellas team ended up winning after the tie breaker.
The next morning we were still doing scambi and Sorella Askew and I ran off to Piazza Bologna to find Perry Soloza, the new convert Sorella Pickett taught down in Catania. He has not been to church since my very first week here in January and it is killing Sorella Pickett. But because we know where he works we went on the hunt. Unfortunately he was not there, but we texted him and asked if he would call us when he finished work at his other job and then went to drop by an investigator named Laura. She has just gotten back from her trip to New York and have not seen her yet. But again, she was not there. Darn it, but we tried right? That afternoon we went to visit the Cruz family which are a part member family from Peru. It was just the mom, who is a member, and her 11 year old daughter who is not. The lesson went really well. We listened to "Io So Che Vive Il Redentor" and the spirit was really strong. We had a really good discussion about what the Spirit feels to each of us individually and we had them write down a specific question they had for Heavenly Father that they would pray about everyday this week. We will check up with them later. After that lesson we headed to Termini to meet up with the other Sorelle to get our companions back, but on the way Perry called! He was at Termini and said he would even wait for us! Too bad it took forever to get there and he had to leave after 45 minutes, but it shows we do not drive him crazy with all of the phone calls. English course was good that night, except Sorella Pickett had a migraine and almost died. The moment we got home she passed out on her bed and did not move until the next morning.
Friday afternoon we had an appointment at the church with Rosa Rivera's employers. She is a nanny for their two little girls and they have wanted to give the eldest, who is only 3, piano lessons. Because Sorella Pickett plays the piano they were hoping to see if their daughter had actual interest or the attention span to learn which is why they agreed to come. As you can probably imagine, a 3 year old does not have the ability to sit on a piano bench long enough to even learn that the keys are two different colors. So that part was a failure. But the parents seemed to warm up a lot to the church having been in the building and getting a better idea of who we are. That night we went to see Claire Fergusen again. She is still healing from her surgery and cannot leave her house very often. But she is always so excited to see us. She even called us Thursday to see if we could visit her without any strings attached. In the past she would call the Sorelle and ask them to do something for her as an excuse to have company over. She does not bother with that anymore and just asks if we will come talk to her. Every time we go over we learn something new about her life. She spoke to us about her husbands death at 42, as well as her mothers. She really has no one now because her daughter in law only comes a couple of times a week and her son even less. But I think having the spirit in her home when we come has risen her desire to come back to church. Again, we keep crossing our fingers!
Saturday morning I finally got my Permesso di Soggiorno! Wahoo! I am now a legal resident of Italy! The process of getting the paperwork done is very grueling and some missionaries who have been here over a year still do not have theirs'. Luckily I got mine and it is this sweet little, shiny, colorful card with my picture on it and "Motivi Religioso" on it :) I felt pretty legit after that! After we picked it up we went by Lhouisa Doloza to visit her because it has been so long. Wow, what a difference. A month ago she was having emotional breakdowns because of everything was falling apart in her life, but now it has strengthened her a lot! She is a totally different person than I have known since coming here. I am glad, I guess it really is true that your trials and challenged really do strengthen you! That night we had a baptism! Woot! The Anziani began teaching Marco Cruz (from Peru, yes, many members here are from Peru lol) back in February and he got baptized Saturday afternoon! This is what it is all about. Really. I have been blessed enough to have this truth and light in my life my whole life. I do not know what it is like to live without it. But to see someone who has gone 18 years searching for something, than finding the truth? There is nothing quite like it. I could not stop smiling! Which was good because I was the conductor for the music and really messed up on one of the rest hymns and did not care at all! For me, that is really impressive. I think I even skipped back to my seat after instead of my face going red. Strange business! Another great part of that service was a family of our investigators showed up! Veronica and her dad came with Vescovo Celestini and her mom and brother came for the activity after! After the baptism we had an hour until the ward activity started. I talked, or tried to talk to people for a little while but then got tired so I weighed my options. I could either go and talk to Anziano Rappleye, one of the assistants and talk to him, or I could go sit at the piano by Angelo Protopapa. He is a real life jazz pianist with a great voice to match. He reads music but has an incredible ear and can play anything if you just hum it to him. Sure, he does not speak English, but I had a blast as he played songs by Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and others. I would just sing along with him and had a jolly old time! Sorella Pickett and I have had this weird obsession with the song "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" and he even played a jazzed up version of it. Pretty much a highlight of my week! The ward party was great too. They had all of the young women and young men do a pioneer dance for us all. Let me tell you, a bunch of european and south american kids trying to dress up like cowboys made me smile. Pink cowboy hats, sleeveless shirts . . . you name it. But they had a lot of fun and all the other members of the ward joined in. Fun fun!
The next day at church, Marco was confirmed and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost :) Sorella Pickett and I are such babies. Pretty sure we both started to cry. You could both see and feel the difference in his countenance before and after. It was crazy! Again, I have had the Holy Ghost with me for as long as I can remember. I do not really know what it feels like not to have that guide in my life, espeically as a missionary when you have even more authority, power, and help. He was beaming and grinning from ear to ear. He also received the Priesthood after church. Love it! That evening we went to visit Beth who is from the Philippines. She is a funny little thing and had a friend over named Linda. Well, at least she says her name is Linda. On her birth certificate it is Baby :) I guess her mom wanted to wait to give her a name until her dad got there but the nurse got impatient and just put "Baby" instead. She had made these rice flour globs filled with mollases and peanuts or something of the sort. Things that have interesting textures do not go well for me but I ate the three she had put on my plate. Just as I finished the last one (not without help) she put another. That one I could not finish just as Beth pulled out some Philippino ice cream. Can you guess the flavor? Ube. You know what that is? Sweet Potato. *Wrinkles nose*. Despite the food that was forced upon me we had a really good lesson. Linda has been here in Italy since 2005 and has not been to church since 2006. I talked to her for most of the appointment while Sorella Pickett talked to Beth and she just kept talking about her experiences growing up in the church and how much Heavenly Father loves her, about her 8 month mini mission in the Philippines, that she dreams about the Second Coming of Christ . . . And at the end I was way confused and asked "So wait, I do not understand . . . why do you not go to church?!" and her only response back was a laugh and "I do not know . . . " So our impegno at the end of that lesson was for her to read Alma 32 and to plant that seed of faith in attending church. We told her we expected to see her at Stake Conference this Sunday and volunteered her for the closing prayer. She was a really good sport and laughed. We will see if Beth gets here there haha!
Lunedì we had Consiglio di Distretto and Sorella Pickett taught the lesson. We each had to pick a random object from a back. Our choices were hand sanitizer, packaging tape, a pinwheel, rubber spatula, Advil, and a ruler. We had to then teach a principle of the gospel using that object. Though a bit ridiculous, it stretched us and we each found you really can relate the gospel to just about anything. That afternoon we again tried to find Perry at the Philippino store where he works but again, no such luck. We did leave him a note to come to Stake Conference but we have not heard anything from him :( After that we tried to stop by an ex investigator but her last name was no on the citofono, which then made that attempt useless. Then we tried to find Artan Dimitru, the man from Albania who cut my hair. He just opened up a new hair salon called "King Artan Hair." We were hoping to catch him before he closed for the day, but no such luck. So again, we left a note for him. Luckily an elderly member lived in the area, Sorella Caterina Pilò, so we decided to stop by her before returning home. She was too nice. She lives in this tiny little stone/cement house that is basically falling apart. When you see those old Italian movies with the door hanging off the hinges and moss growing all up and down the walls, that is exactly what her house looks like. But we love her for it. Sorella Pickett even got all sentimental because it reminded her of Sicilia. Even the musty smell! She felt right at home :) Along with Sorella Pilò, she would probably die rather than leave that house. But unfortunately there are safety inspectors going around condemning old homes and she does not think it will pass. Sorella Pickett is also worried that this huge earthquake that is expected to happen here on May 11th with take the house down with her. That would be so sad! But I doubt Rome is really going to have this earthquake . . . either way, you were all warned. I may soon experience a terrible natural disaster, the worst Italy has seen since Pompeii!
So yesterday was quite funny. Do you all remember Antonio? Or Angelo . . . whatever his name is? He is the stalker man who has been calling our phone after proclaiming his undying love to Sorella Pickett and proposing marriage. Well last week on Easter we had a call from an unknown number and we have been tired of not answering these calls because they could be people who truly want to learn about the gospel. It just is not practical as a missionary. So we answered the call and all it took was "Ciao Pickett!" for Sorella Pickett to hang up the phone on Antonio. About two minutes later she got a text from him saying "I just wanted to wish you a happy Easter . . . " But after that he did not call again. And after that I kept hearing from my companion that it was finally over, that he was done. He had finally given up. But mind you, I had heard this from day one. She had told me he would not call anymore after we had run away from him after that appointment. Wrong. She had then said it would not go past three days. Wrong. A week? Haha! Two? Nope! But after Easter he really did not call and again I heard the same thing "It is over! He has given up!" But Tuesday morning again she was disappointed :) We got a nice little text from him telling us how much he LOVED the Book of Mormon and wanted us to call him. Okay, if he really is interested in the gospel he can hear about it from the Anziani! We gave them his number and they called back and said a woman answered who did not know an Antonio. Hahaha! Just as we thought . . .
Today nothing too exciting happened. We had a heat inspector stop by to make sure our water heater is working . . . We did studying as usual, then went to Ikea! That was the high light! We got a spring form pan, something I have wanted for ages! I know . . . this is quite sad. I live in Roma and spend my preparation days at Ikea buying pans, a dish dryer, and a salad spinner for our apartment :) Oh well! I enjoyed myself! Hope you are all doing likewise! Have a wonderful spring, or whatever it is called in Utah! Love you all!
Vi Amo!
Sorella LeCates
