Transferimenti di nuovo‏

Come Va?

Tutto bene per noi. Everything here goes great. Last Wednesday we went to a little town called Matera which has this even cooler little town called Sassi which is where they filmed the Passion of the Christ. We met up with the Sorelle from Taranto and the Anziani from Statte and ate lunch at this little cafe in the city. It was sweet. I got the daily special which was Spaghetti del Assassino, or in other words, assassin/murderer spaghetti. I guess it was because it was made with peppers so it was spicy and Italians cannot handle a lot of heat. At all. But it was not too bad at all, it would be nothing for Seth who can inhale habenero peppers like candy. After that we split up for exchanges. I went back to Bari with Sorella Johnson who is in her first transfer. I apologized before we even left for my lack of communication skills and un sacco delle paure. But it went pretty well. We caught the hour long train back into Bari and this girl sat across from us. She smiled and Sorella Johnson started talking to her. Turns out her name is Alessia, she is 24, a history major at the university in Bari, and she is going to be a humanitarian when she is done, going around cleaning up the environment. She also works in Matera for half the week teaching at a school. She showed us a bunch of pictures of all of her pets. She has about 2 snakes and parrots. She volunteered her own phone number so that we could stop by and see them. She even listened to our message. When it got really hot on the train she picked up my purse and moved it to another seat on the other side of the train so that we would still sit by her. She was awesome and showed us the way to the internet point after we got back to Bari. We will definitely have to call her.

Giovedì began the full day of scambi though and as all missionaries know, sometimes days do not go according to plan. We had decided to go to Japigia to go visit a less active, the Tarantinos, but when we got there they said no. So we then went to contact a referral they had given us a few days earlier but the woman would not even open the door and said she was not interested. At this point it was almost 12.00 and in Italy, at least in the south, you do not knock doors after noon because that is a sacred time, consecrated towards sleeping and eating. It only upsets them. So there we were, standing in the stairwell wondering what to do, when we got a call from Fratello Curci, the ward mission leader. He asked us to go visit his wife who was at home alone. She is great, but has schizophrenia so the Sorelle go to visit her when her husband is gone. So we headed to the bus stop, and then went there. Sorella Johnson loved her and even taught the lesson. Despite ending up on the other side of the city than we had thought, our morning had turned out alright. In our mission we do not take a break for dinner, so we are in the house from 1.30 until 4.00 to do language study and eat lunch. But on giovedì we wanted to go see Nella so we left at 3.00. But of course, with my luck, she was not there. Again we were left not sure what to do. So I called the Tarantinos again to see if we could come over. But again, we got a no. Our other back up plan was to go see a less active member named Teresa who lives by the church. I had never been there so I thought I was going where we needed to but was lost so I called Sorella Laws and she lead us in the right direction. But at that point we did not have time to go see her before our lesson with Massimiliano Italiano at the church so we turned back around. But then Massimo was late for our lesson so we probably would have had time but at that point it was too late. The lesson went alright. We taught with Raffaele Petroni and we started out talking about scripture study and we were reading in 2 Nephi 32 about feasting upon the words of Christ. I asked Massimo what the words of Christ were and he listed a few things and then I suggested the Book of Mormon and he said that he did not know, he had not yet prayed to know if it was the word of God. Eccolo! We finally discovered why he keeps saying no to baptism, because he has not ever asked! I then asked "If you HAD to decide right now if the church was true or no, what would you say?" There was some confusion so Raffaele helped explain and finally Massimo said he could not answer that question. So again I said if he HAD to answer and he responded with "Potrebbe essere . . ." I guess that is better than nothing. We will work on it. English course was next and we read an english article about the rising prices of Alcohol that a student brought. After class Sorella Johnson talked to Massimo while I talked to our other two investigators, Francesco and Silvio. They again promised they would come to the activity Saturday and Church on Sunday so we will cross our fingers. The other Sorelle met us back at the apartment and we did Kinder egg predictions for transfers (maybe I will one day explain to you what that is when I have more time . . . ) but it went like this:

Sorella Johnson is being transferred to Rome even though she has only spent one transfer in
Taranto and with her trainer

Sorella Hansen is going to train again in Taranto

Sorella Laws is staying in Bari and she will train

I am going to Sardegna and will be with a native companion.

Let's just say that those did not come true, but I will get to transfers later.

Friday we went to visit Francesco Leo for her birthday. She showed us a bunch of UFO videos on her computer after we watched "Insieme per sempre" with her. She then had us stay and eat lunch and her dad fed us everything in their house, including raw prosciutto. That was an experience. But I did enjoy the green figs he gave us after! She had painted an oil canvas of Sorella Laws and offerred to paint me as well, so I may end up coming home with a portrait of myself lol. After that we tried to go see Nella again but without success. As we walked to their apartment we ran into her daughter, Giusi, who said she was home. As we got to the door of the palazzo we ran into her husband, Enzo, and he too said she was home and he would be back in five minutes after feeding their dogs. But when we knocked on the door her nephew said she was not home. We said Enzo and Giusi said she was home and then he acted really suspicious . . . I dunno. Maybe we will give her a break for a week or two and try by again. We do not want to push it if she is avoiding us. Vediam.

Sabato mattina we went to a park on the beach to do a service project for helping hands that the stake had put together. We spent all morning picking up garbage with those cool sticks that have a clamp on the end that pick trash up for you. Thing is, I got impatient and there was so much garbage that I just bent over and picked it up with my hands. I got a lot of weird stares from the Italians, but they will not even sit on a public bench without laying down newspapers or tissues. It was fun though and we got to talk to the members while we did it too. That night was another stake activity/dance and we had invited all of our investigators so that we could teach them with members. We taught the first lesson with Massimiliano and a member named Giuseppe Vergilio. It went really well and we talked about prophets some more because Massimo is having hard time understanding the transition of authority from prophet to prophet. He believes that Joseph Smith could have restored the truth, but does not think that that encompasses all of the proceeding prophets, including Thomas S Monson. But he is still progressing and likes coming to church. He will get baptized one day, it will just be on his own time. After that we went and found Francesco, Silvio, Gianluca, and a new friend! Francesco brought his brother to the activity! He is the greatest at giving us referrals and he is not even a member. We had decided in weekly planning the day before that we were not going to teach them all together, but we had not told them that yet. I was talking to Massimo and he coached me on how to say "We want to teach you all separatly" in Italian. When I got it down perfectly he called everyone else to attention and introduced the fact that I was about to speak. When I said "Vogliamo incontrarvi uno per volta" they were not sure what to think, but we did not care and dragged Gianluca away with Giuseppe to help us teach. Gianluca is the friend that claims to be atheist but is afraid to look at pictures of Christ and took a Book of Mormon home with a dedica written to him inside. Again, the lesson went alright, but he just keeps giving us the same rehearsed answers and responses to everything. We need to really be prayerful to know what to say that will catch him off guard or touch him. Either way, he turned down our invite to church but said he would read a chapter from the Book of Mormon. I randomly flipped to one, Mosiah 15 and he said he would read it. I had only seen that it was about Abinidi. Hopefully that was inspiration because that was a rather blatant chapter haha. After the lesson con Gianluca we dragged Silvio in with Raffaele. Normally Silvio is a goof and laughs, but the moment he was alone without his friends, he got straight to the point and began asking questions about what we had taught him about the Plan of Salvation. Raffaele was also a good match for him as far as personalities and Silvio promised to come to church the next day. Unfortunately we ran out of time to have a lesson with Francesco and his brother (darn it, I know right?) but we gave him a talk by President Monson from this last conference. They also gave us both ice cream (even soy ice cream for me!) and they we left to be home on time. The whole day we were stressing out because we had not received transfer calls and it was almost nine. Everyone else had received theirs but we were still waiting. I was about ready to die! Finally he called at about ten and I am staying in Bari! Wahoo! Though it totally stinks because Sorella Laws is leaving :( she is headed to Ragusa in Sicilia and my new companion is Sorella Ashman who is coming FROM Ragusa. I have also met her already because she entered the MTC the same day I did. But no fear, she spoke Italian fluently before the mission so she is actually a transfer ahead of me and has already trained a greeny. Now it is my turn not to stress out over training her on the city and trying to help out all our investigators without Sorella Laws . . . ahhhh!

Domenica was interesting. We got to Relief Society and there was a woman sitting by herself. Sorella Laws asked her to come sit by us and then she talked to ME throughout the whole lesson. But I could not really tell her to be quiet because she was a little bit . . . particular? I dunno, that is what Italians say when someone is not all there in the head. She gave me a pin that had cherries on it, showed me the all carb diet on her phone, and said a boy had beat her up the night before. Then she came to gospel principles and Silvio (who did come!) and Massimiliano (who loves church :)) were super distracted by her the whole time. But they came to church! I was so super stoked, even though Francesco did not come . . . but what can you do? I also cannot really curse free agency since it is a gift from God to all of His children . . . . but sometimes coercion sounds so nice :) She sat in front of us during Sacrament meeting too and again offered quite a distraction to our investigators, but I think they were alright. After church we went to the Santoro's for lunch and for the first time they did not force food down my throat! Most of the time they serve you and if you eat too fast they insist you take more. But Sorella Santoro said to only take what we want and did not even ask if we wanted more. It was great! After that we went to Sorella Valenti's. She is the sweetest old woman alive and used to be super catholic until she joined the church. We talked to her for a little bit before we headed to the GANS activity at the bishops. All of us, us and the two copie of Anziani missed the bus and were all late getting home when two police officers pulled up in their car. They asked who they were and got out of their car and began talking to us and acted interested in our message and English course. Only in Italy would two cops stop to chat to a bunch of missionaries while they are on duty :) love it! And they said they would come to English course so that is potentially new investigators :)

Consiglio di Distretto monday morning was GREAT! We were all super emotional and were sharing our feelings about the mission and our love for the Italians. I love it when all of the Anziani cry because they love serving the Lord and the people here. That night we went to Adelfia to see Ameli and Marco but Ameli was about to leave with their daughter Virginia to go pick up Marco and offered us a ride back into Bari. She is great! We love her and her entire family and we want them to accept the gospel so bad! And Virginia is the CUTEST little girl on the planet! Minus Evie and Layla of course :) After that we went to go see another contact named Anna Maria who is friends with our investigator, Antonia. She let us right in even though we did not have an appointment and willingly listened to us and had her son come in. He is super intellectual and analyzed our religion but was very polite as we read a scripture from the Book of Mormon about the Savior. She used to be afraid to let us come over when her son was home and this time she called him into the room to listen to us. It is definitely a step up.

Martedì we went out to Loseto to go visit Sara Puglisi. She is so great. She really opened up to us this time and even though she said we could only stop by for five minutes we were there for an hour and a half. She gave us juice and we talked about all kinds of things. She really wants us to come again so I assured her that even though Sorella Laws is leaving we would be sure to keep coming. That night we got bedoned by everyone again, even for correlation. But English course went well, even though the Anziani bailed on us and we had to teach both basic and advanced together. We played a game and I had made banana bread for them. I am gonna be so sad when I have to leave too :( but for the time being I have six more weeks!

Life is going good, even the work. Everyday is definitely a new adventure and you never stop learning. But one thing I am sure of is the love our Heavenly Father has for us and that I get to share it with these awesome people. Some days are hard, not gonna lie, but when I keep that in mind they always end great!

Muah!

Vi voglio ben'assai!

Sorella LeCates