So I am pretty sure I am accustomed to having a thick film of sweat on my body at all times, which is good! The other day it as pretty dry and it was manageable! Hallelujah! It is the hottest it will get this summer and I just have to endure it for another month and a half! So things are going well. Thanks to Sorella Ashman we are always out doing finding work and I am acquiring a nice little tan and we have plenty of potential investigators and hopefully some investigators soon.
Mercoledì sera we had a lesson with our investigator, Marta, and we met her sister Carmella. Carmella is so NICE. Very sweet and acted very interested in our message, but her son Andre was dribbling a basketball up and down the hall so she kept on having to go out and tell him to stop. We wanted to get her number but never got a chance :( But because Heavenly Father loves us we experienced a little miracle with that the next day (to be continued . . . ) But meeting her was definitely a blessing because a few days later when we called Marta she told us that she no longer wanted to meet with us and wanted to give back the copy of the Book of Mormon we had given her. We had felt it was truly a miracle that we had found where she lived, but now we believe the miracle was so that we could find her sister. But again, we will get to that in just a second!
Giovedì mattina we had planned to go to Loseto to go visit Sorella Puglisi but she was not home. We then called the bishop to see if we could visit him, but he was not home either. He had given us a name of another less active family to go visit but they were not home either. That day was also REALLY hot. About 105 degrees with 100% humidity. So we were walking around trying to find people to talk to and trying to do house but had absolutely no success because the area we were in is one in which is proselyted by Jehovah's Witness missionaries all the time. So needless to say we were both exhausted and dehydrated from the heat, frustrated from lack of success, and ready to go home for lunch even though it was only 12.00. So we took the bus home hoping to find something to do in Bari when we passed a man and his son. I recognized the little boy from somewhere so I waved to him and the father stopped. I then realized who the kid was! It was Andre, Carmella's son. I asked the man if his wife was Carmella and when he said yes he asked how in the world we knew her. We then explained that we knew Marta and had met Carmella at her house. He was very nice, told us his name was Roberto, listened to our message for about ten minutes and then gave us his phone number. So after a rather rough morning, Heavenly Father gave us a little reward. And He did not stop there. For the afternoon, which was even warmer, we wanted to go to house on a street we picked from the map. But because it was so hot we could not walk there without dying so we ended up waiting for the bus for about 45 minutes. And because we are in Italy, the south of Italy, no one is outside from 1.00 - 5.00, but we leave the apartment to start proselyting again at 4.00. So we were at the bus stop with nothing to do other than read The Book of Mormon in Italian. I looked up and saw a young man walking towards us and immediately knew we needed to talk to him. But he made it easy on us, came right up, said "hi" in English and asked if the bus had passed. Because he gave us the opening we asked where he learned English. He (Marco) said from his country, Montenegro, and he has lived in Italy for about four years. We asked us a ton of questions about our church for about ten minutes when his bus came. We figured since we did not actually have an appointment planned, we hopped on the bus with him pretending that was the one we wanted as well. At the bus stop he had spoken to us in Italian, but on the bus he spoke to us in English because he did not want anyone else to hear :) And everything we told him really touched his heart. You could see it written across his face as he would listen, think about it, and then realize he believed us. As we got closer to his stop he said if we didn't mind, he would talk to us more if we got off with him. So of COURSE we did. He listened for about ten more minutes and said he would love to hear more but he was leaving that same day to go home to Montenegro until the beginning of September . . . managia! But we have his phone number so we will just have to call him when he gets back! Then we had English course as always. We talked about family reunions and a made a rubric of all of the Smith cousins for them. They asked if I even knew all of my cousins names and when I told them "Yes, and all of their spouses and children too" they were rather shocked haha. And after English Course, Tomaso gave us a short little lesson in Italian. He is so great, and it really does help to have a native, who is a professor of Italian, teach us the proper pronunciation and grammar.
Friday we did house, helped a family in the ward move, did some more house and street with no success, and then got harassed by a crazy Nigerian. His name is Matthew and he told me I need to carry the Bible instead of the Book of Mormon because it gives me power while the Book of Mormon is a book of men written to confuse people. By the end of the day neither Sorella Ashman or I had much patience, especially not with him because we had met him before and had the EXACT same conversation. So this time we just told him about 30 times to go home and talk to Heavenly Father instead of us. It was a long day.
Sabato morning we went to go see la famiglia Curci because Sorella Curci has a friend, Maria Simone (every woman has the first or middle name Maria here because they all love the Madonna), who has taken a few lessons from the missionaries. All we have done lately is finding work so we figured it would not hurt to go and have a member lesson with her. It went alright and we made a new friend. Plus I love Sorella Curci so it is always great to see her. We had planned that afternoon to go to Adelfia to see a contact who is always sitting on the same steps close to the town's center. We called him and said he would be there in the afternoon so we should stop by. We got to those steps and he was not there so we sat on them for about 45 minutes waiting for him. We could only be there so long because we had to return back to Bari for a baptism so we were a little disappointed when we had ten minutes left and he had not shown up. But just then a man walked by and looked at us funny and then stopped. We said hello and he began asking us questions about ourselves, missionaries, and the church. We pretty much knocked his socks off as we bore testimony of the Restoration, Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. He was not quite sure what to think, which is always a great sign because it means he was actually THINKING about what we had said instead of immediately denying it. When we asked him if we could meet with him again he was really quiet and then asked for a minute to think about it. At the end he said yes. We gave him the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and we walked away sort of dazed. So I guess our 2 hour jaunt to Adelfia wasn't for naught. The baptism that night also lifted our spirits. His name is Gianfranco and the Anziani from the other ward in Bari have been teaching him. His girlfriend, Ilaria, is a member but he had been telling the Anziani that he was not ready to join the church. But one day it completely changed and he told them he wanted to be baptized. When they asked why he told them a story that had happened to him. A few days previous one of his friends had been saying bad things about the church and immediately he began to defend it. He had been shocked when he realized how quickly he had spoken up and it was then that he knew he was ready to be baptized. It was a beautiful service and Silvio, our investigator, came as well. All together a good day by the end :)
Domenica was good. Antonio came to church! Granted it was only for Sacrament meeting this week, but he is so wonderful. He is one of the most humble people I know and is so ready to be baptized, he just needs to have all of the lessons. But right now he is still feeling pretty overwhelmed so his progress has slowed down a little bit. But we just keep praying for him and hoping for the best. Titta was also there. She is a woman that started coming to church every week a about a month ago. She is a little particular . . . but she WANTS to come to church so that is a good thing :) After church we had pranzo with la famiglia Puglisi. They are great! I also tried non-alcoholic beer and just gotta say it is NASTY. Really, I do not know why anyone drinks that stuff :P That night we went to go visit Titta because I had forgotten to call her for her birthday. She was the only one home (she is 45 and lives with her parents) because her parents are out of town. She is so sweet though. She pulled out her salmon and shared it all with us, despite the fact it was raw, and she showed us where the bus stop was and everything. She's a cutie :)
Monday morning we had decided to take a different route to consiglio di distretto. This way was about twice as long and again, it was hot, but we felt like we should do it. It was kind of funny though because it was basically deserted except for cars, but we kept going anyways and came back out onto the main road. It was there we stopped a woman who was about to walk into a bank. She told us she did not care about our message but had a friend in the bank who was religious. We then went inside, talked to everyone, handed out business cards to them all and then left. Sure they were all ridiculing us, but oh well, they all have our number now and maybe one of them was touched by the spirit. Consiglio was great. Anziano Knutsen, our district leader, gave an awesome adestrimento about prayer and charity. I took a ton of notes and we were all crying by the end. I love the spirit :) that after noon we took the same road from that morning to go do house because there were a few little streets we felt like we should go try. One old man answered and gave us the names of his seven children and told us to call them. Well, we did not really expect 7 referrals but were happy to receive them. We also so the same woman from the bank that morning. Her name is Kati and said we should feel free to stop by and talk to her whenever we are in the area. We then met a woman from Romania who did not speak Italian well, but we walked with her to the church, gave her a tour, and she said she would come to church on Sunday. We then saw Rocco afterward and talked to him more about the church and again he was touched by the spirit. We really need to find a day where he is free and sit down and have a formal lesson with him because he is AWESOME! He is a biologist and studies trees, plays the guitar and writes his own music, wear's birkenstocks, and we are pretty sure he is a vegetarian. Yeah, he is a hippie. We loved it when he ranted for 10 minutes about trees. He told us the scientific name of every tree within our vicinity and says he takes pictures with them :D So great. So after that we finished the night off with some more street and went home. Fun huh? Haha.
Ieri we did street in the morning before our appointment with la famiglia Valentini. We met three Americans on the street, but they were all catholic and one was ever a priest who was there to perform a wedding. He asked us if we wanted to sit down and have a nice little chat about the Book of Mormon. Pretty sure it was not a discussion we wanted to have haha, so we were lucky to have arrived at the Valentini's palazzo at that point. But afterward we met them again as we took off to go do some more finding work. They were really nice and we all had a good laugh that we were both "just spending our morning walking up and down the same street". Then we went and bought flowers for an inactive family, the Perini's. They were not home, probably at the beach, so we left them with a note. Then on our way home we ran into Rocco again! We invited him to have a picnic with us, but he had to work and would not be free until 4.30. So we talked a little bit longer and we took a picture because we were matching almost exactly! Blue shirts, and grey pants/skirt. So help me! We are going to get an appointment with him if I have anything to say about it! More finding work before correlazione, correlazione, and then English course. English course was fun! Sorella Ashman and I have been translating our Patriarchal blessings from English to Italian so we decided to try and explain them to our English Class. But instead we ended up giving them the low down on the organization of the church. I think a lot of it was a little over their heads, but they seemed impressed with how organized it all is, that our leaders are not paid, and that they do not choose it for themselves. After we had another mini language lesson with Tomasso and he showed me how to properly pronounce "gli". It is a lot harder than you would think! So after that we went home but had an extra 8 minutes so we went to go try and find someone. We met this 17 year old girl named Beatrice. The moment we told her we were American she about died. She then talked to us for ten minutes and gave us her phone number. We will see if her parents let her learn more haha.
So yes, the work has definitely changed since summer hit. We do a lot of finding and a lot less teaching. It is rough at times, especially this last week. Not going to lie, I want to TEACH PEOPLE! But it is all in the Lord's time. We definitely see little miracles every single day so we have nothing to complain about. Thanks so much for all that you do! I know that Jesus Christ lives and guides the church today and that is work ALWAYS goes forward.
Muah! Con tutto il mio cuore!
Sorella LeCates
In July 2010 I was called to serve an 18 month mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Italy Rome mission. I've always wanted to see Italy and I can't believe I'm lucky enough to spread the gospel there!
