Bari in a Bottle

And it is stinky haha. The street by our house always smells like . . . well sewage or burnt popcorn. But because we are trying to not say things that are negative Sorella Ashman said she wanted a perfume with the smell and I said "Yes! Bari in a Bottle!" Yes, we're lame. But we are missionaries. That is my excuse for our behavior :D

So last Wednesday I bought some sweet awesome ties for the men in my life (AKA my dad and brothers) and then we went to Turi, a little town outside of Bari to go visit a member. His name is Fratello Scarola and he is an INCREDIBLE pianist. Sorella Ashman has been asked to sing in a concert in a couple of weeks for a stake activity and she needs to practice and choose songs to sing. We went to Fratello Scarola's studio to choose what she would sing, and WOW. He can literally play anything and everything. I was quite impressed. After that we were running late but had an awesome lesson with our investigator Andrea. We taught him the Restaurazione with the cup pyramid and then the video and you should have seen his face during the film! He was awestruck and had a bazillion questions at the end about everything. Again he said the prayer and I started to cry. I love the elect children of God :) Okay, I love all His children. But it sure is easier to love the people who want to listen to us and follow through with the commitments. Later that night the Sorelle from Taranto came to visit us for the night because Sorella Hansen went home the next day. Poverina! She loves the mission so much and the last thing she wanted was to go home. But she was a wonderful example and a wonderful missionary. She was a wonderful servant of our Savior Jesus Christ :)

Giovedì era strano. We had to take Sorella Hansen to the train station really early and they all wanted to get gelato at a gelateria. Mmmmm . . . Gelato at 7.00! But somewhere between leaving Bari and arriving at the mission office in Roma, she lost her camera! How sad! I hope she finds it! That afternoon we had a lesson with Antonio Viscanti at the home of Fratello Valetini. And again, an INCREDIBLE lesson! Antonio has had two baptismal dates but he has not been reading the scriptures or praying. But this lesson was different. We read 3 Nefi 11 insieme and then talked about it. Sorella Ashman then gave a mock baptismal interview and then shared her testimony of the love our Heavenly Father has for us, and more specifically for him, Antonio. He started to cry again and we set a baptismal date for Settembre 3 and this time I have no doubts that it will happen. He is ready. And it was only confirmed more when he gave the closing prayer and could barely speak because of the spirit and his emotions. We LOVE Antonio! After that lesson we had a lesson with Michele, our new investigator. We think he has OCD, but he is also super prepared, super intelligent, and really nice. He listens to everything we say and then tells us how it makes sense and it leads completely into the next part of the lesson. When we started to tell him the program we give with the lessons he cut us off and said "Oh, so this is like the introduction and then you will continue to teach me the other points of your doctrine and how I can know it's true." We paused for a second and then just nodded our heads. Wow. I love people who understand haha. We left with him telling us he would read the whole Book of Mormon. Perfetto! After the lesson with him we had to go to the train station to go pick up Sorella Johnson's new companion, Sorella Olsen! She went to high school with me, we were in the MTC together, and flew over to Italy insieme. She is great and Sorella Johnson and her hit it off right at the start. We also were with the Anziani who were picking up 3 new greenies so we all went and got gelato again. Why not?

Venerdì we had programming in the morning and then we tried to go and find less actives in the evening. While we were out we found Michele, our new investigator at a pizzeria. He invited us in and introduced us to his friend that owns the pizzeria, Franco. He was a hoot and a half. He just laughs and spoke to us in English the whole time. But the greatest part was Michele. He started sharing the gospel with Franco and explaining what we do as missionaries and that was only the third time we had ever seen him including the first encounter on the street. Where are the waters of baptism?! Unfortunately that was the last success we found that night. We had nothing to do so we made it a goal to knock 100 doors. We did not knock 100 doors, but we did over 50! We even tallied them! We met a really nice man named Daniele and his son Andrea. Andrea probably only has 7 years but talked to us about all his favorite animals. We then shared our message con Daniele and he was one of the people who are on the edge of saying yes the entire time but in the end . . . they say no. And what made my day was as they walked away Andrea told his Dad "Mom would have said yes." Well, good thing we left a Proclamazione to the World and we hope the mom reads it! But the best part of the day was when we were at the street corner right by our house waiting for the light to turn green. Sorella Ashman lifts the Book of Mormon into the air with her arms spread wide and yells "Pentitevi e venite a Cristo!" or in English "Repent yourselves and come unto Christ!" She was figuring everyone who was waiting in their cars at the light had their windows down. But I had the pleasure of seeing the look on a man's face who had all the windows of his car down. It was priceless. And as he drove away, after he had recovered from the shock, he had a huge smile across his face and waved to us. It must have been quite a scene. Two blonde American girls, dressed funny, yelling to the Italians to repent. I like it :)

Friday night during nightly programming we were trying to think of what to do the next morning because all of our plans had fallen through. We kept thinking of different finding ideas and finally I just said that I felt like there was someone in the ward that we needed to go visit. So we grabbed our ward book with the pictures of the members and started thumbing through. We stopped on the De Santis Family. Angela De Santis is the Relief Society President and served a mission on Temple Square, is the only member of her family and FANTASTIC! Her husband is also great and served a mission in France and they have two cute little girls named Ilaria and Erica. But because their youngest daughter is often sick, it has caused a lot of stress in their lives so we decided that we needed to go visit them. So Saturday morning we took of to Triggiano, a paese fuori Bari to go find them. We called through the Citofono but turns out they were just leaving on short notice to go visit her friend who was visiting Bari. We only had about ten minutes to give them a card we had made them, talk for a few minutes and then leave. So we then had another 2 hours until we had to be home and we were 30 minutes away. So we called la famiglia Rammuni. They too are incredible. The wife served a mission in Milano, and the husband is super smart and studied English at BYU. They also have two little girls, Ludovica and Silvia, who are very sweet. Silvia, however, has autism and Fratello Rammuni has a degenerate muscle disorder so he cannot help as much as he would like with Silvia and it's obviously a trial for the whole family. We spent the first part of the visit getting to know them better and then shared the talk "None were with Him" by Jeffrey R. Holland. We shared the very end when he says that not only do we have Jesus Christ but all of our ancestors and our other loved ones on the other side of the veil supporting and helping us. After we read it Fratello Rammuni shared with us that our message had been inspired and had been the exact thing he needed to hear. I LOVE Fratello Rammuni! In all honesty we have the best ward in the world here in Bari Poggiofranco. I have learned so much from their examples and I continue to learn everyday. The day even got better. After lunch we left the house, as usual, at 4.00. But we are in southern Italy. It is Agosto. It is hot. And it was early afternoon. This means there is NO ONE. Literally. Not on the streets, not in the cars. Not in their homes . . . Nessuno. In Agosto almost everyone goes on vacation. It is called Ferie Agosto and almost every store is closed for 2-4 weeks and the city is desolate. This is no exaggeration. So we were just walking down the street in the sun and humidity and one single woman was walking in our direction. When we were in speaking distance we said hello and she stopped, turned around, and stared at us. She then told us that there is no way it is a coincidence that we were both on the street at the exact same time. She said that as she had been walking towards us she had been rationalizing away a loving Heavenly Father because he would not leave her in the situation she was in and here we come walking in her direction AWAY from the beach with smiles on our faces. And then we said hello. We then told her we had a message for the world, that we have a living prophet today who sees and speaks with God. She was speechless at first and then interrupted to ask who this prophet was. We shared a little bit more and then told us her current life. She is divorced. For the first time in her life she has had to have a job without any experience. She has ruined the relationship she has with her son and she does not know what to do. It also appeared that she had a black eye and she kept tearing up and wiping away the ones that escaped. It broke our heart. We shared our love with her, the joy the gospel gives us, and how we knew without a doubt that her Father in Heaven was crying with her then. I still had the Liahona with me with the discourse from Anziano Holland "None were with Him." So we gave it to her and got her number. She is such a dear. Her name is Beatrice and we WILL call her. No worries there. We then went to go see Sorella Valenti. Everytime we try to call her she tells us no so we just went over. When we called through the citofono she said no but I told her Sorella Ashman had to use the bathroom so we got in haha While she was in the bathroom Sorella Valenti saw my legs and saw how many mosquito bites I had. She grabbed some cream and them smothered my legs with it. She then saw how raw and sunburned my nose was and smothered that in sunblock and wouldn't let me rub it in so I sat for a half hour with a white nose haha. She is great. And she loves us too! We then had a lesson with Andrea again with Fratello Carlucci. We started out with a clip from "Insieme persempre" and then talked about The Plan of Salvation. But I think Andrea got a little overwhelmed because Fratello Carlucci was rather forceful with his . . . testimony of prayer and scripture study? Well . . . He was nice to help us out with the lesson haha. After that we had a lesson with Angela Strignano and it went well too. Well, her companion who is nuts kept coming in with a robotic parrot that talks, but other than that is was productive. Even her mama "Nonnina" was better. We think she can sense the spirit and quiets down as well. When she was saying "Angela! Angela! Vieni Qua!" when Sorella Ashman was talking I put my finger to my lips and said "Shhhh . . . " and then she did the same thing with a huge grin on her face. I love Nonnina! We read Ether 3 insieme and she really liked the part about Christ having a body and that we are ressurrected but she had a hard time believing it. We told her the only way for her to know is to read the Book of Mormon, which she has not done yet. We told her it is the trial of our faith and you HAVE to read it. Vediamo.

Sunday we went to church and everything was the same. Afterwards we got a ride to the other chapel for the GANS attività (singles ward). We made it in time for the end of Sacrament meeting and then to help with lunch and eat. I also saw Andrea Roccira! He was our assistant ward mission leader in Roma! I talked to him for a few minutes and turns out they had 5 baptisms in July and four of them I taught! Veronica, her parents, and Irene, the friend of Susan and Ramaskey Tholley! I was super excited :) After lunch we then cut a sack full of bread. Infact, 400 slices (I counted) and then a bunch of cherry tomatoes. We then went to Sorella Magno's to have a family night with her two daughters and Fratello and Sorella Curci. We talked about Love and talents we have in this life. We went around the circle and you had to name a talent of the person to your right. Then we all went to a little paese 30 from Bari to go see if Anna Mola, an ex-investigator, from 20 years ago was home. She wasn't so we took a short little walk through Torre di Mare (Bellisima!) and then went home. But my favorite part was Sorella Magno. She is 70 years old and has a facebook and always takes pictures of everything and posts them on facebook. She stopped Sorella Ashman in the middle of the street to take a picture while all the cars had to go around her. I stopped and started to laugh and her daughter turned around and sighed and then yelled "mama! You're in the middle of the street! What are you doing?!" it was great :)

Monday was really exciting. Not only is August pretty much devoid of anyone, but they also have an entire day that is a festa. So Sorella Kelly picked that day to be our biannual apartment cleaning. So we were inside all day and cleaned/reorganized the whole house. Among many of the things I did, I took it upon myself to clean out the shower. Bleach was the only thing that worked and I had not thought to use gloves so now my hands hurt. But the shower is clean and white again! Hallelujah!

Yesterday we had a lesson with Antonio Viscanti in the morning before Consiglio di Distretto with Fratello Curci. We did not have time to teach anything because Fratello Curci talked the whole time. But that is alright. We all need opportunities to learn patience haha. Consiglio was great too. Anziano Luke, my district leader and zone leader from the MTC is in my district again. It is kind of weird because it feels like de-ja-vu, but it's fun to see a familiar face. That afternoon we had two lessons, one with Paolo and one with Andrea. They both skipped out on us . . . so we went to go do house again. I like house, but I do not like it when we have to push the citofono. I like doors better. But we take what we can get. And the best part was I found bug spray in our apartment and I used it so I did not get eaten alive by mosquitoes this time! Literally . . . I have had almost everyone comment on how many bites I have. After that we had English course and we only had 3 students. We started out by asking them what the Italian equivalent of "cheapskate" is because I had used it to refer to myself earlier in the day. We then went on to talk about how crazy the world is that we live in because we never seem to have enough when in fact we have more than any other generation has had in the past. Then we talked about the Holy Ghost, which we then had to explain the priesthood. This then brought up the Restoration and the early church. So we then explained the persecution the early members and Joseph Smith faced and that it lead to his death. They were really shocked to hear this and asked why the US government did not do anything. We told them the church had asked for help but the government had done nothing. Again they did not know what to say. So we then told them that it makes our work easier. We face almost nothing as missionaries in comparison to what the early members sacrificed so it is a pleasure to face trials in the name of truth. We swear . . . each one of them is BEGGING to be investigators. We REALLY need to find out why they aren't. We then ran to the store with Carmen and talked to her for a bit and set up an appointment for today to see her. We love Carmen too!

Okay, I love everyone. Can you tell? Well missionary work is definitely an experience. To say the least. But I love it. And it is honestly more fun when you run into a person or two who are really rotten :D but it truly is worth it. We have EVERYTHING. Literally Everything. A child with 3 years can answer the questions men have been trying to answer for centuries. We know why we exist and who we can become. We are literally children of God. We are the offspring of divine parentage! This changes everything! My heartaches for people to just stop talking or take ONE minute to listen long enough for that message to enter their heart. We have a PROPHET today. Like Moses or Abraham. But they tell us they do not care or that they're too busy?! They say they are content with their own faith and do not need more knowledge. We have the joy and peace that is only found through the gospel of Jesus Christ and we get to share it with random people on the streets and when we find those who WANT to listen to us it is impossible not to love them. To be a missionary is a pleasure I will never give up and I am so glad I made the choice to serve. I can and will never forget this time I have been given.

Love you all! Seriously. You are everything!
Vi Voglio un SACCO delle cose piu grande di bene!
Sorella LeCates