So Sicilia!

So it's pretty sweet, but first I need to leave off with Bari!

So after internet last week I went to a bookstore a bought a cool cook book in Italian. It is divided up into months and the vegetables and fruit that are in season and THEN the recipes. I was pretty excited and there was only one copy so Sorella Ashman was pretty jealous. She wanted it :) I then wrote probably 30 letters on the back of the photos I had printed off of the members. Sorella Ashman says she'll give them to everyone. I HOPE so! We then went to get gelato and then see Titta. Poor thing! Her leg is ALWAYS swollen. In fact, it's huge and often leaks water. Gross. I know. But I had to see her before I left so we brought her gelato and talked to her for a bit but she was kind of out of it so we left. We then took a little giro on the bus for an hour because we had nothing else to do. We went all the way to the end of the line in Carbonara and then to the church where we watched everyone play soccer, Sorella Ashman read and coveted my cook book, and I wrote more letters to everyone. We had correlation and then ward council. It was great and then we were running really late, especially because the Sorelle from Taranto were waiting at our house. Luckily members gave us a ride home. We did not have time to say good bye to Carmen, Angela, Annalisa, or Stefania, so they all decided to find us at our apartment during weekly planning. We were out in the stairwell for 15 minutes and took pictures and all the great stuff and then I got super sad and kept writing letters to distract myself.

The next morning we had to be in Centro early to catch my bus which left at 8.00. I went with Anziano Knutsen who was reassigned to Palermo. It was a REALLY long bus ride. 10 hours. Fun huh? But it was BEAUTIFUL the whole way. We went down to Taranto, and then along the coast and into Calabria. Calabria is breathtaking! I took several pictures from the bus but forgot my memory card. Oh well. Then we got to the other coast and drove along that and wow. I have never seen anything so beautiful! So I took more pictures and then we saw SICILIA! I was so stoked and Anziano Knutsen probably thought I was nuts, especially because I kept ranting in Italian, but that is not important. We drove into Reggio Calabria and took the ferry across into Messina. We then got back on the bus and drove about an hour to Catania. We met up with Sorella Buma (one of the new companions) Sorella Tinoco (Sorella Buma's old companion) and Sorella Giordano (Sorella Tinoco's new companion). We took my stuff back to the apartment and then went to the train station to pick up Sorella Askew (our other new companion). We were a little early so we went and got gelato with a freshly made chocolate waffle. It was pretty good :) And the greatest thing about our apartment is we have a perfect view of the sea! It's gorgeous! But again, I left my memory card at home so you will just have to wait until next time :)

Friday morning we learned all about Catania from Sorella Buma during weekly planning. She will only be here 3 weeks until she leaves for Ladispoli. This is also Sorella Askew's last transfer so I need to learn as much as I can before they all leave me! Catania is pretty big, I heard it has about 500,000 people. I need time to learn all this stuff! After planning we went to go and find Leah who is a new convert. We had called her and she said we could come but of course she was leaving when we arrived after 1 1/2 hours on the bus. I had forgotten what it was like to live on public transportation. I did not have to do that in Bari but welcome to it all again! Good thing we did a lot of finding work on the bus right? But luckily there is a member family, Castagnia, that lives right next to Leah so we went to visit them which is good because Sorella Askew and I do not know anyone. We met the grandma and the daughter and talked about Mosiah 24 and prayer. We then went to the ward barbeque where we learned a ton of new faces and names that I probably could not tell you now. But one member, Fratello Smedila, asked me to send President Monson and his wife in a box to his kid for their birthday because I am from Utah. I laughed of course. But he said he'd get me a body guard to go around the city with so that I don't die. Maybe it's a good trade haha.

Sabato we went to visit Lidia, an investigator who has a baptismal date. She is so nice. She is in her 50's and on her own she realized she shouldn't smoke and quit without the missionaries telling her. She also saw an angel in a dream telling her that the Book of Mormon is true and showing her the plates. Cool right? So she is getting baptized October 15, the day before my birthday! We taught the Word of Wisdom because she had not heard it yet and said it should not be a problem at all. We then went and got gelato at Lindt because Sorella Askew has to try everything in Sicilia. I guess here they eat gelato on brioche. The flavors at Lindt were delicious! I got sette veli, which is seven different layers and cookies. We then watched "How Rare a Possession" because the other two Sorelle had not ever seen it and we live in Sicilia so it just makes sense. We then went to go and see Leah again and she was there this time. She still is really young in the church and does not understand prayer yet. So we taught her about prayer and how we talk to our Heavenly Father and why it is in the name of Jesus Christ. We then went to Villa Bellini which is a big park here and did finding work. After we did street and met this really cool family with four kids. They gave us their number and we hope they come to General Conference this weekend.

Sundays are really long here. Because there is the Navy Base, Sigonella, we have two wards which equals out to 6 hours of church everyday. The first 3 hours were great. We had sacrament meeting first and we all got to bare our testimonies. I sat by a creeper on accident during Gospel Principles and was told by a woman in the Relief Society Presidency to not to it again and that that had been the reason she had sent one of the Elders to sit by me. Great. And then we had Sigonella! It was one of the craziest experiences. It was like being home! So weird . . . And I had also heard about almost every single one of these people from Sorella Pickett so it felt like a dream to really know them. WE also get to watch Conference in English at the Bay Families house. They are American and she is going to make us cinnamon rolls and American dinner! Can't wait! WE then ate spaghetti in the church at 17.00 because we had been fasting all day and did not have time to go home. We then went to visit a less active named Sorella Mairora. She is the sweetest, most humble woman I have ever met! She gave us cookies, water, and little figurines on her shelf when she literally has nothing. I have never taught anyone with as little as her and she just gives to us all the time! We then did house in her area and went door to door singing "I am a child of God." It was actually pretty cool how well that works to get people to actually listen to us. At first we have to beg to sing for 30 seconds and then at the end they have goose bumps and think we are the cutest things ever. On our way home we met this . . . man who really made me laugh. He says he knows everything because Heaven tells him. He told Sorella Buma that she is the oldest in her family. She is. He then told me that I need to study law and become a lawyer after the mission. I was really shocked and kept talking to him and then he told me I have really stubborn. I guess I have held on to a bit of my personality. Huh, oh well made me laugh :)

Monday we had consiglio di distretto and Anziano Hill gave the training. We talked about being a Preach My Gospel Missionary and then went and got lunch. We got arancini for the first time. It's hard to explain what they are so you just have to look them up. But they are huge here. It is basically rice with cheese inside and deep fried. It was alright, but not good enough that I would eat something that bad for me often. We then went to visit a less active named Maria. She married an American and lived in Utah for a long time but then her husband left her and her four kids so she came back to Sicily. She is super sweet and tries to share the gospel even though she does not come to church. The problem is she lives in a really bad area of town where we are not allowed to be. It is owned by the Mafia and always has . . . I dunno dangerous activities going on. So we can only go with the Anziani because they have a car and can take us and then take us home. So they were there with us and so was Maria's son, Marco. He is quite a sass, but I liked him. The first thing he asked us is "Why are you here?" in his perfect American accent. We said we came to visit his mom and he got this smirk on his face and says "you are missionaries, you are not here to just visit her. What do you want?" But then Maria decided we should go across the hallway to visit her neighbors who have talked to Sorella Buma and Sorella Tinoco previously. Let's just say that Sorella Buma had not had a good time the last time and this was no different. The husband told her and Sorella Askew that they have nasally voices, Sorella Askew is too skinny and needs to eat, and Sorella Buma is more masculine than he is. Yeah . . . well he took the Restoration DVD and made a copy. So who really knows right? After that we got a ride back into a safer part of town and tried to find Frederica. I do not really understand the story but I guess she came to church with her mom a couple of weeks ago and her mom works at this bar in Catania and we were sent by a member to find them at this bar. But we do not know the mom's name so we had to ask for a woman who has a daughter named Frederica. We were at this one bar for probably a half hour and the girl that works there was just laughing as she called up the only other employee who was not there to confirm to us that we were mistaken. Va bene. Then after that failure we went to go see a potential investigator Signora La Presti. She is this really old woman that does not really leave her house but she wants to learn more so alright. She's super cute and said she will try and come to English course and conference this weekend so vediam. We then basically ran to a bus stop and the bus was not there. Sorella Askew was hungry so we smelled our way to a bakery where she bought bread. She was much happier after that.

Tuesday morning we went to go see Lidia again and had a member there named Maira. We did not really get around to teaching what we had planned, but at least Lidia saw us and we talked a little bit about conference and the prophet. We then saw Tiziana who is an ex-investigator. She reads and loves the Book of Mormon but won't pray to know. We talked a lot about the Restoration which she has memorized at this point so we then asked WHY we are here if our churches are the same. She could not answer so we explained base of the entire church and then prayer. We explained that if she is not willing to act and change her life she will not receive an answer if the church is true. I think that really hit her. She wants to come to conference and her two daughters might come to! That afternoon we tried to go see the family Los Santos but they were not home. We then got stranded at a bar in the rain and talked to an employee for 15 minutes until we decided we REALLY had to go and take the bus otherwise we would miss our lesson with Francesca, a member, at the church and English course. So we ran through the pouring rain and got completely soaked. But I met a really nice woman on the bus and talked to her the whole way to the church. She actually has a Book of Mormon and used to study with the missionaries. Her name is Cettia and though I did not take her number, I ran out of time, I am sure we will see her again. She lives right by the church. The lesson with Francesca (Franci) went great. She told us her life story of how she met the missionaries. She was in the hospital visiting her dad in Palermo and he was sharing a room with another man who was a member of the church. Because of that the missionaries came to visit him. She talked to them and took a Book of Mormon. Then next time they came to the hospital there was 6 elders and she almost fell over she was so overwhelmed by the spirit. She has had a lot of trials since her baptism because most of the members of her family have passed away by she says the Sorelle have really helped her. I shared with her a scripture I read from the Book of Mormon on accident the day that Bethany died, Alma 28:12, and she teared up and said she had never noticed that scripture before. We just love Franci :) then we had English course and it was really small because it was raining and you cannot get Italians to leave their homes in the rain to save your life. But it was fun. They all enjoyed themselves. We then walked home after and luckily it had stopped raining at that point.

This morning it was still raining but we went out to see the Duomo here in Catania and took some pictures. We then went to the famous Catania market but I guess it is not nearly as grand as it usually is because of the rain. But it's been fun.

It's weird being in a trio. I can't decide if I like it our not and I'm still trying to get the swing of things in this new city but I am sure I am going to love it!

Love you all bunches
Sorella LeCates