So yeah, the days are just fading into one. I cannot believe this transfer is almost over!
Thursday we had a lesson with our new investigator, Angelo, in the morning. In the previous lessons he just sat and listened to us with this smile on his face as if he is saying "You are just so cute, that you think you are telling me something new when I already knew all of this." Not in a creepy or superior sort of way, but because he just . . . knows everything already. He is super intellectual and has this beard that makes him look like he is one of the apostles instead of Italian. But anyways, this lesson this last week was not like the others. We had planned to teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and invite him to be baptized but before we started we asked him if he had any questions . . . oh yeah. He had questions. It ended up being this long string of questions that started out with the separation of Hell and Heaven and whether or not it is eternal. This was brought up because we had explained that the three kingdoms of Glory (i.e. Celestial, Terrestrial, Telestial) are all just that, kingdoms. But according to some of the verses in the bible it says that the wicked will be sent to an everlasting hell. So we started there, talked about eternal marriage and how Paul said you should not get married, the Law of Consecration and why we do not practice that law anymore. According to him it makes no sense. If the church is perfect, God shouldn't change his laws. We then talked about the story of the Rich man who did not give up all of his wealth and follow Christ. He asked about the millennium and how Satan will be bound and then the war after the end of the millennium. We were all a little worried at first if he could handle it, but he is fine. He studies the scriptures (also the Book of Mormon) a ton. And he isn't arguing with us, he is genuinely searching for a response and wants to hear what we think about these things. So he sat there after he asked a question and listened to one of us talk, then he turned to the next and would say "what do you think?" and then the third compion. It was all kind of surreal how perfectly all of these different topics flowed one to the other and that he had specific scriptures for each one and also references from the scriptural guide in the back of the Book of Mormon. At the end he said the prayer and he thanked Heavenly Father for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Joseph Smith . . . and when we left Sorella Buma turned to us and said "He has to be one of the three Nephites. He has to be. This is just a huge joke or test that Heavenly Father is playing on us to see if we can adequately answer these questions!" Needless to say it was an interesting experience. After that lesson we met Francesca (Franchy) at the bus stop so that she could take a picture and say good bye to Sorella Buma. Then we took the bus to the home of the family Castorina. Giorgia Castorina was the girl who was baptized last week and we had promised to make and eat pancakes together. We did it with the whole family and brought peanut butter and maple syrup with us because they do not exist here in Italy. You would have thought they each had died. Literally. Even the mom, Loredana. She just closed her eyes after tasting it and slouched back in her chair like there had been nothing better on earth. At the end we had Giorgia teach her family the Plan of Salvation and it was cute because her mom pulled out a "Future Missionary" tag and pinned it on her when she came to sit on the couch with us. After that we did some finding until Sorella Papalardo came to get us. The family Paplardo are so cute. They are basically American. They have three little boys. The two oldest are twins named Michele and Simone. Then there is Davide who is 5. He is SO stinkin' cute! We went to there house that night to have a lesson with their family and at the beginning they all played the piano for us. They did so well! And then we played pictionary with the different prophets from the Old Testament. For one of them I asked Simone if he knew the story of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo. But I only had the picture and I showed him and asked. He said yes, but as he drew for 10 minutes and no one guessed, we realized that not even the mom knew the story. How sad! I love that story! But we got to explain it and the boys thought it was pretty cool. At the end the mom drew the First Vision and then we talked about the Restoration. And because we had extra time, she fed us too. Of course it was delicious because it was the Ragusa for of Focaccia which is rolled up cheesy-tomato goodness! I pretty much fell in love with that family after that night :)
Friday morning we went to go have a lesson with Melina Platania. She is the woman we had met doing house that only speaks Siciliano. She is so cute, even if we cannot understand her. She is just so sweet and listens to us and tries to talk back and we try and decipher what she says. But at the end she just seems to love us more and just grabs and hugs us and kisses us and can't wait for the next visit. At the end of this one she told us to come visit her whenever because she is always alone in the morning. We certainly shall. That night the Anziani gave us a ride out to Sigonella, the navy base. We had an appointment with Ramona who is a less active member. Sorella Askew and I had never met her so we went. Her family is great and her five year old daughter, Aiden, is just a ball full of energy. She would not sit still and her mom was losing patience so I pulled out the Gospel art book and showed her some pictures. Then she ran and got her bible stories book from her room and sat by me and I talked to her quietly about the pictures while the other two Sorelle taught the lesson to Ramona and her husband who is not a member. Now Aiden and I are friends forever! They then walked us over to Aubrey Leaver's house but before we got there we ran into Owen, Aubrey's wife, who was taking a walk with their two girls. We then walked with them to their house and had a lesson about the Book of Mormon. Amelia, their 4 year old, is super energetic, but she sat and listened to most of the lesson. It went well and it was funny because Aubrey asked all the questions that Owen had had from the last lesson for him because he is a little more shy than her. One was why we fold our arms when we pray. But he is obviously thinking about what we say and has interest which is great, especially for their family. We then ate enchiladas and re-fried beans! It was great! Owen also became more comfortable with us and explained a little bit about the navy and what he does. At the end, Aubrey gave us a ride home and we learned more about her story and how she met Owen. It shed a lot of light on how we can help them both. She also told us that the was interested in learning more, more interest than she does. But she wants us to come over again and told us to call her as soon as they get back from vacation. We will get right on that one!
Saturday morning we did finding until we had to go to the church to start filling up the font for Lidia Tosto's baptism. But of course, almost every single baptism has it's glitches and we had forgotten to plug the drain. So after an hour I went to go check on it and it was only about a half inch filled. Oh great. We pulled out the buckets and started filling them. It was not anywhere as bad as when we had to fill the font for Antonio's baptism, but it still made me laugh. 2 for 3! But we got it all cleaned up just in time for Lidia to come! Her whole family came which was so great and we are really excited to see if they want to hear more. We missionaries did the musical number and sang "Lead Kindly Light" and then the baptismal service went perfectly. She was so excited and so ready and she bore a beautiful testimony at the end. And all the members really pulled it together and we could not have been happier :)
And then there was my BIRTHDAY! My companions are so great! I woke up to signs all over the apartment wishing me a happy birthday and then they scared me when I returned to our bedroom screaming "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" and they also made me breakfast! French toast! Knowing I love to cook they also surprised me with a Sicilian cook Book and it was so nice of them. Then when the Anziani came to get us for church they gave me a hand made card that just made me laugh :) You have to see it to really understand why, but inside it says "a rainbow for your birthday" with a random cut out picture of them inside. Haha. Gotta love them :) And to top it all off, Lidia received the Gift of the Holy Ghost! What better birthday gift is there than that? The lesson in Gospel Principles was also really great and the whole Relief Society wished me a happy birthday. After that first ward the Anziani surprised me again with home made chocolate chip cookies they had made. I of course had to share :) The second meeting went well. Because no one plays the piano I volunteered to play the piano for the two hour primary program practice. Yeah I know, I do not play the piano. But literally, I have no more shame. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. I could barely even play with one hand but the kids did not care and Bobby, the primary President said thank you haha! Just another fun part of the mission huh? After that ward we took off to do finding until the Anziani came to take us the Bay's house for dinner. Sister Bay made me a birthday dinner/going away dinner for Sorella Buma. I even got cheesecake! And a gift! She is so nice to do all of that for me! So no worries, I was well taken care of :)
Monday morning we had another lesson with Melina and we brought a member this time, Sorella DiMauro. As she realized that Melina did not speak Italian she just laughed and seemed impressed with how much we could understand. Just another perk of the gift of tongues! Because literally, these dialects are NOT Italian. We read 3 Nephi 11 from the Book of Mormon because her eye sight is so bad and she liked it a lot. Still we don't know if she will keep the commitments, but she said she would ask her son to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon to her. She was also really sad to say good bye to Sorella Buma because she was leaving that morning. She hugged her really tight which was sweet because this was only the third lesson! I love the Sicilians. They do not care who you are, they just love you for literally nothing. It's great! And after that the Anziani took us to the airport where we dropped off Sorella Buma! Ah! I am going to miss her! But she will do so great in Ladispoli! And we hope we can survive her in Catania without her. But we are just grateful we had her for three weeks, otherwise we would have just been "blown in" without any idea of where to go or what to do. But this way, we're good! After that the Anziani dropped us off at Villa Bellini which is a park where we did finding. We talked to a few tourists from northern Italy but then we stopped and talked to a man named Giovanni. He listened for a while and is just miserable. It was really sad because you could see it in his face that he wanted to say yes to us, but so many "solutions" have just left him disappointed. So he told us no. It broke my heart! I wish people could just KNOW what we are offering them. Yes, life is hard, but this is the ONE solution that really will work. Darn it. But at least if I am here sharing something, it might as well be the knowledge most valuable in the whole universe right? That afternoon we went and did gesso, which is "chalk". We bring a sheet and draw pictures on it and stop people as they walk by. We did it in Piazza l'università which is right in the old city and it is beautiful. We actually found a lot of success and it was fun because we did it with our Anziani and the Anziani from Messina because they were here doing splits. The weirdest thing is just a month or two ago I would have killed to only draw the pictures as an excuse so I would not have to talk to people because I was too afraid. But this time I started out drawing and I got bored after 5 minutes and WANTED to go talk to people instead. Crazy right? But I love it :) I think it's great being commissioned by the Lord to go and talk to complete strangers about the purpose of our life here on earth. Many may think we are crazy but it's a thrill that I am going to miss when I am not a missionary anymore. But after that we went to the church to have another lesson with our "third Nephite" Angelo Longo. This time we brought Anziano Hill and Anziano Perry (who was doing splits) to the lesson. They got a good taste of what kind of questions he asked. We talked about marriage a great deal again and after we all tried to respond he just kept saying that he wasn't convinced. At the end I just said "Look, I am only 22 years old. I do not know anything and I do not pretend to know everything. The only advice we have for you is to ask the ONLY person who knows the answer. Go and pray and talk to your Heavenly Father." I do not know how he felt about that response but he just smiled, nodded a little bit and we continued and wrapped up the lesson. At the end, Anziano Hill said he isn't one of the three Nephites, he's John the Beloved (I know, we are probably going to be struck by lightening for that) but Anziano Hill's reasoning was the same as ours. He looks just like one of the apostles from the DVD "Finding Faith in Christ". Needless to say it was a fun night!
Yesterday we did finding all morning and tried to go see a contact named Stefania but she wasn't home. We did meet a man from the Philippines who tried to talk to us. He only speaks minimal English and nothing of Italian. But he brought us to his house and gladly gave us his number. We told him we would bring him a Book of Mormon in Tagalog that afternoon and talk to him more. His name is Sonny and he just got to Italy 2 months ago to finally be with his wife, Grace, who has been here for 4 years. So we went back that afternoon and gave him the book and a pamphlet of the restoration in Tagalog and explained it the best we could. Because he could read the pamphlet it went over pretty well and he said he would read the Book of Mormon and pray to know. Even at the end he said the prayer for us in Tagalog as it explains in the pamphlet. He's so cute! I know I say that a lot, but it is so true for so many people! We then had to go straight to the church for a short meeting with the Anziani and a lesson with Franchy. We had to talk over the Halloween party with them and then we talked to Franchy about personal Revelation because she has a very specific question on her mind and it is quite vital that she decides. We did our best to explain our past experiences with it and the help others have given us when we have been . . . a little hard headed :) She listened to every word and really wants to take our advice. We hope we were able to help her! Then we all went to English Course! Yay! I got to know a few more students and at the end we talked about the Holy Ghost. Francesca is in my class so she helped me explain by her describing what the spirit feels like to her. All of the other students have been coming to English course for years and still haven't made any changes, but who knows when they will be ready. The most important thing is that they recognize the Spirit and what it prompts us to do. Overall it went well and then we went home to catch up on Area book! It's a never ending process, but we've got to do it!
Then this morning we did all the normal things and then took off to Siracusa (Syracuse)! It was pretty sweet. We went around the old city and the beach and then the Duomo. It was all really neat and it is just fun being with my companion and the Anziani. They are so ridiculous I can't help but laugh. Especially Anziano Hill. There are no words, only that he says whatever comes to his mind whether he has thought about it first or not. But we all get a good kick out of it :) And now I am here writing to all of you. The work's going good and I just gotta say how much more enjoyable missionary work is when you can actually COMMUNICATE with people! It's so great!
Thanks for all your support! Love you all!
BACIONI!
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!
