There are not even quite words for everything (because it covers the whole spectrum) so we will make due with my half English and half Italian skills.
After I wrote last week we were still completely soaked and because we just have such awesome luck with buses it took us 2 hours to get home. We were freezing so we decided to call the numbers in our phone address book that neither of us know. It ended up working really well and we set up some appointments with some of the people we called. After that we had to go to the church for an appointment with Angelo. We taught him about the temple and we brought the special edition of the Liahona on the temple with us. He really liked it, especially since he has had a lot of interest these days in eternal marriage. We then explained a little bit about the Law of Chastity. Unfortunately we ran out of time so we had to just leave the pamphlet with him and we told him to read it. Because he is an eternal student we have no fear that he actually will read it and strive to comprehend everything inside.
Thursday we went to Librino with the Anziani. This is a zone that is basically owned by the Mafia and is not very safe so we (as sorelle) cannot go there without the Anziani. But we have a couple of members that live there and we had made appointments with them. One is the family Smedila. The wife is in her early forties and is 5 months pregnant and on bed rest until she delivers. She is going out of her mind with boredom so we went to go visit her. She is so funny. She talked all about her mission and why she has chosen strange names for all of her children. They all come from Greek mythology and yes, they are strange haha. Her eldest daughter is named Egla and then she has twin girls named Phoebe (in Italian it's febe) and Daphne (the same in italian). But everyone always asks her why she has named her children that because here in Italy a child cannot be baptized into the Catholic church unless they have been given a name of one of the saints. She then shares with them that she is not catholic so there is no problem. But because we were there talking for so long we were really late for another appointment with Sorella Calogero. She has had a tough life and therefore does not trust people. So when we showed up 45 minutes late and she found out the other two Sorelle left without saying goodbye . . . she was not very happy and . . . yeah. I won't get into details. I just felt really bad because the last time we went to see her she was really warm towards us and I liked her a lot. I hope maybe we can go again soon so we can repair what we did. Vediam. After those appointments we went to have lunch with Sorella Seminara. She is so cute and made us pasta al forno. It was way good and we ate a ton of it. We then went to a couple of other appointments with investigators who were not home . . . yeah I know. Missionary work. We then ended up walking to the other side of the city to see an inactive member named Sorella Carubba. She was so nice and was really excited to see us. She has not been to church for years because she said her leg gives her too much pain and she is the only member of her family and does not have a car. The Sorelle missionarie have not been to see her in 3 or 4 years. We shared a short message with her and met her husband (who was also really nice) and then walked all the way home. Fun fun! But nothing in comparison to the next day!
Friday morning we skipped studies so that we could see another less active, named Sorella Casella, before we had to catch our train at 3.30 to go to Mistretta. The whole morning went perfect. We even arrived at the appointment a half hour early and she said it was also perfect because she had just remembered she needed to go pick up medication for her son and she had been afraid she would have to tell us no. But we had just enough time to get to know her and her situation before we both had to leave. Turns out she has only been a member for 5 years, 2 of which she has not come to church because her son (who is 50) has a disease of the muscles and cannot be left alone because he falls and hurts himself. She can only leave for 30 minutes at a time and the church is much farther than that, especially without a car. We will have to see what we can do for her. After we met with her we walked to Lidia's house. We had hoped the appointment would only take a half hour so that we could make it home and have time to get to the station. But no. When do things every work out the way we want? The lesson was an hour and a half so we did not leave until 12.00. We then BARELY missed our bus to go home and decided to take a chance and take another bus that was going towards centro. Wrong. That bus ended up going outside of Catania for 20 minutes and then stopped at the end of the line and said it would not leave again for an hour. So pretty much we had taken the WORST bus we could have taken. It was almost 1.00 and we still had to go all the way home to grab our stuff and get to the station by 3.00. Oh goodness. We got a little nervous there. But luckily another bus came that was heading back to Catania. Because I was preoccupied with the situation and I was not in the mood to talk to people on the bus, I didn't. Even though there was this nagging little voice in the back of my head to do it, I didn't. So this bus we had taken took us to the station and we were going to stay on it for longer but then I saw the bus we wanted. We got off the bus and got on the other. But then we realized that the bus we had just taken was going in the OPPOSITE direction. So we had to get off at the next stop, then walk all the way BACK to the station where there was no bus. So then we started walking home because we had no other choice. And at this point we really were in danger of missing our train so again I did not stop anyone on the street. But while that nagging little voice was in the back of my head and I ignored it our bus magically passed by us and left us in the dust. I was getting REALLY frustrated at this point and kept saying in English "I hate my life." I thought maybe Sorella Giordano wouldn't have understood but she did. Finally I snapped and gave in to that little voice in my head and started talking to random people on the street. Sure hardly anyone listened but a miracle happened! As we kept walking down the street in the general direction of our house (about 45 minutes away on foot still) we made it to a bus stop and I turned around for no apparent reason and THERE was our bus! Hallelujah! We took it and made it home and had 15 minutes to grab our stuff before the bus returned. We made that bus and then caught the NEXT bus we needed to make it to the station immediately after we got off the first one. Everything was perfect! We got to the station at 2.30 where we bought our tickets and then went to buy lunch because we still had not eaten. We made it to our train where we did weekly planning and then person and companion study (because the trip took 5 hours) and made it safe and sound to Santo Stefano di Camasta where the Sorelle from Mistretta picked us up in the car to take us 30 minutes up the mountain to Mistretta. You could say we were a bit . . . destroyed at this point and we died on our mattresses on the floor and slept through the alarm the next morning. Luckily the other Sorelle woke us up 5 minutes after so that we were not breaking too many rules.
The next morning we woke up to a really cold room. I have been in Catania where it averages 60 degrees at this time of year and I thought I was cold. Wow, Mistretta reminded me of Utah! We woke up and after getting ready for the day we went to go see the members of Mistretta (all 5 of them) because Sorella Giordano served there last transfer. Wow. Mistretta is EXACTLY what you picture Sicily to be. Exactly. So after our little stroll we came back home and slept for 2 hours because we were still dead. The other Sorelle, Sorella Tinoco and Sorella Johnson, came back from doing work that morning and made us lunch. We then took the pituresque little streets up to the old castel on this hill. We took lots of fun pictures but again I forgot my memory card so you will just have to imagine it all. At the top in the center of where the castle was is now a giant figure of the Madonna (Mary). We were up there for a little bit until we got a phone call from ANTONIO. He is famous to the Sorelle because he just adores the sister missionaries. And not in a creepy way. Literally he thinks the ground we walk on is paved in pure gold. He has been a member for 20 years and is just wonderful. I have heard just about everything about him starting back in my first transfer with Sorella Pickett because Mistretta was her very first city. I was so excited to meet him and I was not let down. He bought us ice cream and then we went to his house to visit his mom and sister. He talked to me a lot and he wants to meet Dad because he has red hair. For a visual, we saw a picture of Antonio at his baptism and he looked like carrot top (fro and everything). I joked with him and told him my Dad tried to dye his hair when he was younger and that he also once said "If I had a dollar for every freckle on my body I would be the richest man in the world." Now he wants to meet you Dad, and he told me to tell you "Hi!" And Sorella Pickett, if you are reading this or if my dear sister Melissa wants to tell you, Antonio is mad at you because you have no written to him. He felt better when I told him you have not written me either, but you should really write to him haha. After that we bought a pizza and then we went to bed.
Sunday was stake conference in Palermo so we left at 8.00 to drive 2 hours. And for the first time in ages there was SUNSHINE! I was so excited because the day was absolutely beautiful. And Mistretta is up on the mountain and as you look down you just see the ocean. It's so cool! We also drove past Cefalù (a site a lot of tourists go to see) and we drove through a bazillion tunnels because of the mountains. But it was nice once we got out of the car at Palermo because it was warm. I had become accustomed to Mistretta and it was nice to get out of the car and not need my jacket. We also got to see all of the missionaries in Sicily! I just love them all! We also got to see President and Sorella Kelly :D They are both wonderful too :) La conferenza era bella anchè. We had a one of the Seventy there named Elder Raina. Anziano Marengo, one of the Anziani that serve here in Catania, translated the entire 50 minute talk from Spanish into Italian. Poor guy. By the end he was getting confused between the two. But the spirit was really strong and I enjoyed it a lot. We then took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride back to Catania. We went to go see Sorella Maiori when we got home and talked about the conference because she did not go. Then we went to go see our investigator Agata. She has really warmed up to us a lot. This time we brought a Book of Mormon with a dedica written inside and we explained the story of where it came from and the significance. She really seemed to like it and for the first time she specifically asked us when we were coming again. We will just have to go more often!
Monday we went to have a lesson with Melina. We figured, oh it won't rain this morning . . . yeah right. About five minutes after we walked out our door and started to poured. I arrived with my hair plastered to my head and Melina was too funny. She told us we were dumb for leaving our house in that weather and she pulled out her hair dryer and dried my whole head for me. And during the process she kept kissing my cheek and telling me I was crazy haha. Then she made Sorella Giordano sit in the chair so she could dry her sweater for her. I just love Melina! And she read! The whole chapter of 3 Nephi 11 and she summarized it for us. We talked a little bit about baptism and the Holy Ghost as it explains in that chapter and it made sense to her. Her problem is she believes what we say but she still has not made the connection in her head that if the church is true, it means that the Catholic church is missing some parts. But she adores us and is reading. Now we just have to get here in church. Then we had district meeting. We walked to the church and when we entered we noticed something was a little bit off. One of the paintings was off the wall and leaning up against the floor. A few others were missing, the piano from the chapel was in the hallway in the back of the church, the computer from the office was missing, and the whiteboard from the Relief Society room. We learned from the Anziani when they got there that it had been that way last night so they had called Bishop Virgillito and he did not know anything about it so they called Maurizio Aci (the building coordinator) and neither did he. Turns out someone had stolen all of that stuff. Strange I know. We did not get to finish district meeting either because Fratello Aci had to run a test with the electricity in the building so we had to cut our meeting short and go home. We grabbed some food from McDonald's and ate with the Anziani in our stairwell as we often do. That afternoon we had planned to go visit Lia (a new convert who is moving to Palermo) and drop some brownies off at the family Castagnia that live by her and then do finding in a street by their house. We stopped by the family Castagnia first and man, they like to talk! I love them to death, they are so great and I did not really know them that well until that night. But the problem is we had to travel for almost two hours to get to that zone and then they took so much time that we did not have time to even see Lia. Both Sorella Giordano and I felt like it was good though and that that was exactly where we were supposed to be. Hopefully we met some sort of need for them . . . boh! Chi sa?!
Tuesday we went to go visit Lidia in the morning. She has a lot of problems, especially with money. Basically she goes days without eating. It breaks my heart! Luckily I was struck with something I could do to help her. We also talked with her about the Sabbath and paying fast offerings. It was a good repass for her and I think she understood the reasons for the Sabbath better. She keeps the Sabbath but I don't think she really understood why. But then again, I don't think a lot of us really understand either. After the lesson with Lidia we met up with Grazia at Piazza Palestro. She is from the Dominican Republic and has a lot of problems at home as well and we found out even more that day when we visited with her. She cannot see out of her eye, has been going to the hospital several days a week for several months now and her husband was just put into prison for 2 years. She had not read from the Book of Mormon yet but she promised us that she would this time. She is super sweet and just smiles when we talk about the gospel. Her husband had been an obstacle for us because we were not welcome in the house but now that he is gone she said we can organize a lesson at her home. That afternoon we tried to see Giovanna and Christiana but neither one were at home. So we then went to the church to have a lesson with Franchy. We talked about Stake Conference and our favorite parts and then she gave us back rubs :) they were greatly needed, even if I am a little sore now. She does them for work so it was a good professional massage! An hour before English course Angelo came and we talked with him about the conference as well because he was unable to come and then we answered his question about how God measures who has had the opportunity to accept the gospel or not. Scriptures say that earthly life is to help us prepare to meet God, if that is true, why do we still have an opportunity in the spirit world? We explained that we still keep all of our earthly experiences, it does not negate anything. In fact, when we die we are the same person and it is a lot more difficult to change without a body. But for those who were good people who just never had the opportunity to know the truth will have that chance after this life. I hope it made sense to him. We then had English course. It was great. At the end I gave the next part of the Plan of Salvation, the Atonement. I asked them all "Who is Jesus Christ?" They gave me all the usual answers. Then I asked if they KNEW him. In Italian there are two different kinds of "know". One is "sapere" which is to know a fact, or information. The other is "conoscere" which is to be familiar with a person or place. So I directly asked them if they knew-conoscere Jesus Christ. Then we talked about the fact that we each really do have the opportunity to know him as a brother and friend thanks to the Atonement and that he knows each of us perfectly. It was good :) they were all very attentive and listened really well with their eyes wide and half smiles on their faces. It's always fun to watch people feel the spirit who are not very familiar with it :) they are never quite sure what to do with themselves haha. After English course we went to go see Agata who we had told we would come Tuesday night but unfortunately she was not there :( Oh well, we will catch her next time!
This morning I made cinnamon rolls but we did not have cream cheese or powdered sugar, so I used butter and hot chocolate powder for the frosting haha. The Anziani and my companion did not seem to mind :) We then cleaned the whole house, the anziani brought us a desk from Franchy (our little member friend who loves to give us stuff) and then we went to eat lunch with an investigator named Giovanni. He had a bunch of friends over and we all ate south American food that Anziano Marengo cooked for us. It was super good and we all were entertained as Giovanni played with a 9 year old haha. Now I am here writing to you all!
The work goes on!
Vi Amo Tantissimo!
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!
