So how's it all goin' in good ol' Utah? Hope it's swell. Lovin' Catania and my awesome companion! Really, I know I ranted about her the last time, but we really are the same person. I found out her favorite book is Jane Eyre (mine too), and when we were in a lesson the other day I asked her to share a verse from the Book of Mormon and she chose her favorite verse, 2 Nephi 22:2. Yeah, that's my favorite too. It's kinda freaky. We're pretty sure we knew each other before this life. The only difference is she spends $800 on shoes that she never wears. But I still love her :D
So Tuesday, because I ran out of time and didn't do it last week. So in the morning when we woke up we woke up to power out in the whole building. That was fun. I couldn't see anything so I got to do personal study in my bed where there was a window. Nice! Then me and Sorella Smedley went with the Anziani to go visit Ike and Prudence where we watched "For this End was I Born" which is about Christ's life. The whole time Ike was fixated on the fact that Pontius Pilot washed his hands. Haha, but they really liked the film. As we were driving back we took another road instead of the free way and we drove through this little town called AciCastello. I had heard it was beautiful and we needed to go, especially since it is only a half hour walk from our house. But we have never gone. Well as we were driving we kept seeing the coast where there are these awesome little islands and one has a castle on it. We had to stop and take pictures. I even did a video. You'll all see it when I get back. It was a little stormy so the waves were coming up and we got a lot of salt water in our faces. But I loved it! We then wanted to go see Samuel and Rose and their new baby in the hospital at 3.00 when visiting hours began but by the time we got back from Ike and Prudence it was already after one. So we grabbed pasta and sauce from our apartment and went to the church and made lunch with the Anziani. So we made a kilo of pasta, that's a lot. And then we put 4 mozzarella balls cut up in it and I ate one bowl and the rest all ate 3! I thought, "holy cow Sorella!? How do you do it?!" She's tiny by the way and I keep telling her she will gain weight but she says I can't jynx her. Oh well . . . we'll see. Then we went to the hospital and my goodness! That baby was SO cute! His name is Israel and he ways 4 kili . . . I think it's almost 9 pounds our something. But he was a big kid. Not so much a chunker, but just big. His fingers, toes, and body were super long. But he was born happy and healthy. Sorella Smedley was freaking out though at the state of the hospital. She was a CNA before her mission and when I told her that that hospital was the cleanest I had been in my whole mission she had a heart attack. I just had to tell her not to get sick. We then got dropped off at Kristiana's house. We had planned to do the cups to re-teach her the restoration, but our plans changed. I started by saying we were going to talk about Jesus Christ and so I asked her who He was. She gave the classic answers of "Savior" "Son of God" . . . so I asked WHO He was to her. She still didn't change her answers and kept saying "Boh, what do I know?" So I changed my mind and we watched the same film we had seen that morning. Her mom even watched it with us because it does not really talk much. At the end we asked her again and though you could see her vision had changed a little bit on who Christ is, she still couldn't answer and didn't know if she could have a relationship with Him. I was a little frustrated because she also was not trying very hard to figure it out. Her attitude has not been the best the last couple of days and I hope it changes soon. I just love her so much, literally like my little sister, and I wish she could see what we are trying to give her! That rest of the day didn't go that great either. We had an appointment after church with Angelo . . . yeah. I'm sure you can all see right about where my thoughts are going. We had planned to watch the same film AGAIN several days before so we followed through with that plan. He had been the reason we had had the DVD for the other 2 lessons where we had watched it. So we started the film and there was a little green symbol in the corner of the screen saying that it was AV2. He kept bringing up the different menus on the screen to try and get rid of it. Finally I paused the movie and asked what was bothering him because I had not personally even seen the symbol. He said it bothered him and he kept fiddling with it until he saw we were waiting to watch the movie until he was ready. He then stopped and I started the movie. We watched it for a bit until he started fiddling with the remotes again and I immediately stopped the movie, watched him and waiting. After a couple of minutes I asked "Are you done yet?" Again he set the remotes down and I started the movie. Yeah . . . can you see where this lesson is going? You just wait. So at the end of the movie I asked what he thought about it. I was hoping to draw out some sort of emotion because he is so logical all the time. But the only thing he says is "The church made a mistake with the ending." What? So I told him even if they did it did not matter and that he had missed the whole point of the film. He then told me "What do you mean it doesn't matter? This is supposed to portray the life of the Lord!" So I calmly . . . ? Explained that he had missed the entire point of the film and that the church did not make a mistake they had just shown clips of his life, not the whole story. He knew at that point that I was frustrated and he used that against me and got more of an attitude. He then asked me a question about the part where Christ goes to the Spirit World to free the souls from prison and as I tried to answer the question he corrected my Italian with his little smirk as if to say "I know you are mad, I think it is funny, and you just messed up. Neener neener." Don't worry, I don't lose my temper with Angelo, I just do not put up with his disrespect towards me and the church. So when he corrected me I told him I did not care if I spoke proper Italian and that he shouldn't correct me. He said "But Sorella, the only way you can improve is if someone like me corrects you." Still with that same smirk. I then said "This is not English course. This is not Italian course. I do not CARE if I speak perfect Italian and neither does God. All he cares about is whether or not we can bring the spirit into a lesson to help others come unto His Son, Jesus Christ. You have missed the entire point of what we were trying to share with you and that spirit is no longer here with us. I have nothing more to say to you Angelo. Let's just say the prayer." Also in the middle of that Anziano Andersen opened the door to ask if I had a white board marker. Haha, poor guy. He saw it was not the right time, especially when I just shook my head and signaled for him to shut the door. So in the end, we decided to not see Angelo for the rest of the week. Sigh. I am sorry. I am done ranting. He mainly just frustrates me because he has so much knowledge about the gospel and I want him to move past just knowledge and have the gift of the Holy Ghost. But he isn't progressing anymore, at least not spiritually and I don't know what to do with him anymore . . . I am happy to report that English course went better. Angelo was there and he knew I was not having the friendliest feelings towards him so during the lesson he walked on glass around me with everything he said and did. We talked with the students about what they had done that last week to give them more range to share something interesting. Then at the end I thought of singing a hymn as the spiritual thought. So Sorella Smedley chose "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" and we sang it while everyone else followed along. We then talked about the words for a minute before we closed the lesson with a prayer.
Wednesday we went to the church where we wanted to meet up with the Anaziani so we could all go into centro together. We ended up not getting to centro until 1.00 so the market was clo9sed. We then ate lunch with Franchy in the Piazza where there is the Joseph Smith statue (at least that is what we call it). Then we did internet and then Sorella Smedley and I went on our hunt to find our comp item. We had decided the night before that we would get stuffed animals as comp items after I had seen Anziano Pedula with his "Ciciolino" which is a little hedgehog. So we went searching everywhere and finally we came back to the only store we had seen the whole time that had stuffed animals. I got a little owl and she got a giraffe (our favorite animals). We then went back to the internet point where the Anziani were so that we could all get a ride to our appointments. They tried to help give our stuffed animals names, but I ended up choosing one later that night on my own. My owl's name is Chanchio :) I like him :) We then got a ride to our house where Sorella Smedley and I walked to our appointment with Sorella Sciacca. I had to use the bathroom so Sorella Sciacca found out quickly that Sorella Smedley is new and so is her Italian. When I got back she asked me a question and I had to think about my answer so I didn't answer immediately and so she got nervous and quickly asked "which one of you speaks Italian best?" I think it stressed her out to think she had two greenies in her house where she couldn't communicate with either one haha. But I assured her I could speak and she felt better. She also had made us home made hot chocolate and cookies which were delicious. We learned more about her and how long she has known the church . . . then we shared the article from President Faust about the girls choir in Japan after the bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She really liked the story and we talked about it a bit. We got back home and after planning we did Baci Stories! They are the greatest things ever! Sorella Smedley shared a fantastic story of my future . . . again, I will explain these Baci Stories at some future time.
Thursday we did finding all morning a half hour's walk from our house. At one of them we rang the door and the man came out to his window. He said we could sing for him but he couldn't let us in because his house was messy. So we sang from the side walk where everyone could hear. But all right, they can all feel the spirit too. He really liked the song and let us leave a pass along card in his mail box. But as we turned around there were two women right behind us in skirts. Jehovah's Witnesses. They pleasantly greeted us and asked if we were doing house. We said yes and we explained that we are missionaries for 18 months. One of them tried to tell me that we need to be missionaries our whole life. I agreed full heartedly with her and said that she was exactly right, but that these 18 months were special where we did nothing BUT preach the gospel. I have found just agreeing with them goes so much better. I have been with a companion or two that argue with them and we end up being in the same spot talking about God's name for a half hour. No thanks. So that was Sorella Smedley's first encounter with them. Hope it was a good one! After that we made it home and we were supposed to eat lunch with Franchy in church but I realized we did not have keys to the church because the other Sorelle had taken them. Instead she came and we ate lunch on the ground floor of our apartment building where we usually eat pizza with the Anziani. We ate rolls, cheese, orange salad, and baci! Then we shared a Visiting Teaching message with her about understanding and living the gospel. We then had an appointment with Massimo DeCervo (our new investigator) at five so we left and were really excited for that. We met him in the Piazza right by our house and he bought us seltzer and lemon (a specialty here I guess) before we sat down. He explained a little bit about what he had read and that he had just barely started 1 Nephi after having read the introduction and the testimonies of the witnesses. He was really open about saying the prayer and the beginning and then we started explaining the Restoration. Sorella Smedley did awesome! She explained the whole Restoration. I had to interject every once in a while to clarify a few things, but she did awesome! And then she invited him to be baptized at the end. He didn't say yes, but he did say he had to study more and pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. But he also didn't say no. He also asked me four or five more times if 448 was the right bus to take to church and I even drew him a little map of how to get there from the bus stop. Sorella Smedley then explained the different meetings we have during church and he really wants to come. After we left I had to stop at a bar to use the bathroom and when I came out I saw that Sorella Smedley had ordered a coke for her self and a water for me. I honestly don't even feel like I am training. She is way braver than I ever was. As we then walked home from there and did street as we walked. One guy we stopped was really cool. His name was Giuseppe and he really wanted to come to church and asked us all of the right questions. I liked him because he was very direct and straight to the point without wasting time. He was disappointed when he learned that we only had church Sunday morning thought because he has work and can't come. But we expect miracles and who knows?! Sorella Smedley even had her first cannolo and she loved it. She said it changed her life. They are pretty sweet though. We tried Kristiana and a few other people but they weren't home. So we skedadled on home and did our extra hour of study that we hadn't done that morning.
Friday we went to go see Ike and Prudence with the Anziani and Fratello Mazzarella. The lesson went pretty well. We talked about the Law of Chastity and the temple. Fratello Mazzarella also shared some really good things that brought in the spirit. He served his mission a few years ago in Maryland so he speaks English. We had to be a little hard on Prudence though because her husband is making progress and reading and feels great about the church but she has a lot more doubts than him. We brought up the fact that it is because she hasn't been reading and praying specifically. I think she understood at the end and I really think she'll do it. We went home after that, ate, and took a wee nap before we left to go see Kristiana. We shared the same story about the girl's choir after the bombing in Japan and talked about it a bit. Kristiana was the same she has been the last couple of visits but her uncle and brother (Klissman, who just got back from Albania!) were very attentive and listened to everything. Kristiana ended up telling me that her grandmother had said "Are they catholic" "no" "Well if they aren't christian, you should never even talk to them!" all in regards to us. I then asked her, "Kristiana, are we christian?" She looked at me with this strange look and then shook her head. I thought what!? Are you serious? Her brother cut in and said "Of course they are Kristiana. What are you thinking?" But she got confused and said "But you aren't catholic". Yeah, that's one thing that many people are confused upon because the catholic church leads them to believe that. If we aren't catholic we aren't christian. So I showed her my name tag and said, "Kristiana, the name of the church is 'The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints." I still don't think she got it. But then her uncle and brother started asking questions about the church so we taught the whole Restoration. As we got to Joseph Smith and we said the First Vision, her uncle, Dritan, stopped and said "like that movie I saw? Where the boy prayed?" We had left the film with them a couple of months ago but we hadn't thought they had seen it. Klisman than said "Yeah, when our uncle watched it, he cried." I thought, seriously?! The spirit was really strong and their eyes were glued on us the whole time we talked. When we explained the Book of Mormon and I gave him a copy to look at Kristiana went and took the two they already had. Dritan looked up and said "You mean we have had this book here the whole time?!" I thought, duh. But he took it and I told him he could have it as a personal copy. He was already opening it up and flipping through it. I am almost positive he will actually read it. He also wants to come to church Sunday! I hope he does!
Saturday we wanted to do weekly planning but we were both feeling pretty sick so we went back to bed for an hour before the Anziani came to get us to go to correlation at the Mirabella's house. That went well and then we ate lunch with them after. Poor Sorella Smedley. It was her first meal appointment and I am pretty sure she thought she was going to die. The thing is, that meal was not even that bad. She will have a hard time if she doesn't get used to it haha. After we ate we left to go and see Kristiana, which ended up being Dritan and Klisman. Kristiana was only in the room for about 5 minutes total. I think she got a little jealous though because in the past we were always there for her, but this time it didn't even phase us that she wouldn't sit down. We taught the other two the Plan of Salvation and again, their eyes were glued the whole time. They really liked it and said they believe it's true. Dritan also read a bit of the Book of Mormon, at least the introduction and the testimonies. Yes! I think he has a hard time reading it though, so the fact that he read it at all is good for me! We went past Sorella Maiori afterward but she couldn't see us. So we then went home to finish planning.
Sunday we left early to go pick up Kristiana, Dritan, and Klisman. Dritan was ready when we got there and Klisman got up to get ready really fast because he wanted to come too. Kristiana was sleeping and woke up and said she didn't want to come but would come the next week. In the end Klisman couldn't come either because his dad needed him at work. So then us three walked through the pouring rain to the church. I think Dritan felt bad that we had come all the way just to walk to church with him because we were all soaked by the time we got there. But no worries. Also the first person I saw when we got to church was MASSIMO! He had a huge smile and said "I woke up thinking that if I could find this church in this rain it will be a sign from God. I got here early. It's a sign." Sweet! Angelo was there too but I think he felt a little put out after our last lesson and that we hadn't called him all week. But as Sorella Smedley said "He'll live." Massimo could only stay for sacrament meeting, but wants to see us this next week. Dritan stayed for all three meetings and really liked it and wants to come all the time now. Angelo stayed again for Sigonella. I was freezing the whole time though because me boots were soaked through so I took them off and walked around in wet socks the whole time. All of the little Italian ladies were freaking out and were worried sick about me. I got covered up in coats all during relief Society :) I love them! I even led the music for Sigonella without my shoes on. Sister Bay also brought me cinnamon candy! She is so awesome! Oh, and Carol came. It had been weeks since we had seen her last. After church we had a great lesson with Carol. I seriously love her and of everyone I have met in my mission, or even in my entire life, she is the most prepared of any of them. Really. She just needs to see how strong she really is. I am also glad she is American so we can see each other when she is done with her deployment :) Bobbi also gave us all a ride home where we were able to finally break our fast with rice and a wonderful creation that changed Sorella Smedley's world again. It is a peanut butter and jelly quesadilla. But right as we finished eating the Anziani called us and asked us to go to a dinner appointment with them at the Rochira family. Haha, poor Sorella Smedley. She died a little inside at the idea of eating more. But it wasn't that bad. Also Sorella Rochira knows that I don't like meat so she always makes me specially cooked vegetables. She's great. Oh! And Anziano Catalano, who just finished his mission last week, but in church and at dinner. He is from Palermo and initially started his mission in the Rome mission but after the missions were combined he served in the same mission where he lives. He was also an ex companion of Anziano Andersen so they had a fun reunion. Also, Luciano, the Rochira's son, told me I was fat, asked me if I had gained weight, and said I had a problem area and pinched my tummy. He said I had to lose weight. I told him he did too. He agreed and said that he eats too much so now none of his pants fit him and he has to buy new ones :) He's stinkin' cute. But when I told Fratello Rochira what Luciano had told me, he about died of embarrassment. Haha. No worries though.
Monday morning we had district meeting and I had the training. I did it on being efficient in our work through following the spirit. We then went to another lunch appointment with Giovanni because it was Luisa's birthday. Luisa is the girlfriend of his roommate, Alfredo. I made lemon bars to make up for the fact that there were six of us instead of just four. I don't think Giovanni minded. We also got some pretty great videos of him because he was off the wall crazy. But that is no different than how he normally is. We ate tortellini with pesto and panna and then we had rotisserie chicken. He gave me a chicken wing and I snapped the joint in half as I tried to eat it. It freaked me out a little bit and then Anziano Marengo started whispering to me that I was eating Chanchio, my stuffed owl that I always keep in my purse. Jerk haha. We then ate birthday cake and lemon bars. We wanted to watch The Testaments together but then Luisa got really mad at Alfredo so we decided it was best to go. We got a ride from the Anziani to our appointment on the other side of the city where we all got dropped off. Sorella Smedley and I went to go visit Sorella Contandino. She is a cute little lady that lives by herself ever since her husband died two years before. She gave us ice cream, poor Sorella Smedley, and then Sorella Smedley shared her favorite scripture (and mine), 2 Nephi 22:2. We ended up talking about Sorella Contandino's fear of speaking in front of people so we had a nice little chat with her about that, since that has and still is a fear of mine. It's basically been the bane of my mission existence, but has gotten a lot better. I hope she felt better after our talk because she really wants to share her testimony in sacrament meeting but is always too afraid. We then had to leave to a dinner appointment with the Castagna family. Poor Sorella Smedley. I really think she is going to die with all this food. Me and her played a game created by their little daughter, Aurora, who is five years old. I kept losing even though I followed her directions exactly. I am pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that she creates and deletes the rules when she feels like it. We then all at home made pizza and it was pretty good, and mom, yours is more or less as good as there's! So good job! You compete with Sicilians and their pizza! The appointment ended up going long so the Anziani had to come get us . . . I know, we are just always with them. They also had to leave their house to come get us. But to our credit, it was only 9.00. They also had a hard time finding us and had to call us 3 or 4 times. But all ended well.
And again I write way too much so I cannot finish now. Hope all goes well at home and that you all know you are in my prayers! Love you all SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!
Muah!
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!
