June 2, 2010 - Verona, Italy

Cara famiglia,

I made a list of stories to tell so that hopefully I don't forget any. This email is going to be a long one, methinketh. Here we go!

Ok, one day this week we had an appointment with a new convert, but she wasn't there. When someone just stands you up like that, it is said that they gave you a bedone (a trash can, basically). So she gave us a bedone (but she's still super awesome). In fact, she was hanging out with another of our investigators, which is kind of funny. So we decided to just do casa in the area, so we walked up the street a ways, picked a palazzo (apartment building) and started suoning the citofono (sort of an Italian-English made up saying that means we rang or sounding or something the intercom thingy). This old man comes out of the palazzo and got really mad at us and started fighting with us. What are you doing? We all belong to that church over there. No one will open up for you. We are all of that other church. No one will open. Go away! Andate via! And my companion, cool as a cucumber, just looks at him and says, thank you, we can still try, and keeps on souning. He wouldn't go away, either. He kept yelling at us for a solid five minutes, and then another old man on a balcony started joining in, and they are yelling at us for trying to talk to the people. They keep saying, what do you want? What are you doing? And my companion kept saying, we are here to talk to the people here about Jesus. And the first one just kept saying, Andate via! Don't you understand what I am saying? And my companion would say, yes, we speak Italian, we understand, but we can still try. And they just wouldn't give up. Someone actually did open up the gate at one point, and right then this other lady walked out onto her balcony, so the old man yelled at her from where we were, was it you? Did you open the gate? and she hastily said no and then hung around to watch. The funny thing is, people always think we are either Catholic nuns (suore) or Testimoni di Geova (Jehovah's Witness). This guy thought we were nuns, he told the other old man on the balcony that these nuns wouldn't go away. And my companion told me later she wished she had said, 'do you frequently yell at nuns, sir?' But eventually we suoned all the people and so we left. It was crazy.

Also, when we do get in the palazzo we knock on all the doors, of course, and for some reason there are a ridiculous amount of men who open the door without pants. We don't understand. The other day, this ragazzo (so, a teenage boy) answered the door, and I couldn't really see, but Sorella Harper tried to give the approach and just started laughing, right in his face, instead. Then he said, 'arrivo subito' (best English equivalent is something like, I'll be right there) and closed the door. Sorella Harper explained to me that he didn't have pants, and then he opens the door again and has on a pair of shorts, but she still couldn't talk to him so I tried to and then we all started laughing and it was just ridiculous. Then again just two-ish days later, another ragazzo opens the door with only some spandex on, and it was so recently after the other that we really did start laughing, again, right there at the door. So in district meeting on Monday we get to ask everyone a question of what we should do with some problem we are having, so we asked the anziani what they think we should do with these men who keep answering the door without pants on and how we can keep from laughing, and their advice was to laugh anyway, and say 'haha, you don't have pants on. Can we come in?' Which apparently works for the anziani, and they have gotten in and taught lessons that way. But Sorella and I just don't really know if that is the best approach for two sisters to take to the situation...

Here in Italy, Testimoni di Geova [Jehovah's Witness] abound. I don't know why, but there are tons of their missionaries, and in fact a lot of people have this stickers by their doorbells that say, 'Testimoni di Geova, non suonate!' Or, Jehovah's Witnesses, don't ring! And people think we are them all the time. It's crazy! Who knew Testimoni di Geova went around so much in Italy. I sure didn't. Italians also have pretty standard ways of answering the door. They walk up to the door, don't open it, and yell, 'chi e?' (who is it?) and we answer. And sometimes they don't understand so we have a bit of a yelling repetitive conversation back and forth through the closed door, and then when they find out who we are and don't want to talk to us, they just say, 'no, no. non c'e nessuno.' or 'no, no. There's no one here.' What? Sorella Harper always looks at me after that and says, “then who are we talking to?” It's kind of funny. They also sometimes open the door, see our nametags, and either just wave their hand in the Italian dismissive gesture and shut the door in our face or just say, 'guarda, non mi interessa' or 'look, I’m not interested' and slam and lock the door in our face. Weird. I am never closing the door on anyone ever when I get back, no matter who they are.

Also, sometimes we get random people who walk up to us on the street or on the bus and tell us they are members of our church, and in this manner we find less actives. Usually it is Africans, mainly from Nigeria, who moved here and just never bothered to find the church building. Most recently we met two African young men on the bus, and so we took their names and numbers and gave them to the Anziani. One of them was named Jared, and the other we simply couldn't understand what he said, so we made him write down his name. I looked at what he wrote, only to discover that his name is Godpower. Literally. No joke. And then we were in a lesson with another investigator, a Nigerian, and she was telling us about how everything is from God, and she said, 'my body was not created by mother power, or by father power. It was God power.' And we had to try really hard not to laugh. We are going to suppose that that is similar to how Godpower got his name.

That's another thing that surprised me a lot about Italy; there are a lot of Africans, mainly Nigerians, and many of them illegal immigrants. They don't normally speak a lot of Italian, but English instead. But I have come to learn that Nigerian English and English English are not the same language. They are very difficult to understand. We usually have to bring one of our Nigerian members to lessons with us to translate from our English to their English or else we just can't communicate! There are also a lot of immigrants from Sri Lanka (mainly I have met them in families), and Ukraine, Russia, and Moldavia, and Romania, and a lot of these last four countries are middle aged women who work as a bedante. A bedante is a person who takes care of someone old and infirm, and lives with them and as their caretaker. There are a lot of old people in Italy, so there are a lot of bedantes. This piece of cultural knowledge will become key in another story I will relate later.

I love how different everyone is here; there is a ton of diversity. I have been thinking a lot this week about how much we in America don't realize, even when we think we do, how much of a Mormon culture we have, and how much that culture really is not the gospel. I remember noticing it in London, but it has become even more apparent here, just how different the culture and the gospel really are. There are people here who are crazy, or weird, or would be total social Mormon outcasts if they lived anywhere in the U.S, especially Utah, but as we get to know them I see their hearts, their devotion to God, and how faithfully they live the gospel. They do not in any way shape or form have to conform to American Mormon culture in order to obey God's laws, and that is all that truly matters! It is really awesome to see such richness brought into the ward here because of the overall lack of that Mormon culture where everyone still lives the gospel. I love it. A lot of people pray very Pentecostalish, for example, especially the Nigerians, and say dramatic things like, 'we pray in the mighty name of Jesus, wash our lives in the blood of Jesus, wash our souls in the blood of Jesus' and stuff like that. It's pretty fun.

The light bulb in our kitchen burned out a few weeks ago. But we keep forgetting to figure out what kind of a light bulb it is, once it gets dark at night we just can't do anything in the kitchen because we can't see! And then just the other day the light in the bathroom burnt out, and we tried this morning to take it out so we can see what kind of light bulb we need to get, but the ceiling is too high and we just couldn't reach it, even when we stood on the washer. So I think our plan is to just live in the dark for now. How silly. We would have bought a new light bulb for the kitchen today, and food because we don't have any more, but alas, turns out to be some sort of holiday. But as missionarie, we don't read news or keep up on current events, so we didn't know it was a holiday until we went and found everything closed! How distressing! So now we are still in the dark. Che triste. And we still have no food.

We taught an investigator and her boyfriend the Restoration this past Thursday. It was such an incredible lesson, and the spirit was so strong. She is from Nigeria, and so is her boyfriend, and she is so amazing, I love her so much. There is definitely a language barrier, but they want so much to understand, and they ask questions, and explain what they are thinking, and we can tell they really understand what we are teaching them. They were pretty blown away by the idea that we have a living prophet on the earth today. She didn't realize that is what we were telling her, but when she did she just said, but I have never heard of this. Who is this prophet? So Sorella Harper pulled out her centerfold from a general conference ensign and showed them the picture of President Monson. We kept talking with her, but her boyfriend wasn't saying much, just staring intently at the picture, so Sorella Harper asked if he wanted to hold it and see it, and he took it and just kept staring at it for the rest of the lesson. He still didn't say much, but he seemed so captured by it, it was really neat. And our investigator was so startled by the idea as well, but the spirit was so strong. We committed them to pray to know if it was true, and she said, you have asked me to pray twice now and each time I forget. Will you call me tonight to remind me to pray before I go to bed?' so we arranged to call her around 10 to remind her. It was so cool that she is taking that commitment to pray so seriously and asking for help to keep it! So we called her and reminded her. We meet with her tomorrow, and I am so excited to hear how it went.

Oh, and another thing about Testimoni di Geova, it seems that a ton of people don't like them. We have a member who lives in a rest home, whom we have been asked by the ward to go visit. The first time we visited her we found that our investigator's uncle is there as well, whom she goes to visit almost daily, and our investigator asked to meet the member at our last meeting. So on Monday when we went we found our investigator and were talking to her for a minute at the rest home, when this random old lady walks up to us and interrupts and says, 'are you Testimoni di Geova?' and my companion says 'no, we are a completely different church' and she says, 'good, because if you were I was going to beat you on the shoulder with my stick. I don't like Testimoni di Geova' and then our investigator, who used to study with the Geova people jumps over and starts defending us like crazy to this old lady and goes off on how we are not like the Testimoni di Geova, that those people are wrong but she has read our books and been to our church and we are nothing like them and we are right. Sometimes we think that our investigator's testimony isn't that our church is true, but that our church is better than the Testimoni di Geova, as she mentions them almost every time we meet with her and how wrong they are and how much more true the Book of Mormon is. Kind of funny. But can you imagine this old infirm Italian lady beating two sister missionaries because she thinks we are Testimoni di Geova?

On Sunday there was this random bike race, Giro d'Italia or something, that was finishing in Verona, so all the busses were running strangely and tons of streets were blocked off. The anziani would have had six investigators in sacrament, but none of them could get there. Even our investigator didn't make it, and we found out later she tried to take the bus but then just started walking, but it was too far and she just couldn't get there. We were trying to go to a sudden appointment the Anziani called us to do (they had an appointment, but when they showed up there was no man in the house, so they couldn't do anything, and called us to rush over there). Normally it would have taken us twenty or twenty-five minutes in bike, but Sunday it took us 45 because of all the streets blocked off. At one point we actually ended up on the track of the bike race, and people were cheering for us riding in our skirts and waving flags for us. That was kind of fun.

Also on Monday, after the nursing home, we went over to an investigator's for an appointment with her. She speaks Nigerian English and we are really not sure how much she understands. So we get there, and she is not there. So we call, and she said she should be back from the supermercato in a few minutes, so we sit down on the stairs to wait. After a few minutes, this creepy, huge, intimidating Nigerian man comes out of the elevator, so we tried not to talk to him because he scared us, but then he found out somehow we were there to see our investigator and he said, 'oh, she is my girlfriend. This is my apartment. Come in and sit down to wait.' So we told him we couldn't, but he kept insisting. We told him we had to wait for our investigator, and he just told us to come in again. We told him we have a rule where we can't go into the house without a woman, and we have to obey God's rules, and he said yes, we must obey God's rules, but come in and sit down to wait. And we said no again, so he starts lecturing us on respect and how we are disrespecting him by not coming into his house. We did not know what to do! But we just didn't get up from the stairs so he finally just swore and went inside and said, “I am leaving the door open, so you can come in if you want to.” It was really awkward. So we sit some more to wait for our investigator, who still isn't there. And the boyfriend keeps coming back to the door to look at us, but in all sorts of different stages of undress because now he is changing clothes. Why he came and checked on us when he had no pants on, I am not sure, but he did. Yet another man who doesn't seem to care if he is half-naked in front of the people he probably thinks are catholic nuns. Then he left. then he came back without a shirt on, with shorts on that weren't actually buckled, and looms over us and asks if we can eat African food, and my companion said yes because he was scary, and he said, “come in and eat. I will make you food.” We said we still couldn't come in, and he said “come in and eat” and we said we still couldn't come in, and he said, “I am making you food” and went back inside. The next time he came out he had finished dressing and brought us a giant plate of African food. Then water. Then oranges. Then bread. The food was disgusting and there was way more than we could eat. So we are contemplating how we are going to handle the situation and had gotten some of the food stuffed in my bag (we have permanently lined it now with paper towels and plastic bags), when he brings his chair out to the stairwell to eat with us. He said, “I am having some problems with my girlfriend” (our investigator) and launches into telling us about how he has a fiancé in Nigeria, or maybe he used to, we couldn't quite tell, and about how he likes white girls better than black girls, white girls like us, and about how everyone here calls him Tyson even though that is not his name and a whole slew of who knows what else, about his brother married to an African American living in the U.S., about his sister who is married to the Nigerian prince who turned out to be his cousin, and he just kept going. We didn't know what to do. We've been there for about an hour at this point, and our investigator still isn't there, and we are stuck in the stairwell eating really gross food with a giant scary crazy creepy African man telling us who knows what. Finally, finally, our investigator comes and she was sort of mad at Tyson, and didn't make us eat the rest of the food, and we went inside, and Tyson made us take down his number and wants us to call him, and then he finally left. We were so bamboozled that we couldn't teach the lesson we had planned and just went over the restoration pamphlet that our investigator hadn't read like she was supposed to, and got out of there as fast as we could. Now we still don't know what to do! We are still supposed to teach our investigator, but we are unanimously agreed we can't see Tyson again, ever. So we don't know what to do! So we ate a gelato and then went to our next appointment and there, that lady tried to feed us too! It was sad, because her food was good, but we were too full to eat any of it! But we had to anyway. Ahh!

Yesterday we called a member here from Brazil, Samuel, to go to an appointment with us with an investigator who is from Brazil and doesn't speak Italian very well so we need help communicating. After I got off the phone with Samuel to arrange the appointment, I said to Sorella Harper, 'at least I have full confidence that Samuel will actually come and not give us any sort of bedante!' Sorella Harper burst out laughing and pulled out her planner to write down what I said, and then explained to me that I said he wasn't going to give us any sort of Moldavian woman who takes care of old people instead of that he wasn't going to give us any sort of trash can. Che buffo!

Um, there is one more story I want to tell. About a woman, a member, the one who lives in the insane asylum. We do these things called power visits with members, where we stop by their house, teach a ten minute spiritually powerful lesson about combining our faith, then pray together to know where the missionaries (us, of course) should go right now to find someone who is waiting for the gospel, then pull out the map and have the family pick somewhere, then we rush off to the place and find someone. So we decided to do a power visit with this member in the asylum. This member is a little crazy, so my companion was a little worried about trying this. Sure enough, after the closing prayer, we asked her where we should go, and she said, 'heaven.' Struggling not to laugh, Sorella Harper said yes, there are people waiting to hear the gospel in heaven, but asked if there was anywhere we could go in Verona, and we pulled out the map. She said she couldn't read it, but we pressed her for a place and finally she just told us her old street, which I think was just the only street she could think of. So we left to head over there, but the thing is that we have done casa there and the anziani have recently and we actually already have an investigator there, but we tried to just have faith that God can work through anyone, even this sister. We got there and the very first door we knocked on, we found a man who is from Verona but works in Romania and is not often at home. He was very interested and we taught him a lesson, and then we went back again yesterday and brought him a Book of Mormon. How miraculous is that? God knew that no one was going to do that street again right now because it has been done so recently, but this man was not there then and won't be there again soon (he is sick right now and that is why he is at home this week), and it happens to be the only street name the sister in the asylum knows, the only one she could have given us. God really does use mysterious, and small and simple means to accomplish his purpose, even through all the crazy stuff that happens here!

Love,
Sorella Langham