Hello family and friends!
To first and foremost put your minds at ease, I have not only survived another week on the bike, but even gotten better at it! I can start better at lights now; my legs are stronger so it is easier to keep up with my companion. I haven't fallen even once this week, so no need to worry about me!
Ok, so one day this week we went and ate lunch with a member here who is awesome. She has a three-year-old daughter who loves to 'do our hair', which means she climbs all over us and we try not to let her sit on our lap because that is against the rules and she messes up our hair. It's pretty funny.
This week our apartment was kind of crazy. Fratello Gozzi, from one of the wards here in Verona, really wanted to paint our apartment as a service project, so we let them come and paint, so things were totally disarranged and beserk for two-ish days while a couple of the brothers in the ward were over painting, and there was a lot of white dust stuff all over the floor afterwards. But the walls really do look super nice. Then on Sunday night (but we didn't realize it until Monday) our water heater stopped working. There is a flame inside it, and apparently the flame had gone out, but vescovo (bishop) came over after the ward Family Home Evening (FHE) on Monday night and tried to start it up, and couldn't. So Tuesday morning we had to take freezing cold showers. It was unavoidable. A bird had pooped on my hair the previous day and a shower could simply not be skipped, no matter how cold it was. And it was cold, really cold, and painful. But pretty funny. So Fratello Gozzi came over that morning and just got it started right back up and now it is working again. Today we got to take a nice warm shower and it was amazing!
On Monday night there was a ward FHE thing about developing talents. We had invited one of our investigators to go with us, so we went, but then she forgot and couldn't come, but that's ok. The FHE was still super amazing and way fun, a great ending to a kind of tough day (we did casa all day -knocking on doors- but never got in and lots of appointments fell through and it was just super lame). A few ward members did little musical performances, on the piano, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar, and then we played this game where we had to alphabetize ourselves by first name, and then by what time we got up this morning (that was amazing, the earliest was 4:30 am and the latest 7:30, apparently Italians are really early risers. Any group of people that organizes themselves by what time they got up and the missionaries are in the middle of the pack and not the earliest risers is amazing to me.) Then we played the game where someone stands in the middle and says some characteristic, like everyone with blonde hair, and everyone with blonde hair has to run around and switch seats and whoever is left in the middle says another thing. But of course the game is in Italian, which was so fun and so tricky and somehow I ended up in the middle like three times! The first time the man in charge, fratello avesani, knew I felt stuck. I didn't know how to say or what to say, so he walks up and whispers in my ear and I just repeated what he said; I hadn't had any examples first because I was somehow the first person in the middle. 'Si alzano in piedi se avete i capelli biondi' or something like that. It was so much fun, and I loved being with the ward members. It was super rejuvenating to see all these wonderful Italians striving to have good fun and follow the Lord. I really love the members here.
One of our investigators we see every Saturday morning. She is really cool and has a super strong testimony that the Book of Mormon is true; every time we are over there she tells us how it is so true, it's really cool to hear her. So on Saturday we had a lesson and we had planned to invite her to be baptized. So we taught her about the 10 commandments, and then invited her to be baptized, and it was a really neat and interesting experience. She asked if she could think about, said some things about 'normal' church (that's what she calls the Catholic Church), like if she could still go to normal church. It was really illuminating in helping us realize what she understands and doesn't and what she needs to learn. But both of us knew we needed to say something more, and a scripture Sister Costely and Sister Shuel and I had found in the MTC popped into my head, so I read it with her and talked about it, bore testimony of how baptism that we offer is a covenant with God through which he helps us in this life, that it is the way God wants us to go, and we asked her to pray about it and see if that was what God wanted for her. She said she would, so I am excited to see her again on Saturday. Then on Sunday she came to church! She really enjoyed Sacrament meeting (this is the second time she has come to church, I believe), and told us all about how she feels so great when she is there at church. I feel like we have learned a lot this weekend about her spiritual needs and know a little better what she needs from us. She is really awesome, I really love her.
On Sunday we also went to visit a member in our ward who is ill or something, no one is really sure what is wrong. But she is in the hospital-ish place, but turns out it is more like an insane asylum. So we get there and are waiting to be taken up to her room, and this lady comes up and starts rubbing my arms and mumbling (in Italian, of course, which only made it harder), and I have absolutely no idea what she is saying. Plus she is whispering for no reason. It was super awkward. Sorella Harper was standing off to the side, and it was just so funny and horrible all at once that she started laughing. Then I started sort of laughing, but trying so hard not to because the lady is talking to me, but then the lady sort of laughed, and so Sister Harper and I are losing it trying not to laugh, but the lady really has no grasp on reality or any clue what she is saying or what we are saying, and we felt like really horrible people. It was a strange experience. We had a few other run-ins while there. I don't understand why the member is there or what exactly that place is for, because she is not insane. We can't figure it out.
One thing we are trying to do better at is finding, and so whenever we are on the bus we try to talk to people. I really like talking to people on the bus. A few days ago, for example, I started talking to this one lady and found out about her kids and grandkids, and then was telling her about eternal families and the restoration, when the lady across jumps into the conversation as well, and then another lady standing next to me joins in too. So I end up feeling like I am on speaker's corner preaching to several people on a moving bus at once, telling them about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I'm still not super good at this, and I am kicking myself that I didn't get their contact info, but I did give them pass along cards with our numbers at least. That was kind of a cool experience.
We do a lot of casa. Casa is the Italian word for house, so doing casa means knocking on doors in apartment buildings (palazzo). We were in this one gigantic palazzo the other day, and on one of our last doors this old man answers and steps sort of towards us and starts talking to us. At us, really, and gives us a sermon on how society doesn't need religion and the pointlessness of religion and how he doesn't believe in it, and I am pretty sure he threw in the holocaust too somewhere (I was confused when that popped up at the time because I couldn't follow all of it, but I could follow most of it, in Italian, so Sister Harper confirmed my suspicions afterwards). At first I was interested to listen to him. Then I found myself feeling like he was just going to rant and not really sure how to react or if we just needed to get out of there or what. But then towards the end I experienced this intense change in heart, where I suddenly felt very very sad for him, and I knew that more than anyone he needs the gospel and the peace and purpose it offers, and he was literally crying out for it without even knowing it. It was a really interesting experience. Sorella Harper said she felt the same way after we left too. I think the Lord really tries to help His missionaries feel a bit of what He feels for His children, as well as what His children that we talk to are feeling, so that we can serve better and be better tools.
I realized that I never did say much about Sorella Harper in my last email, probably because I hadn't even known her a week at that point, but she really is super awesome. She is easy to get along with and talk to, super fun, and so patient and good at listening and talking to people when we are meeting with them. This is only her fourth transfer, and she has been in Verona the whole time with her trainer. So I am her second companion and we are in both our first city. It's hard that way because both of us don't know what to do sometimes, but also really fun because we get to figure it out and learn together. I really like Sorella Harper and am very grateful for her as my trainer. Also, she is really good at riding her bike and finding her way around the city (probably because she's been doing it for five months), which I really need. hehe.
I think that is about all of my stories for the week. I am doing really well, it is great to be in Italy, so much better than the MTC, which I definitely also enjoyed, so that's good.
Love,
Sorella Langham
No comments:
Post a Comment