May 26, 2010 - Verona, Italy

Ciao famiglia!

I can't believe I am already halfway through my first transfer! Che strano. We had zone conference this past Friday, and it was amazing. Both of us were feeling really tired and slightly discouraged last week because we never seem to have the success getting in doing casa that the anziani have, and the wards look at us differently because of it. They make a distinction between the missionaries and the sisters, like we are not also missionaries. And we were both physically exhausted as well. So we went to Mestre (near Venice) for zone conference, so we got to ride in a train for a couple of hours and rest and ponder and talk to some people. Then we met together with the other missionaries for a few hours with President and Sister Dunaway as well, which was great and very energizing. Our zone conference actually includes two zones meeting together. That is especially nice for us because Sorella Harper and I are the only sister missionaries in our entire zone, but there are 4 in the zone we meet with, so we got to see some other sisters too, which was good. We spent our train ride back talking about how we want to implement the things we learned, which had to do mainly with finding and casa approaches, and setting goals. It was really good. And the next day we both were so much more energized and ready to go, I don't think we had realized how much we needed zone conference, but it was really good for us. And we really have seen more success with casa as we have implemented the things we learned about! In fact, sometimes when a little kid opens the door and they run off to get their parents, we just walk right in and stand just inside the door. It's really fun. We found a big mansion thing yesterday and the gate just happened to be open, so we just walked right on in like we owned the place, but then we couldn't find the front door it was so huge! Eventually someone in the house saw us through a window and demanded to know what we were doing there. We told them. They weren't interested, so we left, but it was fun to just barge onto the mansion grounds!

Also on Monday night we put together a crib bed thing for this less active member we are working with. That was fun.

Sometimes (not very often, but every now and then) we do bike contacting, where we ride around on our bikes and just ride up to someone walking and stop them and talk to them. It is so fun and super awkward, but we just act like it is totally normal. A lot of times, though, it goes just like this, 'Salve. Come sta?' 'Sto bene' and then they walk off and refuse to talk to us. My companion turns to me and says, 'meno male. pensavo per un minuto che forse lei sta male.' Translation: “hello, how are you? I am well,” but they walk off and refuse to say anything else. Companion: 'thank goodness. I thought for a minute they might have been doing badly.' It's just so ridiculous, because we stop our bikes and walk up to someone and all we get in is a how are you? and they say I'm fine. It's like we are biking around just to ask random people how they are doing today, and for some reason it is just super funny to both of us.

Also, we have taught a few people with adorable kids nearby this week. We taught this Italian family that we met and the seven year old twins, a boy and a girl, were playing in the corner, and the girl calls out, 'missionarie, missionarie, aiuta! aiuta!' which is, 'sister missionaries, sister missionaries, help! help!' and it was so adorable. And then another little girl of a member that came to a lesson with us called out to us as we were riding away on our bikes, 'ciao belle missionarie!' or 'ciao beautiful sister missionaries!' They are adorable. Also this week, another little girl stuck a giant green sticker with her name on it on my planner, but her name is endurance, so it probably looks like I am having trouble enduring. Che buffo!

Also, miracles really do happen. We have had a couple of incredible timing miracles this week. On Thursday, we were biking to meet one of our investigators for an appointment when we ran into her and her boyfriend walking away from the house, for some reason she thought we weren't coming because it was a little later in the evening, but she actually just didn't realize that was when we set our appointment for. But because we randomly ran into her we were able to walk back with them and teach them more about the plan of salvation. We even invited them to be baptized, and it was beautiful to see how happy the idea made her. She wants to follow God so badly, I love watching her hear and talk about truth, and I love feeling God's love for her. And then on Saturday morning we had our regular appointment with an investigator, but when we got there no one answered the door. So we went to go check at her drunk friend's house in case she was helping her (that has happened before), but no one answered there either. We went back and tried calling and knocking again, but no response. We were quite distraught, because she is amazing and really needed the lesson we had planned and is thinking about baptism, so it would be a really bad time to not see her for two weeks. So we stopped to write a note saying we were sad we missed her, and I prayed so hard that we would somehow find her that maybe she would come back while we were writing so we could teach her. She never came. So we decided to pass-by a former investigator in the area as according to our back-up plan, and as soon as we started walking down the sidewalk there was our investigator walking towards us, sure enough helping her friend who needed to be taken to the hospital or something. She was so sad to not be able to meet with us right then, so we rescheduled for that evening at 8 and still got to teach her on Saturday as planned, and she loved it. It was very good. And she came to church on Sunday. She really feels the spirit and knows that what we are teaching is true! She even said she wants to be baptized, but needs to wait for la cresima (a Catholic thing, I think it is the Italian way of saying confirmation) of her youngest daughter...so we are trying to help her understand the importance of this gospel and these ordinances so she can leave behind those things that she does out of culture and not out of belief.

On Sunday we went out to do casa, and for some reason I decided to carry around a copy of the Book of Mormon in Singelese, the language in Sri Lanka (that's how you say the language in Italian, I don't know what it is called in English), even though my companion thought it was weird and random. And we got in to the home of this beautiful family from Sri Lanka and were able to leave them with the Book of Mormon in their own language and set a return appointment. God really does have His hand in every aspect of this work.

One of our best investigators is moving to Romania for the summer! Che triste! She'll be back in September, but who knows if either I or Sorella Harper will still be here. She agreed to keep meeting with the missionaries there while she is gone.

Well, I guess that is all for this week.

Love,
Sorella Langham