Sorelle take over Ragusa!

What a week, man. The Anziani have been gone since Thursday because of

transfers, they needed someone to go up to Rome to accompany the next

AP. So the sisters had the city all to ourselves. Woot woot, party!

Haha, just kidding.

Tuesday at DDM our training was about pressing forward with faith, and

we talked about the scripture in 2 Nephi 31:20

   "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ,

having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men.

Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of

Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall

have eternal life."

We talked about what it means to press forward. Like obviously if

you're pressing forward, it doesn't mean you're just going on a nice

little walk, if you're pressing forward it implies that there's some

type of obstacle in your way. It made me think to back when I was a

swimmer. We had this one drill we would do, where we would tie a

bungee cord around us, and the other end to one side of the pool, and

then sprint to the other side. The closer you get to the end, the

harder it gets, and the more tension there is. The harder you have to

push forward. When things get harder, that's not the time to give up,

that's the time when we've almost made it to the end! Then after we

swam to the end of the pool, we would hop out and do it again! With

one team I swam with they did it differently. Once you finally made it

to the end, there was another teammate outside the pool who would pull

the bungee cord really fast while you swam back. And you just feel

like you're flying through the water! It was awesome.

There's always going to be different trials that we face, and times

where we have to push forward, but if we push forward with that faith

and hope in Christ, and that love for Him and all mankind, those

trials aren't as hard because we understand what we're working for and

why we want to keep pushing forward. Then just like the teammate

outside of the pool, once we've done all we can, and we've made it as

far as we were able to, He is there waiting to pull us the rest of the

way. His grace, His love, and His mercy is truly sufficient for

everyone.

This week we got to teach a woman from her window. I love when people

let us into their homes, but I'm not going to lie, it was pretty

awesome just handing stuff up to her window and standing out on the

street talking up to her. The balcony life. I know I'll miss ringing

people's intercoms and then all the older women coming out on their

balconies and talking to each other. "I can't hear you!" "They're

saying they want to talk about Jesus, a message about Jesus!" "What,

are they evangelists?" "No, no, they're missionaries!" "She's not

interested!" "I don't understand you where are you from?" "Oh,

Americans! Yea you can tell" "okay yea, but we're Catholic. Good

evening girls!"

Friday, we missed our bus to Vittoria! We ended up going Saturday

instead, people were pretty great about moving their agendas, but it

was still kind of disappointing, and then hard figuring out what to do

instead. It turns out it was one of the members birthdays who has

stopped coming because she doesn't feel loved at church. She also said

she doesn't want to see the missionaries anymore. But we were like,

all well! So we went and visited her on Friday and she was super

grateful for our visit and that we remembered her birthday! It was a

MIRACLE that she let us in, and sometimes it's just the small

victories that count. Turns out we weren't supposed to be in Vittoria

Friday so it was a good thing we missed the bus.

This week I was coming to the end of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, and

I was legitimately sad to be finishing it! I love Mosiah! Such good

stories. I feel like I learned so much from Mosiah, from the people in

Mosiah and like I know Alma is great (the book that follows Mosiah in

the Book of Mormon) but like, it's Mosiah! As I thought that, I also

thought, I'm probably getting transferred next week, and turns out, I

am! So I will be leaving Ragusa Wednesday night, and my next city will

be Palermo! I'm so happy to be staying in Sicily! But I'll be moving

from the east side of the island to the west side. My next companion

is currently companions with Sorella Battezzato in Sardegna. So we

will be getting "blown in" they say. Which means both sister

missionaries are completely new to the area. So we'll both just be

learning as we go. My new companion will be Sorella Rossi, she's from

Genova in northern Italy. Apparently she doesn't speak much English,

but that's great! It will just help me with Italian! I'm totally scared

to leave Ragusa and go to Palermo, but I know it's going to be great.

Sorella Roberts started her mission in Palermo, so she was telling me

a lot about it, and getting me pumped up. I'm going to miss Ragusa so

much! But it's time to move on to the next city!

Sorella Holiday

 She is such a great member missionary!

Our great ward mission leaders family. He and his wife both served missions in northern Italy. They are just such a great family!

 Haha, bishop getting ready for the picture.

Bishops family. Their daughters hand in my hair perfectly captures the last 4 months. The other little girl is their niece but her mom wasn't there on Sunday.

 The girl on my left is leaving on a mission in March. She is going to England. The woman on my right is her mom and they are both super fantastic!

This sweet woman does too much for the sisters! She is an incredible example of faith and hope. She fed us lunch yesterday after church. :)

 Lots of wonderful people :)

Such a doll! She always comes up to us and hugs our legs on Sunday. She is so adorable.

This morning we planned to go down to "the jungle" but the path wasn't that clean and I have on a skirt that's really lacy so we decided not, we took a picture instead.

A convent

Not sure what the building is but that's where our walk took us this morning!

The wonderful cheese store!

We walk past this cheese store all the time and on account of it being my last pday here we had to go in. It was so magnificent! It smelt so good. :)

Ragusa is famous for its provola (provolone cheese)

So of course I bought some of this fantastic cheese from its proprio cittá!

Since Sorella Roberts and I are parting ways we had to get our comp item. So we got comp slippers! How perfect that our skirts happened to coordinate with our slippers today?

  

Passeggiata

We discovered a part of Ragusa I've never seen before!