The Adventures of Sister Holiday: The Promised Land

Palermo is sooooooo AWESOME. Okay, but before we get to that, we have
to rewind to last Monday when I was still in Ragusa! So last Monday
night we went to say goodbye to one family. The first and only time
I've cried on my mission, it's not really my personality but I was
really sad because that family is really special. Anyways, afterwards
when we were getting ready to leave they brought out some pictures of
sister missionaries that had come over to them maybe 10-12 years ago
now, and one of them looked so familiar, and then I realized, IT WAS
PROFESSORESSA TIRALONGO! She's from northern Italy and was my Italian
teacher at BYU. So like, that was pretty awesome. It was hard and
really weird to leave Ragusa, and sad leaving Sorella Roberts. When we
were all in Catania, dropping off companions and getting sent away it
was nice seeing all the sisters but weird that a lot of them you won't
see again for at least until after the mission!

Palermo is not my little mountain city like Ragusa was, it's on the
coast and at the bottom of a mountain. The chapel is right at the
ocean. Me and my companion are over a ward and also an international
branch. The international branch speaks English, but it's still all of
their second languages so it's interesting. The president of the
branch is Italian but his wife is Chinese and they speak Chinese,
Italian, and English. Talk about POWER COUPLE. They also have really
adorable little kids. This Sunday was fast and testimony meeting (so
the Sunday we fast and instead of talks during church everyone has the
opportunity to go up and bear their testimony) the spirit was so
strong! Last week one girl from Ghana in our international branch was
baptized and it was just really awesome to hear her testimony, and to
hear her dad who was also a member in Ghana talk about how long he had
been praying for this day.
After church the ward threw a going away party for one of their young
men who will be leaving to go on a mission this week. He's going to
France! It was really sweet to see their excitement for him, they had
all pitched in to buy a couple sweaters and shirts and two new
suitcases. It was awesome and there was such a sweet spirit in both
our ward and branch.

Being blown in to a city hasn't been as bad as it could have been. My
companion is really great with maps, and the members have been
helpful, and the last sisters left pretty great notes. Also, my
companions English is fantastic! Which is great because we kind of
need both languages for our area. Palermo is really huge, and there is
another set of sisters in our apartment and they have one half of the
city and they have the other half, we have the ghetto half. I love it.
Some areas we're not allowed to go to day or night, and if we go home
at night we have to be accompanied by someone. The rule will hopefully
be changed in the near future once we get more light hours. It's
really not that bad, and I think especially now we won't get any
problems. My companion is Italian but she is also the one with blonde

hair and green eyes, so pretty much if she opens her mouth were good
and they'll just assume we're both Italian, haha.

Ahh! I just love Palermo. I love being in a 4 sister apartment, and
all the wonderful people here! We have seen so many miracles in the
past few days, and it has just reminded me of how much this is HIS
work. It doesn't matter if we're both completely new to the area,
because He will let happen what needs to happen.

I love you all have a great week :)