The Adventures of Sister Holiday: Lassù

Hey!
Thanks for all the love this week! Of course I'm still alive. The city
where the earthquake hit was 30 minutes from us, but there are no
missionaries serving in that city, I don't think that it has ever been
opened up to missionary work. My companion woke up to it, because we
live on the third floor (which means fourth floor in American terms).
But the other sisters who live on higher floors felt it worse. For me,
there's really nothing that can wake me up before 6:00, so I didn't
notice it. Aside from the tragedy of the earhtquake, it was a really
good week.

We had so much going on, and so much planned, literally all week
consisted of jogging places, sprinting home to make curfew, running to
appointments and praying at every bus stop that the bus would come
soon (and I testify that it totally works!).

Monday evening we had an FHE birthday party, and there were three
cakes, and I had a piece of all of them.... :) it's rude not to at
least try it!
Tuesday, was absolutely fabulous, but the best part of it was Tuesday
night. We ditched out on English discussion group because we had a
lesson with this family who is wanting to come back to church and the
son who was never baptized. It was probably one of the my most
favorite lessons I've been to on my mission. I won't write all the
details, because it was like THAT special. I'm just going to keep the
description vague, and let you know it was so worth missing English
class especially because none of our potentials ended up coming, and
one of the best nights ever. Also we got fed, so that was just a
double bonus.
Wednesday was also a great day, those days when you have to pack a
lunch because there's no time to eat, you know that's a good day. One
of our investigators pulled down our eyelids and said we look tired,
and need to stay out of the sun and drink more water. Haha, I think
about a year ago I wouldn't have been okay with someone grabbing my
face while teaching a lesson, but you learn a lot of things on the
mission. Now I kiss people everyday, I don't know if I ever said that?
Hahaha. Training helps you remember the things that are culturally
different. That's how you greet, or say goodbye to people you know in
Italy. Sometimes it's people we've just met, but those metro/bus
conversations can get pretty deep sometimes, you make bonds with
people pretty fast.
Anyways, Thursday, I don't really remember super well. I just remember
one of the most humble families ever fed us, and I've been being a lot
more BOLD with people.
Friday we went to dinner at the bishops house, except he wasn't at
home, so it was just us the mom and the kids. Also, I found out that
the bishop in our ward served his mission in the United States, and he
served in the SACRAMENTO CALIFORNIA mission in the 90's! Is that crazy
or what?? And also the brother of bishops wife served in that mission
in the late 90's and he served in Stockton. Small world.
On the way to the bishops house, to get there we had to take a train,
and I don't love trains because they're really stagnant. Like they're
usually pretty empty and it's usually just people listening to music
or sleeping, so before we left we prayed that we would be able to
teach someone on the train and we did! We got there and sat down and
there was no one else, but then last second this guy got on the train,
and all the other 4 person seats in our cart were occupied with one
person, and I guess we looked like the least intimidating people to
sit by so he sat down by us. And like with past experiences, I'm
pretty hesitant about teaching men, but you can always feel instantly
when it's a good guy or a creep, you could just see in his eyes that
he was a married man with kids. So I noticed him reading our name
tags, and we got started up talking. It was going pretty great, until
we handed him the pamphlet and he saw the Book of Mormon on the back,
and he was like "oohhh, now I understand!" But really then he didn't
understand, he just thought we were Amish and polygamist. Like a
combination of the two.
Haha that documentary called "Mormoni" about the Amish, is going to
haunt me my whole life. Someone just messed up on the translations,
and then there's that other show about a polygamist family and it has
been translated to Italian. WONDERFUL.
Haha, he was like, "you're the ones that go around on horses and dress
in old clothes, and don't use technology"
"No that's not us"
"Oh, what are your views on the family"
(Have him read The Proclamation to the World on my technological iPad)
Apart from all that it went really well.
The Sister Vescovo invited some of their friends over and we got to
share a message with them as well. They were one of the families who
were affected by the earthquake, their house collapsed and so the mom
and her two daughters are living in their car now. Luckily everyone is
safe, they were just a little shaken up from it.
Saturday we met so many crazy people, I've never met someone who hated
America so much until Saturday.
Sunday yesterday, our members left last night for their week long
temple trip. It was so cute to see how excited everyone was during
church. They were like kids on Christmas Eve, because they are only
able to go once a year, and a lot of people aren't even able to make
it before then. The senior couple in our ward also left. I don't know
what I'll do a week without Sorella Sears!!

And well yea that was pretty much our week :) it was fantastic.