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!

#Legal

So, things that happened this week...
- Questura....oh the questura! Immigration is so fantastic. Like
seriously the people who work there were great, but the hours of
waiting and everything else is not, haha. Every time they opened the
gate, it was chaos and people running trying to get in. Literally,
women screaming, babies crying, old men getting trampled. My companion
almost cried. We just waited patiently  at the back of the crowd. They
let women and children go first, and then it just ended up being me
and my companion with a bunch of middle eastern men. But one of them
yelled out to the front and was like, "hey! Let the girls back here go
to the front". And so the sea of men parted and what could have been
an even longer wait ended up being only four hours. And now I'm
#legal! People can really be so kind and generous.
- World wide mission conference! That was awesome. They broadcasted on
Wednesday and so we had DDM Wednesday afternoon and watched the
conference together afterwards.
- Hearing someone say their first vocal prayer to Heavenly Father, is
one of the sweetest, humbling experiences.
- We got our first referral! Woooo! I'm so excited to meet this
family! Fast and prayer works you guys!
It was a really really fantastic week. Vi porto la mia testimonianza
che Gesù Cristo è veramente il Salvatore del mondo. Egli vive. Grazie
a Lui, ciascuno di noi possiamo trovare la vera pace in questa vita.
Abbiamo più speranza. So con tutto il mio cuore, che ognuno di voi
siete figli di Dio. Avete un Padre Celeste. Vi ha mandato qui sulla
terra di provare la gioia. Potete trovare questa gioia grazie ai
insegnamenti di Gesù Cristo. Non siete mai da soli, perché avete un
affettuoso Padre Celeste che vuole comunicare con voi. Vi lascio
queste cose, nel nome di Gesù Cristo, amen.

 I finally got my permesso this week! #legal. Hours of waiting outside in the cold, babies crying, women screaming, old men getting trampled on, rain, hail and I finally got it!

 This week they broadcasted a conference from Salt Lake for all the missions over the world, so we got to watch that Wednesday evening with our district. It was awsome!

There is this hamburger place next to the church, so after the conference we went there. I'm sorry America, but Italy just did hamburgers better. We ordered the Sicily burger which had siciliano salsiccia, ragusana provola, bacon but not how we make it in America, Italian bread, and a really good tomato sauce.... it was just really good!

 We took it home to eat, because we didn't have time to eat it there and my companion took a picture of me eating. It was so good and so cheap! I love Sicily!

We celebrated Sorella Roberts one year mark this week. I ate donkey salami! I also can't take pictures seriously if I'm about to eat, so my face is kind of weird but the lighting is really angelic. We had walked past this place a lot of times and Sorella Robers wanted to try it. It was really good! I really don't know why all the food here is so good.

It snowed!

 Hi Family! It was a good week, ya know the usual. A lot of good
things, a lot of sad things too, everyone starts passing away after
the holidays. I can't think of really anything in particular to
recount, but my companion and I went down to Ibla today so I would
have pictures to send home, so hopefully the pictures make up for the
short email. Speaking of Ibla! We have a member that lives there who
stopped coming to church like 30 years ago. We met her the first time
a couple weeks ago, and she told us about this service organization
she works for so we started going to that once a week and doing
service with her. The first time she met us she was like, listen every
now and then a new set of missionaries come around but I tell them the
same thing. Then she told us how she has a testimony that Joseph Smith
was a prophet and that Christ restored His church again to the earth,
but how there are just some things she can't get behind so she stopped
coming and told us we should probably tell our mission president to
stop sending missionaries to her. We were just like okay, well we're
just going to come back anyways because we're not here to get you back
to church. Haha, it's not like we get a prize for having more people
in church. Dude, we're here because God loves you! We want
"to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in
need of comfort", we're here to help you understand your relationship
to Jesus Christ! Anyways Saturday's lesson with her was AWESOME, and
she gave us free paintings afterwards, haha. There were a lot of good
lessons this week, it was really just a great week!

Oh yea, and it snowed yesterday! Just a little. It was mostly sunny
with a crazy wind storm, and the humidity makes it really painful, but
it was still cool to see it!

 Ibla Park

 I'm a fan of tunnels

 Ibla garden

 Tiny Church

 Big church

 Giant church

 Gift

another gift

selfie 

The Befana

So two sister missionaries, a nun, and an old Siciliano man meet at a

street market one day...

Haha some days are just really weird. We somehow came out of that

conversation with free plates, used postcards, and a blessing. The old

man says he wants to come to our church, but he didn't come yesterday,

maybe next week!

This week the holidays finally officially ended! The 6th was the day

of the befana, and the befana is like a fairy witch who brings

stockings full of either coal or goodies for kids. Basically the

commercialism of American Christmas but celebrated a different day.

This week we also had a scambio which is always fun to learn more from

another Sorella.

This week I learned a lot about how Heavenly Father, really does know

each of us personally, and He is always mindful of us. One night, I

think it was last Tuesday, we were out and having no luck. We got one

bidone, then we tried searching for some other people whose addresses

we had, and no one was home, and then it was dark, and then when it's

dark were not allowed to do street contacting or door to door, which

are really last resort, so we had ran out of options. You would think

not, but it is REALLY stressful as a missionary when you don't have

something to do. It is the most anxious feeling, and you don't know

how to fix it! We sat down for a minute, and tried to think up some

options. And I kind of thought for a second, "maybe, at this precise

moment, in this precise time, there's not actually anything that

Heavenly Father has planned for us to do. Maybe right now it's just

kind of a test to see what we will do? Maybe tonight in my life, just

wasn't planned out before. Maybe He just kind of forgot about these

two little sister missionaries this day in this random hill top city."

Looking through our list we found one more woman who lived kind of

close by, so we went and tried her house, turns out she moved. And

then the same woman(a different lady) came to both of our minds, and

we thought, yea lets go check her house out. I was like, "yea! This is

it! This is one! This is where we're were supposed to be tonight,

that's why we had to take that final detour to that ladies house who

moved, because she wasn't home before, and now she's home, and we need

to be there now!" (Saying it out loud but kind of doubting it in my

head). So we get to her house ring the intercom, she answers, we say

who we are, and the intercom is still on but she had walked away. Kind

of worried and discouraged, we looked at each other, and then we heard

her say something from the intercom. She was like, "you have to push

the door" and Sorella Roberts was like,  "what?" And she was like,

"it's open, you have to push the door to get in". YAYYYYY. My heart

was literally on fire. This woman was amazing, and sad, but really

sweet, and she said we could come back! I felt so humbled, and I don't

know why I ever, even for a second, doubted. Heavenly Father is always

aware of us. I know that night, that was the woman we needed to see.

If we had made it into any other house, we wouldn't have made it to

her. Sometimes, when things are hard, maybe it is hard for us to see

the hand of God in our lives, but it is always there. He is always

waiting to reach out.

This morning my companion and I went on a hike and we happened across

a cemetery! Italian cemeteries are really cool and look like little

villages.

This is pretty much how the weather was all week except for yesterday and today. Lots of fog and rain!

We got SOAKED on Wednesday. Splashed by a lot of cars. Half of my body was just completely drenched, the side facing the street.

 Sorella Roberts made us a yummy soup :)

 Weekly planning

 These sheep made me so happy. They are so cute!

We went on a hike today and I took a lot of pictures

 Heading down the mountain

 We found a cemetery!

 Most people are buried above ground and the whole family goes into one of these

First email of 2016

Buon'anno!

New Year's Eve I was laying in bed reflecting where I was a year ago. Last New Years I went to a little party at the Doxeys house with some members of the church. Everyone else was members of the church, but older than me and most of them had served missions. And I was like yea, I want to serve a mission! And Scott was like, "okay, we're going to spin the globe and wherever your finger lands is where you're going to go." And my finger landed on Italy! I kid you not. And they were like, "no that's more on like that island Sicily, but pretty much". Anyways that was just a weird New Years thought to be here exactly a year later.

This morning we ran a bunch of errands, because it's pday, and we discovered a Chinese store! Chinese stores are kind of essential, but we only knew of one on the other side of the city which is inconvenient, but we found one just behind our palazzo. Chinese stores are like mini Merica, kind of like Walmart minus the food. Also way smaller than Walmart. And also the people that work there only speak Chinese and Italian. Anyways, we were there this morning buying stuff for the apartment, and we heard two people speaking English! This is rare. We turned the corner and it was our Danish friend we had met from the international food store, and this old lady trying on crazy hats. Turns out the lady is from California! She has been living in Ibla for 20 years.  The Danish man also has a wife we met the other day. They are the most random hipster people I'm sure to even exist. It was really weird speaking to strangers in English. I haven't done that in a while now, and it was kind of awkward because me and my companion were both speaking really slow like they couldn't understand us but obviously they could, haha. We just laughed about it afterwards. Hopefully I break that habit after 18 months. We told her a little about who we are,and what we do, she told us where we can find her, and hopefully we can meet with her sometime this week!

Saturday I got to witness the baptism of a man who has been meeting with missionaries on and off for 5 years! After five years of prayers, of doubts, of family trials, he finally decided that it was right for him and that now was the time. There was really a special spirit there that night, and he bore his testimony afterwards, and it was really the coolest thing. It was just one of those things you just have to be there to experience.

I don't know how to end this or what to say, because I wrote a long email to my dad so I'm kind of worded out. But I feel like I need to say something about forgiveness. Being offended is pretty human, as well as saying or doing things that offend people. We can't change what other people say or do, but we have control over ourselves. In the scriptures we're told to forgive others.
In Matthew 18 it says:
21 ¶Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
God never asks us to do things, to just make our lives harder. But everything He asks of us, is because He knows in the end, if we do it, we will find more happiness. He truly loves us and wants us to be happy. We have to let go of things, and move on. We can't let others actions hold us back from our potential.

I love you lovely people! I hope you all made some bomb goals for 2016 and that you're able to reach them all!

Sorella Holiday