Sister Anderson Mission Blog: Well, we tried . . . Haha

For P-day we went to go see the Duomo (Cathedral) of Modena. It's a world historical monument and was built in the year 1000 AD. Or at least in that century. There's a less active who studied it and it was awesome because he gave us a tour. It's a super pretty duomo. The outside almost reminds me of a princess castle. We met a potential and did some finding. Just the usual!

Thursday we were able to see a member in a rest home, who has been feeling down. It was nice to be able to see her and get to know her. We are going to start seeing her every week. We also found out that we would be traveling to Pisa and staying the night in Pisa with the Sorelle. So we had to get all our things together to take to our next appointment which didn't even end up happening because addresses are crazy. We walked forever and it ended up being the wrong one. We also realized that I forgot all my papers that I needed for my visa! Luckily, the Anziani were able to get them for me and meet us at the train station. We are just a mess these days! It was so nice to see Sorella Rosano! We were able to talk about everything that's going on in Pisa so that was nice to get some updates.

Everything went well with my visa and we had a lot of extra time in Florence! So we went and ran to see the duomo and the major free sites before we had to catch our next train! Florence is so beautiful and I love it! When you first see the duomo, it takes your breath away and you have to ask "is this real life?"

Saturday was pretty much taken up with a wedding we had in the ward. We were there early to greet people but instead ended up helping the family make final preparations, such as frosting the cupcakes. It was a lot of fun actually. The wedding was beautiful. Jonathan, the groom, is from Ghana and so they had some typical food from Ghana that was good. A lot of the women had African dresses that were so pretty! I want to get one now! There was lots of food and some people even got up and danced. It was good to get to know the ward better and even meet some new people! Of course we helped clean up after the day was done. It was a good day. By the time we went home, Sorella Stevens and I were both stuffed to the max.

Sunday was more of just the usual. We went to church and did some finding.

On Monday ALL of our plans fell through. Again, " well at least we tried". Even though all of our plans fell through, we had a lot of fun. We talked to some really nice people. Haha it was funny because we were talking to these people on a park bench. The little park was in the middle of an apartment complex and had other benches around it. There were other people on the other benches. We were talking to these two men and as we were talking to them you could hear the other people talking to each other about us. "Are they evangelists??" Haha. At one point during our conversation a random guy walks over, stares at us, and walks away. He just needed to check us out and see who we were haha. Then a lady pipes in randomly at certain points. It was just really funny. They were probably just used to their usual crowd but they were all really nice to us.

Tuesday we had district meeting, English class, met with the bishop to talk about how we can help in the ward, etc. Lots of meetings. But it was really good! After we went and got pizza as a district at a little place near the church. It rained and we got soaked on the bikes. Just the usual life! I love our bishop here though. He's really funny and he has a good sense of humor. He always starts talking to us by making a joke. I would say a couple but they don't translate very well and he's Italian. You would have to see the hand motions to get the joke. It made for a pretty good week. It went by so fast!

My thoughts have been turned towards patience. Sometimes I like to read the ensign while I eat breakfast and I came across an article on patience. It talked about how so often we find ourselves saying "I will be happy when...." We forget that we can be happy now. We don't have to wait. We always will have different trials and problems. If we wait for those difficulties to pass, then we will go much of our life realizing we never took the time to be happy. I can truly say that serving as a missionary makes me happy. Of course it's not always a walk in the park, but it's a rollercoaster and I love it!

I love you guys so much!

The Duomo of Florence

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

(pink, white and green marble)

It takes your breath away !

Is this real life ?