Has it been a week already?

So after our very relaxing P-day in the apartment, we had a lesson with Quin. She's from Nigeria and she has the most beautiful smile. She has three kids who are living in Nigeria and she's so strong. She confirmed that it would be alright if I bought an African dress and wore it. I now have directions as to where I can find one. Stay tuned for updates. We were supposed to have a family evening at the church but no one came so instead us four missionaries just ate the cinnamon rolls that Anziano Brown made.

Thursday we cleaned the entire apartment. It was the semi-annual deep cleaning day. We took 4 hours and scrubbed all the nooks and corners. It feels so nice to be in a clean apartment! It reminded me of just a regular old Saturday morning at home! After English class, Anziano Brown gave us arancini that he made because he knew we hadn't tried them yet. Needless to say that the Anziani keep us well fed.

Friday we celebrated our 6 month mark by going out to eat. We finally tried the famous Modenese tortellini and tortalone. It was homemade in the restaurant and it was so good! The tortalone was filled with pumpkin and it was delicious. I've never had it like that before. Saturday was really great because we were able to meet some more less actives. One of the people we met is an old lady from Mexico. She's so sweet and just loves the missionaries. She has a really strong faith but her health is struggling. Now I see why my brother-in-law always talked about how great Mexican mom and grandmas are. (By the way her name is Connie too!)

 

Sunday was amazing!! First of all, I got to see the entire Sorellanza and Sorella Visconti again at the Holland conference. Sorella Visconti was actually on the same train as us heading to Milan so we got the whole train ride to catch up and talk. It was a joyous day! Hearing Elder Holland speak to us was amazing. Before the meeting even started he shook everyone's hand and so did his wife (le Sorelle were lucky enough to get the Italian bacii from his wife). He just spoke with so much power, made it interesting, and simplified it. I could really go on and on about everything that he said. Anyways, we finally arrive home to the Modena station to find that both Sorella Steven's and my bike have been stolen. Dangers. Well, the Anzinani lent us theirs for the night so we could get home. Even with our bikes getting stolen, I was on cloud nine!

On Monday we were able to see Marta. I love her so much. We talked about testimonies and why it's important to have one. She has a desire to get baptized but she also realizes that it's a big deal. She's working on quitting smoking and working her way there slowly. She's such a hard worker and she does it all for her family. I really love that about her. 

Not too much else happened on Tuesday. We had our district meeting and we did some finding before English class. While we were walking home for the night, we got caught in the pouring rain without an umbrella. We were completely soaked head to toe. At one point we just gave up trying to avoid the massive puddles and just walked straight through them. It was actually really fun haha. 

Whenever we go walking in the park, the nice old men always tell us to be careful. We meet the nicest people and it just makes me grateful, with all the bad that's in the world, that people are generally good. I can't remember where but I read recently that charity is the pure love of Christ. When you love someone you assume the best of them and doubt the bad things you hear. Our goal is to have charity towards all. Doubt the bad you hear about others and choose to look for the good.

"Behold, the Lord hath forbidden this thing; wherefore, the Lord God hath given a commandment that all men should have charity, which charity is love. And except they should have charity they were nothing. Wherefore, if they should have charity they would not suffer the laborer in Zion to perish." 2 Nephi 26:30

Vi voglio un mondo di bene!

Sometimes your bun is just to big to be contained in a helmet.

Ready to go to the conference with Elder Holland !

Sorella Garcia and us just chillin in district meeting!

Sorella Smedley

Sorellanza back together. !!

Of course with a photo bomb from the president.

Spiky Balls and Finding - Finding is Awesome

For P-day this week we stayed in Modena. We were going to go to the Ferrari museum. Well, we went. But you had to actually pay to get inside and so we thought we would settle for the gift shop and get a cute little car souvenir instead. Yeah the little car in the gift shop cost 330 euro! The gift shop was ridiculously expensive. So we settled for an art museum that we got into for free because we are missionaries. I really enjoyed the art museum. There were quite a few paintings and a lot of them were done in the 1500s or before. So that was awesome. The weather here has started to get cooler and things are starting to fall off trees. There are these one things from the trees that are all over the bike path. They are these little spikey balls. It always makes me feel like I'm in real-life MarioKart as I try to dodge all of them on my bike. Haha. Sorella Stevens later informed me that they're Chestnuts! 

Then on Thursday, we were able to see Modesta. She's a little old lady who lives in a nursing home. She's so cute. She's been really down lately. So we are now searching for ways to help lighten her spirit. I enjoy seeing her though. Being in the nursing home makes me miss being a CNA. We met Maura, too. She's one of our investigators and it was the first time we met her. She's so sweet and she has a good faith. She knows the missionaries and loves them. The Anziani went with us so they could introduce her to us. English class was more of just the usual. 

Friday we had weekly planning and it went really well. Sorella Stevens and I talked a lot about the work here and what we can do here to make a difference. I made her some tiramisu and we went to see Sorella Palmieri. I love going to see her. She loves talking to us about serving her mission and her different companions that she has had. Then we did finding in the park. Not a whole lot happened except that we saw Franco. We've seen him at the park a few times now. Last time we saw him he gave us money to go get gelato and he did the same again this time. He wouldn't take no for an answer! Then he wanted to buy us some real Modenese food at a restaurant on Saturday but it ended up not happening because we couldn't get in the car with him. Modenese is very popular for its food, along with Bologna. Tortellini, lasagna, tortalogni, and lots of other things!

Saturday we went to go see Marianne, who's a member and we messed up the address again! It was so frustrating! But what can ya do? Three (3) streets all named the same, why not? Pazienza. It worked out and she walked to come find us and walked with us to her house. It was nice to get to know her and finally find out where she lives!

Sorella Stevens gave her talk in church and she did amazing! My comp is the bomb and I love her to death! She killed it.

The rest of the week was pretty much filled up with finding. We had our first completely full day of finding since we got here. For those of you who are not a missionary, after a full day or long period of finding one of two things happens. 1) you see a miracle at the very end of finding when you're about to go home 2) you just end up laughing at everything because you're too tired. Both are miracles in their own way haha. We had the privilege to experience both this week. One was a family from Bolivia, whose son had taken the missionary lessons. They are a great potential and I'm excited to get in contact with them again.

Finding is awesome because you get the opportunity to talk to people you never would have talked to otherwise. Sorella Stevens and I are learning a few phrases in other languages because it's a fast ice breaker. Plus, when people don't speak Italian and they hear a phrase in their native language they get so happy. It reminds me of when I first got to Italy. One family even thought I was Albanian. Haha, nope!

"Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers." D&C 112:10 Humility is a hard trait to acquire. It means that when we have answers to our prayers, we follow these answers because we know someone knows better than we do. The Lord is always here for us, willing to guide us. I'm grateful for the guidance that I have received in my life that has led me to where I am today. I still have a lot of humbling to do, but it's a work in process!

I love you all!

Spiky Ball aka Chestnut

(now you've seen the streets of Modena)

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 ?

Inside the Duomo of Florence

Baptistery of St. John in Florence 

(made of white Carrara and green Prato marble) 

Gold doors - Panels depicting scenes from the life of St. John

(doors made in 1330)

Mini David

Ponte Vecchio Bridge

The Duomo in Modena

Doesn't it look like a princess castle? 

Tell Eden I went inside a real princess castle!