Monday, September 1, 2014

Week 10 - "I figured out which week it is ;)"

Buon giorrrrrrrrrrrrno!!!! (Good morning!!) I actually can't roll my r's yet... Just pretend ;)

I am incredibly happy here. Like every day I bounce out of bed (and then fall asleep while I am praying....ooops).

This week we did our first scambio (companion exchange). Slla Patterson went to Pescara (an ocean town) and one of the sisters there came to Passo Corese with me. Her name is Slla Jackson and she actually served in Roma 5 for six months at the beginning of her mission! (Secretly that's what I am hoping/praying for. I love it here!). It was good for me to see the difference between the kind of missionary she and my trainer are and deciding how I want to be for the rest of my mission. Also, we went and saw two of her old investigators, both of whom said they would start to meet with the sisters again! And we had lunch (four hour lunc...) with this really cool couple, Claudia and Luca. They were super interested when we told them we have a prophet, and we invited them to watch general conference with us next month, so speriamo bene (hopefully good ie: that's good) :) The food they gave us was incredible! Olive and cheeses for the antipasto, gnocchi alla ragu (tomato sauce with meat) for the pasta, and then steak and a salad with artichokes and balsamic vinaigrette. And Italian cantaloupe. And gelato. We had to roll out the door ;) I also got to go to Pescara when we swapped back companions. It is a beautiful ocean town. I got to see the Mediterranean Sea!

Last week we were walking out our apartment door and got stopped by a car. They were a member family from Manchester, England here on holiday, and they were lost trying to find the train station. We gave them directions and our phone number, they came to church on Sunday, and then they called Friday to tell us that they were leaving in the morning but since they had been staying in an RV they had a bunch of leftover food. They met up with us that night and gave us an incredible amount of food, plus a little cash to help see us through the end of the month. It was a huge answer to prayer, because we were both broke after the companion exchange. We spent a lot in travels since Pescara is a three hour bus ride from Rome, which is a 40 minute train ride from Passo. So they are the coolest. God bless the Ashton family!

Then on Saturday night we went back to the paesino più bello del'Italia (most beautiful village in Italy), Scandriglia, for a Texan rodeo. It was so much fun! We did a lot of English course finding, since the people there were fans of all things American. They had a stage for people to do line dances on, and it was SO funny to see all these Italians with their thumbs in their belt loops, square dancing to Toby Keith and Willie Nelson. I died. It was the best. I got a great picture of the teepees and horse corral with the beautiful city on the mountain behind it... It just cracked me up!

We also got a new branch presidency on Sunday, so the dad of the family that just moved in to our town is in the branch presidency now! And we should have a ward mission leader within the month! It is so exciting. We have been talking a lot in our companionship about how impossible it is to be super effective without the assistance of the congregation, especially when the ward boundaries are so big. The missionaries need the members so badly to come to lessons and to fellowship the new faces in church, and the investigators need it to. Can you imagine walking in to sacrament meeting for the first time, with all those people, not have anyone talk to you or know anyone that you can talk to, and then be expected to come back? I would never talk with the missionaries again! There is a whole section in chapters 9 and 13 of Preach My Gospel that talk about how the missionaries are to work with the ward, but here the members aren't really willing to work with us. Well, they say they are willing. We are just working on lighting the fire to get them moving ;)

That is about it from me this week, but I'll have more in days to come! Especially the next two weeks as we finish the transfer and celebrate my 20th in ROMA!!!! :D I’m not excited. It will be horrible. ;)
Ciao for now!


Sorella Decker


The city that Nicole got to visit this week during her companion exchange

No comments :

Post a Comment