Week 65: Rainstorms and more scambios

Hey everyone! :)

Just by way of info, transfer calls are this week so if you were going to mail me something (like I know you all were ;), either wait or send it to the mission office address: Piazza Carnaro 20, 00141 Roma (RM), Italia.

It was a pretty solid week out here in the Foge. We have a new investigator, we taught good English course lessons, and we got to do Bari scambios! Plus yesterday it POURED and finally broke the heat
wave from summer...so this Washington girl was a happy camper :)

We got a really cool opportunity during English course to give a Book of Mormon to one of our students, Maria Rosa. She is such a great student, and she has always been very attentive to and appreciate of our spiritual thoughts. We decided to take a copy of the Book of Mormon and write a nice note to her with our testimonies, and she was so happy when we gave it to her! She literally started crying with gratitude, it was the sweetest experience. I love to spread joy :)

At the beginning of that same English course, we had a new student come who was an older gentleman, and he started speaking to us in English- with a perfectly American accent. We asked how he had learned English, and he said from singing old FRANK SINATRA songs. He played a
few piano chords and sang a bar or two, so we moved off of the piano and made him play for us. He has obviously spent a lifetime at it because he sounded EXACTLY the same...except his "th"'s weren't really there. I love Italian-accented English. It is my favorite thing. Anyway, I obviously had a mini geek out because of my undying love for Frank Sinatra, and Sorella Anderson got a little video of him singing! :)

Also on Tuesday (it was just a super good Tuesday:), we met with a less active that we have been trying to get a hold of for two months now. Her name is Antonietta Biondo, she has been a member for almost 40 years. A few weeks ago while we were doing weekly planning, we brought her name up as one of the less actives we wanted to meet with in the following week. As soon as we said her name I had a flooding recollection of a dream I had had the night before. Now let me just say, I have always been skeptical about believing people who say they saw things in dreams...and I have never been a "dreamer" myself. But I had a dream and I saw her out on the street downtown in Foggia, and she told me in English " I'm Antonietta Biondo." When we saw her waiting for us at the church I knew it was her. Then she spoke to us in ENGLISH because she actually moved to London when she was ten years old and grew up there, so it was really cool. She has a British accent and everything. In fact, a lot of her mannerisms and things reminded me a lot of Grandma Rowley and Nana, it was a really awesome experience. She is an incredible lady with a strong desire to do the right thing and wants to come back, and we are so excited to work with her!

Scambios were pretty fun, I love getting to be with the other sisters. It was good to get out and work in a different place for a bit, spend time with other people that I love, and we got to celebrate Sorella Tapia and Sorella Dew's one year in the mission together and Sorella Barazoto's one year in Italy mark. We made pizzas :) if anyone ever wonders why missionaries tend to get fat, it's because food is our solace, our entertainment, our relaxation, and people always try to stuff us with food whenever they see us. It's awesome :) 

I got to do some family history this week too! I had a really cool moment working on the Dobbs family (not directly related), I found a census that had seven kids who were missing from our line on family search. So I got to add them I and reserve their names to do the work...and then I went and checked for duplicates in the system (because grandma taught me well ;) and I found that the names had all been reserved by someone else already because she had found them previously. So I merged the duplicates and let her know so that she could double check to make sure I didn't mess anything up, since I only have family search and a few minutes here and there to work on it. It was still cool to find them though :)

I am personally doing pretty well, getting progressively more tired and more and more freaked out at the thought of coming home. But I feel simultaneously really excited to be able to live real life and apply all the things I have learned. I just wish I could do that and still be like a part time missionary or something. I have set a few goals already for when I get back and I am excited to continue my education. The mission has really helped me develop study habits and desire to be a life long learner, and it's a really exciting prospect :)

Vi voglio tanto tanto bene, cari miei!!

Alla prossima!

Sorella Decker