Well everyone, I'm currently writing from the beautiful island of SICILY!!! I'm loving it here. The adventures started from day one and haven't stopped :) But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's how the week went:
Monday was a pretty average Foggiano pday....cioè we didn't do much. Except the power was out at the church due to a freak electrical short circuiting on Sunday that almost started a fire. So we went to the anzianis apartment to use the wifi hotspot on their phones for email. We sat in the stairwell, ate brunch, and played card games like usual. The change of scenery was nice though :) we met with Lidia, one of our less actives and read from the Book of Mormon with her, and after we had FHE in the dark. That was an adventure :) I love our little group though, the people who come to FHE are like the makeshift family of the ward but in the best way. And I love them so much!
Tuesday we started saying goodbyes. In the morning we went to see Olga, she and her husband gave us a big package of cornetti for the trip. I will miss her so much, even though she is kinda grumpy...its part of her charm. She even let me (finally) take a picture with her! Bless her heart :)
That night once we got to Catania we headed straight to English course, and there was a freak storm afterwords and we didn't make it home till like 10:15. The Ragusa sisters stayed the night with us since they had to come up to the train station for transfers, which was fun:)
So basically I love Catania :) I have an awesome new companion too, Sorella Flansberg. She is from Cardson City, Nevada. She plays tennis and the piano, she is super sweet, she is the youngest of three, and we are having a lot of fun getting to know each other. She is in her third transfer, so she just got finished with being trained. I can tell she really loves the people and this city :)
Saturday morning we went to go teach a new investigator, Ann. She is from Nigeria and just the sweetest lady. She is excited to learn about the church and come closer to Christ and we are excited to share our message with her; she seems really prepared! We came home and made some treats (brownies and pull apart), and headed to watch the general women's session of conference with our new convert Jennifer at the church. She has two cute little boys, Joseph and Emmanuel, and we all got to watch in English. She really loved what they had to say about families, she is actually a single mother and doing her best to raise her boys
Monday was a pretty average Foggiano pday....cioè we didn't do much. Except the power was out at the church due to a freak electrical short circuiting on Sunday that almost started a fire. So we went to the anzianis apartment to use the wifi hotspot on their phones for email. We sat in the stairwell, ate brunch, and played card games like usual. The change of scenery was nice though :) we met with Lidia, one of our less actives and read from the Book of Mormon with her, and after we had FHE in the dark. That was an adventure :) I love our little group though, the people who come to FHE are like the makeshift family of the ward but in the best way. And I love them so much!
Tuesday we started saying goodbyes. In the morning we went to see Olga, she and her husband gave us a big package of cornetti for the trip. I will miss her so much, even though she is kinda grumpy...its part of her charm. She even let me (finally) take a picture with her! Bless her heart :)
Then we popped by Santina, I didn't get a picture with her because we were supposed to go out for pizza Wednesday night right before I left but I got a call Tuesday at lunch saying that Sorella Anderson and I both needed to take the train up to Rome at 2 on Wednesday....which messed our plans over really bad but it was ok. So I said goodbye to Santina and then we went to the Strömbom family's for lunch so I could say goodbye to them. I will miss those girls so much!! They might eventually move to America though, so hopefully I will get to see them again in a few years.
After that we went home and I got all packed up, then we headed to English course. Those are the people I will probably miss the most. We had a good lesson, and then we had all planned to go out to get pizza with them afterwords. I hope to come back and see all of them again... We were eating and I started talking to all of them about family history and they all sounded really interested, so hopefully the sisters are able to get some new investigators from that after I am gone.
Wednesday was short. We went and said goodbye to Francesco and his parents at the shop and he gave me the Italian good luck pepperonis key chain. Everyone should pray that the sisters are able to baptize him as soon as possible so that he is a member when I go back to Foggia in December!! :) haha just kidding, it is all on the Lord's time and He has a plan for Francesco. And then we caught the bus and went to the station to get our train! We came up to Rome and chatted with the guy sitting across from the whole way, we taught him the whole restoration. He seemed really cool, I hope he looks the missionaries up in Rome! We spent the night there and then went to the train station bright and early Thursday morning and I caught that southbound train to Catania! It was a 12 hour trip...Thursday was the longest day of my life! Haha but the train, to get from the mainland to the island, splits apart into sections and gets loaded onto a ferry. I got to cross water for the first time in over a year, being on the water made my Seattle native self very happy :)
The train passed through Napoli so I got to see a glimpse of mount Vesuvius, and a guy got on at the Napoli stop and we talked with him all the way to the ferry ride. He was really cool, his name is Gaetano and he is studying psychology too. We had a good chat :)
After that we went home and I got all packed up, then we headed to English course. Those are the people I will probably miss the most. We had a good lesson, and then we had all planned to go out to get pizza with them afterwords. I hope to come back and see all of them again... We were eating and I started talking to all of them about family history and they all sounded really interested, so hopefully the sisters are able to get some new investigators from that after I am gone.
Wednesday was short. We went and said goodbye to Francesco and his parents at the shop and he gave me the Italian good luck pepperonis key chain. Everyone should pray that the sisters are able to baptize him as soon as possible so that he is a member when I go back to Foggia in December!! :) haha just kidding, it is all on the Lord's time and He has a plan for Francesco. And then we caught the bus and went to the station to get our train! We came up to Rome and chatted with the guy sitting across from the whole way, we taught him the whole restoration. He seemed really cool, I hope he looks the missionaries up in Rome! We spent the night there and then went to the train station bright and early Thursday morning and I caught that southbound train to Catania! It was a 12 hour trip...Thursday was the longest day of my life! Haha but the train, to get from the mainland to the island, splits apart into sections and gets loaded onto a ferry. I got to cross water for the first time in over a year, being on the water made my Seattle native self very happy :)
The train passed through Napoli so I got to see a glimpse of mount Vesuvius, and a guy got on at the Napoli stop and we talked with him all the way to the ferry ride. He was really cool, his name is Gaetano and he is studying psychology too. We had a good chat :)
That night once we got to Catania we headed straight to English course, and there was a freak storm afterwords and we didn't make it home till like 10:15. The Ragusa sisters stayed the night with us since they had to come up to the train station for transfers, which was fun:)
Friday we did weekly planning, I got the rundown of the city, we visited one of the many less actives in the Catania ward (700 members, <100 active). I met Angleo, a security guard for the university here and one of the classiest Italians I have ever met. It was a fun day, Catania is the biggest city I have ever served in. IT IS HUGE. and I thought Rome was built on hills.....this place is practically built on a mountain. It's beautiful though, much older than the other places I have served. Sicily has a uniquely Italian culture with lots of Arabic and Greek influences. Apparently in the interior part of the island there are some villages where they still speak Ancient Greek dialects! It is wonderful down here though, the food is fantastic. I tried granita for the first time which is sort of like sherbet/sorbet ice cream in the sense that there is no milk...it was delicious. And we got to see the big Sant'Agatha church.
So basically I love Catania :) I have an awesome new companion too, Sorella Flansberg. She is from Cardson City, Nevada. She plays tennis and the piano, she is super sweet, she is the youngest of three, and we are having a lot of fun getting to know each other. She is in her third transfer, so she just got finished with being trained. I can tell she really loves the people and this city :)
Saturday morning we went to go teach a new investigator, Ann. She is from Nigeria and just the sweetest lady. She is excited to learn about the church and come closer to Christ and we are excited to share our message with her; she seems really prepared! We came home and made some treats (brownies and pull apart), and headed to watch the general women's session of conference with our new convert Jennifer at the church. She has two cute little boys, Joseph and Emmanuel, and we all got to watch in English. She really loved what they had to say about families, she is actually a single mother and doing her best to raise her boys
I loves Sister Reeves' talk, I am sure she was so anxious but she did such a good job! It reminded me of Jacob in the Book of Mormon when he has to address all the husbands and fathers about their transgressions, even though he didn't want to. I was very impressed with how bold she was and the points that she made. We stayed at the church and watched the general session with the elders, I love conference so much! I want to know what you all thought of it :) one of my favorites was when elder Lawrence talked about being centered exactly in Christ. I think it's interesting that a lot of the messages were to simplify and bring it back to the basics of living the gospel and using it to continually improve. I also loved Elder Hales' talk to the young adults, I found a lot of answers in what he taught. Please keep praying for President Monson, he definitely needs our prayers and support. We will be watching the Sunday afternoon session tonight, I am really excited because Bednar and Christofferson still haven't given their talks and I love both of them. We are all hoping Bednar wears one of the ties he bought while he was here in Sicily.
Have a wonderful week, everyone! Vi voglio tanto bene!!!
Sorella Decker
Have a wonderful week, everyone! Vi voglio tanto bene!!!
Sorella Decker
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