Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Week 72: Parties, Poop, a Phone Call, and a Lame Public Transportation System

As I am sure you can tell from the subject line...this week was really fun.

A phone call...transfer calls came!!! AND WE ARE STAYING TOGETHER!! We were so excited, we screamed and hugged each other with the assistant still on the phone. Our transfer calls work a little differently than other missions, everyone gets a phone call and they tell you where you will be and who you'll be with on the Saturday before transfers. So Saturday morning is usually not super productive.....but we get to stay together! I love Sorella Flansberg, we are so similar in so many ways. We like so many of the same things and have similar opinions on almost everything. It's beautiful. I'm so glad that she gets to kill me, I really didn't want a new companion for the last three weeks of my mission. Plus I still don't know Catania very well and training someone on the city would have meant getting lost every day. Not that I am not usually lost anyway...which is why we are sticking together!

Parties: Sorella Flansberg turned 20 on Sunday! So we did a little something every day this week to celebrate. Then yesterday we had several surprises. Her mom (through another sister's mom who has family in the Catania ward) sent a video of them for her birthday and one of the ward sisters made brownies, so we went in to young women's after relief society finished and they all sang, and then this sister, Roberta, showed Sorella Flansberg the video and we filmed a reaction video to send back to her parents. Sound familiar? ;) it was awesome. Then for lunch we went to see Kiran and she made us Cantonese rice, garbanzo beans in broth, and couscous with veggies. And that was just the "primo piatto" (yeah. Three first courses). Then they had fried potato things and crepes filled with melted cheese and prosciutto. She also made a really beautiful cake! And they gave us fermented aranciata to drink.....it was like orange wine. But they didn't realize it was fermented. I couldn't stomach it, so while they were back in the kitchen, I poured half of it into someone else's cup and filled mine up with water to dilute what was left. That was fun...needless to say we were stuffed afterword. Then we went to go see a less active family, and they had just made a dolce for us, so we had to eat that. Then one of the sisters in the ward, Sorella Catania (yep) invited us over for dinner. We had agreed because dinner is a light affair here so we didn't think it would be a problem.....but guess what she made. LASAGNA. Guys. Italian lasagna is DIVINE. also, the G is not useless, just throwing that out. Anywho, lasagna, a meat side dish, and another cake. A tiramisu. Literally, we got home and I almost threw up. SO FULL. But she had a good birthday and that's what was important to me :)

Poop: so. We went to go see Gabriella at the hospital Tuesday morning where her husband is doing dialysis, and she couldn't see us because she was talking to the doctors all day. So we walked all the way out there (2 miles) and then had to walk all the way home for lunch without getting to teach her. In the afternoon we were supposed to see Ann and David (we confirmed like four times) and then when we got there we called her so she could buzz us in, and she said she wasn't home. They live about 4 minutes from the hospital, so another mile and a half there and back (we decided we walk like 7 miles a day on average). As we were walking back, I felt something fall into my hair. I reached up to brush it off, and my fingers hit something warm, sticky and wet. Oh no, oh please no. "Sorell......what's in my hair?" "Umm...it might be bird poop..." Awesome. So we hurried home, I jumped in the shower, and then we headed to the church to teach a lesson. It was a great morning. But the evening was even better.

Lame public transportation system: a bus ticket here costs €1 and the piazza where we take the bus from has a ticket counter where we usually buy the tickets. Well, we went to buy tickets so we could get to the church and the ticket office was closed. We figured it would be their fault since they didn't have the ticket place open, and they never check the route to the church anyway, so we hopped on the bus. One stop later, guess who walks on! Transport system people. We both got slapped with a €60 fine for not having a ticket. The good news is that if we pay it by the 15th, they will give us a "free" €40 bus pass, so it's only €20 out of pocket because the pass is reimbursable. But it didn't put us in a very good mood. Ugh.

Other than that, the anziani had a baptism on Saturday! We were super stoked for them, it was the wife of a less active guy who hasn't come to church in years. They set the goal for the husband to be the one to baptize the wife and that's what happened! It was super cool:) there was also an American girl in church yesterday, she's here on vacation and she came to dinner at Sorella Catania's with us, which was a lot of fun.

Yesterday marks one month until the end of my mission, and it makes me so sad. I am working and praying really hard to stay focused and keep giving my all up until the very end. Guys, I have never been happier in my life than I am right now. I love where I am and who I've become, I am so grateful for all the blessings the Lord is showering me with even though I don't understand all the reasons why. I'm not perfect by any stretch, but I know that when we try with a sincere desire to do what is right, the Lord will make all the difference so that our efforts earn the blessings that we need.

My Christlike attribute for next transfer is humility, and this is the scripture I found to be my theme, it's Acts 20:19 and 24: "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind...so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God."

Vo voglio tanto bene!! (I love you all so much!)

Baci,
Sorella Decker

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