Oh Pastore Perché Mai!!!!

Ciao tutti!!!

Ok well this week wasn't that exciting. We just did a lot of work (kinda what we are supposed to do, right?)! This week we got a bunch of street lessons in, it was awesome!!! One day we even got four numbers and had three return appointments for the next day! WOOT WOOT! It was AWESOME!!! MIRACLES! So that was kind of our week!

Sorella knudsen and I have started doing candle time (editors note: candle time is where you light a candle every night and as the candle burns the base of the candle is wider so it gets a little longer each night until Christmas. During this time you think about Christ, or sing a Christmas carol, or read a Christmas book, or make a Christmas treat. It is kinda like family home evening but it's every night and it's not as long) for Christmas!! It's seriously the best!!!! Our activities always involve food though... So we are really going to have to start a diet after Christmas! HAHAHA! We are also doing secret santa in our district so that should be super fun!!! I'm so excited!!! 

Ok, really nothing has happened this week. Ummm... we went to this store called "Auchan" that is just like walmart!?! We found mexican salsa and tortilla chips!!! So that was pretty awesome... this week we haven't spoken any english. That was interesting... I think i've improved a lot in one week but i still have a LONG way to go with this language!!!

Im sorry this is going to be such a short letter I honestly can't think of anything cool or exciting!!! OH NO, wait I CAN!! Yesterday we met this pazza (crazy) guy and we were talking to him. He was Athiest and we tried to tell him that his family is a gift from God because they make him happy.. Anyways, he was like "no they aren't a gift from God, they are a gift from me"?? Speriamo  (we hope) hahhahahah! All i could do was laugh he was so witty!!! Everything we tried to say he had the most witty come back so it was kind of fun talking to him. At the end we just bore our testimonies and walked away. but he sure was super funny.

Well, thats all I got! Love you all so much!!! I Hope you have the best christmas season!!!!! CON MIO TUTTO CUORE!!

Sorella Felice 

ps apparently "Felice" is a masculine name here.... thanks dad!

Cute Sorella Knudsen putting the star on our "poor mans" Christmas tree.

Our last district photo before Sorella Kippen left us :(

A cute less active member and her super fluffy kitty I just adore

Oh ya, remember how I live here. Isn't it gorgeous! 

We had a scavenger hunt in our english class. I was dying! So funny! 

Koala Bears and Princesses!

Ciao tutti 

ok, That was a random title for my email today. I'll explain… So, for transfers we buy these candy things that have toys in them and the toys explain our transfer predictions... I got a Koala bear and Sorella Knudsen when she came told me that hers was none other then THE PRINCESS RAPUNZEL!!! HA! So her prediction was that she would be with me (before we got put together) and mine was either Sorella Knudsen or Sorella Perkins (she is Australian) and we were both right!!! Anyways, super random!

This week not much went down. We went to Cagliari (really hard to get there vecause the train tracks were taken out in the storm last week) We took three buses, and two trains. And then we made it to the airport in time by the skin of our teeth. Sorella Kippen literally had 30 minutes to get on the plane when we arrived. After, I did a scambi with a Sorella in Cagliari. Her name is Sorella Mistura! She is from Verona Italia!!! (WHERE ROMEO MET JULIET!!!) She is awesome and she is so cute and we did some less active finding!!! 

Then we went to the airport again to pick up my new companion Sorella Knudsen! We came back to Sassari and got settled in. Sorella knudsen is awesome!! She talks to everyone and she bares her testimony to EVERY person!! she is amazing!! Such a good example to me. I just love her! We set all these transfer goals and I feel like we are going to see a lot of miracles this month. Also This month the island (as in the missionary's on the island decided to give up english as a christmas gift to Christ. So this whole month I'll be speaking solo Italiano!!!! I'm so excited! Yesterday went great and I'm excited to learn even more!! The language has probably been my hardest trial so far.. So I'm super excited for this new goal!!! Plus Sorella Knudsen is beyond fluent she is sooo great!!!! She is from utah. She lives in Highland/Alpine area. She went to lone peak.... She is just awesome. I am so excited to be with her this transfer. 

This week was also really hard though. We went to go visit one of our investigators, and we went in and she told us how she was finished with us and The Book of Mormon and how she will not change and she doesn't want to see us anymore. I was devastated. We tried to follow the spirit as best as we could to try and and get her to keep seeing us but it just wasn't right. When we went out of the apartment we got in the elevator and I had a little break down. I felt so bad that our first appointment together went sooo bad. I just broke down in front of Sorella Knudsen and I was so sad for Sophia. I love her so much and it really just tore my heart out. Then this morning I was studying my scriptures and I found this beautiful scripture that helped me a lot. I got super sick this week too, and all our members were afraid to talk to me yesterday at church so i sat by myself :( oh and then yesterday another investigator said she didnt want to see us anymore! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH So me and Sorella Knudsen are going to be finding A LOT! 

Ok, I have fallen in love! HOT CHOCOLATE!! They make it super different here! It's thick and you have to eat it with a spoon!! The best part is… Sorella Knudsen knows how to make it!!!!! So we have been feasting on Italian hot chocolate this week!!! SO YUMMY!!! Well that is about it not to much else happened this week. I love you all so much and I pray for you ogni giorno! I hope you all have the spirit of the season and enjoy this beautiful month!!! LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!! 

Love Sorella Felice

Finding in a CYCLONE!!!

Ciao tutti!!!

Well this week was quite an adventure.... we experienced the first cyclone to ever hit Italy/Sardegna! It was a really bad storm! A lot of people have died, its really sad, Olbia (part of my district) was destroyed! The rain came in so hard that they had seven feet of water everywhere! Luckly everyone has appartments so mostly all the people on the top floors were fine. We went to Olbia this week to help out with all the destruction. All the missionaries on the island came and all the members, plus they sent a HUGE group from Rome and some from Milan (the members) to come help also. We had a blast serving!! We went into these basement garage type things and just helped the people there clear them out and drain the water. They were below ground level so everything in the garages /storage places were just DESTROYED!! I felt like I was going down into the titanic to recover lost artifacts… hahah. The people there were awesome! None of them complained, we all just pulled together and worked for hours!!!! We found a lot of weird things in some of the garages. We found a whole set of Italian harry potter that was ruined (it was heart breaking) one of the garages that we opened had a BMW in it that was just destroyed. It was so sad!! however it was such and amazing experience for the church. People were asking a ton of questions because we were one of the biggest groups there. Half way through some guy was like "WE NEED THE SISTERS!!" And he led us to these two girls who were watching and he said "these are missionaries they left everything at home, they left their schooling, their families, everything to come here and preach the gospel. Will you let them teach you?" and they were like "yeah!!" so we taught them the about the restoration and it was such a spiritual experience! It was raining and Sorella Kippen and I were convered with mud and we just sat there telling them how much god loved them. It was probably one of the coolest/strongest moments on my mission. I LOVE SERVING!!! Oh yeah, and the day we were in Olbia was TRANSFER CALL DAY!! but we had no reception underground so we didn't know if they were calling us. When we went up to teach the lesson they called us like five times though!! So after the lesson we answered and Sorella Kippen is leaving me :( She is going to Pescara where I had my first scambi on the mission!! She will love it there!! I think it snows there in the winter. It's right on the Adriatic sea. So she is going from the furthest west you can get in our mission to the furthest east!! Im staying here and I'm getting SORELLA KNUDSEN!! She is in pescara right now and she is one transfer under me. Her trainer was french though so the only way for them to communicate was in italian. So I bet she is WAY good at the language and can teach me A LOT. Anyway thats kind of what we did this week! 

Also we thought that Thanksgiving was this week so we already celebrated it. HA! It was the weirdest Thanksgiving I've ever had.... We had pasta for our first course (our english course students brought food also) then we had the regular stuffing (chicken cause we couldn't find turkey??) mashed potatoes, carrots and Sorella Kippen and I made an apple and pumpkin pie! It was super yummy!!! Anyways, I sat next to a man from Afghanistan, and we shared a wonderfull thanksgiving together! I learned all about the Muslim religion! He is a really nice guy and it was super cool!! My thanksgiving consisted of Italians, Swedish people (Anziano Birberg), an Afghanistan man and all the missionaries hahah!!

So this week one of our members gave us a cd and it was all spanish music?? hahah. All italians listen to is spanish music!!! we can't listen to the cd cause we have no idea what is being said!! But it should be fun for after the mission!!! The only song I knew was "la bamba" ahahha

This week we saw A TON of flamingos!! because they like water and everything is flooded. I still have yet to get a picture of one though!!! 

So we were going less active finding (i call it laughing haha (get it?) Less Active Finding L,A finding... laughing!!! ) and some guy ran up to us and he looks at me and goes "tu sei MOLTO carrina" (you are VERY cute)!!! and runs away????? that was weird

Everyone keeps saying i need to tell nikki how awesome she is with the blog SO NIKKI THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ive heard youve done a really good blog!! you're the best!!!

Anyway that was about it for this week! I love you all so much and hope you have the best Thanksgiving!! remember all you have because a lot of people right now just lost everything!!! I love you all so much (again). I'm so lucky to have all of you in my life! words really can't describe how much I love all of you!!! I miss you all like crazy!! love you tons!

Con mio tutto cuore

Sorella Felice

 

Pruning the Olive Trees

Ciao tutti!!

Well this week was pretty dang exciting! We went down to Cagliari for zone conference and then we did a scambi down there with the Sorelle! I was with Sorella Caramia! She is from northern Italy and I think she is the best Sorella in our whole mission!!! I learned so much from her and I loved every second of the scambi!! She is so funny and she has the perfect balance between loving others and being really bold! hahah SO FUN!!! Our zone conference was on the Book of Mormon and it was just so amazing! Presidente Waddoups was giving his addestramento and I just couldn't help but think how inspired he is!! he talked about our new baptism goal and how its 40 a month and how the Rome temple will be finished in a little over a year and in the rooms they will be able to seat 40 people!! Then he went on saying how it is our job  to fill the temple every month! All the people we baptize now will be able to go to the Rome temple when its done!! I really think that this mission was waiting for him, he is going to change this mission forever!!!

Anyway funny story for this week!! We did service for one of our members and they live out in the country. We got there and we figured out we were going to be PRUNING THE OLIVE TREES!!! What better service project is there on the mission!? hahahh it was so fun!!! We were at it for quite a while!!! at least I gathered some olives for the Lord... haha even if it was just figuratively! Then I got bit by some bug and now my whole arm is red.. YIKES. I think I might have to call Sorelle Waddoups soon if it gets any worse. hahah

One thing that is super cool... the guy who is painting the inside of the Rome temple is coming to Sardegna up to Sassari (or so i heard) to take pics here to inspire his paintings. The Rome temple is going to be such a beautiful temple! I'm so sad I'll miss it!! 

This week I ate SO MUCH PIZZA!!! Everyone just kept feeding us pizza!! I need to join a track team!!! However, the pizza in Italy is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!! So I'm really not complaining :)

Yesterday I asked Sorella Kippen what her favorite book was and she looks at me and says "ummmm probably Alma!" hahah I was laughing so hard! I love we are such a missionaries!

 

This week I've grown to love the ward members so much more! I love all of them!! They are so great and just sooooooooo amazing!! I never want to leave them.. One that I just absolutely love is Fratello Marras He owns this little flower shop right next to our apartment and we always make him brownies! Then he gives us the Liahona after he has read it. hahah He is hilarious!! 

Anyway me and sorella kippen are still looking for people to baptize!! Love you all so much. Sorry this letter is way to scattered!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!! 

Sorella Felice 

Sorella Caramia and Paula during scampi

Pruning the Olive Trees

Night in Sassari

The rest of the pictures are from Zone Conference

Book of Mormon Stories

JUST SINGING IN THE RAIN!!! (RUNNING, NOT SINGING)

Ciao tutti!!!

It was so good to get emails from everyone!! First off Jill I'm so sorry about you Dad. I will keep your family in my prayers! My heart is just broken for you and Matt! Dad said something super interesting that made me think of you.. "the work is not only hastening on this side of the veil but on the other side also" I know that your Dad is helping those people on the other side and I know that you will always be able to feel the love he has for you! 

Well, this week was super interesting! First off at the beginning of the week Sorella Kippen and I were finding as usual and we met this lady in the park, and she was super nice!!! So I handed her a restoration pamphlet and we left (probe should have talked to her about it, I'm an idiot) Anyway, we are walking back ten minutes later and she is reading the pamphlet!!! So that night we have English course and she comes! So we get her number and we have a lesson with her right then and there. She is amazing, seriously. So we taught her the word of wisdom, law of tithing, the restoration, temples and the plan of salvation that night. It was so amazing!!! The next morning we have another huge lesson with her! And she was like half way into the book of Nephi! So she is like done with all the lessons and she asked if she could get a priesthood blessing to stop smoking!! (GOLDEN!!!! this doesn't happen!!) When we started teaching her I could tell it was going to be a home run, like when you hit the ball and you just KNOW its going over the fence, she was it!! So we set up an appointment for the next day with the anziani. Well, she gives us a bidone (no show) and we try to call her, her phone is off?? So the next day we try to call her and she tells us that she can never see us..... I don't know what happened :( but I guarantee that I've not experienced that kind of heartbreak on my mission. Sorella Kippen and I were just devastated. I still have hope that she will come back and if not now then for sure some time in the future! She is so golden and so ready… it just breaks my heart. Anyway, so that was kind a hard….

so I wanted to include this... this is Sorella Kippens letter regarding are new investigator but not (This week when we were doing finding we stopped and talked to a man under a tree and he didn't really want to talk all that much about our religion but nonetheless we talked to him. Suddenly i felt three distinct drops fall on me...yes it was poop, pigeon poop. The man said that it is good luck...Italians are so superstitious. They have a myth for just about everything. So I took my jacket off and froze until we went in for lunch. After lunch we went finding again and found a woman sitting on a bench with tons of pigeons by her feet. (it's a sign!) So we went and talked to her and she turns out to be our new investigator! She pretty golden and she was really excited about everything but then when we called her yesterday she said she didn't want to talk to us again...ugh...so getting pooped on by pigeons is just real crap shot no matter how much you want it to be good luck.)

K so now for the fun part of the week! First off Sorella Kippen and I were again finding and we came across this lady and she lived in Rome! So I asked her where and she lives two streets away from the Sorella in Rome 3!!!!!!! I WAS SO EXCITED!!! We taught her a lesson right there and she was awesome! She loved the book of Mormon (probs cause it was from South America, oh yeah from CALI COLUMBIA!! weird huh!! (that's where Jesse is!) Anyway, I gave her the directions to the church in Rome (so weird) and then we got her number and I got to call SORELLA PACE to give her the referral!!!!! So that was way cool! 

Yesterday we found out that we are in charge of the musical number for zone conference tomorrow…..YIKES! So we went to the church to practice. We decided we are going to do Army's of Helaman in Italian!! Pretty cool, right? Somehow I got roped into singing and me and Sorella Kippen have to sing a whole verse by ourselves (Sorella Kippen is a singer... I'm not) So we practiced and when we finished we were all getting ready to leave and we look out side… um, its like hurricane status!!! Sorella Kippen and I don't even have umbrellas…. The church is about a twenty minute walk from our apartment unless we catch a bus. The Anziani are even futher, like 30 minutes away from the church (if they are running). So we are all sitting inside thinking of what to do... needless to say we needed to be in our apartment in ten minutes so we just decided to run..... FUNNEST MOMENT ON MY MISSION!!! I seriously don't think I've had that much fun!!! We were all just laughing and running as fast as we could!!!!! Anziano Robinson's umbrella broke and he was running with it in front of him  like he was going to ram something or like he was pretending to be Superman. HA HA! SOOOO funny!!! Luckily a bus came as we were running!!!! Oh! So we got to the bus stop and ALL THE ANZIANI UMBRELLAS WERE BROKEN!!!! It was hilarious!! Anziano Birberg had this REALLY nice umbrella that everyone has here in Italy and it was just broken, so sad, and sooo funny. I'll send pics!!

anyway, I love you all so much! Miss you like crazy!!! THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Con mia tutto cuore 

Sorella Felice

She found her favorite condiment!! She was sooooo happy! 

like Christmas happy….

Sorella Kippen and Paula after running in the rain! 

"Se tu sei FELICE batti le tue mani" me... clap clap

Ciao Ciao miei carissimi amici!! 

Well this week was sups interesting! You'll never believe what we saw!!! A SCORPION!!! It was terrifying!! We were on our way to see a less active and BAM... I almost stepped on it!! It was tiny and scary!!!!!!! Then a man walks by and says "molto pericoloso!!! se click click (pincer noises) tu sei nell ospedale! (very dangerous if it gets you! you'll be in the hospital!) haha! THEN not only two days later guess who almost steps on another scorpion! ME! blahhh! UMM... scared to death over here! 

So Halloween was SOOOO fun!! They don't celebrate it over here, but one of our members did want to do a party with all the school kids. She invited us over to talk to all the parents (very sucessful!) Anyway, it was so fun!!! They bought little handbands with bats on them for me and Sorella Kippen!!! ovunque. It was the BOMB! and on Halloween it RAINED!!! It was like the first sign of fall!!! LOVE IT!! Sorella Kippen and I made a pumpkin pie!!!!! yayyy!!! (we had to make if from scratch cause they have NO ingredients here!) 

So the other day it was raining again, and Sorella Kippen and I got stuck in the middle of the rain storm and we found a huge palm tree and hid under it and we didn't get wet AT ALL!! We were so lucky! (that is one of the pics) 

That same night we went to one of our new converts house and they fed all the missionaries and it was a blast! except for the part that his brother gave us these chocolates and i got one that had cherries in it.... well it also had a little something else in it that burned all the way down my throat so now I know not to eat cherry chocolate here!!!  Also that night we found out that they own a TOOTH OF A GREAT MEGLADON!!!!!! CRAZY!!! 

This week we found a new park to find in and it is AWESOME! there is a baci ball tournament everyday so we find and watch baci ball hahaha (its just a bunch of old men that play) 

Other than that we are doing really good here!!! We are working harder then ever!!! I wish I had this drive when I was in Rome! I feel like we could have found SOO many more people!!! We have found so many new potentials in the last couple of weeks! We just got to make them simps!!!!

I really just love my mission so much! I can't use words to describe how much this experience means to me and how much I absolutely love these people, this culture and this stinking country!!! ITALY IS THE BEST! I'm just so FELICE!! I AM SO HAPPY!!!!! I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!!! I know it's true and I know that its REAL! I've grown so much here and I have such a testimony in my Savior!!! 

I love you all so much have the best week EVER!!!!!!!!!

Con mia tutto cuore 

Sorella Felice

MAGGOT CHEESE!!!!!!!!! aka casu matsu!

Ciao Tutti!!

Well this week started off with a bam! let me tell you about casu matsu!

ok so for our weekly district meeting, one of the anziani brought this cheese. So it is like a thing of sour cream and they put it out in the sun and flies come and land in it and lay there eggs..... then the maggots come (worms) and they eat the fly eggs, well then the maggots eat so much fly eggs that they poop and the process goes on for so long that basically the roll of cheese is a bunch of maggot digested fly eggs..... poop.. the cheese is poop... 

I didn't eat it... everyone did though but seriously they opened it and maggots jumped EVERYWHERE it was soooooo disgusting!! 

This week we were finding and everyone was just being super rude and we came across this one lady and we offered her a English course bilitini and she got so mad at us… ranting at us that she was orthodox blah blah blah.. (we hadn't said anything about religion) and it kind of hurt a bit. I asked her why on earth she didn't like us when we hadn't done anything to her and she was like, "cause you are not christian", "in order to be christian you would have to be baptized and have the holy ghost!" so all I said  "SCUSA! we are baptized we were baptized with proper authority, we have been given the holy ghost and we go to church every Sunday for three hours! Our church is called the church of JESUS CHRIST, and you don't think were christian??" Then I said I respect that you're christian grazia a mille ciao ciao. I wish that people would just listen some times but all we can ever do is invite they have there free agency.. sorry that was a really random story..

However, this week we did find 2 new investigators!!! well one is still a potential but we are for sure getting a appointment with him!! I'm so excited! Sorrella Kippen and I have been working are butts off! 

MOM I GOT MY BDAY PACKAGES!! Thank you so much!!! They were so nice, and I loved them so much!!! and thanks Car and Ster for the earrings and necklace!! I love them! I LOVE MY FAMILY!!! 

Today Sorella Kippen and I might go buy these super pretty sard rings!!! I'm so excited! We did half of our email this morning and then we went shopping and had lunch and now we are finishing up email. anyway

Dad, i got your card reader! and the other SD card! thank you! 

Ughh this week we had sooooooooooooooo many dinner appointments! which was great but they feed us SOOOOOOOO MUCH!! I'm going to have to exercise double this week!!! However the food is soooooooo good!! i love Italian food so  much i could never get sick of it!!! I'm so excited to come home and cook for all of you!!! (risk... you might get fat!) today we are making this ricotta walnut sauce with pasta!!! I'm sooooo excited!!! and then we have of course a meal appointment hahah 

So yesterday Sorella Kippen asked me if I thought dogs were ever a problem in church (like an owner tried to bring there dog to church (it happened in Rome twice)) so anyway we are sitting there in sacrament and one of our investigators comes in with a dog hahahah it was hilarious but we also had to deal with the whole that isn't appropriate thing haha

anyway gotta go!! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! YOU MEAN SO MUCH TO ME AND I PRAY FOR YOU ALL EVERY NIGHT! oh also I cut my hair.... I don't really like it though.. 

LOVE YOU ALLLLLL

CON MIA TUTTO CUORE!

Sorella Felice 

MAGGOT CHEESE….. see the maggotts?

Packages!