I got spit on by a GYPSY!

CIAO TUTTI!!!

Ok so every ones emails this week were SOOOO FUNNY!!! People think something is wrong with me at the Internet point cause I've been laughing for like a straight twenty minutes!!!

Ok I'm going to start with what happened last p-day! we went into centro to buy gifts and shirts and things for people and we noticed on the way there that there were tons of Gypsy's on the metros. So we are coming back and I see this group of teenage girl Gypsy's (they are the worst!!!!! so catty). They were spotting out people with wallets in their back pockets and I usually just stare them down and they go away because they don't want to be caught. OK, so this one looked super evil, in her pink sparkly tank top, and I was glaring at her and she was glaring at me and then she started dancing???? Then the metro came... dum dum dum!!! so she runs up to this old man from Chicago (they get them as they go onto the metro so that the doors shut right as they pic-pocket them) and so I follow her (were like running at this point) and she goes into his pocket and I push her so she doesn't get his wallet... she pushes me.. I push her again off the metro. Then she hocks a luggi at my face! Then Sorella Bradford elbows her in the stomach  :) and the man from Chicago thanked us.. prego!! also her spit was super stinky..not that you wanted to know that. (**Editors note** In the MTC they were trained on how to react when getting robbed or seeing another person get robbed by Gypsies. They are told to be very aggressive. If they are not aggressive the Gypsies will know that they can take advantage of you. Plus, it probably helped this man from Chicago have a good outlook on the LDS church.) 

Ok so this week we didn't really do anything!! we had p-day then it was ferr agosto (big Holiday in Italy)!!!!!!! every store was closed, no buses, no trams, no metros, no NOTHING!!!!! NO PEOPLE!!! It's one of the biggest Holidays! and so we were told not to go out because contacting would just make people mad. So we cleaned our apartment for 6 hours!!!!!! Then the next day we had zone conference which was sooooooooo fun!!!! I love zone conference!!!! I'll send some pictures!!! the next day was Saturday and everything was still closed and Friday was supposed to be our weekly planning day so we planned Saturday then went finding for hours!!!

I FOUND THE BEST GELATO IN ITALY!!!!!!!!!!! ITS SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!! Also random fact, have I ever told you guys that Italians put cream on top of their gelato... no joke they scoop your gelato onto the cone then put a huge thing of cream on the top!!??? I also found the best cereal in the world!!!!! its called master crumble and that is seriously all I ate this week besides tomatoes (I'm serious all I ate was tomatoes with vinegar and cereal) OH jk I did had a sandwich one day!

Oh by the way i need someone to check for me if they have mozzerela di bufala in the states. Its buffalo mozzerela and it it the best thing I've ever eaten!! also master crumble :) oh and check if they have calabrese sauce at granatos?? thanks!!!

So my comp and I have this new game for language study when we are on buses and stuff (not are real language study but just through out the day) So we sing a song and the other one has to translate it into Italian hah its soooo funny!!! Also we figured out how to do the hunger games bad lip reading in Italian and we were laughing about it for hours!!! Like one is adesso sono loco crazy!!!! Sorry, that was random!

So the Anziani (Elders) had a BAPTISM this week!!!!!!! and they have another one on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!! our district is on FIRE!!! We have five baptisms scheduled!!!!!!! this NEVER EVER EVER happens!!! (which reminds me of t-swift never ever ever... "noi saremo emo emo mai piu inseime") ok anyway i just cant believe how much progress our zone is making!!! My companionship is still really dead (as far as investigators goes) but we do a TON of less active work!!! We do have the biggest district in the mission (ten missionaries) and we can definitely see the results of the increase of missionaries. IT'S SO AMAZING!!!! Usually in our mission we get 10 to 15 baptisms a month and our district has 5 scheduled!!!! It's soooo cool!!!! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!! one of the girls getting baptized this Saturday is this cute phillipino. She asked me to speak at the baptism!!!!!! It's in English though, cause she is English. hahah She also asked me to bake brownies :) hahah she is so cute!!!

SO I AM NOW OFFICIAL IN ITALY!!!!! I got my PERMESSO!!!!!! (it just means i can stay here till next September but WAHOOOO!! The weather is starting to go down which is nice!!! it rained yesterday it was soooo nice to escape the heat for a day!!

Anyway random fact of the week.... Italians consider it rude to eat fruit with your hands (like eating and apple) so they cut and eat their fruit with knives. Which sucks cause that means you can't take an apple and eat it on the way because they will look at you like you've killed their child..

Today we went to this castle and it was beautiful!!!! We then ended up at the Vatican some how... that always seems to happen... and yeah

Anyway (I'm sorry i use anyway a lot) that was what happened this week!!! I love my mission so much!! It's just the best! we found some new fun ways to find and its been super effective and I just love being able to talk to so many people and share with them things that can help them!!! I love you all way too much and miss you like crazy!!! I wish you could all be here in Italy with me while I worked!!!!! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!!!

Love Sorella Felice!!!!

This was a picture my Mom drew for Paula after Paula's Super Hero run in with the Gypsy's this last week. Paula always loved the PowerPuff Girls and Blossom was her favorite, so what better of a super hero to draw her as. So my Mom translated Blossom into Italian (Fiore) and put a missionary tag on her. 

 Scared??

Tuscany and Talking Donkeys

Ciao Tutti!!

This week was SUPER GREAT!!! We did a lot of missionary fun!!! (get it "misionary work" but instead of saying work, we say "missionary fun!!" ok sorry, not that funny. There is a possibility I might be going crazy) We will start at the begging (this sounds like its going to be a great story but really its just what happened this week)

Something funny, I guess I talk in my sleep every night. So in the morning everyone always tells me what I was saying. This week I woke up and they were all laughing. They told me that I kept saying "siamo missionaria per la chiesa di gesu cristo dei santi degli ultimi giorni, e noi abbiamo una messagio per tu!!!" That is my testimony. They told me I kept bearing my testimony in italian. hahah! Yes, I am truly converted now!! I can now not only dream about bearing my testimony, but its in Italian!!!! hahah! One time they told me I kept saying "senza colpa" over and over which means "i'm not guilty" haha. anyway... 

EVERYONE in Italy smokes, I SWEAR! So Sorella Pace and I are going to ciampino (a little city) on the train and we are we at the train station and we noticed a guy that was walking in the train tracks picking up cigarettes that aren't smoked all the way so that he can re-light them and smoke them. So sad. It must have been on both of our minds that day because now we have this new game where we try to find good cigarettes for that man.. we will be walking and be like "oh look at that one!!" anyways, like i said "missionary fun!!!!" (thats me being sarcastic!) 

OK, SOMETHING SUPER FUNNY!!! Sorella Pace and I were trying to find this lady named Zhora!! We are clear out in the middle of nowhere and we are sitting on a bus **ok side note , there are foreigners in Italy that will sit at a stop lights and when cars stop they will try to clean their windows for money**  So one of these people come up to the bus we were on and they take their rag and draw a heart around me and Sorella Pace's faces with soapy water on the window. hahah Anyway, everyone is just starring at us on the bus cause we have these soapy hearts by our faces.... that might be hard to understand. I'll try to send a picture!! It made our day! 

So this week i've realized when people are speaking Chinese, for some reason when i'm not really listening it sometimes sounds like they are speaking english.... something is wrong with my ears!!! It has happened about 4 times this week! I'll turn and say "hey they are speaking english" and then we  will all listen and they will be speaking Chinese.. Seriously! What the! 

OK BEST PART OF THE WEEK! I WENT ON SCAMBI WITH SORELLA BRADFORD TO THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE!!! We got on a train to find a referral and we go out to the mountains near Rome. When we finally get off the train, we have a little map book to try and navigate with. Within ten minutes we are walking through vineyards and groves of olive trees! it was so amazingly pretty!!!!!!!!!!! Then we realize that we have to walk pretty far. By the time we got to this referral's home it had been over 5 hours of walking!!! I really didn't mind though! We were walking past this grove of olive trees and these dogs come running at us barking, then out of no where COMES A DONKEY!!! Sorella Bradford looks over and she like "hmm, oh look olive trees.....and a donkey...how jerusalem...." hahah! Anyway, it was a super fun journey! We got to the referrals street and we were on house 24.  We looked at the address and her house was 701! So, we walked a little longer and it was just so fun! It seriously looked just like Tuscany!!!!!! We ate some grapes along the way and just had a good time doing missionary work!!!!!

So this week is "ferr agosto". everyone is on holiday here and all the stores are closed, ALL OF THEM!!! There is nothing to do here for our P-day. So our President is actually having us stay in for a whole day this week to just clean our apartments, which i'm stoked about. I've been dying to clean that place for a while now and we never have enough time on p-day to deep clean. It will feel so good!

So my companion Sorella Pace went to Olympus and it's super fun. We will be talking about stuff and she'll say something like "oh, its by the s curve" or "this granite (slurpy) tastes like Bobs Brain Freeze" or "shivers is the best burger place".. It's just so fun to be able to talk about the same things about home when we are all the way across the world, and we know exactly where each other grew up. It's just fun!

Anyway that was my exciting week. I hope you are all having a great week!!! i love you all so much and miss you! Every night when i'm on my knees I pray for all of you!!!!

LOVE YOU!!!!! Sorella Felice!!!

Window hearts the guy drew around our faces! 

Vinyards

DONKEY! Miniature Jerusalem

The street name was "Island of Cyclops" 

I was eating some grapes, in the vineyard! 

We were tracking and this lady had a sign on her door that basically said how God loves all his children and had a bunch of scriptures on it. We thought that would be a good door to knock on! 

La La La Whatever

Ciao Tutti!!!

So not that much has happened this week. The week just sort of flew by i'm surprised it's already p-day!!! So last P-day there was this huge capi conference (for all the zone leaders and sister training leaders) Everyone came up to Rome that was a zone leader or sister training leader. So since most of them had never seen Rome we divided our district and acted as tour guides to all the other missionaries. It was super fun. Even though i've been to all the sites like ten times. We went to the vatican again and the colosseo (colosseum) and it was just fun talking to other missionaries!! One of the sisters that came up was from Cosenza so I asked her a billion questions about it! haha.

So last thursday we decided to have this big soccer game and our english course came and all the anziani (elders) and all of their investigators and all of ours! PARTY. So we get to this big field and there are a bunch of old Italian men that are like we come here every night ready to play people. So (oh yeah and since they are old italian men of course they weren't wearing shirts) Anyway, the elders played with them while I went to a separate field with all the kids. Mostly because I suck at soccer (very much!!!). It was super fun. I only made one goal but hey... i'm surprised I even did that! It was really fun though and everyone brought drinks and we had our lesson on an aqueduct.... good times

So the other night Sorella Pancheri and I did a scambi (splits). We were putting up posters and we were going up to this pole to put up a poster and there was this HUGE bee! So we stare at it for a while then I decide i'll just tape the bee to the pole, then we can put a poster up. So I tape the bee to the pole and little did I know there was a beehive in the pole (sono non intelligente)! Anyways, Sorella Pancheri and I run away screaming. Then a dog started chasing us. Super fun! After everything calmed down we realized that are roll of tape was still stuck to the stupid pole. hahah!! I'm learning how to be brave out here, that is for sure!!!

So yesterday we had this investigator named Arthur (I had never met or seen him but Sorella Mikesel and Sorella Openshaw used to teach him A LOT) So we meet him and we find out he is a Catholic Priest who has a congregation........ of course! Anyway we are teaching him and some things were said (I think he was trying to pick a fight) so the spirit left and it turned into the worst lesson ever!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most we could share with him was our testimonies... then we left and got gelato (it was needed!!)

So we have an "investigator" named Mary who i've talked about before, but we went over to her house this week. We were teaching her about our loving Heavenly Father and she is so cute... she starts singing a song about it (she is from africa so one of the songs that they sing in church?) anyway she is full on singing and clapping and Sorella Pace and I are just sitting there like "hmmm, what do we do???"  hahah, I love moments like that!!! Oh yeah, so after she was done singing she told us that we needed to wear head scarves because it was too hot outside and that if we ever wanted to come back we needed to be wearing our head scarves. hahah! She told us it was for our own protection! So that night Sorella Pace and I tried to wrap scarves around are heads and it didnt work out so well!!

Also this sunday we went over to a members for dinner and it was super fun except for the part where he gave us non alcoholic beer! hahah. We didn't drink it though. We gave it to our elders with a little bow!!! haha I think they just ended up throwing it away.

Anyway im sorry i dont have any fun stories this week we have literally just been finding the whole week and it just went by sooooo fast!!!!!! Anyways, I love you all so much. Thanks for all the letters! It's the best to get letters from everyone! I hope that you all have the BEST WEEK EVA!!!!!!!!!!

Love Sorella Felice!!!!

Drinking water from the fountain at the vatican. Paula says that the water in Italy is so clean. Even the mission President told them to take advantage of the free water everywhere you go. 

Gelato

This is her new companion Sorella Pace but it is hard to see her face in this picture

(the fake beer)

Trying to get our normal scarves to work like a head scarf so we can still teach Mary

Paula is not a real big fan of meat.... especially looking like this. It grosses her out. I'm guessing this is why she took this picture.