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!