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!

Benvenuti alla Chiesa di GESÙ CRISTO!

Ciao tutti!!!

OK, so this week was WAY FUN!! First off some GREAT news!!! last district meeting we had a discorso on numbers, well goals. and we talked about how the missions baptism goal was 20 a month and we finally reached it like my first transfer but now we are only getting like 9 or 7 baptisms a month. Anyway we had this interesting lesson on how in order to get one baptism you have to teach lesson 4 three times, and in order to do that you had to teach lesson 3 six times...... anyway it comes down to you have to talk to over 400 people a month to have a baptism every month, so as a mission we set new goals! EVERY MISSIONARY IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ONE BAPTISM A MONTH! So, 40 baptisms min for the mission and the set goal is 95 i think!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!! This week we were on fire!!!!! We taught so many lessons and we have sooooo many new potentials, and it was are whole district!! We have like over doubled are numbers and I know that this is going to bring more baptisms, It was such inspiration to have the goal changed, ITALIA WILL FLOURISH!!! 

Anyway, so this week we had a lesson with one of our investigators and before this, we were in this big piazza where all these raggazzi (teens) hang out in. We were teaching and suddenly like ten feet from us a fist fight broke out!!! so fun!!! OK then later we went to dinner with her (the investigator) and all the Anziani to HONG KONG! ha it is a chinese buffet called Hong Kong... I still don't really like Chinese food. We did have fun with the chopsticks though!! Then after dinner we had to RUN home or else we were going to be late (and the presidente is being really strict about obedience, so we ran as fast as we could!) We were running and right as we hit one of the bus stops the bus came so we run and barley make the bus, while we are on the bus some raggazzi (teens) are trying to talk with us in English "what is your name? can we have our number?" (they weren't the best at speaking English, but they were trying hard) and then they got really bad (like naughty) so we got off the bus and right as I stepped off I was just suddenly in the arms of some man????? like my foot hits the ground and then there is just stinky man everywhere!!! LIKE BAM!! I'm just like "what just happened and is happening to me" and this guy is hugging me and then he says "come with me!!!" so then I start freaking out thinking I'm getting kidnapped and trying to find Sorella Kippen! Then I realize these two guys were just out running (like exercising) and I stepped off the bus and he ran into me but then he just was creepy about it! Sorella Kippen is just running home.... hahah So I catch up to her and the running men are following us then they literally start running circles around us! So, we are like "well now were going to have to get rid of them before we go home so they don't know where we live..." we did get asked out on a date though in the process... Italian men! AHHHHH so annoying! 

I guess we just met some pretty crazy people this week... non important.

The members here in Sassari are so nice I love them to pieces"!!! This week they told us to come to the church and they bought birthday cake for me and anziano woolsey because his birthday was this week too! So we feasted on birthday cake this week! YUM

Last night we got asked out to dinner again! but also we taught three lessons on the street on the way home so that was a miracle!!! I'm telling you!! Italy is going to boom!! 

Anyway that is all I can think of that happened this week. Thanks for all the letters! I love you all so much, you mean the world to me!!!! I'll see you in eleven or ten months... ahhhh weird!! love you!!!!!!!!! 

Sorella Felice

The pics are one of a church, one is a really clean street we found, and one with the chopsticks! 

Monday P-day!

Ciao tutti!! 

Well, not that much that has happened since last Wednesday... so this is probs going to be a little short!!! 

Anyway WE GOT TRANSFER CALLS!!! and EVERYONE IS SASSARI IS STAYING!! so me and Kippy will be together for another transfer here in the beautiful island of Sardegna! hahah!!!

So one thing that happened this week is that probably twice a week one of our next door neighbors who is really old will knock on our door and talk to us for a while. So this week we are doing planning and she knocks on our door and I answer it since I was ready. Sorella Kippen runs out to put a cardigan on and I'm talking to Vincenza and Sorella Kippen comes back and she is wearing my white cardigan and my name tag was still on it!!! hahah so she comes over and Vinceza says "YOUR BOTH SORELLA FELICE!!" you must both be happy today hahah 

At church yesterday one of our members gave me and Kippy two bags of food!!!!!!!!! It was awesome!!! There were fresh grapes in the bag and we ate all of them before we even got home! It was the best!!!!!!!!! she brought us like all these veggies and sausage.... oh the Italians and their sausage! Tonight, we are going to a Chinese restaurant!! Which should be interesting.... we are going with one of our Simps, and all the missionaries. She wanted all of us to come!! umm... that is pretty much it. We have done like a butt load of finding this week but really not a lot of stories! OH, except the ugly spider I sent a picture of last week now has a huge thing with all of its babies in it!!! we are going to have to find out how to kill that thing! It freaking terrifies me!!!!! Anyway love you all tons!!!!!!!!! mwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

Sorella Felice

Birthdays, Chilli, and Pumpkin Pie!!

Ciao tutii!!!

GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD!!!! seriously it was so amazing, Alex said this in his letter but its really true! "missionaries are more excited for general conference, then for christmas as a child!!" Anyways, I loved every second of it!! This was super funny, we were planning on friday morning and are zone leader called us and said "so Presidente and Sorella Waddoups are coming to SASSARI!!!" so we watched general conference with the Mission President!!! It was really cool!! and they would have really good insights! Also did you guys just love Elder Edward Dube's talk? He reminds me of my investigators in Rome! I LOVED how he said that missionary work is like cattle and how if only the one cow is moving (the full time missionaries) we won't move, we need ALL of the members ,missionary or not (all members are misisonaries though) need to move!! The Lord is hastening this work and I KNOW that what the apostles talked about this weekend is vitally important! Take head to their words! I promise you that you will find no greater joy in this life (besides in the family) then sharing the gospel to those you love! Please please pray for missionary opportunities!!! Remember 1 person before christmas in each ward (if we do that we will have 30,000 new members!!!!! Also I loved Uchtdorfs talk(s)!! (President let us watch priesthood with all the anziani and Sorella Waddoups (it was SOO WEIRD)) Uchtdorfs talks were so good though!! especially the "join with us!" one. One of the companionships had an investigator there and so it was the bomb!!! I love President Uchtdorf so much!!! Also President Monsons talk broke my heart! I was just bawling all the way through it!!! Especially that his anniversary was on my birthday.  That is all I could think about, please pray for him!

So my birthday was super funny. We had General Conference Saturday night and then all day Sunday (we had to watch them out of order because of the time difference). We were going to watch the last sunday evening session today, but monday we packed and went down to Caglieri! The sisteres there had to make food for Zone Conference. So we spent time making Chilli and 7 layer Mexican bean dip (I seriously don't know how the sisters found ingredients for that). Then we made eggplant and corn bread and tirmasu!! It was sooooo yummy, and I got chilli for my Birthday which was the best!!!!! Tuesday was Zone Conference all day. So we got the the church at 8 and left at 4 and didn't get back to Sassari until almost ten!!! We will probably have to take the train again to Caglieri for transfers... hahah. Lets just say I'm officially out of money from buying so many train tickets!! hahah. Anyway we didn't really have that big of a week since we had Zone Conference and then General Conference.

OH, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KATIE HOOPS! AND EDEN COPE!

So I do have some pretty crazy news from the mission P-DAY IS NOW ON MONDAY!!! CRAZY!!!! So this week we kind of get two p-days!! Weird huh!!

So nothing else really happened this week! Thanks for the boots Mom (by the way) I LOVE THEM! I just want to say how much I love my mission and how much I LOVE SASSARI!! I kind of want to stay here the rest of my mission! HA! That won't happen but I just really love it!! (by the way I saw 2 flamingos this week!!!!) the people are so funny and it's just the best place in the world. It feels like home!!! Ahhhhhh and seriously I am troppo felice that I had the opportunity to go on a mission!!! I have never been so happy in my entire life!!! I'm so glad that my name means happy in Italian because there is no better way to tell you how I feel!!!! I LOVE THIS GOSPEL AND MY MISSION AND THE CHURCH AND THE PROPHET AND THE APOSTLES!!!! THIS IS REAL!! THE CHURCH IS TRUE! I LOVE MY FAMILY!

anyway ciao ciao love you all loads!!!!

com mia tutto cuore

Sorella felice

by the way the pics are one of us at general conference, we made taco salad and then the members brought us TONS of food they are the bomb.com! one is me with the old italian men playing checkers in the park (too classy to not send) and then dad you asked if we ever ate hamburgers, yes yes we do! however we do not have mexican food we found some taco seasoning in caglieri but other than that there is nothing close to mexican food here! also im out of hot sauce :(

ok so the first one is the spider we found on our church! i was so scared its like the size of a tennis ball! i didnt think there were spiders here till this week hahah

the other is the only pics i took on my birthday, they are both in caglieri when we were walking to the sister house from the train station

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Ciao Tutti

So I don't have a lot of time today so i might not be able to email any of you sorry!! I will try to write as many letters today as possible!!

Ok first off THERE WAS A BAPTISM THIS WEEK!!! we have a student in our English course whose name is marrizio and he has disabilities and we showed up early one day and he was there so we taught him the first lesson. He was SUPER hard to understand though with our limited Italian. So the Anziani (elders) taught him the rest of the lessons and he was baptized on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was soooooooooooo amazing you could see a light in him, he is always smiling and he asked if he could bear his testimony in church (which he was going to anyway). He is just so amazing, he is so close to God and I just don't even know how to describe how much he has changed since being baptized. The branch here just adores him!!!! ahhh THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway this week was pretty awesome! we ran out of money and food for the last week... so on Sunday we were like "what the heck are we going to eat" haha so we made what we call "Italian gulash" hah we put spaghetti, lasagna and ravioli in a pan then put mozzarella and parmesan then we had ricotta in the ravioli.  We put some tomato paste with onion garlic and peppers and then just threw it in one big dish and cooked it. haha! It was SOOOOO good though! We thought it would taste awful but it actually was pretty amazing!

So this week we had a miracle!! on Sunday we had nothing to do but finding for 7 hours so we went out and we met this CRAZY (pauzza), man on the street and he was talking about Obama and we didnt quite understand him, and this kid named Lorenzo came up to us and was like "do you need some help translating??" so he helped us for a while and then Lorenzo invited us over for Sunday dinner with his parents!!! It was sooooo awesome!!! We ate the WORLDS BEST FIGS!!!! I probably ate like half a bowl of figs, they were soooo yummy!! But we hope that we can teach this family!! Then after that we went to try to find a less active but (this is a long story) we started to get followed by some Muslim ladies for over half an hour. So we called the zone leader and he told us to get on the first bus we see. So we hopped on a bus which then took us to an area that we aren't supposed to be in after dark so we decided to hop off the bus (this is like 830 at night) and by this time it's pouring rain!!! So we are sitting at this bus stop in the pouring rain and all of a sudden i just start singing "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and my companion joins in. hahah weird moment but I thought it was worth sharing!

Yesterday we were finding and this guy comes up to me and he is a mime and he is wearing a big clown nose and he just graps one of the billitini (fliers for English course) I was holding and then mimes a thank you and walked a way... it was a pretty weird week!

Also, in case you were wondering, we can see the sea from our church building!!! It's super pretty!!

Ok, I seriously have no time, but I love you all so much! You are all the best! miss you with mia tutto cuore! Thanks for all the birthday wishes you guys all rock! I promise I send some more pics next week (thanks for the card reader dad! you are the best)

Sorella Felice!

The pics are of sassari and then one of me picking grapes at a members house! (september is grape and fig season so you guys better be excited to try real grapes in one year!!!)