Ups & Downs

What was the best thing you ate this week? 

We have a South American investigator and all this week we have been trying to duplicate the rice he makes. The trick is frying the rice in oil before boiling it. Makes it super good. You have to fry it to the point that it is well cooked but not burned. That is what I have found. However the real trick is having good rice in the first place.

What was the hardest thing you did this week? 

This week I felt super bad. We messed up big time. We had planned a dinner at our member’s home and we were bringing our investigators to come eat at her house. We were in a lesson and we got the news that our investigator couldn’t come and we forgot to tell the member we could not come. We got a call that night from the member who was super sad and tore a strip off us, and for good reason. They had been cooking all day for this family to come and on top of that they said that took out a loan to buy groceries (yeah... seriously...). I felt super bad. We got home super late because we went to drop a note off at their house.

What were your duties at church yesterday and did you have any investigators? 

We had one young man named Marco come to church yesterday. He is... different. He is the son of a member in Sardegnia who has never met missionaries before and his dad gave us the referral. He is a good lad and is always down to meet with us. He has a baptismal date for next month.

What was your miracle of the week?

This is the miracle and also one of the saddest things that happened this week. We were doing street contacting (like we always do) and we started talking with a family. They were super cool and in the end we exchanged numbers (I think this is the first time I have exchanged phone numbers with a family on my mission. Crazy.), but after we exchanged numbers and started walking away the phone started freaking out and in the end it turned off and the number was not there anymore.... :( So the miracle was that we exchanged numbers. Hopefully we see them again! Rome is really big so it will take another miracle.

Volleyball with the district.

Preaching & Translating

What was coolest thing you saw this week? 

This week we organized a party for English course. It was super fun! It was a pancake party. Literally all we did was made pancakes, play games, and had country music playing in the background. But they all loved it! They also really enjoyed the pancakes. We made syrup and had bananas and all the other fixins. It was good.

Who was the most interesting person you talked to this week?

Well... We got invited to come "preach," as he put it, to this house full of Bangladeshi men. It was pretty fun. We got to the house and it was in this weird little back alley where the street was literally 3 feet wide and smelled heavily of curry. But we go into the house and there were 4 men living in an area about 6 feet by 10 feet with twin size beds on both sides of the walls and a small, 2 foot pathway between the beds. We sat on their beds and talked about God. These 4 guys are living here in Italy alone, with their families still in Bangladesh. They had awesome Indian accents (we spoke in English). But after the lesson they invited us to come again next week to "preach to their 8 friends.” So the next time to see them we will be preaching to the masses. It’s gonna be sweet. 

What was the hardest thing you did this week? 

This Sunday we both were super ill and we didn’t have any appointments planned. But we worked our best that night for 5 hours. Didn’t really get any numbers. Got yelled at a lot. Got harassed by a lot of gypsies and wandered our way into this Arab ghetto where nobody spoke Italian. Super scary. But we survived the night. We also met this pretty cool man and had an awesome conversation, but in the end he gave us the "I will call you" answer. Meh...

What was church like yesterday? 

This was like the first time in church that it was somewhat relaxing. I had to translate. Haha. I really enjoy translating because I can really only hear about 40% of what they are saying so I have to make up the rest. Telling random stories and citing random scriptures. It is impossible to follow the lessons. But I really enjoy translating. I hope the other people enjoy my translations. 

What was your most spiritual experience this week?

This week we taught this old man from Peru whose grandson was baptized a month ago. He doesn't speak like any Italian so I just brushed up on a few Spanish words before doing the lesson. The only words I really know are Jesus Christ, People, Fasting, and God. But all we did was bear testimony and watch the Restoration film in Spanish. He loved it. It was really funny but also super cool because we had 0 clue what each other was saying but in the end it was a good experience.

Made this card for the members here. They loved it.

Lots of Lessons

This week we had our P-day cut short because we have to meet this Filipino woman at a town very far away. However, we talked with Bernie, the Book Store nun, and got to go inside the Vatican museums and all sorts of awesome stuff. (She saved us over 300 Euros in free tickets and backstage passes. She is super awesome!) However, I am sorry that this email is going to be super short.

It has been an awesome week. We are teaching a lot of people. Especially Filipinos. I love working with Filipinos. Also, our Zone is doing super well. The most number of lessons I have seen my whole time here in Italy. Granted Rome always teaches a lot of lessons, but still!

Ciao.

Lots of Work to Do

Tell us about Fabrizio, his baptism and his son.

So the baptism went really well. However... Me and Anziano Kenney smelled cigs on him a few minutes before the service and saw him sucking on tons of mints so we pulled him aside and asked him if he had been smoking. He said no. There were about 60 people at his baptism and there was a lot of pressure on him... Woof. So we went on with the service. However, a few days later we talked with him and he is still smoking. :( He is meeting the Bishop pretty regularly to see if he can get the Priesthood. It is a little sad because he is holding back his family back a bit. We are going to work with them a lot because we set the date for one of the boys for the 21st. We hope that he can make it.

What was the best thing you ate this week?

This week we went to a less active’s named Peter. He is Filipino. He is the head chef at a restaurant and we ate there. SUPER GOOD! He gave us lots of food and every single person in there was from the Philippines. So essentially everybody knew us in there as missionaries. His restaurant is right in Centro so we are going to eat there like every PDAY.

What was the hardest thing you did this week?

We were super busy this week with Zone Conferences/Zone Leader Conferences/Interviews and I also did a baptism interview. We were busy running around Rome like all week long. It is nice that we can finally start to do missionary work again. We have a lot of people that we are working with. There is a lot of stuff to do here in Rome. There is such a big difference between Rome and South of Italy. It is crazy. I don’t know what it is. Whether it is the culture, the people, religion. But missionary work is just so much easier here. The south is super awesome. I miss it a lot. But things are super different here. It is a completely different world than Lecce or Sciacca. The mentality of the people is so different. In the south people were really content with how things were. They didn’t want to better their lives, they just wanted to be happy and eat and sleep (not a bad life) but the further north the more work there is to do. 

What was your miracle of the week?

We met a man on the train this week from Bangladesh (the east side of Rome is where all the immigrants live. Sooo many immigrants.). We exchanged numbers with him and tried to meet him but he said he was busy. He then suggested we come over tonight because his whole family would be home and we could come "preach to them." So that should be fun. He spoke a little English. A little Italian. We will see how it goes.

Well that is about it for me this week!