Week 1 of
the fortnight…
This week has all been one big
blur! I haven't been able to write a Monday-Sunday journal, but I'm gonna just
go through some of my favourite experiences.
After our p’day, which was kinda
a day full of errands; buying things, writing notes, trying to print pictures
etc we popped into say goodbye to R for the (what we planned on being my last
time), then headed over to la famiglia DP’s for a FHE. Fratello DP did the
spiritual thought this time and it was based on the talk Dieter F Uchtdorf did on
‘Being Genuine'; then he had made pasta al forno, which was really good! It was
a really good evening and I miss the DP family already, but they welcome me
back whenever, so I’ve got some really awesome friends here hehehe.
For the remainder of my time in
Cagliari, I spent it saying goodbyes to some of my favourite people that I've
met here! We saw V, A and R, who took us to a lush Brazilian restaurant, just
like Rodizzio Rico, MMM! Then gave me a Brazilian mug and the cutest note! Then
we saw C and P, then B at church; then we did English course. I have pics, I'll
send them on Monday. We had also been in to see R for the 'for reals' last
time! I didn't have the time to say goodbye to everyone. I would have loved to
have stopped by la Famiglia S one last time, and The D fam, but time was so
short and I figured when I return I'll see them again :)
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| The hardest part is saying goodbye |
Then I packed all my stuff on the
Wednesday morning. The Coppia Hansen took us to the airport and I was 8 Kili
over!!!!! We moved stuff around and figured it out (I'll explain that story
when I get home). THEN we went to the Rome 2/6 apartment for the night. I SAW
MY FIGLIA. SHE IS BEAUTIFUL AND JUST LUSH AND SWEET AND I WAS SO SO HAPPY TO
SEE HER SHINING FACE!!! We chatted, her companion made us all a really lush
soup and that was our evening. We woke up the following morning at 5:40 to
leave the house at 6 to meet all the transferring missionaries at Termini near
the corner inside where there is the McDonalds (that's the missionary meeting
point for transfers). We waiting around, cus we needed to get our train at 11
and who came but SORELLA REBER.
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| Catching up with Sorella Reber |
I got to see two out of the 3 of my alive
companions in the mission! It was awesome! Sorella REBER is the sweetest little
thing! It was cool. Then I travelled to Napoli with Sorelle Defranchi and
another Sorelle who is actually from here, but can't leave for her mission yet
to Colorado, because of visa problems. We got to Napoli and our comps met us.
My comp is so fun I was super excited to be with her. After that, we went to
Caserta, which I LOVE ALREADY. It's literally like the most convenient place
I've served in! Everything is in reasonable walking distance. We don't have to
rely on buses, like ever; trains now and again but it's just perfect!
My first lesson here we did with
a lady called L. She is the cutest. We basically did a lesson 0 and she agreed
to take all of the lessons :) Then we did English course and as usual, the
students are all super awesome!
So you see nothing too crazy
happened this week, well, I mean that up until Friday... We started with weekly
planning as usual and it obviously took longer than usual because my comp had
to explain everything to me. Thennnnn.... We had an appointment with a
less active, which was an interesting experience. THEN we went to see a less active African,
called G. We got there and she was all 'I can only speak to you people for 5
minutes. I am tired and I want to sleep'; so we are like okay. Then we start
talking about baptismal covenants and the importance of church attendance and
she just went off on a rampage about how God isn't a God of peace, how the
sacrament can come after all her other problems and how she hates the bad
things in the world. Nelson said she has never seen her like that, so I guess I
got lucky Hahahah.
Saturday was just an awesome day.
We finished our planning. Saw a less active daughter of one of the members and
she was awesome and had the cutest puppy that looked just like Honey. After
that we saw V, an awesome member who would be active if there was a way for him
to get to church on a Sunday. He is super sweet! After him we saw G and R (he
is a simp and R is a member). We did the restoration and it went really well!
Then we saw K and A! They want to prepare for the temple, to be sealed; so we
are working with them on that.
Sunday was the craziest thing
I've seen hahaha. It was so weird. The primary did the presentation and it was
all American! It was so strange for me! It was awesome though! Then at the end,
one of Bishop’s kids said the prayer and he was like 'Please bless the linger-longer
that it will be the best linger longer ever!' and he also prayed that we can
all be on the nice list. It was HIL. Then church was awesome, I translated in
Relief Society.. Then a good amount of our investigators came to church and the
linger-longer, so it was awesome, cus they were able to get to know the
members! Then we went home, made calls from the contact sheet while making
brownies for our neighbours, then we went to do a gesso with the Anziani. It was super great, I'm really excited to be
here, Caserta is so awesome!
I love you all so much. I cannot
believe I'm in my last transfer!
Well, I wanna let you know that
the church is true and this work is the best. Today I'm rushing and I'm sorry,
but I love and miss you all.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Week 2 of
the fortnight …
HAMMYYYY’s greenie is so awesome.
She is full of greenie fire even still! I love her! We get along so well .. our
friendship reminds me of the friendship I have with Hammy! :) Anziano
Borden likes to translate and he is way more capable than I am. I had to do it
for Relief Society though. I certainly wasn't blessed with the gift of
translating, so I'm very glad that Borden is here! I still do not have my
suitcase, so I guess I'll see it next when I get the plane home, so it's tough;
but I'm trying to buy real cheap tights and jumpers, but they only really have
cheap stuff at Chinese stores.. So yeah. I'll survive though, as long as I have
a functioning coat. I think I'll need to buy some boots though, cus they're in
Rome haha :( I got to see Sorella Roberts on the way down here and it was so
awesome!!! I have missed her a lot!
Yeah – Borden is serving in the
same ward..... He is a very focused hard working missionary and he is what the
ward needs. He's ready to absolutely kill it, so Vescovo is on our side. He
even called us the ‘cream of the crop’, so he's super excited. They also called
a new ward mission leader, Fratello C from Guam. He's so awesome! So it's all
going down with the missionary work in Caserta. We're gonna see miracles. Also,
Borden’s greenie, Anziano Bower, is on fire! He's the sweetest, most hard
working missionary I've met! We did a gesso on his 3rd day in the mission and
he was absolutely giving it his all, so we are excited!
Monday.. P’DAY. We set this first
p’day as a day of errands, so we can just live it up for the rest of our time
here. We printed pictures, did a giant spesa, bought blankets; cus although
this house has been done up all sweet the heating is bad. I bought socks,
tights and slippers, cus it's getting super chilly and just basically random
stuff like that. We got pizza for lunch, not quite real Napoli pizza yet, but
it was decent nonetheless. Then we went back to church, put some more Christmas
music on our iPads and that was basically our p’day. It was nice to just get
relaxed and get everything ready for the transfer. I figured I'd get warmer
pencil type skirts in the January sales, cus otherwise it's too expensive, so
I'll wait for a little longer! After that, we saw la Famiglia G. They are the
sweetest. The mother was baptised short of a year ago. We shared the Christmas
video from last year and they LOVED it. They talk a lot, but they are so on
topic and so sweet. I love them already! After that, we tried to pop into other
people, but nothing seemed to work out, so we went home, got some of the
brownie that we made, went to bed and ate it. Just kidding; we got the brownie
and started getting to know our neighbours. We went to the apartment above us
and she was super sweet. She let us in and was just adorable. Her name was A
and then her daughter came, whose name is G. They said we should come another
time to eat pizza together :) so there are some good potentials right there! By
the time we left there, it was time to go home anyways (it was nearly the end
of the day before). Basically that was our day, cus after that; all we did was
planning and bed.
Tuesday. Dad, your talk was
awesome! I especially loved the quote you used by Spencer W. Kimball. It's so
true and I've come to really appreciate the Sabbath Day here in the mission!
Today kinda began naff. Nobody
would see us, so we headed out to try and find a less active who we have been
asked to see. The address is just a supermarket, so we asked around, knocked a
ton of doors and nobody knew her... so we did casa finding and streeting.
Nothing! This was probs the worst day of the week. We had just one lesson, but
it was with G and so obviously that went really well. Then for English course
we had the spiritual thought. For that, we wrapped up one of the baby Jesus
ornaments and got someone to open it and then basically spoke about Christ and
the real meaning of Christmas.
Mercoledì ... We headed straight
to see Sorella B. Initially we planned on speaking about the importance of
coming to church and sharing the gospel with others *referral lesson*, but we
were guided to speaking about the Atonement of Christ instead and we showed the
video 'Mountains to Climb'. It went really well. Sweet sweet lady! After her,
we had an early pranzo, cus we had an appointment with V (investigator) at
3:00. We got there and she is such a sweet sweet woman! We shared a Christmas
message with her and her cute family! It went really well too. She told us that
she loves the spirit we bring. She is awesome! We also helped her with figuring
out PowerPoint for a presentation she needs to make for Uni. After that, we
went toooooooooo the train station to pick up Hammy and McKenzie (Hammy needed
to pick up her permesso for real haha), so we did a scambio. Me and Hammy,
Nelson and McKenzie. It was wonderful. I seriously miss Hammy a ton. We went to
V, cus Ham never got to say goodbye to him when she left. Then we took the
longest bus ride in the world home. Then we went and tried finding contacts
that had given us their address on the phone when we made the calls a week or
so back, but no hope. Then that was basically it. It was so so good to be with
Hammy.
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| L-R Me, Sorella Hamilton (Hammy) and Sorella Nelson |
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| Sorella McKenzie catching us in her selfie |
Thursday. Today was so awesome. We left super early, said goodbye to
Hammy and McKenzie and headed to the station to get the train to Napoli. Mamma
Mia. It reminds me of Rome. We got to the church and mingled a bit with the
missionaries, then the conference started. It was all mainly just about using
English course effectively in finding people to teach. They all gave us a ton
of awesome ideas and really good goals! Then I did my death testimony.... I had
tried to plan it, but each time I sat and thought about it I'd get distracted
or nothing would come, so I just went for it spontaneously. It seemed to go
well. Not sure how many of them even understood me though, cus of my weird
accent haha. There were some confused faces watching me hahah, but Sorella
Waddoups told people she actually understood me, so that was great. That's all
that matters huh hahah. Then we mingled more while we waited for our pizza to
arrive. I opened post and I had a super sweet 'chocolate letter' from the YW.
It made my day! Probs the coolest thing I got. Basically the only thing I got
haha; besides a card with some money from the Maces, which I really appreciated!
They are so sweet! I need their email to thank them! Anyways, back to this
chocolate letter. I thought it was a scarf or something with the way it was
wrapped, but then I unrolled it and practically the whole zone were crowding
around reading it with me, they thought it was the sickest thing in the world,
no joke. My fave line was 'You are one "daim" fine girl'. They were a
little tipo at that one haha, but I loved it. Then we ate, cus the pizza finally
arrived, then headed out .. AND AS I WAS ON THE TRAIN I REALISED I FORGOT ME
CHOCOLATE LETTER, so I called the Napoli Anziani and asked them to hide it.
Luckily I trust them. Hahah. Anyways, we got back to Caserta and it was all go
from there. We didn't return home literally until the end of the day! We headed
to see G, a contact we found in the area book. She was the sweetest lady I have
met here so far! Her little daughter was gorgeous and so sweet just with this
cute lil smile there the whole time. We shared a Christmas message at her cute
little shop that she owns and just got to know her. She was just like a mom.
Told us to call her anytime we need anything, even during the night. She was
just the sweetest lady. This was the first time even meeting her and we just
both felt so peaceful and at home with her. We asked her how she met the
missionaries and her story is super simple and sweet too. One day she was
really struggling and she was just having a tough day (about 3 years ago) and
the Elders just randomly came in to share a message with her. She was super
grateful and she recognises the spirit when she feels it and she is still,
right to his day; 3 years later grateful for these Anziani for helping her to
feel at peace by being guided to share a message with her. We both feel really
good about this lady and really we are just so excited to work with her. She is
definitely prepared! She even asked us to invite her and her children whenever
there is an activity at church! It was an awesome experience! Right after that
we went to see A. She is a less active. She comes now and again, but we are
working with her and her husband and we are hoping to help them get to the temple
eventually to be sealed, :) She is super sweet. We spoke about baptismal
covenants and the importance of renewing them every Sunday. :) She told us she
will come every week from now on :) After A, we went to stick up some English
course posters (after our zone conf). First, we found ourselves in a library,
cus someone had told us before; that it's one of the best places to advertise English
course, which makes sense I guess, so we went there and then had an awesome
conversation with two middle-aged men. One called R and the other one .. I
can't remember any more, but one is a photographer for newspapers and the other
one is some kind of art history professional. Boh. Anyway, one wanted to come
and see our church so he came with us as we were heading that way for a lesson
anyways. He loved the art we had up. (This was R, the photographer). It as
super awesome. He then headed out and told us he would for sure come the
following week. I'm awful at asking for numbers still to this day gosh dang it,
but I feel like he will defs come :). Then we did a lesson with G. It was ‘The
Gospel of Jesus Christ’. He knows it all. He's taken the lessons before years back
and was explaining everything. We invited him to be baptised on the 16th of
January. He didn't say no and told us that it is definitely something that is
on his list of things to do. So that's exciting! He is awesome. Anyways, after
that we had English course, which went really well. The Anziani did an awesome
spiritual thought about prayer :) After that, we did a lesson with L. We taught
it with D, who is an awesome YSA new ‘ish convert who Anziano Smith baptised!
He's super cool and really helped us out in the lesson and really fellowshipped
her :) Today was awesome! Oh, then we got home and Hammy had left us some gifts
:)
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| My last Zone Conference (Napoli Zone) |
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| Me and Sorella DeFranchi...at our last Zone Conference |
Venerdì .. We began withhhhhh
weekly planning as per usual. Then ate and studied Italiano. Then we tried to
see some of our less active members, but that just didn't seem to work out, so
we popped into a member to see how she is doing since she has like, 0 home
teacher/ visiting teacher visits. After that, we bucked it to the train station,
cus we had like 15 mins to get on the train.. With a 25/30 min walk. We made it
easily. Then we met V and A for hot chocolate. They are less active YSA. Well,
they come to all of the things at church that they can, like seminary and stuff,
but the only reason they don't come to church is cus there is NO public transport
on a Sunday and they live a little ways out and no members live near. So it
sucks, but they are awesome. I had the lushest hot choc ever. It was strawberry
flavoured MMMM. Anyways, it went really well and we were able to make a good
friendship with each of them :) and of course we shared a spiritual thought. :)
After that, we headed back to see another less active before the day was
through. We seem to rush around everywhere in order to see these people since
they live so far away from one another, but we just wanna see them so
everything is rush rush rush! We saw Sorella P. Her cat scared me a little ha.
It went well and she cracked me up! Anyways, this was basically our day
:)
Sabato .. Today was so sick. We
left home super early to catch the train to Gricignano, then Anziano Bryan
picked us up (Me, Sorella Nelson, L and D) and took us to the base. The base is
so weird! It's like a little land of America in the middle of Italy. Like I had
always expected the American bases to kinda be like shelters; like little cabin
things I don't know hahah, but it's so legit. We had to sign on. It was all
serious business hahah, but it was cool. Then we went to the 'chapel' which I
was expecting to be a Mormon chapel, cus they made it sound like they had their
own... but it's just like a community chapel which I assume accommodates all
Christian religions and they use it, cus we don't have a font in our actual
"Mormon" church. So it was interesting. Anyways, we were early so we
waited a bit with Anziano Bryan as he had to organise the font. Then we went to
the food court and I got a Subway sandwich, a cookie and root beer for
breakfast. Taco Bell wasn't open .. another time!
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| Breakfast on the American Base. |
Then the baptism started. It
was a really sweet baptism. I forgot that 'normal' baptisms include the
confirmation on the same day and to start with it seemed weird. I guess I
haven't gone to one for so long, just new convert ones where they're confirmed
on the following Sunday. It was awesome. It was so sweet and B looked beaut!
Such a cutie :) Anyways, then we ate some more, cus they had prepared food!
Then we went home. Well, the train took FOREVER. The one we had planned on
getting, which was scheduled to come didn't. We waited more than 1 hour there.
In the middle of the station, in the middle of nowhere, so we did a lesson/
spiritual thought with L as we waited! L loved the baptism :) She is so sweet!
:) Then we got back and studied Italian. After that, we tried to find a few
people, then found ourselves at the house of a lady who lives beneath the
Anziani. Her name was M and she was awesome! So sweet and so much fun to be
around! We got to know her and shared a spiritual thought with her! She is also
super happy to have these new Anziani here. After that, we headed straight to
the chapel for the activity that they had set up for Christmas. It went really
well! 2 of our investigators came, G and S :) It went really well. :) That was
that!
Domenica .. Today was great.
Sunday is always so wonderful. Sacrament was awesome, all about Christmas with
lots of singing! Then Sunday School was all about symbols and revelations in
the scriptures and how they can be a protection and guide for us. Then Relief
Society was basically an overview of everything that we studied in the year;
all about centring your life on Christ. An American girl came! Her parents are
here on the base and she is visiting them. She's a new convert and she is so so
so sweet and she really wants to spend time with us! She wants to have us over
for dinner and wants to study with us. She is super super golden! We are
excited to see her again! Her parents aren't members either, so she's an
awesome example! Oh, HILARIOUS story for you all. So we were in sacrament
meeting, right at the start. Literally just about to sing the sacrament hymn..
and this man walks over (R, from English course) with a giant potted olive tree
in his little man hands and tried giving it to Sorella Nelson, who is just like
what??? and he is like "It is a gift for you" and she takes it all
awkwardly and places it on the floor in front of her; then we turn to each
other and D I E. hahahahaha hahahahah It was so so funny, oh my gosh. Only in
Italy do they gift you with giant olive trees. Then every time we looked at it
we just cracked up. It was so random hahahah. Gosh. Then after church we had
correlation, B is so awesome. Like, the best Ward Mission Leader ever. He is so
humble and just wants to do all he can to help us. I really appreciate him!
After that, we headed home for pranzo and lingua, then we headed out for more
lessons. We saw M and G. It all went super well. We even got M to commit to
coming to church next Sunday, so we hope she keeps to that word! Then
we tried to find another less active, buuuuut she got mad at us and didn't want
to know, it seemed. Then that lead us to home. We planned, spoke to our STL and
then our DL. Drank soup and went to bed. Oh, also I got super ill, so during
pranzo I slept for half an hour. I have a cold / flu thing and it sucks big
time.
Anyways, that's it for this week.
It's been good, our numbers weren't too bad! I would really like to Skype home on
Christmas Day, cus last year it sucked on Christmas Day, cus I'd already done
Skype on the Christmas Eve. We do have a member appointment and so we will
either do Skype 1st thing or last thing, cus in between we'll be on the
base.
Anyways!
I love you all. I am loving every
minute. I'm trying my best not to 'die'. It has just got real to me that I'll
be home really soon and instead of feeling concerned and worried, I'm starting
to feel really excited, but I'm trying my hardest to not let that make me lazy.
My comp is also real good at helping me not to feel trunky! This mission
is the best. This experience I don't want to end. I know this is the work of
the Lord and I'm so grateful to be a part of it! Missionary life is the best. There
is literally nothing better!
I love and miss you all. Keep
being amazing and have a Merry Christmas!
Before I forget, here is the
quote of the week: (talking about exercise, cus we have worked at it these last
few weeks) .. "I dunno, I just, like, hate to hear myself breathing hard,
you know?"
Buona settimana! Vi voglio in
sacco di bene!
Baci e abbracci
Sorella Robertson
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
