Sorella Gisseman: Week 7 -- Pozzuoli!

Ciao!!!!

It's been a crazy week, I will tell you that. So we arrived at like 9.30 am on Tuesday and the mission president and his wife (Pres. and Sister Pickerd) and the APs met us at the airport. I slept a lot a lot so that was really good. Then we went back and went out into Rome for the day! We went straight to the temple from the airport, and then I think we went back to the villa (the mission home -- which, cool fact, was built by Mussolini in 1924 -- I think it's a super cool house. Apparently not like any other mission home.) and then our first meal was pasta and potatoes and chicken, I think. Then we got sent out into Rome. I don't know if they posted those pictures but we saw the Coliseum and Pantheon and Trevi Fountain and the capital. Then had my first Italian pizza for dinner. Then early bed and next day was all meetings.

We were in the chapel all day. Then that night we got our assignments. So I am serving in a city named Pozzuoli which is the closest a sister like me (not Italian) will ever get to serving in Napoli. Napoli is super dangerous so they only have elders there, and in the summer they will put sisters there for a few months but only Italians or those who look Italian and are really good at the language. Anyways, I was super pumped. One of the APs was born in Napoli and he gave me advice (before we knew where we were going) and his advice was to eat - also that same APs name is Anziano Wagstaff and he played basketball at Olympus High School. What a small world We got our smart phones that night and then bed. The next morning we left the villa at 6.15 am and I hopped on a train to Napoli central. Luckily there were other missionaries on my car including my sister training leader for the Napoli zone who sat by me. Then I got off the train and met my companion!!! Her name is Sorella B and she's from Sandy. I had a picture of her in my golden envelope but she doesn't look anything like her picture anymore so I got off the train and walked right past her, lol. I am killing my trainer (interpretation: Brie will be her trainer's last companion before the end of her mission) but then she is going to work at the Rome temple and extending four weeks, and that's so cool and she said President Pickerd said us new sisters who pick up the language fast can get sent there. That's so exciting! But the problem is I'm not picking up too fast. Pray please so hard that I can learn.

Anyways we had to wait for another Sorella so we hung out in Napoli for the day. Lugged suitcases to the church and went finding in a trio with my trainer and my sister training leader. Lol. We did video finding and so they gave me a phrase about showing the video and I did in fact say it. Napoli is super cool. I had my first Napolitan pizza which is apparently a super big deal, followed by my followed by my second today. Basically they describe it like soup and that's accurate. It was delicious. There is so much oil and cheese and sauce in the middle of the pizza on a thin crust that it's like soup on crust. Good, not what I was expecting, My stomach hurt a lot after that. Then the other sister arrived so we met her and then off to Pozzuoli.

We had to lug my suitcases on cobblestone roads, lol. But our apartment is apparently the nicest in the mission. It's 2 floors for just me and my companion and we each have our own bathrooms. Also the church building looks out over the ocean where Paul was shipwrecked. Super cool. Beautiful. Our back window overlooks a Greek coliseum so that's pretty cool. Then we went finding, I think. We go finding a lot. My first 2 finding encounters 1. A lady chewed us (Sorella B) out about religion. I didn't know what was going on but apparently she said don't trust men but believe the 10 commandments which were written by men, and then 2. We asked to show a video and the guy asked if it was pornography and then Sorella B proceeded to teach about the law of chastity. But they were actually really cool, Salvatore and Giusi. And we gave them a Book of Mormon. I talked about Moroni 10 and how we can receive answers for ourselves (there's a lot of good on can I catch my companion up and then I will say a little). Other than finding, we went to a Halloween party on the military base. A family of like 8 went last year and wanted to go again so we figured out how to get them there and introduced them to people in the ward. It was crazy because everyone had to be sponsored by someone who works on base and it was super loud so I couldn't hear anyone let alone understand anything, but it was nice because there were some Americans. I taught my first lesson about the restoration and got my first gelato with one of our friends we teach as seen in picture. It was delicious. We taught maybe 2 more lessons since then. The ward is about 1:2 American so missionaries translate the whole ward. A lot of the ward members work on the base so like we have peanut butter and stuff already in the apartment and root beer. People are nice, I just don't understand them. The base people -- it's nice because I tell them I'm from DC and that my mom is civilian Air Force and then we can talk about that

People cancel a lot which is a bummer. I had my first Italian pronzo with this cute old lady Maria (I didn't get too stuffed, thank goodness). Pronzo is lunch but it's like their big meal. We hear horror stories of pronzo appointments where people feed you sooooooo much. The wind here has been crazy and there are really big waves which isn't a thing here. Today was P-Day so we went to Napoli Underground which is basically a giant set of underground places that is ancient and was aqueducts but then bomb shelters during World War 2. There is so much history here. Like so much. Napoli apparently was built on ancient ruins and then they just build up, they don't build out.

I love my trainer, prayers work! I don't know what the spiritual highlight was this week. I just feel so happy here. It's really hard and I'm really tired but I feel so at peace and it's crazy to think I almost gave that up.

I would love to get letters from everyone for Christmas. We're close to the military base so we can get a lot of American products.

With my companion and sister training leader on my first day in Pozzuoli...