Week 63 -- Hello, Bari!

Hello!  Greetings from Bari!  I'm just going to jump right into questions.

1 – How is Bari?  Do you like your new area?  Who is your companion and how is she?  Is it as gorgeous there as the pictures we’ve seen online?  Tell us all about it!

Bari is great.  I like my new area.  It's super, super pretty.  I've only really seen centro so far, where the shopping is, but where we went for P-Day today was really cute.  My companion is Sorella N.  She is from Bountiful, Utah, and has been on her mission almost six months but three months in Italy.  Her favorite part of her mission has been gelato.  Literally -- so relatable to me.

2 – How was church today?  How is the ward?  I love that you’re singing with the choir!  What Christmas songs are they singing – any familiar ones?

Church was good.  The ward is really big.  I'm super excited to work with them.  It's super cute because they have a ward calendar so we get to have pranzo every single week, and the lady couldn't have us over this week but she made us a lasagne and gave us meat to cook at home and made us brownies.  It was so sweet!  We're singing with the stake choir and a lot of the Christmas songs are actually in English.  Some will be a verse in English and then a verse in Italian.  One is "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

3 – How did you get from Cagliari to Bari?

I took two planes.  During the first plane ride I was with an anziano so I got to talk to him and have company, and then I was by myself for the rest.  And -- miracle story -- I left my Hydroflask on the plane, so I'm with Anziano H and we exit the pland and you have to take a bus from where you exit the plane to the airport and I walked in the airport and I was like, "Oh my gosh, Anziano -- I left my water bottle on the airplane"!  And he was getting off in Rome and was, like, "Oh dude, I'm sorry.  What are you going to do about it?  Do we need to do something?"  And I told him not to worry about it since I had a long layover.  I told him I could figure it out.  And as I'm saying this, this woman comes up behind me with my Hydroflask and said, "Hey, you left this on the plane!".  Miracle!

4 – Have you eaten anything new or unusual in your new area?

Yes, new.  Unusual, no.  New -- Bari has a specific culture and is big on ponzarotti whch is kind of like a calzone.  I don't know what a calzone is but people say it's kind of like a calzone.  It's basically fried pizza stuff of this bread.  Super good.  Also, something else that I don't know the whole word, but it's basically these weird bread/cracker things.  They're good.  Cheese -- ooh!  Today we went to this place called the Mozzarella Bar and there is this cheese called strachiatella (sp?) -- it's a soft cheese and it's really good, very liquidy. So we went to this place and they stuff mozzarella balls with this strachiatelli cheese, and you can also get different flavors so I got the normal stracchiatella and then I got one that was with tomato and basil inside, and one that was stuffed with Nutella.  It's actually good.  Those are my fun foods.

5 – Do you know how much I love you?

Yes.

6 – What are you doing for P-Day this week?

So we went to this place and it's literally so pretty -- check out the pics!

7 -- Was it hard to say goodbye to your companion and the people you worked with in Cagliari?

Yes, but I think I really knew when I got there that I was going to be one-and-done.  It was hard to say goodbye to Sorella N.  She sent me a voice recording today and I miss her.  I love her so much.  Everyone was so sweet.  A family invited me over to salute, we ate with a family, and they said they were so sad that I was leaving.  People were really, really sweet in English group, saying "It's only been a little time and I'm already so attached to you!  I really ilke you!"

8 – Is the Italian spoken in Bari different from your previous areas, or is all pretty much understandable to you now?

Yes, it's different but I understand it.  They have a different dialect that I haven't really heard a lot of but the accent here is different.  I like it a lot.

9 – What is your apartment like?

It's good.  It's really good.  It's kind of old but it's good.

10 – What can we pray for specifically for you, your companion, or the people you’re working with?

Our work.  There is a lot of work here.  We need to work on getting appointments set up and going to see all these people.  Pray for us and for Bari.

11 – What stood out to you in your studies this week?

We're preparing for mission tour and so I've been reading a lot of those scriptures and the name of the training that he'll give is Principles, Patterns, and Heavenly Promises, I think.  I think the things that have been standing out to me is the omniscience of God and the continuity of gospel principles.  It's always the same.  You always need to be doing the same things and God always treats you in the same way even if we feel that, "Oh, but this happened and this happened and this is different....".  There's not outliers.

12 – What are you thankful for right now?

This is cute because I try before I got to bed to name three things I'm thankful for, even if I don't write them down.  I'm thankful for my companion.  She's super cutie and she really wants to work hard and she really appreciates me and that feels really good.  I'm thankful for the ward here.  I'm super thankful for my family and my friends and that all of you support me and sustain me.  And I'm thankful for your prayers.  I'm very thankful for the gospel and I'm really thankful for how much my testimony has grown.  Yeah....  I'm thankful for a lot of things. 

I'll give you some cute highlights of this week.  We had to do all the things in Cagliari before I left so we got to go salute the Familia G, and we did something with Familia B and E who is our most progressing person.  And it went so well and it was so exciting and then we all ate dinner together and it was so fun.  Then we did some video calls to salute the other people we're teaching and they were all so sweet.  And I really am attached to them!  And then we had P-Day.  And then I came here and we've been doing a lot of street finding and that's not something I've done since my fourth transfer so my body has been so tired.  We come home and I'm like, "Sorella, I love you, but I just need to go to bed!"  Getting to the new house, the new area.  We had an appointment with this cutie named C and we were able to talk about prayer because she's having a hard time.  Other than that we've been street finding and street finding and figuring out the new area.  I had funny things to say but I forgot them all....

So just know that I love you all!!!

Ciao, ciao!

Comp item

We did an FHE of the restoration with E and this INCREDIBLE couple and then ate cena and it was so good!

Pizzeria jokes....

Last elevator pictures....

 First panzerotti!!

Oops.....first Sunday in Bari and we set off the alarms...

Mozzarella balls filled with strachiatello, one with pomodoro and basilico, and one with Nutella.

It's so beautiful here.

English class

Familia G -- they were so cutie and wanted to salute me even though I had only been here for a little while.

With Elder and Sorella Hall.  I LOVE THEM!

Week 62 -- One and Done in Cagliari

Hello!  Good morning! Good afternoon!  I'm just going to go to questions and then we'll come back if I remember anything...

1.  What happened with transfer calls????

I will be doing a one and done here in Cagliari and then I will be going to a city called Bari to be with someone who just finished their training, so with a really young companion.  I'm super excited.  Sorella N (my companion right now) -- Bari is her birth city, like where she started her mission, and she did four transfers there and she hyped it up so much for me so I'm really excited.  Also, I'm just very lucky in the fact that i have had incredible cities.  Like, people want to serve in Bari...people want to serve in all the cities I've served in.  So I'm really fortunate.  So that's happening.  It's sad but also happy.

2.  How was church?  Do you still translate sometimes?

Church was good.  I have never translated in this ward.  I don't translate here.

3.  Tell me about something that made you smile this week.

We laughed a lot this week over dumb things.  OK, two things -- on the bus the other day...oh my gosh, the weather this week -- it was so bad, so rainy and so cold.  It went literally from being nice and springy/summery even, a light sweater maybe -- to like torrential downpour for like four days straight and freezing cold.  Like tights under pants cold, and maybe also a pair of leggings.  We were on the bus the other day, and the buses here, they go -- they have  schedule and they stick to it, so they take turns really fast, they take stops really fast, and we were sitting on the bus the other day going home after something and the bus took a sharp turn and I went from my seat to the floor and slid on the floor.  It was funny.  Also another fun bus story -- this morning we were going out to play zone soccer and I'm wearing the jacket I got with Sorella B -- it's like really, really thick.  So I was going to take it off because the buses have heaters and I literally, like....my shirt completely came off my body.  I think it was up to my shoulder and I was just sitting there...and my companion looked at me and is like, "No, no, no, no!" and pulled my shirt down.  It was just really funny.  We sat there for a minute and just laughed.

4.  Who is your favorite person in the scriptures right now, and why?

Good question. Right now in the Book of Mormon I'm reading Words of Mormon. I just finished Words of Mormon so I'll be moving on to Mosiah.  Literally all the prophets are really dope but I really like Jacob.  I think Jacob is really underrated because he doesn't have that many chapters in the Book of Mormon, obviously, but just thinking about his circumstances and the fact that he was literally born in the wilderness and he was such a good leader and his sermons (are they called sermons? I don't know.) are really good.

5.   What is your favorite Italian food so far?

That's a hard one!  A Napoli pizza is top of the game but also a good lasagna, also any dolce (but I don't like cannoli -- I would choose a sfogliatello over cannoli, also gelato over cannoli)....  Also I'm going to Bari and they're famous for ponzaroti which is a giant calzone but better and fried.  So that might become my favorite food.  A good Napoli pizza, though, is life changing.  We had pizza this week as a district and I had my closest to a Napoli pizza texture-wise since I was in Napoli and I was like, "Wow -- I remember!".

6.  What is something that stood out to you in your studies this week?

Sister T. gave me a talk to study called "Wrestling with Comparisons" and I've been studying that a lot and I'm coming to a lot of breakthroughs. Even she told me that -- that I'm doing really well and coming to a lot of breakthroughs.  So I've been studying that talk a lot this week and one thing that I wrote down is the fact that God doesn't make horizontal comparisons.  One of the stories that it talks about is Peter and John the Beloved and I think it's in Doctrine and Covenants 7 it talks about -- Joseph has asked what happened -- and it talks about how...obviously we can read that story and be like, yes, Peter chose to be exalted in my kingdom but John, he's chosen the better part.  He's chosen something that's better, he's chosen to do more.  And that's how I've kind of always thought of that story, like yeah, but John has done better, you know?  But it's not like that.  In verse 5 it says "But my beloved has desired that he might do more, or a greater work yet among men than what he has done before."  It's not saying John is going to do a greater work than Peter, or John is better than you and has better desires than you.  It's saying that John is doing this, he has chosen to do this -- greater than what HE has done before -- and God doesn't make horizontal comparisons.  He doesn't compare us one to another.  We all have individual circumstances and that was something that really stood out to me.  I don't think it was something I understood before and I'm still praying to understand it and have it be incorporated in the way that I think.  I think definitely I do have thoughts like, "I have to be better than this person so God will love me more", but that's not how God's love works.

7.  Tell me about a lesson you taught this week.

We had our first face-to-face lesson this really cute woman named AM.  She lives pretty far away so we usually do video calls with her, but we got to see her face-to-face because she had an appointment here in Cagliari.  She was so cute.  She gave us Christmas gifts, basically, little mugs filled with candy so that we wouldn't forget her and we talked about studying the scriptures with her.  She is just really incredible...we just wish that she lived closer because she has a really pure heart, a very pure heart, and she wants to do good and she just has really hard circumstances.

8.  What do you think is the key to member missionary work?

As a missionary it's loving the members.  You've just got love them so much.  As a member it's no fear and where your priorities are.  I think that's a big key -- trusting in God that He'll give you what you need and trusting that if you're doing something to help Him, He will help you, you know?

9.  Do you know how much I love you?

Always.

10.  What miracles did you see/experience this week?

We've been talking about this recently -- what our miracles are.  One night we were literally like, "well, I guess we're going finding for the next five hours" and it was raining outside and we were on the way and this woman we've been talking to calls us and she's like, "hey -- do you want to come see me?" and we were like, yes!, so we got to go teach her the restoration and kind of throw it in the scheme of her questions because she was talking a lot about why the world is like it is today, and so we were able to be like, "For you to understand why things are like this you need to understand how God works in the world, that there was an apostasy, that God always calls prophets and because of this we don't have to live in this confusion and in this evilness"...  And then we went out and there was a guy who had told us he wasn't super interested -- there were two addresses that were like, "yeah, come back another time" so we went back and one of them was an older Catholic man and we talked to him for actually a long time and in the beginning he wanted to debate things, he wasn't really listening. And I was like, "OK, he needs to understand the apostasy at least at a basic level before we can even talk about the restoration" and so we were trying to do it and trying to do it and finally we pushed through and got to the restoration and he listened!  He stopped talking and actually listened to us and we were able to give him a Book of Mormon and he said that he would read it and that we could come back and talk to him about it.  And then after that (this isn't the miracle part), we went to the other house and they were like "Oh, he was just making fun of you" and we were like, ok.......  So then we went and rang some houses in the rain.  Also miracle -- my companion has been sick for a few days now and it's been bad -- she has problems with her sinuses and so on Saturday we had to come home early and she just needed to sleep and obviously that's hard for both of us.  And then on Sunday same thing.  She's not doing well.  Dude, she slept like 12 hours Saturday night and she's not doing any better, obviously we need to do something. So we were like, yes, it's the Sabbath, but we believe that it is ok that we go and find medication so that she is able to do missionary work.  So we went and we were like, "ok, this is our outing for the night".  So we got and try to find this medication.  She knows what medication she needs, and in most cities in Italy for pharmacies you just have to go tell them what medication you want, like antibiotics, almost any medication.  So we went to one pharmacy and they wanted to know where her prescription was.  And she was like, "we're not from here so I can't really go and get a prescription, but I know this is exactly what I need..." and they're like, "you need a prescription, sorry."  And then the same thing happened again.  And we're like, ok, let's call -- it was pouring rain and it's freezing and we're just walking to these different pharmacies, trying to find this medication, praying that someone will give it to us.  And she's just like, you know, there's this place that you can go that's like an urgent care but not quite...one doctor.  And we just went in and the doctor asked what we needed and Sorella N said, "I need this antibiotic" and the doctor was like, "Perfect -- here's the prescription" and that was it.  It was a little longer than that, obviously, but our gracious capizona (?) came and drove us because it was pouring rain.  But we were able to finally get the prescription and -- miracle -- literally just today she's doing so much better.  After one day of antibiotics she feels 75% better -- she was at 0% yesterday.  It was bad.  So that's a miracle.

11.  What gospel topic do you recommend I study?

I don't know...what do you need in your life? What are your problems?  What do you feel inside?  What questions do you have?  Follow the example of Joseph Smith.

We did a scambio in one area and that was fun but I got a little sick.  My stomach has been kind of wack recently but that's ok.  One thing I'm excited about is that the stove actually works in Bari and we'll live really close to a market so I'll be able to eat again the way I nee to be eating and I hope that will help me.  And now it's starting to rain -- from nothing to torrential downpour in 0.2 seconds....

Basically, it's been a good week, it's been a good transfer, I'm sad to leave but it's ok.  I'm excited to go to Bari.

I love you all and I'll talk to you later!

Ciao, ciao!

Sandals in the rain......

Scambio...it was SO cold!  I raided the sorella's death closet and got a pair of Uggs, a scarf, and a skirt....I was ashamed but at least it was a little warmer.

 Sardo flag

Scambio!

With AM

I tried these weird curlers...they didn't work.

Our zone....wow, I'm getting old!!! 

Zone soccer today.  I scored the last goal....just sayin'....

Week 61 -- We Hiked Devil's Saddle

Hi!  I'm siting on a bus and I thought that I could go ahead and do my weekly voice memo because when else am I going to do it?  Besides, I get lazy anyways...  Honestly, can't remember a lot that happened this week.  We had some good lessons, we went on a hike for P-Day today and that was super pretty, we got some bidones, and yeah... 

I will answer your questions....

1.  Do they do daylight savings time in Italy?

Yes but we did it a week before you all did.  It was the best sleep ever!  And I think I don't have to do the spring ahead here in Italy which I'm grateful for because then I would lose an hour of sleep.  But the fall back was incredible!

2.  How was Halloween?  How is it celebrated there?

It was good.  For us, Halloween day we were supposed to go to a school with a member in our ward and help her do a Halloween activity for her class but then we weren't able to get permission to go inside the school because she had to put the names in early, so instead we just finished area book stuff.  With all the new privacy laws all the data had to be destroyed so we only had a certain number of days to go visit all of the old addresses and call the people so we got to finish up that.  And this is a cute thing....we were in a suburb of Cagliari and so we went to these addresses and then my companion was like, "oh, the familia A lives close so why don't we just stop by and drop them a note."  And I was like, ok.  So we started writing a note and the Mom (who is less active) pulls up in the car while we were doing that and she invited us in.  They gave us some juice and cookies and we got to talk to them.  It was cute.

How is Halloween celebrated here -- it is but it's not. They do trick or treating, kind of, but they do it in stores and it's not a big thing.  A lot of people don't celebrate it a all.  It's interesting because apparently in some smaller side cities of Cagliari in the past they would do trick or treating before it was Halloween because this week was festa....I think it was Day of All the Saints and then Day of the Dead on November 1, so on the day before Day of the Dead, I think, they would go around and knock on doors and trick or treat, basically, so that was interesting to here.  They did Day of the Dead this week so everyone was in the cemetery.

3.  What was the most beautiful thing you saw this week?

The most beautiful thing I saw this week was the hike we went on today.  It's called Devil's Saddle and it's SO pretty.

4.  What did you do for P-Day today?

Hiked Devil's Saddle.

5.  What was the best thing you ate this week?

Funny story -- we had two meal appointments and they were both really good.  At the first one, I finally got my first Sardo food this week.  The meal appointment was with a less active and she invited us to her parents' house and then she had to leave so when we got to the house she was already gone so we just ate with her parents.  But pasta here, the sauce is a little bit of sausage cooked with the tomato sauce and that's it, with a little bit of basil, so it's super simple.  They have special types of noodles and a special type of bread, so I got to try all of that.  And then we went to an appointment with this lady we had found in our phone and she gave us these things that were like a little raisin paste dessert.  It was good.  But the best thing I ate was today for P-Day.  We did all you can eat sushi.  Whew -- I'm feeling it!

6.  Tell me about a tender mercy or miracle you experienced this week.

One day we were on the bus and my companion wasn't feeling that great because her back was hurting and I think our plans that day had gotten cancelled or something.  Anyways, we took the bus and she sat down because her back was hurting and I sat down across from her and got to talk to this super cutie girl who is from Morocco but is here for studying.  She said she was very interested.  I think in Palermo for so long I felt like I had to really push people to exchange numbers so now whenever someone says they have interested it's like, oh -- miracle!

7.  What attribute of Christ has been standing out to you the most lately?

I want to study faith this week because I think you can always work on it and I think when you do work on it everything else also increases so I will study that.

8.  Tell me about the people you’re teaching.  What can we pray for specifically for them?

We're teaching this cutie who is the girlfriend of a member (member missionary work -- ;-) ).  She is super awesome and she always comes back and is like, "Yeah, I was reading these things and I love this and I have a question about that" and she actually wants to know.  In our first appointment with her we talked about foreordination and she really wants to understand.  It's so awesome!  We did a fast with her because she knows the gospel is good and she feels the Spirit but she doesn't have a clear witness that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true so we got to do a fast for her this week, so you can always pray for that.  She's the main person we're teaching.  There are others....we do one through video calls but she's having to leave that house so we hope she comes closer to Cagliari so that she can start coming to church.  And there's another one named V who is really, really struggling.  Her boyfriend cheated on her and she can't get over it.  Pray for her.

9.  How was church today?

It was good.  We had our first missionary correlation with the elder's quorum president.

10.  Do you know how much I love you?  Do you know how proud I am of you?  Do you know how inspiring you are to me?

Yes, yes, I love you!

11.  What counsel has your mission president had for you lately?

He said I need to relax and calm down...  I wrote out my belief window (shout out Hyrum Smith talk!) this morning during personal study and I'm trying to work on my belief window. 

I love you all lots!  I'm super grateful for you -- thank you for all you do!

Ciao, ciao, ciao!

Halloween

I got a McFlurry....it had been a rough day.

People gave us lasagne, candies, and chocolate all on the same day.  And I'm supposed to not gain weight???

Lasagne

With Sorella A

It rained a lot this week

Views from our hike