Home Sweet Rome

Buon Anno cari! Tanti Agguri! (Good year loved ones, good wishes.)

Alright transfer calls came and went, and I will be spending the next six weeks in beautiful Rome,with the wonderful Sorella Worsham. Transfers were actually relatively boring. Sorella Merenda is the only one leaving so it will be my third transfer with Anziano Burnham, and Jimenez, and my fourth with Sorella Williams (we were in the mtc together and we have literally spent more of our mission together than apart. I think that if I serve with anyone from my mtc group, it will probably be her.)

Having six missionaries in the same ward has been great because there are always 5 other people who understand exactly how you are feeling, and who can help you get home when you are lost, but it's also tough because we are all trying to work with the same members, and sometimes a member gets visited three times in one week without us noticing, so we are trying to coordinate a little better this transfer.
Today is the last Holiday in a series of holidays, so starting tomorrow there is no excuse for the buses not to come!!!! We love Christmas, but we love missionary work even more!

So this week..........

Monday, so hopefully as you all remember, we were surprised by Borris in church this last Sunday, and I scheduled an appointment with him for the following evening. He really likes the church,and he wants to get baptized, but he is a full-time student working to put himself through school, and he doesn't always have time to come to church. He comes when he can but he usually has work. We had a very spiritual lesson about the plan of Salvation with him, and at the end we talked about church. He told us that he wanted to come, and in a couple of years when he is done with school he will be able to come to church every Sunday. We asked him to pray about finding another means to come and he agreed to. Then he told us that volere e potere (the desire is power) He didn't make it this Sunday but our entire district is praying for him.

Saturday we went to a member's home for dinner,and they had a friend there. She told us after the meal was over that she had had a strong feeling that she should go visit her friend Christina during the day. We taught her a lesson, and she agreed to learn more. There is a talent show this week, and we are hoping that she can make it. It was really cool to see that kind of miracle and how the Lord works sometimes. On a slightly less spiritual note it was a very interesting evening because Sorella Rosetti is a french African woman married to an Italian man, and she made us a traditional African dish for dinner. It was really delicious, but it had little tiny crustaceans (Sorry Amy and all other vegetarian friends I have one year till I will go back to my vegetarian ways) and Italians aren't very exposed to foods of other cultures so the tiny crabs very much alarmed our investigator, who is probably the most pure Italian woman I have ever met (and thus very blunt) and she refused to eat the main dish. We finally got her to try some of the fish but she never would eat the mini crabs she told us "she couldn't she had fear."

On Friday we visited a member in our ward who has a less active husband. He seems like he has a testimony, but he isn't coming to church. It might be because of work but we aren't sure yet. It was great because Sorella Salerno expressed a desire to help with lessons, which we never would have expected because she has a baby and another little girl. It's been really great to start getting to know members on a more personal level,and see how excited they really are about missionary work. Also Fratello Salerno is hilarious. They don't have fettuccine alfredo in Italy so it's always fun to describe "Italian food" in the US. While we were describing alfredo, Fratello Salerno started joking that it was a six legged beast from America. He said he ordered one off of ebay once and it was delicious.

Also we have a man who is dating a member of the church and thus they have started coming to church together. The catch is she is Russian and doesn't speak Italian or English (and he speaks almost no Russian but they are very happy.) So her whole family came to church on Sunday,and they decided they like me because "lei sembre come un proprio russe" *{editors note - a loose translation "would seem to her as their own Russian"}* (I get that a loooot here.) So I had a very exciting Sunday with the Russians. (if someone could send me some basic phrases in Russian, I would greatly appreciate it) So the way this family is broken up is there are two Russian sisters. One is married to an Italian, and one is dating an Italian. The one who is married speaks perfect Italian, and the other speaks none at all. So on Sunday we tracked down our only Russian speaking sister,and sent the sisters to gospel doctrines with her, and then we went to gospel principles with the boyfriend, and husband. It was really great because the husband used every opportunity he could to bear his testimony. It really invited the spirit. I'm excited to see what comes of our sweet Russians.

When I first got here I was told that the ward was very anti-missionaries, and that they never liked to make appointments, and I just kind of accepted it. Sorella Worsham however, has been very gung ho about working with the members and I am shocked at how well they have responded. The ward is starting to thrive through missionary work.

(You may have noticed that I am a little behind on updating the blog for my missionary. I apologize and am working on getting caught up. Rather than waiting to catch up, I decided to go ahead and post this week and get caught up with the others later. I am still trying to balance going back to work.)