The work is alive and well in Italy.

OK sorry there was no blog update last week, I had a hard time figuring out how to get photos loaded and it needed to be done so I spent most of my time figuring that out. OK so as you all know I am in Siracusa which is a small small town (not small enough that we know everybody but small enough that I have only been here for 3 weeks and at least five people said Hi to us on our way to get groceries today) on the coast of Sicilia. The work is really slow because we were "blown in", which means that we are both new to this area and that we have 0 solid investigators at this point in time. It is hard but I am actually really grateful for this time to dedicate to the lonelier members of our ward. We have a lot of time to dedicate to the elderly and widows which is absolutely wonderful. We have become family to some of these people which is amazing. I wish that we had more investigators but I am really glad I can spend so much time with these people. I know that I wont have this kind of opportunity in my life ever again, after the mission, and I probably wont have as much time once the work picks up so I am savoring it while it lasts.

That being said miracles are happening every day. The other day we were heading out to do ricerca per gli meni-attivi (searching for the less active) and I don't like to bring my Book of Mormon for distribution unless we are searching, because it is heavy and our area covers a lot of ground, but this morning I decided to put it in my bag. We spent a while knocking on a few doors with no response when we hit a name on a street we were unfamiliar with. We spent about an hour and a half looking for his house before we decided to move on so we could get a couple more houses in before prazo (in Italy its against the law to knock on doors between 1 and 4p) and we moved on to another street we were unfamiliar with. We spent about 40 minutes looking for this house as well when someone stopped us and asked if we were evangelists. We said no and introduced ourselves. She told us she was very curious and she said she wanted to hear more. So we sat down and gave her the first discussion. When we were done she gave us her number and address. We get a lot of fake numbers so we did a squillo {RING}(really common in Italy you call and let the phone ring once and then hang up.) and her phone actually rang! Right now I think she is more curious than anything else, but I think she has been searching for this for a long time. The work is alive and well in Italy.

Con amore
-Sorella Madyline Spencer

(this weeks email comes with a couple of pictures!)