Thanks to the rain most of our appointments fell through this week, because buses stopped running. Rome is designed really really well (thank you Julius Caesar) so flooding is not normally a problem, but this type of perpetual constant rain is really uncommon here and some of the lower parts of Rome have been flooding slightly making it difficult for buses to rain (don't worry I live in Monte Spaccatto which literally translates to mountain, so I am safe).
So we did a little bit of casa a casa (door to door) which we kind of avoid as missionaries, because we don't actually have doors here we just have citofinos (those little metal boxes that you use to buzz to get into people's apartments) and it is really easy for people to just ignore us, so we have very very little success getting into people's homes. HOWEVER, some missionaries try to look for open doors so they can actually literally knock on people's doors.
I have never served with someone who has felt comfortable doing this, and thus I have never done it. Sorella Worsham happens to be a very big fan. So she wanted me to go into this huge, very nice apartment complex, so after explaining to her that I only have one point left on my permesso before I get deported (you start with 16, and you gradually lose them for various offenses. Missing a culture class costs you 15 points and I missed one in the transfer from Sicilia to Roma) and other such grumbling and general apprehension, I followed her into the apartment complex, and I am really grateful that I did. Two people let us in. One of them was a woman named F....., and she has two little girls. She met the missionaries in the past, and then moved (this never happens, people never know who we are) She was very receptive and she told us that she really liked the way that we prayed. She said she felt like it was really direct to God.
The other was a woman named Erica. This story is really great because we hadn't been doing door to door for very long, and I was really skeptical still, and we knocked on this door and a man (maybe about 25) opens the door. As he opened the door this huge dog runs out at us. So he is yelling at the dog, and trying to get him back in the house. There is a little girl (maybe about 3) in the background crying, and I am just standing there thinking how the whole apartment complex specifically this family wants to kill us. So he finally gets the dog and the child calmed down, and he asks us what we want, and we tell him (lets be honest Sorella Worsham tells him) that we have a beautiful message for strengthening the family, and instead of rolling his eyes and shutting the door, he says preggo (which means you are welcome to come in.) I literally responded veramente? (really?) We didn't end up getting to teach them a lesson, because his wife was on her way to a friends house, but we have an appointment for this Friday. Please pray for us!
Also I told you that we have been doing a lot of work with what we call our ancient records book (schedas dating back to 1996) and we have started , meeting with a woman named Silvia, who lived with an LDS family in Ohio for a year and a half. (literally twice in one week where we were able to meet with people who are familiar with Mormons! Crazy.)
OK last miracle. There is a college campus in our area that we wanted to go to do English course advertising. We are really trying to start teaching more YSA (young single adult) aged people and young families, so Wednesday morning (I think) we took a bus to Gimelli to do advertising, and when we got there we could NOT find the campus. It was early morning which is a really bad time for finding so we decided to try to put English course Billotini (pass along cards) in mailboxes while we looked for the campus. At a certain point we ran out of English course Billotini, but we still hadn't found the campus, so we decided to just keep using normal billatini (standard LDS pass along cards). After an hour or so we went back to the bus stop and asked the bus driver where gimelli was and he told us that we had rode the bus in the wrong direction and Gimelli was on the other side on town. So feeling kind of stupid we got back in the bus and went home, but last night we received a text message from a man who lived in this area, telling us that he wanted a copy of our free DVD about Jesus Christ, and our Book of Mormon. So sometimes accidents are inspired by the Lord.
Last thing I have been reading Jeremiah, to try to see what life was like in Jerusalem during the time of Lehi, and I saw something that I really really loved. In the first couple of verses the Lord is telling Jeremiah what his destiny (probably not good word choice, sorry) is and Jeremiah literally says ah (that is the only verbatim thing that I can remember) and then something along the lines of Lord I am just child how can I do that? And maybe the ah wasn't exactly the same as the ughhh Lord, how can I possibly do that. so I didn't explain that very well so everyone go home and read Jeremiah and remember that you can do anything with the help of the Lord.
con amore Sorella Madyline Spencer
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