Labor of Love - November 19, 2014

Ciao, Famiglia! 

So, just to answer some questions, (skip this if you don't care about it), the recipes were great! Thanks, Mom! (I think I forgot to say thanks for those and the genealogical info, but THANKS SO MUCH! It was much appreciated) Sorella Gluck speaks English pretty well, so I was able to speak that a lot with her, I'm getting better, but having a conversation not related to gospel words is hard because I don't really know those. Also, she had a German/Italian accent so that was hard to understand. Most of the people we teach are actually South American or Filipino. The South Americans throw in a ton of Spanish words, so I can sometimes understand those. And yeah, I always throw in Spanish words on accident, it took me weeks to say molto instead of muy. And if I know the Spanish word but not the Italian, I can sometimes throw it in and the Italians will understand since they hear Spanish so much. Our curfew is still 9:30 at the latest, which can be frustrating because people do stay up later, In the summer, the anziani get to move their curfew back 30 minutes to try to accommodate this, but the sorelle don't because they're worried about us being safe. 

Okay, so, yeah this was a crazy busy week! We successfully taught 21 lessons! It was amazing! We were soo exhausted by the end of it. Our last night, we were having a really hard time finding one more person to meet with. We had already met with most of our simps and less active families that week and the rest weren't answering, it was already dark so we couldn't really do any street finding and we had no idea what we were going to do. We tried to see if one member was home but she didn't answer, so I was seriously praying to Heavenly Father, asking Him to help us find someone. Then 2 minutes later, we were walking to another member's apartment to try and see if she was maybe home and as we were passing people in the street we were saying buongiorno, like we always do, and one young guy turns around and stops us and asks if he knows us. We explained we didn't know him, that we just said hi to everyone. And we then taught him a little about the restoration and had a prayer with him. It was amazing and it was a testament of how God really does love us and will answer our prayers. That seriously never happens to us. When we say hi to people, they just look at us suspiciously and walk faster. So it was a really neat experience. Anyway, that was our 21 lesson experience. I know we and the mission will be blessed for it.

 

Last Wednesday, we went to a legit castle in the middle of Milan, in the city. It's just normal city and then all the sudden there's a huge castle. It was beautiful. We met up with Sorella Hawks and her trainer (I kinda felt like a little kid whose mom was arranging a play date while Sorella Carter and Sorella Hawks' trainer were setting it up.) and we got panzerotti which is like a calzone but better and some awesome gelatto. It was a really fun day.


Sforza Castle in Milan
 

 

View from castle

Sorelle Snow & Hawks

Sorelle Carter & Snow

Thursday we had English class, which is always fun because I get to sound smart. We taught the M--- family which is a mom and two daughters. They're really fun and awesome. We saw W--- at English class. He's a Filipino guy who looks like he's in his 20s and is actually like mid-thirties. 

Friday, Sorella Carter and I fasted to have 21 lessons and we saw some awesome miracles. A man we had talked to on the mezzi the day before texted us and said he's really felt our spirit and wanted to learn more about our message. However, he wants to meet with us specifically (he actually said he wants to meet with the missionaries who introduced him to Mormon.) and he's a single dude who's not even in our area, so we'll meet him once and we'll have to try to convince him to meet the other missionaries. We went to Patrizia's house that day ( she's an awesome member and she always brings friends to activities and friendships investigators and less-actives, she's an amazing missionary.) and she had two friends over, which we weren't expecting, so we got an extra lesson. There was a bus and mezzi strike that day (sciopa) which apparently Milan has like once a month, but we didn't end up being inconvenienced by it, which is a miracle. So, yeah it was an awesome day filled with miracles. 

Saturday (by the way it rained HARD this week, Milan was a swamp. there were seriously street corners that were 2 feet deep with water), it was raining cats and dogs and we still needed to teach 5 lessons that day to make our goal, so we were out for hours in the rain and we were soaked. Milan  rain is nothing like California rain or even Utah storms. But we met Romeo and Lydia who are a Filipino couple that speak English. She's a member and he's not. They're like 70 years old but they work 4 AM to 8 PM every day making and selling Filipino food. They fed us and sent us home with a lot of food. (shopa, no clue how to spell it but it tastes sooo good) They are such examples and she has such faith they are really amazing people. They could live in a way nicer apartment and retire but they work hard every day to send money home to all of their family. We went to another Filipino family's house for lunch .We went to Sorella Vacca's home ( she makes the food for FHE and its amazing) and she fed us, so I was stuffed by the end of that day. 

Sunday we went to the ward mission leader's house for dinner and they of course fed us a ton (EVERYONE wants to stuff you with food, you'll say no, but they just keep on piling it on your plate and you have to eat it),  While we were talking they asked me about my family and I said I have a mamma and a papa instead of papà. Papà means dad. Papa means pope. So that was a bit embarrassing but you just need to learn to laugh at yourself. 

Monday was my two month mark from the day I went into the MTC! I don't know about you guys, but the time is flying for me! I can't believe its been that long. We did another scambio with the other Bergamo Sorelle and I was with a Sorella who went to the Provo MTC speaking only French. She had no one to help her translate, but she learned English and Italian and she's now awesome in both and it's only been four months that she's been here! The gift of tongues is real, that's all I'm saying. Oh, and Monday morning we had a district meeting, even though they weren't obligatory this week because we have a conference with an area authority this week (which we are so excited for! We had to read a talk about technology for it, so we're hoping they're going to make an announcement about iPads in the mission!) And the District Leader, Anziano Perkins dressed up as Santa. It was really fun, they even had a Christmas tree with lights! It was awesome! He is so good about trying to make every district meeting enjoyable for us.

Anziani Helton, Vasquez, Perkins & O'Riordan
Sorelle Carter & Snow

Then that night was the Bergamo scambio. The next day, was finally beautiful with no rain! And Bergamo is gorgeous,  it's kinda more of a touristy city than where we are in Milan. We had one inactive sister we visited and I kid you not, we had to take a train, bus and gondola to get to her. She lives up in the mountains above the city and it was beautiful! She had an amazing testimony and she helped us do some missionary work with a woman we talked to while we waited for our gondola for like 30 minutes( the other lady smoked 4 cigarettes in that time. Everyone smokes here). Then I was back in Milan that night for FHE which is always super fun.

City in mountains near Bergamo

City in mountains near Bergamo

City in mountains near Bergamo



Gondola view -  Kim wrote, "It was so much more breathtaking than it looks in the pics!"

 

Random building in Bergamo

 

Wow, I wrote a lot this week! I think I'm done for now! I love you guys!

Love, Sorella Snow 

P.S. In the sister's home, in the mountains, we could see our breath every time we spoke, it was so cold, and that was inside! And we saw a super classy three story McDonalds.  

BTW I found a bug inside the keyboard crawling around while I typed this, so it is a labor of love for y'all that I kept on going.