Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Buon Natale Tutti! (Merry Christmas Everyone!) - December 24, 2014

Buon Natale Tutti!
 
Wow, I can't believe it's almost Christmas! Soooo crazy. Okay, so yeah, 5 PM for Skype! That'll work for us! But, we also have appointments that day and will be running around like chickens with our heads cut off, so don't worry if we're maybe a teeny late calling you! 

So, ummm, it's just been a crazy week! We were practicing for a skit that we were going to do for the ward Christmas party, we 've been trying to get appointments for Christmas before everyone went out of town and trying to introduce Sorella Carter to the people we're working with here. We saw Giovannina this week, who's a new convert that got baptized in March of this year. She's really sweet and has a super forte testimony. Wow, she's so awesome. She's really funny because she throws in A LOT of Spanish words when she talks, and, in fact, so do a lot of the people here, because there are so many South Americans that live in Italy. One of the Anziani made a joke this week about how they taught us Italian in the MTC and then dropped us here where everyone speaks Spanish and Tagolog. I was dying because it's honestly so accurate. Oh, well. 

So, anyways, we spent the first half of the week practicing the song we were going to sing at the end of our skit at the ward Christmas party, and then Sorella Carter played it on repeat all Friday to try and help it subconsciously sink in. Then Saturday morning, when I woke up, Sorella Carter told me that in the middle of the night I started singing the song in Italian in my sleep. So, I've now progressed to singing in my sleep. The mission's making me go crazy. Hah jk. Anywho, our skit ended up being a hit. It was three kids arguing in front of the Christmas tree over whether Santa was real or not, and while they were arguing he snuck in the back and got up to all sorts of shenanigans. It was fun, the anziani are super awesome and we had a good time. 

Monday night, we had FHE, but only 2 people showed up, so the missionaries outnumbered members! But we had fun! Anziano Vasquez's mom had sent him two little nerf guns so we had a blast shooting each other and having wars with them. We also planned that we're going to watch our Christmas movie with the anziani in the church and set up the projectors and haul in all of the couches, so that'll be fun! We're watching The Lego Movie (anziano pick, not ours, but it's okay, I was a Lego counselor!).
Christmas festa
Okay, questions! I love my new companion! We are having an amazing time together and we get along really well! She's a huge Harry Potter nerd also and loves a lot of the same things that I do, so we have fun! She's also a black belt which adds major cool points. Unfortunately, we don't have any investigaotrs that are progressing right now. We're having phone problems, we're not recieving a lot of text messages, and some of our investigators mainly communicate through text because phones are stinking expensive here, so we're worried that's why we're not hearing back from them. :( It's okay though! We're figuring it out! W're going to do some pass bys and try and get in contact with them again!  :)

It sounds like you are all having an awesome week! I can't wait to talk to you all and I hope you are having an amazing Christmas eve and Christmas day! I love you! 

Love, Sorella Snow 


More Pictures! - December 24, 2014

Here are some pictures from p-day on December 10 with the first Sister Carter at Lake Como:





Duomo di Como


At Sforza Castle with Sister Wernke:
 
The view from a hill in Milan:

 
Kim writes, "So, on our walk home, we always find single random shoes on the road, and every couple of days there's a new random shoe and the other one will be gone. This one day, we found literally 20 matchless shoes just sitting there on our walk home."
 

Friday, December 19, 2014

Ce la facciamo! (We can do it!) - December 17, 2014

Buongiorno tutti! (Thought I'd mix it up a little :))

So, this was a pretty hectic but fun week! Sorella Carter left to go the mission home on Thursday morning, and I had to go over to Cimiano to meet up with the two Sorelle I would be with for the first part of the week, until the next Sorella Carter could come. One of my two temporary comps was actually a verdina (greenie) so she had just arrived the day before! They were Sorella Tokarski and Sorella Burgess.

The next day at 8 in the morning, my phone actually started going off, and I went to look at it and there was an alarm that said Sorella Carter muore. I'll let y'all do that translation. So, that was pretty funny and I just laughed for a few minutes. Then, I had to do calls to try and set up appointments for the next week, which was brutal, becasue it's hard anough understanding people when I'm face to face with them. But I did it! We also had to make cookies for an activity which turned out awful and we kept on trying to change the dough after each batch we cooked to make them better and it was just kinda an epic fail. Oh well.

Then Saturday, the anziani had a baptism! It was really cool! And that night, we did an activity with the youth where they wrote their testimonies in a copy of the Book of Mormon and then we wrapped them up like Christmas presents, wore Santa hats and took the youth to the Duomo to pass them out to people. It was really cool. I think that a lot of them were really impressed by it.
Passing out copies of the Book of Mormon with some of the youth at the Duomo
Sunday, I went to another primary program! It was really cute. The kids were pretty awesome. Then that night, we got to watch the Christmas devotional from the first presidency. It was really cool, but one of the Elders, who is new also and had seen it already at the MTC, he fell asleep while we were watching. and then he twitched so badly in his sleep that he almost fell out of his chair. A member who saw it was dying laughing.

Okay, then Monday, I finally got to meet my new comp! Her name is Sorella Carter also. She loves Harry Potter and Once Upon a Time and Percy Jackson, so I think we'll get along. But seriously, she's awesome and I'm super excited to be working with her for this next transfer! She was in Lampugnano for 1 tranfer way back at the start of her mission, so it's kinda cool that she gets to come back for a little. She just came from Tireste. 

Tuesday, we had FHE with the ward and it was super fun! All of the members get a huge kick out of the fact that her name is Carter also and they all think that the two Carters are related.
Musical chairs at FHE
Wednesday, we went to the Duomo to meet up with some other Sorelle and we checked out the Disney store (it's so cool!) and got arancino, a Sicilian food and some panzerotti and gelatto. Wow. I love the food here! It was a pretty fun day! 

Okay, questions. Having to be the expert on the area is kinda scary, but we're doing okay! I know the mezzi pretty well, it's just figuring out the buses. But, ce la facciamo! (We can do it!)  I'm super excited to talk to you all next week! I love you and hope you are enjoying the Christmas spirit! 

Love, Sorella Snow

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Abandon ship...or bus - December 10, 2014

Hey, everyone!

So, yet another awesome week! Last Wednesday, after email, we went to Lago (Lake) Como for about an hour, It was already dark out, but it was so beautiful!

In Como, they project Christmas images onto the buildings at night, like moving falling snow flakes or trees! It was so beautiful! 

Then that night, I had a Scambio with Sorella Warnke, from Germany. We were in Lampugnano for that one, so I was in charge and it was kinda terrfiying. Thankfully, we didn't get lost, probably because I spent every other second praying for help. But,anywho, the next day, still on scambio, on the way to one member's house, our bus and a car side scraped each other and the bus stopped on the side of the road and the two drivers were in an argument until another bus came along and we abandoned ship (or bus ,)). So, that was pretty intense. And then, at the end of that lesson, the sister always tells us to choose some fruit to take home, so Sorella Warnke, picked up one fruit and then a minute later said that she had something stuck in her hand, so she handed the fruit to me to hold, and the Sister we were visiting comes up and tells us it's a cactus fruit and I realize that we both now have a million little teeny pricks stuck in our hand. So, that wasn't fun. All I could think of was when Mason tried to pick up a cactus when he was younger. So, we spent the rest of the day finding little pricks in our hands. Oh, well. Then later that day, we were sprinting to catch a bus and we missed it, but it turned out to be a blessing, because there was a lady at the bus stop who'd met the anziani but hadn't had time to talk to them and wanted some more info about our English course, so that was really cool. 

Then Friday, we met with one investigator family (a woman, her son, and her compagno (a person you live with without being married)) and we set baptism dates with them! We're so excited! We hope that we'll be able to help them out. We set the Bap date for kinda far out becasue we'll have to help them get married and we still have a lot to teach, but we have a lot of faith it will work out!

Saturday, we practiced a song we were going to sing in Sacrament meeting the next day. The anziani and Sorella Carter told me I have a black voice :) Also, we got transfer calls. I'm staying in Lampugnano, and my next companion is, drum roll... Sorella Carter! Seriously. There's another Sorella Carter in the mission and she's my new collega. And she's also dying. She's only going to be with me for one transfer and then she's done and she's going home. They call it killing a person when you're their comp when they go home. So I'll be killing two Sorella Carters. Kinda funny when you think about it. So, yeah, I'll have to introduce her to the area and try and know everything, so I'm a little nervous, but it'll all be ok. 

Sunday, we saw that one family again, the half African, half Italian one, and they are so cool! I hope we'll be able to see them again soon! I have pictures of them somewhere, I'll have to send them if I haven't yet.

Monday, we had a zone training, which was fun and exciting. I saw some of the people from my MTC zone and we got to hear the dying testimonies of missionaries going home (wow, we're so morbid, with all of the death and dying terminology).

Tuesday, we had FHE with the ward and it was super fun. We played missionary tag, and since missionaries can't really have physical contact with people of the other sex, girls would hold onto the elder's ties. I think they were almost strangled a few times, but they're okay! ;) Then some of the Young Women sang to Anziano O'Riordan and Sorella Carter since they're going home. It was really sweet. Oh, and I almost forgot, we got a call yesterday from the zone leaders, and I guess my new collega can't come to Milano for a few days, so I'm going to be in a threesome with another coppia from another area until next Monday! Woohoo! I'll get to experience being a threesome for a few days. One of the Sorelle I'll be with is super new, just got here.

Ok, answers to questions. We're trying to use Facebook as a tool through the members, getting them to post stuff, but we can't use it unless we ever get ipads(which I want so bad!) Christmas is awesome for the mission, because everyone is traditionally Catholic, so they love it and love the nativity. It's good for starting conversations and hopefully for reaching out to less actives. We're trying to commit them to come to church for Christmas. Oh, and I keep on seeing nativites and thinking of Mom, but I'm restraining myself at least until my second Christmas! Yeah, we watch He's the Gift (Egli รจ il dono) in Italian, and also in English, becasue we have some Filipino families and often they speak English better then Italian becasue they all learn it in their schools in the Philippines.
Sorella Carter showing a typical Italian Christmas ad...it's all about the pasta!
Well, I think that's it for now! I love you guys so much and I'm getting so excited to celebrate the birth of our Savior this Christmas! Lots of Love! 

Love, Sorella Snow
 
 
Kim and Sorella Carter with some member families:



 

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Merry December! - December 3, 2014

Ciao, famiglia!
Wow, sounds like you had an awesome Thanksgiving! It's always super fun to see everyone and start getting into the Holiday spirit.

So, last P-day we went back to the castle in the middle of Milan, it's name is Castello Sfozesco, so, I think you were maybe right, mom! ( And Yeah, the dessert was panettone!) We went inside the museum inside the castle and it was pretty cool! Then that night we went to a birthday party (just a dinner) and it was cool! The members here are all so cool!




Sforza Castle & Museum

Sforza Castle & Museum







Sorella Carter & Sorella Snow at Sforza Castle




 

Friday, we ended up seeing a couple of less active people, and one of them fed us a lemon turkey dish, so I did end up having turkey kinda near Thanksgiving! At that appointment we had a super good lesson with one woman about why we have trials in life and about the comfort we can receive from God. She promised to come to church with the family we were visiting (she was over during our visit so we talked to her too) and she did end up coming, so that was super cool! Oh, also we found out that another member's triple combination is messed up. Instead of the first half of 3 Nephi, she has the middle of 2 Nephi repeated there. She's been reading it like that for years and never realized! So that was kinda funny. 

Saturday, we met a super awesome family. We had met the mom 2 weeks ago on a bus and she gave us her number and when we called we set up an appointment, but it was for 2 weeks away because that was the earliest she could and we were kinda expecting it to fall through. But it didnt'! We ended up going and she had a husband from Africa (she's Italian) and 3 daughters! They were super legit and close as a family and it was just amazing to see. The dad seemed really interested and they had actually met the missionaries like 10 years ago but said they couldn't understand them and couldn't really remember much. We have another appointment, so hopefully it'll work out! We are super excited for them! 

Most of our lessons with members lately has been about the He Is the Gift video! It's amazing and so powerful! If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it! Then share on Facebook! It's beautiful! We've seen some people be really touched by it! 

Wow, I'm sorry this and my last letter were so short! There's just so much to do! I promise I'll do better mext time! I love you guys so much! Have an amazing week! 

Love, Sorella Snow