Saturday, June 27, 2015

Now we feel super Italian - June 24, 2015


Buongiorno tutti!

Wow! Sounds like you all had a crazy week! Okay, so answers to
questions. Yeah our STLs are based out of Prato. They cover the Sorelle
in Firenze, Pisa, Siena, Montevarchi, and Livorno (I think that's
all). So they're pretty busy, they have to do exchanges every week!

So, last Thursday, we got to see Stella again! It's been a really long
time since we've been able to see her (she's had to work a ton) so we
were super excited to get in contact with her. She's a seriously
amazing woman and honestly has a heart of gold. Unfortunately, we
don't know how long it'll be until we can see her again. We also saw
Sorella N again and we got her to read a little bit of the Book
of Mormon in Dutch to us (is that the language from Holland, I don't
remember... It's called Holandese in Italian).

Friday, we saw Sorella D in the morning. She's really
cool. She told us her conversion story and subsequent inactivity and
then reactivation. Then we saw Sorella B and then our new
convert Federica.

We found this super crazy flower...



...and a wasp nest next to it!

Sunday, we were supposed to have a ward lunch, but I guess most of the
ward forgot about it, so we all went over to a member's house instead.
It was us, this member and his family and Federica, and the anziani's
new convert Jim. It was still a ton of fun!

Monday, we had district meeting and then we saw Sorella C again.
We talked with her about the prophecy in the Book of Mormon about
Joseph of Egypt predicting the birth of Joseph Smith.

Tuesday, we saw Azzura, our other new convert and her boyfriend
Giacomo, they are super cool and we went with them to get a gelato.
It's been awhile since we were able to see her too. So we were really
happy to be able to. Then we saw Sorella N. We watched the video
about Esther with her and it was a really good lesson. During it, we
were talking about courage and how it doesn't mean you're not
afraid, and right then this huge way flies in the window and we also
starting screaming and trying to hit it or shoo it out the window, so
that was kind funny, that that happened right when we were talking
about courage! Then we saw Federica again and then we went to English
class, which was really good this week. The group we have speaks
pretty well, so we can do a lot of conversation and it's fun. Oh also!
So we live across the street from a Catholic Church and last night we
saw them doing this weird march and chant around the neighborhood. They
were pulling around this boat on wheels with a huge picture of Gesù on
it with a million candles... Kinda cool, but also kinda creepy at 10
o'clock at night...

Today, we went shopping in the markets for fruit and it was super
intimidating, there were tons of people running around and going crazy,
but we faced our fears and did it,and now we feel super Italian :)
Then we did some more grocery shopping and we actually took a nap
today, cause we were super exhausted. So yeah, that was our week!

Any who, thanks for the emails this week! You guys are seriously the
best and I appreciate all the love and support!  I hope y'all have an
amazing week!

Love,
Sorella Snow

Crazy Trains - June 17, 2015

Ciao tutti!
Man sounds like a crazy week with two graduations! Melanie and Mason
are getting so old! :)
Questions: Umm, to get to Firenze takes
us about an hour and a half. They rented out a big civic center type
thing for it, the stake center is pretty small and the stake has like
10 wards/branches so we needed a little more room. There were maybe
200 or 250 people there in attendance.

So, last Wednesday, after pday, we went to see the V family. It
was a really good appointment, they're this super cute couple and the
husband's a member of the bishopric. They have kids who live in
America. Then we went to see Sorella N, a less active member in
our ward. A sister from the ward council came with us, so that was
cool. The whole ward council has a push this summer to visit every
single inactive or less active member, so we're super excited to do
splits with them and help with that.

Thursday, we had zone training in the morning, so we went back to
Pisa! It was really good, super interesting. We have some cool people
in our zone this transfer, including Sorella Carducci, who I did a
scambio with while I was still in Milano.

Friday, we saw Sorella Na. She's moving into a new apartment and
hasn't been able to see us in a little while. She's super cute and
always really funny.  Then we saw a new convert who just moved her from Rome. Her name is
Federica. She's just a little bit olde then us and she seems super
cool so we're excited to start working with her. Plus we don't have a
ton of young single adults in the ward, so we're glad we got another.
That night we saw Sorella N again and we had a good lesson and
invited her to come to church on Sunday, which, she did!

Saturday, we spent all day at a conference put on by a member in the
stake to help us learn how to do missionary work with deaf people. We
learned some Italian sign language. I've been thinking a little bit
how cool it would be to learn some sign language, so I guess that was
karma. It was fun, but obviously we're not super great at it or
anything yet. There's a deaf center in Livorno, so we're planning on
going some time to try and do some missionary work there. The
instructor who taught the course was super cool, really sweet. He's
deaf so we communicated by writing on his computer.
Great glasses!

Sunday, we had church and it was fast Sunday, since last Sunday was
stake conference. We also had district meeting on Sunday because we
had an appointment scheduled for when we usually do it on Monday. We
did a ton of calls and planning also for the scambio we had the next
day.

Monday, our appointment in the morning canceled :( but she
rescheduled, so we'll hopefully see her later this week. We started
our scambio at lunch time that day. I stayed in Livorno with Sorella
Johnson. We had another appointment cancel on us so we went and did
some pass bys of less active members. We also saw Viviana and her mom
that night. Viviana had actually met Sorella Johnson before when she
was here on another scambio, so that was kinda a tender mercy, that
they were able to see each other again.

Tuesday, since our STL copia has a car, we drove out in the morning to
see Grazia a simp who Sorella Kras and Sorella Albos had taught, but
I'd never met. She lives kinda far from Livorno, so we took the chance
to go out and see her. It was a super good appointment and she says
she wants to see us again, so that's really exciting!
Sorella Johnson, Grazia and Sorella Snow

Then we came back, had lunch and drove up to Prato to switch back (a lot of driving
in the last few days, that was pretty bizarre for me...) Then Sorella
McMurray and I were supposed to catch a train back to Livorno at 4:30
but there was apparently a sciopero (strike) that day. So all of our
trains kept getting canceled. We finally caught one, after waiting at
the station for 2 or 3 hours. That train got us to Florence, where we
had to wait for another hour or two , with all of our trains being
delayed or canceled until we finally were able to take a train the
rest of the way home. We got home at about 9:30 and were super excited
our bikes hadn't been stolen after being locked up all day. Man,
taking trains can be pretty crazy sometimes here!

Anywho, today, we're going to La Spezia a city north of us that has
these five cities up in the mountains called Cinque Terre that are
supposed to be absolutely beautiful. Update! We went and they were
absolutely beautiful! I'll send some pics. It was a ton of fun to see
the other Sorelle again and it was amazing to be so close to the
water, even if we were pretty tempted to jump in! Don't worry, we
didn't!
This is the view of Cinque Terre from the train







This is the view from the beachside at Vernazza, the city we went to in Cinque Terre.

Anywho, thanks for the emails! I love you guys and I hope you all have
an awesome week!
Love,
Sorella Snow

Grateful for Seminary & Book of Mormon classes - June 10, 2015

Hey guys! So glad to hear everything's going well. It's kinda funny
you mentioned the drought, that's what everyone here mentions when I
tell them I'm from California.

Anywho, the work here is going well. It's still a bit slow, we're
having a hard time finding new simps to work with, but the people we
have are really awesome! I actually haven't heard too much from people
in my old areas. One girl from Milano emailed me a few weeks ago,
that was fun, she's super cute.

So, last Thursday we did some pass bys and that night we saw Sorella
B. She's always super cute. She told us we need to eat more
and have lots of meat. She's always trying to take care of us, it's
pretty adorable. :)

Friday, we did planning in the morning and tried to get more
organized. We're trying to see all the members in the ward to set up
family mission plans, so we were trying to choose people who need to
be seen and find out who is who. Then we saw Sorella C again. She
wanted us to explain Lehi's dream, so we drew a little diagram. I've
never been so grateful for all of my seminary and Book of Mormon
classes as I have been on the mission, shout out to Mom for getting me
there ;) . Then we saw G. She's super cute but we were only
able to be there for a few minutes because she started feeling sick
and asked us to go... But we left her with a Book of Mormon and
committed her to read it.

Saturday, we did more pass bys of names on the ward list, and we found
one lady who let us in. She's a member but hasn't come to church
or been visited by the missionaries in years, so hopefully we'll be
able to start seeing her. Then there was a Saturday night session for
our stake conference! It was good.

Sunday, we had our stake conference in Firenze! It was fun, but we had
to get up and leave early to make it there in time. There were a TON
of missionaries there so it was pretty fun to see them all. Sorella
Skinner from my MTC group is now in Firenze and Sorella Pavich, also
from my group is now in Pisa. It was a really good conference even
though it was pretty hot in Firenze.

Monday, we saw A- R- again and we had a good lesson with her, but
it was really crazy,cause we teach her at her work, so she had phone
calls and people coming in the entire time.

Tuesday, we saw M again. She's this super cute lady. Her son and
daughter in law are members and Mira has a ton of the same beliefs as
the church, she just doesn't realize it yet. But it was a really good
lesson with her.  Then we had English course. This was the last week
with assigned teachers, so next week we'll have to start doing it all
ourselves, but that's how it is in most cities, so we're pretty used
to that.

Today, we went to Pisa. We met up with Sorelle Bradshaw and Pavich. It
was super fun! We saw the tower and then got some pizza and gelato
together. They are really cool so hopefully we'll do some more pdays
together in the future :)
The duomo in Pisa



This time...licking the tower shot
This pizza place was sooooo good!


Horrendous watch tan

Comparing watch tans

Well, I love you guys a ton! Thanks for the emails and the love. Hope
you all have a great week!
Love, Sorella Snow

P.S.  As I was typing this email, on a train, a man jumped through the
window of the moving train to get on, it was super dramatic.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

I saw the sea! - June 3, 2015

Ciao, tutti! È stata una bella settimana!
Hello, everybody!  It was a good week!

Okay, answers! We didn't go in the tower of Pisa. It costs 18 euros to
go up and we also didn't have a ton of time. Maybe I'll go up this
transfer :) haha.  As far as I know the Medici seal is just their
crest but maybe it's super special! Sorella McMurray is super awesome
and fun! She's from Ohio but her family lives in Utah right now. I'm
super excited to work with her. Each missionary gets their own iPad to
use, cool right? For now we have to use wifi but hopefully we'll get
a data plan, it'd make life a lot easier. We haven't received
permission from Salt Lake to use them for online proselytizing yet, but
we hope soon.

So, we had transfers this week and last Thursday I got to stay in Pisa
with Sorella Bradshaw. It was super awesome and super beautiful. We
were expecting to only be there until about five or so when both of
our new comps would be arriving, but I guess there were some delays
in Milano centrale so they didn't arrive in Pisa until 9 at night. Then
Sorella McMurray and I had to hop back on the train to head home to
Livorno. We made it to the station at 9:30 and all of the buses had
stopped for the night, but luckily we were able to get in contact with
a member to give us a ride home.

Needless to say, the next day, Friday, we were pretty exhausted! We
did our weekly planning and then spent the rest of the day doing pass
bys and showing Sorella McMurray around the city .
The first day Sorella McMurray was here, we went out to the docks to see the water.



Saturday, we did more pass bys of less active or inactive members and
today, someone let us in! Her name is Gabriella and she's a super cute
little old lady. She hasn't had any missionaries visit her in along
time and she said we could come back to see her again so we're super
excited to start working with her.

Sunday, it was Sorella McMurray's first day in church and it was kinda
funny, cause I was wearing glasses that day, so a few of the members
didn't recognize me and thought that I was the new sorella and came up no
said benvenuta. That afternoon we did a lot of calls and organizing
lessons for the rest of the week, so we're excited and hope we'll see a ton of people this week.

Monday, we had district meeting and saw a member named Sorella C.
She's preparing to get her patriarchal blessing so she wanted us the
help her get ready and help her read the scriptures and understand
more. Then we did some pass bys afterwards and met some people on the
street along the way. It was a super busy day. We also passed by
Stella who we hadn't seen for a little while.

Tuesday was the Independence Day for Italy, so a lot of the people
we'd made appointments with that day canceled on us. It's funny,
Italians take their fiestas realllly seriously, so we weren't able to
see anybody that day, everything fell through. Kind of a bummer, but
andiamo avanti. English class that night and only the most dedicated
students showed up since it was a festa, so it was pretty fun. They
are all awesome at English.

Today, we went to Lungo Mare the pier out by the sea, and it was super
beautiful. Livorno is pretty amazing!





This is Sorella McMurray





Well, it's been a really good week and I'm super excited for this
transfer, I think that Sorella McMurray and I are going to get a lot
done! I love you guys and I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love, Kim

Sent from my iPad - May 27, 2015

Hey everyone! Hope you all had an awesome week!

Okay, answers to questions! We can go anywhere in the zone for pdays,
it can just be rough with travel time, cause you can end up losing
half of your time on traveling. I think Siena is a part of the
Florence stake and yeah it's the lowest point of our mission. There's
apparently a TON to do in Siena but we didn't really get the chance to
do much. But it is a major tourist spot because of how beautiful it
is. We took the train down there and the scenery was seriously
gorgeous. Yeah it's a part of Tuscany, so if you picture the
stereotypical Tuscan countryside, that's what we were driving past.

Wow, so it has once again been an insane week! Last Thursday, we were
supposed to go to Prato to do a scambio with our STL there, but on
the way there, the train driver announced that our train couldn't make
it past Firenze because there was a gas leak on the tracks or
something, so we had to turn around and make our way home. That ended
up taking us most of the day, so it was kinda frustrating.

Friday, we spent most of the day preparing for our talent show that
was taking place that night. We also did weekly planning and a lot of
calls. The talent show that night was pretty awesome! One of the
anziani in our district is going to be a rockstar when he gets home,
so he performed some of his original songs for us and they were
reeeeally good. We sang a song from Mulan (Sorella Kras and I) and a
ton of the little kids in the ward performed so it was really fun!

Saturday,we saw Stella again. We talked about the My Family booklets
and how families can be forever. It was a really good lesson. We also
got transfer calls that day. Sorella Kras is being transferred to
Lugano in Switzerland and I'm staying here in Livorno and Sorella
McMurray will be coming. I'm sad Sorella Kras has to go but I'm really
excited to stay here in Livorno.

Sunday we had church and we tried to see the people Sorella Kras
wanted to meet before she goes to Lugano.

Monday, we saw our simp Anna Rita and it was a good lesson. She has a
ton of faith and is really open to discussing with us. Sorella Kras
also had to start packing and we starting getting the apartment ready
for transfers.
"Our district.  I missed the memo that we weren't supposed to smile."


Yesterday, we saw Azzura and Giacomo. We went and got a gelato with
them and did a lesson while we ate. They are seriously really
awesome people. Honestly so nice and generous.
With Giacomo and Azzura

Then we saw the P family that night. They're new converts who are preparing to go to the
temple. They have one daughter who is five and another who is sixteen
and didn't get baptized with her parents. They are seriously amazing
and they were really sad to have to say goodbye to Sorella Kras. But
it was a awesome appointment.

Today, so far we've just cleaned the house and did spesa. Sorella Kras
still has to pack a little, so we'll see if we have time to do
anything else later today.

Well, I think that's about all for me this week. I love you all lots
and I hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Sorella Snow

Sent from my iPad

We got...iPads!- May20, 2015

Ciao, tutti!

Hey, everyone! 
So answers to questions. Doing Area book is when we update the schedas (the records of what we've taught our people) and go through lists of ex simps and call them or just all around organize the ward list/try and track down less active people we don't know. Just a lot of paperwork that needs to be done, but often missionaries forget or don't do it, so you often have to go back and update old info that hasn't been kept up. Spesa is just our grocery shopping for the week, that's the Italian word and that's just what we always call it :). What impressed me from the Bednar conference is how he kept on talking about how we are agents. We make every single choice and we can't be forced into anything because we are not just objects to be acted upon. 

So, last p day we went to Pisa finally! It was absolutely gorgeous! You always see pictures of the leaning tower, but it's totally different to get there and walk around the corner and see it. It really leans! I promise!
This is the outside of the baptistery at Pisa.

This is inside from the top looking down at the font.

The Medici seal


"I had to do the holding the tower shot!"


That night we went to church for FHE but it was apparently canceled and we weren't told, so that was kinda frustrating, because we were all waiting for people to show up and they didn't. Ahh, well. We go on. 

Thursday, we saw Sorella B and it was a good lesson with her, she's such a sweetheart! We also had district meeting because we were unable to do it last Monday, so that was fun! We have a really awesome district, so I love DM.

Friday, we saw Sorella N....o, a member. She's super awesome. Really funny! She was telling us a ton of stories. She has a beautiful testimony and will get to go the temple soon, so she's really excited for that! That afternoon we saw the N....a family. They have four super cute kids! It was so much fun! Their daughter was just baptized a while ago, so we are giving her the after baptism lessons. The youngest girl was doing a fashion show of her princess dresses and her little brother wanted to show off his superman costume, so they were just basically adorable! 

Saturday we saw Stella and she told us she would come to church, so we were psyched, but she unfortunately hurt herself pretty badly that night, so she was unable to come. But she's doing better so we hope for next week! 

Sunday we saw A and had a good lesson with her. Church was really good also. I love the members in the ward here! They are seriously all amazing! 

Monday, we had Zone Training and we talked about a ton of stuff, such as Sabbath observance. The stakes here are going to do a huge push in the next month or so for Sabbath observance, because it's a bit of a problem here. I'm excited for that, because it's really important! We also got some rules for the iPads! And the actual iPads! We're pretty excited! We can't do much yet, we still have to do some trainings for them, but we're finally starting the process, so we're super happy.
Our zone

"New iPads!"
Piazza di Palio (I think)

Yesterday, we saw S again and had a good lesson with her about the priestdhood. We shared an awesome talk from the April 2014 conference called the Keys and Authority of the Priesthood. Then we saw Sorella B and talked with her about genealogy (aren't you proud mom?!?) Then we had to run home because our senior couple was coming to fix/replace our broken beds (it used to be an anziano apartment...men :)) Then we had English Course. I had to teach cause the teacher was gone. It was intense. They were asking in depth questions about the diffferent form of the future tense. I had no clue.... I just speak it.

Today, we went to Siena and it was AMAZING! The duomo there was honestly the prettiest  I've seen so far (at least the inside). It's a long trip though, so we got back kinda late and I don't have a ton of email time. So I'll send pics next week (also of Pisa!) I promise!
 



The streets of Siena
The duomo of Siena.  "I just don't know how to describe the beauty of this duomo!"
 

The steps up to the duomo

The signs of the different villages of Sienna.

Add caption


"There were images like this EVERYWHERE on the floors."

The ceiling of the library room

Library inside the duomo

"That's a big book!"



Anyways, sorry, this was kinda hurried. I love you guys so much and I'm so happy that I get to be here and share the gospel! Vi voglio tantissimo bene! 

Love, Sorella snow