Friday, August 28, 2015

Visiting the Ladies of Livorno - August 5, 2015

Ciao, Famiglia!

Answers to questions! Yeah, our church block was changed as a result
of the recommendation from the twelve. The ward seems to be receiving
the new emphasis on sabbath day observance really well. At first, they
were a little worried about being on time when sacrament meeting was
first, but they've accepted that it should help out reverence. We've
been visiting less active and inactive members talking about the
sacrament and the new change, so yeah, it's been talked about a lot.

So this week was pretty slow. I can't remember if I've already
mentioned it, but they have this holiday here over the summer called
Ferragosto and it officially starts on August 15 but everyone takes
off work starting a month early and going on until the end of August
to celebrate it, EVERYONE is at the beach. So, August is usually
pretty slow here.
Our district

Thursday, we passed by a lot of people, and did finding and made a ton
of calls.

Friday, we finally made it through the entire ward list. We have
officially tried to contact every single lady who lives in Livorno.
Usually, when we do the pass bys, we find out the people moved away or
they have no interest in seeing us, but today we found one really nice
lady who said we can come back another day, so we're really excited to
see if we can start working with her.

Saturday, we saw Sorella Car again. She's doing well. We've met her
husband a few times and he seems like a really nice guy. We did more
finding today.

Sunday, we had church. It was fast Sunday and it was really good. We
had a TON of people in church, one of the anziani counted about
70 and none of the were tourists! So we were really excited for about
that. Our sacrament meeting also changed to being the first hour
and it was really nice, I've never seen the Italians so on time in my
entire life! Just kidding (kinda). Also, yesterday night, when we were
planning for today, we had joked about maybe seeing this man again
that we've seen a few times and he's approached each time to ask about
our church. We were joking about how we might run into him again, and
we actually did! It was pretty cool! We taught him the first lesson.
We'll have to pass him to the anziani if he still has interest in
meeting again, but we were just really excited about it.

Monday, we had district meeting and then that afternoon we saw Azzura
and Giacomo. It had been awhile since we'd seen them and Sorella
Harris hadn't even really met them yet, so we were super pumped to
finally be able to get together, that night, we had the plumber come
again because now our faucet is spraying everywhere all over our
kitchen. He was just checking it out, he still needs to fix it. We've
started a list and we're taking pictures of all the things that go
wrong in our apartment. There's our broken faucet, the air
conditioning, our door handle that falls off all the time, our water
ran brown for a few hours one day, lots of stuff.
We had to boil water to wash our dishes after our hot water went out the second time.

Tuesday, we saw Sorella Iz in the morning, Sorella Harris has been
having some foot problems and Sorella Iz knows about that stuff, so
she took a look at it for her. We also saw Sorella An while we
were there. The two of them are seriously awesome ladies, and are both
so sweet and caring. We saw Sorella Car that afternoon and then
Sorella Nac. Sorella Nac is super fun. We always have really
good talks with her. Then we had English class. There weren't a lot of
people today, so we combined our class with the anziani's. It was fun.
The people who come to English class are really fun and sweet. One of
the men in our class said he's going on vacation but that when he
comes back, he's gonna bring us some blackberry jam from the mountains
that's supposed to be really good.

Today, we went to Monte Nero in the morning. It was pretty cool. The
chapel at the top was really pretty and bright inside, usually
Catholic churches are so dark and gloomy. We also may have
accidentally walked into their mass.
Pinocchio was invented in this region, they love him here!

View from Monte Nero

Sorella Harris took this really pretty view  from Monte Nero

We couldn't do a lot today, we had interviews with president and we
had to go to Pisa for it.

Thanks for the support and love, you guys are the best and I love
hearing from you all. Have an amazing week!

Love, Sorella Snow

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Win Win! - July 29, 2015

Ciao, famiglia!

How are you guys all doing? Hope it was a good week! So, questions!
Yeah, when we go anywhere outside of Livorno we take a train. When we
went to San Gimignano it took an hour and 45 minutes to get to a city
named Poggibonsi and then we took a twenty minute bus ride to get to
San Gimignano. So yeah, it takes awhile! We left at seven in the
morning for that one! Pisa just takes 20 minutes.

So, last Thursday, we saw Viviana. We haven't been able to see or even
talk with her in awhile, so she didn't even know that Sorella McMurray
had left. So Sorella Harris got to finally meet her. She's really
cool.

Friday, we did weekly planning and it was good. I've realized that
when we do weekly planning and actually do a good job, the rest of our
week is so much easier as opposed to when we don't have time and just
rush through it. Then we saw Sorella Car again. She's doing well.
We're still meeting with her about two times a week.   Then we saw
Sorella I, an active member. She's really sweet. She just got called to be
in the Relief Society presidency here and she's super excited to serve.

Saturday, we saw Sorella Nav in the morning. It was awesome. I
seriously love her, she's so funny and has such an amazing testimony
and even with all the difficulties she's passing through right now,
she knows everything's gonna turn out all right.

Sunday, we had church! It was good. I'm getting pretty proud of myself
because I can sit in sacrament meeting and name just about everyone in
the ward, including most of the kids. We're establishing really good
relationships with members and I know it'll really bless the work.

Monday! We had district meeting, as usual. That afternoon we saw
Sorella Car again. She's doing a lot better now, her arm is out of
her cast from her broken clavicle and she's moving around a lot more.

Tuesday, we were supposed to help someone in the ward with English in
the morning, but we got a bidone, so that's always frustrating. So we
instead spent the morning trying to find Decathlon, a super cheap
sporting goods store because the brakes on my bike need to be replaced
and we also need new helmets. That ended taking us HOURS. But that was
the only place we could go. Everywhere else was asking for 100+ euro
for helmets (because Italians don't ever wear them so they only have
in stock the expensive nice ones for serious bikers). So that was
frustrating, but we did it! Then we saw Sorella Nac that night.
She's so awesome and so sweet! I love seeing her. We talked about the
sacrament. We're super excited for next Sunday when church will start
with that meeting. Then we had English class. We have four people
regularly coming right now and they're all super awesome so it's
really fun. It helps us learn a ton of non gospel related vocabulary as
well, so it's a win win! (Name that movie!)

Well, it's been a long but good week! I'm glad you guys made it home
safe and that you had such a good trip! I love you! Have a great week!
Love, Sorella Snow