One more time... - March 9, 2016

Ciao, tutti!

Alright, so we were pretty busy this week! We had a ton of people we
needed to see before I leave. Last Thursday, we saw Gaia in the
morning. We always have great lessons with her. We talked about Esther
and watched a Mormon message about courage. That afternoon, we saw
Liri. It had been a long time since we'd been able to because things
just kept coming up and either she or we would have to cancel. It was
a really good lesson, she's a really sweet lady. That night we saw
Valeria. She wasn't feeling too well so we just had a short lesson and
I said goodbye.

Friday, we saw Sorella Alteri. She committed to trying to think of a
friend with whom she can share the gospel. Then we saw Marilyn with
Marisol. It was good. Marilyn committed to starting to read the Book
of Mormon again, she said she would also come to some activities in
church, so we're excited for that! Then we went to see Morena but her
mother was sick so we could only stay with her for a few minutes.

Saturday, we did weekly planning. I'm not gonna lie, I'm relieved to
be done with weekly planning. That day we saw Sabrina and Paolo.
We (the sisters) had stopped visiting them and the anziani had been
going instead (Sorella Bastian hadn't been able to go because she was
allergic to their cat), but they asked us to come one more time so
they could say goodbye to me. We also got transfer calls. Sorella
Arbon's new comp is named Sorella Bartsch, she's from Germany.

Sunday, we had church! It was sad to say goodbye to everyone. Sorella
Alteri had thought of a person she could introduce to the gospel so
she gave us the name of a friend to passby. We did some different
passbys that night.

Monday, we had district meeting, like always. That afternoon we saw
Diva and Debora. They're so funny. After that, we saw Sanela! She got
back from Germany. Cristian, the first thing he did was ask again
about when he can be baptized. We had a really great lesson with them.

Tuesday, we got in contact with the friend of Sorella Alteri! She was
about to leave her house when we passed by so she didn't let us in but
told us we could come back! We saw Marisol and Antonio to say goodbye,
we also saw Maria. That night we had FHE and a lot of members showed
up to say goodbye to Anziano Gibbons and me.

Wednesday, we have been running around crazy to get stuff ready.
Sorella Arbon's new comp also was scheduled to come a day early so we
picked her up from the station and have had to walk all over town
because we don't have another bike for her to use. It's been good
though,so she seems really nice.

Well, I'm really sad to leave but really excited to see you all! I
love you, I hope you have a great day!
Love, Kim

Speriamo bene! (Let's hope so!) - March 2, 2016

Hey, all!

So, it's been a good week! We're trying to see everyone before I leave
so we're pretty busy.

Thursday, we went to see Liri, a less active member. She's in a
paesino that is kinda far so we were pretty disappointed when she
canceled after we'd already gotten there. Fortunately, President
Gresta called and when we told him our appointment had canceled he
suggested some other less active sisters who were in the area that we
could pass by. We did and they were there! There are names are Alma
and Martha. They're from Mexico. They were really sweet and together
we lamented the lack of good Mexican food in Italy. Hey said we could
come again some time. Then we went with Sorella Gresta to see Sorella
Serra and do visiting teaching.

The next morning we saw Sandra. That night we saw Marilyn with
Marisol. It was fun. Marilyn is a super sweet lady and is really open
to the idea of coming back to church. She said she would come to a
relief society activity so, speriamo bene!

"My comp opened the fridge this week and saw that my Chapstick was inside our pepper bag.  We have no clue how it got there.  I had been looking for it for a week."

Saturday, we had correlation and I did a lot of area book. Also tried
calling a lot of less active members.

Sunday, church! We also went and saw The K family that night,
they're so great! Plus weekly planning took a good chunk of time, as
always.

Cristiana & Sorella Snow

Monday, it was leap day, woohoo! We had district meeting and we saw
Cristiana. She's super sweet. Oh, on the ride back into town, our bus
driver side scraped a car or something, it's always a good time when
the driver gets down to yell at other drivers and your bus in sitting
in the middle of traffic with cars edging around it. When we got back
to our bikes, Sorella Arbon noticed that our bike chain was weird and
looked closer and saw that it'd been cut three fourths of the way
through. Whew, thank goodness Heavenly Father was looking out for us!
We had to go get it replaced.

Sawed bike chain

Sandra & Sorella Snow

Yesterday, we went and saw Sandra again. We're trying to see her
pretty often to help her out. She's doing well. Then, we went over to
Marisol's house to teach a lesson to her husband. That night we had a
lesson at the branch president's house with Augustine and Patience. It
was really good. President Gresta is an awesome teacher. It was funny
though because Augustine and Patience speak English better than
Italian so we were switching back and forth the entire time.

Today, we went to the markets and ran some errands around town. We ran
into the anziani a couple of times and then, when we got lunch, we ran
into the Anziani from Ancona, which was a surprise, especially since
Ancona is so far away.

Well, I love you guys! I'll talk to you next Wednesday!
Love, Sorella Snow

"Dying" testimony - February 24, 2016

Hey!

So it's actually been a pretty eventful week.

Last Wednesday, we English class, as always. We taught them some
English idioms (for example, apple of my eye) and they had a ton of
fun leaning them and trying to guess what they mean.

Thursday, we spent most of the day doing pass bys of members the
branch president asked us to go by. My area right now has a lot of
littler outlying cities. He assigned us ones we could get to by train.
Then we biked to another one that was closer to Ravenna. That night we
had mutual and branch counsel. It was great. President Gresta is
really awesome and working really hard to reach out to less active
members.

Friday, we had weekly planning. That afternoon, we had an appointment
with a woman whose number the anziani had found in their area book.
Afterward, we went to Sandra. She seemed to be doing well and we
had a good lesson with her.

Saturday, we had correlation in the morning. That night we had a
carnevale party in the church! It was way fun. There didn't end up
being a ton of people but one of the members brought his daughters who
aren't members and they seemed to have a blast.

Sunrise from our balcony

Sunday, we had church! I translated. A member volunteered to drive
kinda far to go pick up Augustine and his family so they could come to
church. So it was him his wife and two daughters. We were so excited
to have them there! We also had a branch lunch after church and it was
a ton of fun. That night we went and saw Valeria. We haven't been able
to see her a lot lately because she's been so busy with work but we
were happy to finds that she's doing well and has been feeling really
close to the Savior and trying to follow him.

Monday, we went to the questura (police station) to see if Sorella
Arbon's permesso (gives her permission to stay in the country) is done
yet. It wasn't but it's almost ready. That night we got a call from a
member in the branch telling us that Sandra needed help and an
ambulance was on the way to her house. We raced over and found that
she needed to go to the hospital but needed help being dressed first.
Luckily, Sorella Arbon is a CNA and not squeamish so she was amazing
and we were able to help her out. Afterwards she was taken to the
hospital. We've heard word that she's doing better.

Tuesday, we had a zone conference. It was good. We talked a lot about
the importance of members. I also gave my "dying" testimony to the
zone. That night, our ward genealogy missionary asked us to go to a
fireside on genealogy. It was pretty interesting. Maybe I'll have to

start working on genealogy with you when I go home, mom ;).

Sorella Yonk and Anziano Mayberry - "We had to take a pic cause we're all from the same group."

Zone conference

Today, we went to Rimini for pday. We wanted to check out the markets
there but we ended up having bad luck and despite the forecast for no
rain it was drizzling and there weren't a ton of stalls set up,
bummer. Oh well.

Well, it was a good week. I hope you guys all have a great week! I love you!
Love, Sorella Snow

We smoked the anziani! - February 17, 2016

Buonasera!

I hope you've all had a great week. Life's been crazy here like always. 

We had English class as always last Wednesday night. They're a super fun group. They told me I should be an Italian teacher when I go home :). 

Thursday, we saw Sorella A with Marisol to do visiting teaching. Sorella A is so funny but she always gets super off topic and we end up talking about the strangest things. We had a couple of appointments cancel that night and went to AMM, Italian mutual. It was fun, the youth are so great. 

Friday, weekly planning in the morning. Then we went and saw Cristiana. We finally met her oldest daughter. Cristiana's super nice and we're the first sisters who have ever really visited her so she loves finally having women to explain the gospel, she says it's easier to ask us questions. That night we saw Sanela. We redid the resto lesson because it'd been awhile and it was great. Cristian sat in with us the whole lesson and the end was asking perfect questions to lead into the plan of salvation, so we promised we'd teach him that next time. He also was telling his mom he might want to be baptized!! We just need to help her sort out some stuff first.

Saturday, we finally saw Augustine and Patience! They're a couple of simps we've been trying to see for months but they've been out of town or busy.  We also had a cool miracle that night. While we were waiting for our train to arrive to go home (it was after nine because we could only go see Augustine later), a woman shows up at the station, she is a friend of a member. We'd seen her the week before when we'd go to visit the member in the hospital. She started a conversation with us and we had a great discussion. She said she'd meet with us again so we're excited for that. 

Sunday, church! Plus Valentine's Day! Hope it was good for all of ya ;). I wanted to make my comp some heart shaped pasta for lunch but she nixed that idea. We saw Ben and family that night. 

Monday, we had district meeting in the morning and we did a how well do you know your comp quiz. We smoked the anziani. Then we had to take off for scambio. Our STLs are in Bologna now so it's a little bit closer for us to get to. All four of us stayed in Bologna for it. I was with Sorella Albos, who I actually did a little mini scambio with at the beginning of our missions so that was cool. Plus she and I have had three cities in common (Livorno, Lampugnano, and Torino) so that was pretty fun to get to talk about people we both knew. We went with a simp to have she with a member family. It was so much fun! 

Sorelle Dixon Albos, Arbon and Snow enjoying gelato

Tuesday, we were supposed to have an appointment but it canceled. We finished out the scambio and came home. We saw Diva and Debora. They're so funny. Then we went to Maria. She's still reading so we're really happy about that. 

Today! We've been taking it easy. It's been kinda rainy. We went to get some crescioni for lunch and while we were eating, the Rimini Sorelle actually showed up and ate with us. It was kinda funny, we weren't expecting to see them. 

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week! 

Love, Kim 

Ear infection and new shoes - February 10, 2016

Hey, everyone!

Hope you all had a good week! Ours has been fine.

So, last Thursday, we were supposed to go see Cristiana and we caught
our bus and everything but our bus driver was new to the route or
something because he got horribly lost and didn't even go near her
house. So, we had a fantastic conversation with him and taught some of
the restoration and invited him to English class but we didn't end up
getting to see Cristiana because by the time we got there, we had to
leave because there's only one bus going back and we couldn't miss it.
So that was a bummer. Then we went with Marisol to meet some of her
friends. It was a nice lesson but they were super rushed so we only
got to talk to them for like 10 minutes. Marisol wants to take us back
though, so hopefully they'll have more time the next visit! Then we
went and picked up the new anziani from the station and showed them
how to get to their apartment. They seem like they're really nice guys
and they're willing to work hard so we're happy.

Friday weekly planning, like always! We also finally got to teach the
neighbor of Marisol, Maria! We did the rest and it went well. She seem
really cool and we're excited to start working with her.

Saturday, correlation in the morning. That night we did passbys.

Sunday, so we had church in the morning and during the middle of the
first hour, my ear started hurting horribly. I made it through church
and we got home and I called Sorella Dibb. She ended up telling me to
go to Pronto Soccorso, the Italian ER (don't worry, they go there for
everything, not just serious stuff). We did and the doctor there told
me I have an ear infection... In both ears. So that stinks. By the
time we got that all sorted out, it was late so we went home.

Monday, we had district meeting in the morning. That night we went to
go see Maria (Marisol's neighbor) at the home of Marisol. It was
really good, we taught her the plan of salvation. She's seems really
interested and Antonio said he'd give her a lift to church on Sunday.

Tuesday, my ears were hurting again so we took it easy in the morning
and did area book. That afternoon, we went to see a less active sister
with Marisol because it was the sister's birthday. It was a lot of
fun! Then we had FHE that night.

Today, we went to Rimini. We wanted to check out the markets there but
unfortunately, it had rained in the morning so most of them weren't
set up. We did end up going with the sisters there to an awesome shoe
store with cheap deals. Real leather shoes for an amazing price. It
was fun.

Cute shoes!

Well, it's been an interesting week. We've had a lot to do. I love you
guys and I hope you all have a great week!
Love, Sorella Snow

I'm just awful at English now! - February 3, 2016

Ciao a tutti!

Hey, everyone, I hope you've had an awesome week! Everything's going well here. So Dad pointed out that I called the senior couple weird in m email last week, so I just want to say they are most definitely NOT weird, that was a totally a typo, they're super awesome!

Last Thursday, we had our District meeting (we didnlt have time to do it earlier in the week because we and the anziani were busy with a ton of stuff). That afternoon we went and saw a less active sister with our RS president, Marisol. It was great, Marisol is so sweet and everyone just opens up to her. That night we also had mutual and branch counsel, so we were pretty busy. We went through the branch list and the president has asked us to go pass by all the people on the list that he doesn't know. 

Friday, we were supposed to see Gaia but she and her daughter got sick so we couldn't, but that's okay, we did weekly planning instead. We had a lesson with Maria that night and she's been reading!! We were really happy about that. Then we went and passed by Sandra again in the hospital with Marisol. She's not doing very well, she had a lot of back pain. President Gresta was there as well and he gave her an amazing blessing. We're all so lucky to have him, he's an amazing branch president! 

Saturday, we had correlation with our ward mission leader in the morning and we got transfer news. Sorella Arbon and I are staying together, like we knew we would, but there always has to be a surprise with transfers,,, Both of the Anziani are leaving Ravenna and we'll get two different ones. They're both pretty bummed to be leaving. That afternoon we did all of the passbys that President Gresta asked us to that are here in Ravenna. Unfortunately, all the people except one have moved away and the one wasn't willing to let us in. The rest of the passbys are in areas that are further out so it'll take us a little longer to get to them. 

Sunday, we had church! It was really good. Valeria came! She has been out of town for awhile and hasn't been able to. Also Augustine! The rest of the day there was a training on missionary work for the ward missionaries and ward mission leaders and full time missionaries that was held in Rimini. It was really good. The stake is doing a lot of new things to emphasize the importance of member missionary work. 

Sorella Carducci with Sorella Snow.  She got transferred to Savonna.

Monday, I registered for classes! Super weird. I registered to do summer term. We had district meeting which basically consisted of us helping the anziani get everything ready for them to leave. That afternoon we saw Marisol and Antonio . They're doing well. It's funny because we've seen Marisol like 10 times in the last week because we've been going out with her so much. She's amazing.

Our district was a "family" this last transfer because I was the mom and my
daughter is my trainee and Olsen and his trainee were father and son.
So we did we did a family photo with the uptight mom, oblivious dad
and fighting kids.

Tuesday, I was sick. I have a head cold. So we did a lot of area book and planning inside for most of the day. That night we had FHE where the branch said goodbye to the anziani. 

This morning, the anziani were told to leave this morning so we went and helped them with their luggage and picked up their apartment keys and phone to give to the new ones. They're super awesome elders so we'll miss them but I'm sure the new ones will be great as well.

Well, that's been our week! If my spelling and punctuation is just awful, I'm sorry. Gmail updated it's app and it's no longer compatible with the restrictions put on our ipads so I'm using the church computer, which has super sticky keys and ya know, I'm just awful at English now! 

Well, have a great week! I love you guys! 

Love, Sorella Snow 

Worldwide Missionary Broadcast - January 27, 2016

Hey, Famiglia!

I hope you all had a good week! Everything's going well here.

Last Wednesday, we had a worldwide missionary broadcast. It was really
great. We learned a lot about the spirit and how the most we can do is
bring the message of the gospel to people, the spirit is the one who
does everything else and we need to be using it! Then we had English
class. English class is starting to get back into the normal swing of
things with everyone starting to show up again, so that's good.

Thursday, we went with Sorella Gen to do visiting teaching to
Sorella Gres. It was great. They're both such strong solid women
with amazing testimonies. That afternoon, we went and saw Cristiana
again. She's really sweet. After not having any contact with
missionaries for a while, she's really happy to have us start visiting
her. Then we went and saw Maria. We set up gospel library for her on
her phone so that it can read the scriptures aloud to her (she doesn't
read very well) so we really hope that will help her get better at
reading and help her progress more. We had mutual that night.

Friday, we did weekly planning in the morning. That afternoon, we went
and saw Sorella A with Marisol to do visiting teaching. It was
good, Sorella A is soooo funny, then we got a ton of bidoni that
night so we did passbys.

Saturday, we did a ton of passbys again because we got some more
cancellations. We also did some finding and I spent some time making
calls to set up appointments for the next week because Sorella Arbon
was supposed to stay in Ravenna with the STL for a scambio. That
night, we saw Ben and his family. They wanted us to teach them the
vocab for praying in Italian so they can start practicing at home,
they're amazing!

Sunday, church! It was a really good sacrament meeting, entirely
dedicated to missionary work! Our branch is so awesome! We did more
finding, passbys that night. Then we went to the hospital to see
Sandra, our new convert, she hurt herself a couple of weeks ago at
work and she ended up in the hospital this week (don't panic, they go
to the hospital for everything here) she's not feeling too great so we
went to visit her.

Monday, we had to clean our apartment in the morning because our
senior couple came today to inspect and we had to get it done before
the scambio. Then we went and saw Marisol and Antonio. After we had to
jump on a train to go switch with our STLs and the rest of the day was
spent getting up to Venice.

Tuesday, I was in Venice and Sorella Arbon stayed down here. It was a
good scambio! The morning was rough because everyone canceled, but the
afternoon was great and we were able to meet with a lot of new people
the Sorelle had been trying to get in contact with. The Sorelle in
Ravenna had an awesome day as well. They were able to meet a new
person that Sorella Arbon and I had passed by about 5 times and
finally she was home! So we're really excited to work with her.

Wednesday, we came back down to Ravenna to switch. The STLs stayed and
went around the city with us for awhile. We went and saw some of the
churches with the cool mosaics.

Man, it's felt like a crazy week! We have a ton of appointments
planned for this week so I'm pretty excited, it should be really good.

I love you guys! I hope you have an awesome week!
Love, Kim