Buongiorno tutti!
It was a great week here in Italy! Dang it, I always sit down to write and can't remember a thing to tell you all about. First of all, I had my first italian hot chocolate of the season this week and it was INCREDIBLE as always. I think, in heaven, waterfalls will be made out of this stuff. I don't even know what to compare it to....it's a mix between regular american hot chocolate and pudding. It's just thick and warm and wonderful. Also, the leaves on all the trees here are changing and I love it! It's been fun seeing Sorella D'Ambrosio's reaction to all the pretty trees - she's from Arizona so she just has never really experienced it before. Anyway, the point is: it's a great time to be living in Italy!
Last Thursday I got to go back to my "second home" of Torino! It was so fun! I walked in that apartment feeling kinda like I had never left. The next day was full of cancellations (hey, welcome to missionary work in Torino!) BUT we got to go have a lesson with our eternal investigator, E. I've been thinking about her a lot lately with this colder weather, seeing as I wear the scarf she gave me when I left Torino practically every day lately. I worked with her the entire six months I was there. She was a really frustrating one for me, but she was also really special. I saw her progress a ton in those six months that I was there, so I know that she'll be baptized some day. It was really awesome because she didn't know that I was coming. I walked in and she started FREAKING out. Haha it made my day! She's just this little lady but she was practically jumping up and down and hugging me. We had a nice little lesson with her and then she fed us cake and juice (come sempre) and then as we were leaving she started talking to Sorella Ostvig about how she has this "weakness" for me. I guess sometimes I feel like I didn't really do a whole lot for her because she wasn't baptized while she was with me, nor were we ever able to set a bap date with her, but at least we were able to go teach her about Jesus every week, and that's something. Anyway, Sorella Ostvig is an incredible missionary. Her Italian is astounding (seriously - she made me want to work so much harder on my Italian because she's already so far along) and she is such a good example of following the Spirit. It was lots of fun!
We've been having a really hard time lately getting our investigators (even those with bap dates!) to come to church. I've been really frustrated some Sunday mornings when they just...don't show up. You feel like you're making so much progress with these people and then they don't come to church and it's just frustrating. We've been trying to really put forth every effort that we can to get them there - cioè we've been teaching lessons dedicated to coming to church and the importance of the sacrament and this week we decided to leave home an hour early in the italian fog and go around on our bikes trying to get people awake so that they can come to church. And two of them finally showed up right after Sacrament meeting! Yay C. and F.! C. and F. both had bap dates for the end of this month, but C. has word of wisdom problems and F. just....is gonna get baptized soon. Not sure when exactly, but soon. She needs to be actually coming to Sacrament meeting regularly in order for us to feel good about it. No one wants to baptize a less-active! E. wants to be baptized so badly and is currently working toward the 6 of December (it's most likely my last Saturday here and she really wants me to be here for it). She also has major word of wisdom problems. Those cigarettes, man. I literally want to burn down the cigarette factory. (I dunno, maybe it's something Christ would actually do? ;)) Anyway, other than that, we have quite a few less-actives and new converts and ex-communicated members that we're still working with. I love Alessandria a lot and I love being a missionary.
Tomorrow will be the Fingerle tour for us up in Milano. Then we'll come back tomorrow night, only to go back up again on Friday morning for Mission Consiglio. Then Saturday and Sunday will be Stake Conference (yay!) and then we'll start our week of consecration, which I'm super excited for because it basically means that there are no extra conferences or trainings that week. We're not even allowed to do scambios! So we'll be able to really focus on the work here. I'm stoked. And it's Thanksgiving I think! (Right?) Well I love you all a lot. Thanks for the love and support! AMORE.
Sorella Gunnerson
Finally went inside the Alessandria duomo today. Not bad, huh?
It's fall in Italy. :)
The Citadella
