Cagliari is blossoming

We are continuing to find new investigators, strengthen the
testimonies of the ones we're teaching, and bring less-actives back to
church!! We had faith and put in the work last transfer by dropping
"eternal investigators" (ones who won't progress and would stay
investigators forever) as well as reorganizing our work (in ways such
as our English course) and now CAGLIARI IS BLOSSOMING!! There is so
much work here right now, more than my trainer has ever seen before
and she's been in Cagliari for 6 months now! We started two new
investigators this week so we have a total of 7 now. It's incredible!
Each one has VERY diverse needs compared to the others so we are
working super hard to help each one of them in their conversions. And
it's not just us with work, all 8 missionaries in our city are
experiencing the same blessings! It's absolutely crazy to even have 8
missionaries in 1 city & ward, let alone 8 missionaries who each have
the work that we do, we have all worked hard to step up this last
transfer and God is blessing us for it.

I did my first scambio (companion exchange) this week. We're so lucky
to get to live with another companionship of sisters (there's 4 of us
in the house). That is very rare in our mission. I think there's only
2 or 3 other cities like that. It is so much fun to hear about each
other's days every night and rejoice in each other's successes. It's
also really nice because one of the sisters is our Zone Sister
Training Leader so we don't even have to travel to another city when
we do our scambios and both of our work gets to be done both days. I
talked about the scambios a lot in my email to my president so I'll
add that to the end of this like usual. But I will give some
background so my email to president makes sense to you. Sorella
Bichierri is Italian. She's from Verona and speaks so fast. Sorella
Battezzato also speaks really fast. She's from Boston but we born in
Italy and both of her parents are Italian so she grew up speaking
Italian in the home and is bilingual. Also the questura is a horrible
place where you have to go for government stuff like getting my
permesso per soggiorno (basically like a green card.) it's super
crowded and unorganized and scary. And I get to go back there 2 more
times because the lady was grumpy because she hadn't gotten her lunch
break yet. She only let me do my fingerprints so I have to go back in
a week for my hand scan and then I have to go the next day to pick up
a paper that the boss has to sign but he won't be back there until
then, and then, I get to do an Italian culture class! (She said
sarcastically). If they require you, you have to take a culture class
to get your permesso. They almost never require people but I just
happen to get my turn when the lady was really unhappy so she decided
to make me do it...so yeah I'll tell you how that goes.

I also had my first transfer call this week. Anziano Flynn (an AP)
spoke to my companion first but we had him on speakerphone. He's like
"have you heard of a city called Bari?" I almost started crying I was
in shock. This city is sooo hard to navigate because in our area we
actually have tons of small cities that are far away and the bus
routes are super confusing and now I was supposed to be the one to
navigate us with my new companion/trainer?? It was so scary. But then
he said "..it's a beautiful city.....you're not going to Bari. You're
staying in Cagliari." I was so relieved. It's not often that a trainer
spends less than 12 weeks with their greeny but she has been here for
6 months now so anything was possible. So I'm obviously staying in
Cagliari as well and I could not be happier. It's amazing actually,
out of the 8 missionaries here, only one is leaving.

Both the companionships of Anziani had baptisms on Saturday so we had
2 baptisms in our ward! It was wonderful! Sorella Clark and I made
American chocolate chip cookies for it and everyone loved them. We
also saw a miracle that day and I learned some really important
things. One being that we are working with imperfect people, and are
imperfect ourselves. We had asked a member if she would give us and
our investigator a ride to the baptisms because the bus routes are
weird so it'd take the investigator an hour to get there when by car
the church is like 20ish minutes away. We were out of the house
waiting on the side of the road before 4 because that is when this
member said she would be to our house. By 4:15 she still wasn't there
and the baptism started at 4:30 so we called her and she's like "I'm
just leaving". Keep in mind her house isn't super close. As it got
later I started getting really frustrated. Two things about me: I hate
relying on other people and I hate being late. By 4:30 our
investigator called us a little frustrated that we weren't there. I
voiced a little bit of this frustration to my trainer and she told me
"we do what we can, i.e. We were out here on time and did our part,
and God will take care of the rest. All we needed was for our
investigator to see one baptism. We said a prayer, by that time it was
almost 5, asking if God would allow us to get there in time for our
investigator to see a baptism. Keep in mind it would take a little
over 30 minutes to get from our house to the investigator's then the
church. The member finally arrived and when we got to the church we
walked in right as the 2nd man was about to be baptized. The ward
mission leader pulled her to the front of the crowd so she could see
and She was able to see 1 baptism!!! Our prayers were answered!!! I
learned a lot about patience and if we do all that we can, God will
take care of the rest.

K I have 2 funny stories that both happened today.
1. My companion and I unknowingly participated in a Catholic
pilgrimage this morning. It's a holiday today, I don't know what
they're celebrating but it's Italy so they have them about every two
weeks haha. So anyway, apparently part of this holiday was doing a
pilgrimage starting midnight last night and finishing this morning. My
companion and I were on a run and it was all peaceful and quiet and
then we turned around to go home and these herds of people started
coming out of nowhere and flooding our street. We had no choice but to
walk with the, until we could get back to our home. What makes this
story better is that my companion was in zebra sweats. There was
background music and a man saying this prayer thing as we walked over
a loud speaker. It was actually a little creepy but an experience
nonetheless!!
2. As we were writing our emails by the peer, who would've guessed but
two old men came up to us and started talking! They got into all of
this religious talk and we're basically just yelling at each other
while we were sitting there. Like they both were just talking at each
other and whenever we tried to bear testimony or say anything at all
they'd just interrupt us and keep going. This went on for probably 25
minutes. It was funny because this describes Italians perfectly to me.
You just sit there and listen while they talk at each other and no one
ends up getting anything out of it. But after 25 minutes just said
okay we have to go then grabbed my companion and we went to another
place to email hahah. So sorry if I don't get to email everyone back
today, I'm a little short on time because for some reason old men just
adore us 😅

Email to president
I had my first scambio this week with Sorelle Battezzato and
Bichierri. I learned so much from both of them in those two days. I
learned how to really follow the spirit and teach people to their
needs with Sorella Bichierri. I saw so many miracles that day. The
first being that I was a little nervous to work with Sorella Bichierri
because she speaks so quickly and I worried I wouldn't be able to keep
up in lessons. The night before our scambio I asked God to truly bless
me with the gift of tounges for that day and I have no doubt that he
did. I could understand and speak so much better that day than ever
before. I also saw the importance of listening to the person and the
spirit while they speak. We were teaching a less active and frankly,
the lesson was not going well. She refused to listen to us and was
being very prideful. As she spoke of her problems and I listened
intently, and then in my head I was given a short, one line response
to her that I was able to say clearly in Italian. It changed the whole
mood of the lesson and she could not say anything else against our
words. I am so grateful that I was able to have that experience
because I know that those words were not from me, but what her savior
wanted her to hear. It was a huge testimony builder for me.
With Sorella Battezzato I learned of the importance of being
missionaries at all times and in all places. I had my appointment with
the questura that morning and we ended up waiting a total of 3 hours
there. But we didn't waste our time. We were blessed to have so many
people recognize our name tags come up to us and ask about our work as
missionaries. We got to talk to one guy for about an hour while we
both waited he had talked to some missionaries before on an airplane
and they planted a seed for sure because he was so interested in what
we do. We ended up inviting him to the baptism this weekend, and he
came!! The other Sorelle have an appointment with him this week!
I am so grateful to be in Cagliari and to get to work with all of
these amazing missionaries here. I have been learning so much from
each of their unique and different examples. I know that this is where
I need to be right now and am excited to get another transfer here! We
have set some goals for this transfer and are looking forward to
working hard to reach them! Thank you so much for all that you do for
us President!

Sent from my iPad

one more from The beach

This is what the majority of the streets I walk down look like. This
is a stree by the Anziani's house, I promise we didn't get this off
the internet. This is real life for me haha. The sad thing is you
start to get used to it and don't notice the beauty of everything as
much anymore

Oh Italians...

I want to start out this email by letting all of you know that my
mission is like nowhere else. Its funny because we studying Preach My
Gospel every day and it helps a ton but my companion and I keep
wishing that there was a little "Italian edition" insert because we
face funny little problems here that none one else would. I know it's
like that for every mission though. A lot of these funny little
problems were made very clear this week:

1. There's a pastry shop on every street you walk on, and they keep
their doors open so you can smell them baking. Sometimes it takes all
of the power in us to not go in them, and sometimes we give up and go
in because we always find the most delightful people working there!
They love to talk to us about what we do, it's great! My companion and
I go running almost every morning and we always pass by this Tobacco
shop I guess you'd call it? Idk it's kind of like a gas station but
without the gas station part haha. But they also sell pastries there
and it has THE BEST smell every single morning. I'm pretty sure we
would've given in and gone in there by now if we had money on us while
we ran haha. Also the bars have tons of yummy stuff like pastries. My
companion is always like "I want to go to the bar" but it's funny
because it's not like in America. I mean kind of but a lot of people
just go there to get a pastry instead of a drink. There's also tons of
Gelatarias and pizzerias and bread shops ahhhh it's the best/worst
thing ever. Some days we'll just stop by a bread shop on the way home
and buy fresh bread for our sandwiches that day. But here's the catch.
The entire city shuts down for lunch. We wanted pizza for lunch so
badly a few days ago but everything was closed. So it's tricky but
fun.
Okay that was like the longest most random tangent ever. Oh no, I'm
turning into one of them! (See point 2) Sorry. Moving on.

2. Italians LOVE to talk. And I don't mean have conversations, I mean
just talk. My companion has a theory that because Italian is so
beautiful people just love to hear themselves speak. She can't be far
off because they will literally go on for on for hours and hours if
you don't make them stop. So this is a problem because in our lessons
sometimes we can't even talk and we're supposed to be the teachers!
Ahhhh it's difficult because we want to be polite but we've learned,
especially this week that sometime you have to interrupt and tell them
to we need to get back to the lesson. Other wise they'll either talk
in circles and keep repeating themselves or they'll go on the craziest
tangents like for instance this week we were talking about the
atonement and then somehow our investigator started talking about this
priests from another church who organizes sports programs for boys on
the street or something like that. I've heard some pretty crazy
stories for sure, but it makes it really hard for us to do our job,
so, we are learning how to interrupt!
UPDATE: my companion is in the process of writing an additional
chapter for Preach My Gospel called: Working Among Italian Talkers.
Her first sections is titled: Lovingly Interrupt and Smoothly
Redirect.

3. Many of you probably know that it is a common custom of the culture
here to do the side kiss on both cheeks with everyone you talk to.
It's like a handshake would be for us. You do it when saying hello and
goodbye. Everyone does it here: woman to woman, men to men, and men to
woman. But as missionaries we're on supposed to do "baci" (it's
called) with woman (and the elders with men). The members understand
this so it's never a problem at church but everyone else doesn't
understand. Plus on top of that Italy is known for their creepy old
men who like to hit on young--especially America--girls. I think I
told the story of my companion almost getting kissed last week. Well
you can all congratulate me because today I was baced for the first
time by an old man! Hahaha we were walking home with our groceries and
he stopped us and invited us to his house so we could cook
together--creepy right? We told him we're missionaries and he's like I
know. We talked to him for a minute but we were just trying to get out
of there. Then he's like okay bye and grabbed me and went in to kiss
my cheek and I pushed him away and was like "we can't we can't"
meaning we can't do baci with men but I think he knew that because it
seems like he's encountered sister missionaries in the past. He
grabbed my head and kissed me anyway hahaha. My trainer was SO mad.
But hey, we all knew it was going to happen eventually so now I'm
officially an Italian Missionary!

Lastly I just want to share a little miracle. So some background: I
usually don't sleep super well like in the MTC, I don think I ever got
a full night of sleep. But as soon as I got here I have slept so well.
I've been here a month and only had a few nights where I have not
slept all the way through. But every single morning without fail I
have waken up at 6:30 feeling completely exhausted. I feel like I
should have at least 3 more hours of sleep! I was feeling so tired a
few nights ago and just wanted to feel rested for once. In my prayer I
asked God to give me energy tomorrow and help me to wake up without
feeling tired. The next morning I woke up and felt great! I was not
one bit tired! I almost started crying. It may seem like such a small
thing but it meant the world to me. It just reminded me of how much
God loves and cares for each and every one of us individually. He
hears our prayers and care about even the smallest details of our
lives. It was a miracle to me. And something the mission has taught me
that I'd like to share with all of you is to pray for, work for,
recognize, and give thanks for miracles in my life. It has helped me
so much to stay positive always and it really puts things into
perspective. Plus, we are blessed with miracles every day, and we'd be
ungrateful to not recognize and express our appreciation to God for
them. So I want to invite all of you to pray for, work for, recognize,
and give thanks for miracles in each of your lives. I promise you will
be so surprised to see how much God truly loves and cares for you.
I love you all so very much and I know that God loves you too!

Pics:
We went to the beach and had a picnic for our zone leader's birthday
today it was so great!

Us in our natural habitat.

This was me on Easter with my giant chocolate egg and Sorella Pistidda

Love, Sorella Bonzo

More Miracles!

This week went by so quickly I'm having a hard time even remembering
what we did! So some highlights of the week were: Scarf Woman, The
Gesso, and Ilaria.

SCARF WOMAN
We are still seeing the fruits from our finding day last week! Sorella
Clark and I were going to an appointment but when we got to the bus
stop we found out that we missed our bus! We were really confused
because we were even early, but it had come earlier. We had to wait
like 25 minutes for the next one so we decided to walk down a few
stops so that we could talk with people and do some finding. Remember
the bus stop I talked about last week? The one where I was told to
open my mouth? Well, we ended up at that stop just waiting for the bus
when an old woman walked across the street and said "I've been looking
for you!" We met her the week before at that same bus stop. Our
conversation started with Sorella Clark complimenting her scarf and
then of course we told her about what we do and what we believe in and
why we're here. When she saw us again she was so excited. She said, "I
have something for you" she reached into! her bag and pulled out the
scarf she had worn and gave it to Sorella Clark! She'd been carrying
it around for a week! We asked if we could visit her at her home and
she said "it would be an honor." So we're excited to stop by when we
can. That goes to show that you never know how much your small and
simple testimony can touch someone. She had been thinking about us all
week because she recognized our light, amazing!

THE GESSO
I've think I explained Gesso's but I can't remember. So basically
every week we go to us this place called Centro which is like a big
outdoors shopping center and we set up a bed sheet and draw on it with
chalk something that would go along with our theme for that night
(gesso=chalk). Then we all (we have 8 missionaries in this city) stand
there and hand out bigliettini (pass-along-cards) and talk to people.
This week we did an English Course Gesso to publicize our course that
we teach twice a week. Okay wait first of all you need to know that my
companion is what I call an "old-man-magnet". I'm sure you've all
heard the rumors about the creepy old men here in Italy and I'll just
confirm them for you right now. It's really not that bad here though
in Cagliari compared to other places. But basically as soon as they
notice that you're a young American girl they will not stop trying to
flirt with you hahaha. And for some reason they especially love my
companion. So we were at this gesso and my comp has been In This city
for a while now, so these groups of old men kept coming up and talking
to her because they go on the same walks with each other every week
and she's always there doing the gesso. Then a new group came up to us
who she hadn't met and they were especially enthusiastic. One of them
started talking to me and saying that he saw a tv program about
Mormons and it said "if you ever meet a Mormon ask them this:" and
then he started going on about us having tons of wives at the
beginning of our church and now it's a sin and just stuff like
that..mind you he was also a little drunk. While he was talking to me,
my companion was talking to another one and then all of the sudden he
grabbed her and tried to kiss her! She screamed and pushed him away
and then he went for me and I was like NOOOO. He's like "why can't I
just kiss you beautiful young girls? Is it because you're Mormon?"
HAHAHAHAH It was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

ILARIA!!
Okay so we were in assemeneni which is a town pretty far outside of
Cagliari. We met a less active who is kind of..difficult and were a
little down afterwards. We had planned to do some finding out there
afterwards but it was cold and we windy and we just wanted to go home
and do area book and make calls. But then we decided that we needed to
stick to our plans because we'd prayed about them. We talked to a few
people but nothing really happened. We finally got back on the bus but
then Sorella Clark felt like we should get off of that bus and wait
for another one. So we got off and went back into the cold and waited.
There was the cutest girl there and she had the prettiest eyelashes so
we complimented her eyelashes and got into this whole conversation
with her! She was so interested in what we were doing and to learn
more about the Book of Mormon. We set up an appointment with her and
taught her on Sunday!! She is soo wonderful!! I don't have a lot of
time right now so il talk about her more next time but she is soo
prepared for this gospel I love teaching her!

LETTER TO PRESIDENT
This week we continued to progress in working with our newly found
investigators. We have high hopes for all of them and are working
really hard to teach to all of their diverse needs. In fact, one of
the women we are working with does not believe in God or Jesus Christ
as a God, which I assume is not very common here. She does believe
that everyone has some kind of a spirit and that there is some kind of
higher power. So we have studied the stories of Ammon and Aaron when
they taught the two Lamonite kings and are trying to follow their
examples.
We also found another woman and began teaching her this week! She has
so much faith and curiosity. She was a teacher for the Catholic Church
a while ago so she really knows her doctrine, but she loved all of the
things we taught her and asked many questions. She was so excited and
grateful when we gave her a copy of The Book of Mormon, she asked,
"can I pay you for this?" She already has a little bit of an
understanding of the importance of this book and I know that it will
continue to grow as she prayerfully and humbly reads it. She told us
that she thinks that it was by no coincidence that we met her, and I
know that to be true.

I love you all!! Thank you so much for everything!! ❤️

Finally some pictures!
1st pday here

Some super cool pastries. They have shops like this everywhere and everything in there besides like the pink stuff is all edible

The graffiti here is hilarious

The buildings are so cute I love them

OPEN YOUR MOUTH

THIS WEEK HAS BEEN INCREDIBLE!! It was FILLED with miracles!
As I mentioned last week, we dropped all of our investigators except
one last week so we decided to make this week our "finding week." On
Wednesday we had a whole day devoted to finding. That morning we were
at a bus stop and all of the buses were super late. More and more
people gathered and I just kept hearing Elder Holland's voice in my
head saying "OPEN YOUR MOUTH." (He gave an MTC devotional entitled
that that I was able to watch as a "movie" one Sunday while I was
there.) My trainer was talking to someone else and I was standing
there feeling a little helpless. I am always really nervous to start a
conversation with someone because I know that my Italian isn't great
right now so I worry I won't understand them or know how to respond,
because let's face it, here you ask how they're doing and they go into
a whole story about their medical history! And I don't always have the
vocabulary for that! But I got a distinct impression standing there-
"if you do show your faith and open your mouth, how can God trust you
to teach his children?" After that I was determined to talk to
everyone I could. If i couldn't understand them I'd just explain that
I've only been here 2 weeks and I'm still learning the language.
Everyone was super nice and understanding, and I always had my trainer
to back me up if I really needed it.
We talked to tons of people and shared why we were here. We talk
doctrinal principles everywhere! Most people appreciated and respected
us but didn't care to learn more, but we left them with our
information just in case.
Then the most amazing thing happened!! We were looking for a
less-active woman whom we'd never met. We found her house and rang the
bell. The lady we spoke with was confused and said that she's lived
there for many years and has never heard of that lady. She let us in
though, and we began to tell her about why we were looking for her and
why we're here as missionaries. She let us come up to her house so she
could give us water. We continued to talk with her about our religion.
She is Very Catholic but loved what we were saying. She told us about
her life and how she's having a hard time with depression and
different things. We shared an old Easter video of Christ with her
then assured her that this gospel will bless her life. She accepted a
return appointment and even fed us dinner! She's so sweet and needs
this in her life. We are going back to teach her today!

The Zone Leaders completely reorganized our English Course program a
week ago and along with that we had to have each of our students fill
out a registration form, and on that was a section for them to mark if
they wanted to learn more about genealogy, wanted a free Book of
Mormon, or wanted to set up an appointment with the missionaries to
know more about the church. This form has been a blessing for us!!
Most people don't mark anything, but some people did! This is how we
found Salvatore and Sebastiana! Sebastiana is an older lady who has
been coming to English Course for a while now with her son, Salvatore.
She said that she had always wanted to ask for a Book of Mormon but
felt like that was asking too much because we already offer English
course for free. We couldn't believe it! We set up an appointment to
meet with them Thursday before course that night.
They loved learning about the Book of Mormon and committed to read it!
We set up another appointment for tomorrow where we'll teach them the
restoration.
Also, we called and invited them to general conference yesterday and
Sebastiana came to one of the sessions!! She loved it!! She said "I
went to my church this morning and felt the spirit, but here I felt
like I've been transported into the heavens!" She also told us that
she's been reading the Book of Mormon so she is no a progressing
investigator!

I watched all of the sessions of general conference in Italian because
we had a less-active or investigator at every session so we felt that
it was more important to stay there and sit with them. So
unfortunately I didn't get a ton from the sessions but don't worry,
I'm already listening to them and plan to study one every day. The
songs don't get translated so I got to hear them in English which
strengthened my testimony of the power of music. I felt like I was
learning and being edified by the songs that were sang.

As I said before, this week was filled with miracles and we
experienced another one at the first Sunday session (Saturday
afternoon for you) of conference which was held at 2pm. You have to
understand that in Italy, Pranzo (lunch) is a big deal, and Sunday
Pranzo, even bigger deal. Pranzo hours are like around 1-3 so it ended
up only being us (the missionaries,) who came to that session. And
then in walked one of our English course students Felicina (which
means little happy, how cool is that? Haha)! Sorella Clark and I had
given the spiritual thought at English course on Thursday and invited
everyone to come to general conference, and she came!! Even though it
was during Pranzo hours! She just said that she was curious. She was
there for the session when they do all the sustainings and reports and
everything and I was a little worried that she'd think it was long and
boring but she was so impressed! She said "wow this church is
established! I had no idea you guys were this big!" We asked if she'd
like to learn about how our church was established after it was over
and she said she'd love to.
We taught her the restoration. She had so many questions it was great.
And she even commented that she felt a different kind of spirit here!
Once we were finished she said "I loved the conference and all of this
but am I just supposed to believe the things that you say? Or how can
I know for myself that they're true?" SHES AMAZING! So we taught her
how to pray and about personal revelation. We asked if we could meet
again at 6 on Thursday because it English course starts at 7. She's
like "why don't we just meet every Thursday at 5:45?" She is so
prepared for this gospel. I can't wait to keep teaching her.
I also have such a testimony of the power and strength of our
modern-day prophets and leaders of the church. Each session that our
investigators went to had things in them that they needed hear- like
the sustainings and statistical report! Who knew that that would cause
someone to want to meet with us?!
So we ended up hitting our goal to find 4 new investigators this week,
only through the miracles and greatness of God. We showed him that we
were ready to work and he blessed us with the opportunity to teach 4
amazing people.

Okay I can't think of a particular funny story this week..everything
that I can think of were just really funny in the moment and probably
wouldn't make sense now. So, I have started making a list of all of
the Italian cultural norms that are super strange to an American so
I'll share a few of those. I decided to start making this list because
the first week i kept pointing things out to my trainer and she would
say "you're right! I can't believe I don't notice this stuff anymore!"
She's gotten so used to living here that it doesn't even phase her
anymore. I think this list will be fun to look back on once I get old
in the mission.
1. No one lifts weights or goes to the gym here so all the men are
either fat or super skinny.
2. Their kitchens and laundry rooms are usually together and on their
decks or at least partially outside.
3. You have to bring your own bags to the grocery store or buy some
every time you go.
4. When they agree with something instead of saying "mmhhmm" like we
do they just kind of do this deep quick "m m m" thing and my companion
hates it because it kind of sounds like they're just like "okay okay
okay what's your point". That's not what they mean it's just what it
sounds like--haha that probably made no sense
5. They don't have dryers or AC. Everything is air-dried and they
don't have AC because they believe that if you get cold air blown on
the back of your neck you'll get sick. That's also why everyone wears
scarves while they're outside.
6. When you answer the phone rather than saying "hello" you say
"ready". Then afterwards your greeting.
Also, just had my first cannoli and WOW. They really know how to do
pastries here in Italy.
Thank you all so much for your prayers in my behalf. I have been so
blessed here in Cagliari. I see miracles every single day it's unreal.
I love you all! Ciao ciao.
(Sorry I don't have pics this week. I'm getting my camera figured out
and will soon!)
Sent from my iPad