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
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
