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
