Living the dream

I don't feel like very much happened this week so I'm just going to start by talking about some of our investigators

Raffaella

- she came to our family home evening last week and even brought a friend!!

- That friend wants to meet with us so she basically gave us a referral

- Her daughter has been sick so she asked if the Anziani could give her a priesthood blessing (she received one before she had a surgery a few month ago and firmly believes in them)

- She told us about a family whose mother recently passed away and when we asked if we could visit them she said we could go together (another referral!)

- We asked her to read Moroni 7 (a pretty long chapter) and she read it twice to make sure that she understood it well enough!! 

So she's doing really well, she's just super busy and can't meet with us tons. She's also a really active and involved Catholic and she tells us that she prays but still hasn't received an answer. We're kind of worried that deep down she doesn't want this to be true because it'd be easier for her to not have to change. We're praying for her! 

Famiglia Spada

This is the family of the lady (Maria) who we called and she was like "you guys never came over that Saturday!" We went over twice this week, the firsT time we just taught the mother while the boys were half-listening, half doing homework. The second time though her whole family (besides her husband) was there!! They daughters who are 22 and 18 and sons who are 14 and 7. They are such an awesome family- she raised her kids so well, they're super polite which sadly, isn't very common here with young people. They just a great family, they act like a Mormon family!! 

Sebasitana 

She has been really sick lately so we haven't been able to come over at all. Her son always answers the phone and tells us no when we ask if we can come and visit her. So Thursday night after English course we sped-walked to her house (she lives really close to the church.) We brought her cookies and a card and were planning to just leave them in her box as a surprise but in order to get in to where the boxes are you have to ring the citofono and someone has to unlock the door for you. We tried to explain to all of her neighbors what we were trying to do but none of them would let us in. I don't think it's a common thing to do little acts secret-service like we do in America haha. So we ended up just having to ring her so it wasn't secret. But I'm so glad that it worked out that way! She was so so happy to see us I'm pretty sure she started crying. She looked and sounded really sick and we told her we only had a few minutes but she had us go in and sit down and wanted us to teach her a lesson! We just left her with a small thought because it was already 9 and we needed to get home but I'm so glad that we went. We explained priesthood blessings to her and asked if she would like one and she said that she would so hopefully we can plan to do that soon. I love her like a grandma and even if she's not really progressing and we are probably going to drop her, I know that she'll accept the gospel sometime, wether it be in this life or the next. 

Daniela

She's been working tons so once again we haven't been able to have a lesson with her but she's still progressing and doing so well. We keep in contact with her everyday and on Thursday we stopped by her work to drop off some cookies and a note. She was so happy to see us. Really the only thing she needs to do is finish hearing the lesson and get baptized! She already acts like a member. She comes to everything that we do as a ward and is in church every week. Yesterday she walked in a few minutes late and she told me that the bus wasn't coming so she had to take a taxi!! Mamma mia! She'll do anything to get to church!! Now all we need to do is meet with her then get her in the waters of baptism! 

Baking

As mentioned above, we made a batch of cookies to take to people (it makes it less weird to randomly stop by if you bring them something.) My companion made the cookies while I was making lunch that day and the dough was soo good. Haha the only problem was she kept forgetting about every batch after she put it in the oven so they all burned..okay not like burned burned..some of them were pretty bad and we threw those ones away but the rest were just a little over-baked. Except for the last batch. We had enough to make like 7 more cookies and we put the oven as low as we could and the rack as high as we could. They took like 40 minutes to bake during Pranzo one day but they were absolutely perfect.

Then, we realized that we had to bring something for the ward party that we had on Saturday. We were planning to bring cookies but seeing as that didn't really work out, I made bran muffins with chocolate chips. They're super yummy and we were excite for them, but then, right in the middle of cooking them, our gas ran out!! (We have a gas oven and stovetop) so we ended up having to finish them in the microwave hahaha. It worked though and people must have liked them because there weren't any leftover after the party! 

Miracle

This is from last week and i forgot to write about it but it was like the coolest thing so I still want to share it.

On Wednesday we had planned to go to two peoples' homes and had no idea how to get to either of them. I had looked at the maps and tried to figure it out as best as I could, but it's really hard to know which stop you need to get off at. But we headed out with faith and didn't worry too much because we knew that somehow we'd make it there. On our way there, I was asking people on the bus if they knew how to get to this street that this potential (Maria Spada-now an investigator) and none of them did so I was like alright the map says she lives close to this street so we'll just get off here. Then a man behind us said "you need to go to via Firenze? Sit down, it's gonna be a while." Then he told us which stop to get off, got off with us, then said, "I'll just take you there because if I don't, you won't find it." And he was right. We would have NEVER found it without him. We would've gotten off the bus like 10 minutes before we were supposed to and been completely lost. 

Later that day we were headed out to Sestu which we don't have a map for and we have to take different buses with weird stops. I loaded the map on my iPad but still had no idea when to get off. We started talking to these girls behind us and the same thing happened! She got off with us, took us directly to the street we needed to be on, then left! 

Then coming home we had to find the stop for the bus which was different than the one we had gotten off at. We thought we were going the right direction but weren't sure so we stopped this mom and daughter who were speed-walking and they're like come with us! So we sped walked with them to the stop! They took us right to it and then left just like the other two!! 

It was such an amazing miracle that I will never forget. We were not lost once that day because God put people/Angels in our path to take us exactly where we needed to go. This day could have been a complete disaster without these people. God knows our needs! He puts people in our paths to help us if we'll just ask for it! And he also puts us in the paths of others to help them. God's plan for each one of us is divine. 

Vi voglio bene! 

I got an onion on my name tag at the ward party and I didn't know it for the longest time. They all just kept laughing and I though I had something on my face...then someone finally told me 😂

Ward party

I skyped my family Sunday because I didn't do it on Mother's Day. This was their reactions when I told them that people think my moms in her 30s and my dads in his 60s when I show them my family picture hahahah

I don't know what this building is but it looks cool. 

Sick week

We got 3 new investigators this week! One of them, Sabrina, was a
referral from another one of our investigators Eleonora. We haven't
seen Eleonora for like 2 months because she's been so busy with
college and exams but we were able to see her this week and she
brought her friend who was really interested! We texted Sabrina and
she said she's already been reading the Book of Mormon!

Another was a referral from the Anziani, she has a son. She seemed
really out of it the whole lesson and distracted because we were in a
park and she was watching her son play but then she said she'd read
and pray and meet with us again so we'll see haha.

And the last one we found when we were making some calls from these
super old contact lists just trying to clean our area book up a bit.
We called this lady named Maria and she said, "why didn't you ever
come over that Saturday??" Haha so apparently some missionaries had
said they would stop by but forgot or something. She is a mother of 4!
We met two of her sons when we went over. She'd been taught by
missionaries a long time ago and kept the Book of Mormon. She's super
nice and wants us to come back soon, the only problem is she's like
let's go get pizza together We're hoping to teach her whole family!

We've also been seeing tons of members because our zone leaders have
come up with a ward mission plan and part of that is teaching all of
the missionary lessons to all of the members and less-actives.
Everyone. It's been really cool as we started to make our first rounds
of teaching the restoration again to all of these people. Basically
everyone here is a convert so they were able to think back to when
they heard this for the first time and share their experiences. It's
been awesome and I can tell it's having a very positive affect on the
ward already.

Last Monday we went to the beach with Daniela and the other
missionaries then on Tuesday she texted us saying she had strep
throat.. My throat had been hurting that morning but I was like
whatever I'm fine. Then I woke up Wednesday morning feeling super sick
but we continued to go out and work anyway because we had things to
do! Thursday we worked as well. it hurt too badly to swallow anything
so I just didn't eat or drink anything that morning. Haha then I took
a nap during Pranzo and went back out for the rest of the night. So
when Friday came I felt like death but I was still pretty stupid and
just went out and did everything because we had had appointments all
of those days and we hadn't gotten appointments for so long so we
didn't want to cancel them!! I had a fever all of these days as well
but I was just trying to convince myself that I was just hot because
it's hot outside. Friday night I finally gave in and called our
mission nurse because I figured I should get some antibiotics if I
wanted to get better. She told us that we had to go to the pharmacy
immediately and get the antibiotics and that we were not allowed out
of the house for 2-3 days!! That means that we had to cancel all the
plans we had just made for Saturday and we couldn't go to church on
Sunday!
Looking back I'm super grateful that she made us do that because I
really did need the rest, my body was trying to fight off strep throat
and I was exhausting it even more. But have no fear because we did
everything we could those two days to grow our work (i.e. Area book,
making calls, setting up appointments) and we did a ton of deep
cleaning that our house really needed. And today I'm feeling so much
better!
The ward members and our investigators were all so sweet, as soon as
they found out they called and asked if there was anything they could
do. Our 90 year old new convert even called us this morning to see if
we were okay, she's adorable!
AND our investigator Daniela still went to church and stayed the whole
time without us!! We talked to her on the phone the night before and
were really worried that she wouldn't go because we couldn't. Sunday
morning we called a member and asked if she'd sit with her during
sacrament meeting and asked the Anziani to make sure that she was
alright. Then she called us Sunday night and told us about how great
it was and how much she loves church and the ward and she even got
invited to go eat Pranzo with a family afterwards!! She is doing SO
well and I am so grateful. In the words of Sorella Biccherri, "she
will be baptized!!"

We also got to have a cool experience Sunday night. The Anziani called
and asked if we wanted to take the sacrament. They got permission from
the bishop then came over and brought one of their new converts too.
They shared a short spiritual thought then blessed and gave us the
sacrament. It was a really cool experience and I'm so grateful that
they did that for us. I think we don't realize just how much we NEED
the sacrament until we don't have it, then we get that opportunity to
take it again and it's a wonderful feeling. I didn't realize how much
I needed that little spiritual experience afraid kind of "going
without" for 2 days. It made me realize what not being a missionary
feels like a little bit. As a missionary we get to have these awesome
spiritual experiences in every moment of our lives! It's the best
thing ever! Now that I kind of know what it feels like to not have
that anymore, I'm even more motivated to work as hard as I can and
give everything I have to these next 13.5 months, because that's
really not very much time. Also I'm grateful that our Anziani are
always looking out for us. They're the best.

I can't think of a funny story but I'll just say this:
Italians have this weird belief that if your neck gets cold then
you'll get sick. They call it "colpa d'aria." So whenever there's any
wind at all (which it's ALWAYS windy in Cagliari,) they all have their
little scarves that they keep in their bags and they get them out and
put them on. So everyone I talked to that called to see how I was
doing said "I told you a million times that you have to put on a
scarf! You sisters never listen!" I just laugh and say sorry haha. But
like excuse me if I'm not going to wear a scarf when it's 90 degrees
and I'm sweating haha, sorry excuse my sassiness. It's just so funny,
they're like "no wonder you're sick!"

I just remembered some more funny stuff so I'm going to add it haha
We taught Sorella Pistidda this week. She's the lady who makes bread
for a living and give us a loaf every week at church and whenever we
stop by her house. I've been with her from the beginning because her
daughter used to be one of our investigators. I talked to her on the
phone to schedule the appointment this week and she goes "your Italian
is getting so good!!" I've had a lot of people tell me that these past
few weeks which is really nice to hear. But then when we were at her
house she looks at me randomly like in the middle of the lesson and
goes "you're getting fatter" hahahaha I told her it's because of her
bread. I've seen her almost every week since I've gotten here so she
would be the one to notice both of those things haha.

Other thing: we went to teach Iolanda again. She's the super old
less-active who doesn't remember that she's a member half the time.
She's so funny though. We were trying to teach the restoration and
half the time she was saying that she's Catholic and the other half
she'd randomly bear her testimony about Joseph smith. Then almost the
rest of the time she just went off on Muslims (like she does every
time.) we taught the lesson as simply as we could for her. We're like:
God is our Heavenly Father. He loves us. We are all children of God.
Then she'd just start ranting about how God loves everyone but the
Muslims. Then at the end we invited to her read the pamphlet and pray
again to know that Joseph smith was a prophet to strengthen her
testimony and she's like oh I've my research on Joseph smith. She
pulls out this huge notebook she'd written in and just starts reading
the whole thing to us. It was hilarious. Haha I basically just work
with old people here because everyone else is too busy for us. It's
fine though. It makes life more interesting that way!

Okay I'll stop now. I feel like this email is super random and I'm not
actually talking about anything so sorry if Im just rambling. Thanks
for your patience. Love you guys!

This was in our house a few weeks ago. There are so many bugs here.

You all think that I live the good life and don't have to eat nasty food. An African in our ward made this for us. It was basically just straight up raw fish that she deep fried then we ate it with our hands. So gross.

This is a less-active family. The girl on the left reminds me so much of my sister Lindsey.

Daniela took this picture of us last week.

Cagliari is awesome.

Settimana piena delle feste

We saw Sebastiana this week! It went super well but unfortunately
she's been super sick lately (she's pretty old) so she's not going to
be able to get baptized on the 25th because we haven't been able to
see her and she hasn't been coming to church.

We had specialized training on Thursday. This was our last zone
conference with the Waddoups. President Pickered and his wife get here
at the end of this month. Although I haven't been with the Waddoups
for a long time, I'm going to miss them a ton. They're such good
people and we can feel their love for us missionaries every time we
get to see them. We're fasting and praying for President and Sorella
Pickered. I know that they'll be amazing as well.

We have stepped our finding game and gotten tons of numbers from it
but the problem is that no one will make appointments with us! Our
contacts, investigators, less-actives, even members! Apparently this
time of year no one will meet with us because they're either out of
time or at the beach all day. It's been a struggle. Another struggle
is that most of the numbers we get are from young guys...99% of the
time I'm pretty sure they're more interested in us (as young American
girls) than our message, but comunque we've been getting a lot of
referrals for the Anziani!

I got to go to un sacco di feste this week! Every Monday we haVe a
ward family home evening in the park that the missionaries switch off
being in charge of. we had 3 of our investigators there and 4
potentials so it was super successful!
On Thursday we did a festa messicana (mexican party) for our English
course students because one of the members had been doing a Spanish
course every Tuesday with us but he was ending it for the summer so we
did a party for all of the students to finish it off. It was super
funny to see Italians try to cook Mexican food. We had things from a
lasagna with chili powder to straight up "American" pizza that someone
went and bought 10 minutes before haha. It's Italian pizza, they just
put their version of French fries on top and call it "American". We
weren't much better though, we just brought chocolate chip cookies.
One of our Anziani is half Mexican so he knows how to make the real
stuff, and Fratello Deplano (the member who teaches the Spanish
course) brought a bench of authentic stuff too. It turned out to be
super fun through and it was a really good way for Sorella Tingey to
get to know our students.
Then a few days ago we got invited to go to the "Philippines
Independence Day celebration." Haha the Anziani have investigators who
are a married couple, the with is Philippien and the husband is
Italian. This investigator is apparently like the president of the
Philippien community here in Cagliari so she puts the festa together
every year. And she invited us to come! It was awesome and the food
was good, but we didn't stay super long because we try to do some
lavoro missionario while we were there but most of them only spoke
Tagalog. I was surprised. I thought a lot of philippenos spoke enlgish
but they told us no, so either they really didn't, or they just didn't
want to talk to us haha oh well! At least the food was good, and
different. It's always fun to have a change once in a while because
all we get here is Italian food! (Not that I'm complaining or
anything..)

Daniela is doing awesome!!! She came to church on Sunday and
absolutely loved it. We called her the night before to make sure that
she was coming and she's like I will if I can, but I might not want to
get up so we'll see. We prayed super hard that she would have the
will-power to come and then we showed up! She told us, I was planning
on coming I just wanted it to be a surprise! Haha she's so cute. She
participating in the lessons and everyone was so good to talk to her
and help her feel welcome.
Then today we went to the beach with the other missionaries and we
brought her! It was kind of last minute, we planned it this morning
and we texted her and she was so excited to come and be with us. We're
seeing her tonight right before fhe then going to that together, we're
hoping she'll except a bap date tonight.
She's a lot different Than she was when she first started with us.
There is visible evidence of the atonement working in her life. She
quit smoking, goes on a run every morning, broke up with her boyfriend
who was a bad influence, and is really trying to be the best person
she can! She is coming unto Christ and thanks to this she is so much
more of a confident person. She's more sure of herself and isn't
afraid to open up anymore. And she's been seeing the blessings in her
life! She had been working really hard last week to find a job (it's
really hard to find work here) and she texted us a few days ago and
said that she had found a job working in a flower shop really close to
her house, and one of her coworkers is a member's daughter! So now
she's getting to know that family. She told us that now she really
does have a testimony that God loves her and cares about each one of
us individually. We're so grateful for all of this growth and
progression we've seen in her. After church on Sunday she looked at me
and said, "thanks for not giving up on me. I'm sorry that I never
answered your calls and told my mom to tell you that I wasn't home,
thank you for not giving up."

Funny story:
We have a lady in our ward who is mentally unstable. She is
schizophrenic and has some other disorders too, but she loves the
sister missionaries. She calls and texts us 24/7--like literally we
get calls from her at 4 am. But anyway, sometime she gets really angry
and just starts yelling at everyone or during testimony meeting she'll
say stuff like "is this a testimony or a talk?!" Or "I don't believe
it, I don't believe it!" She always asks if we can come over but we're
not allowed to because one time she locked some sisters in a room or
something and wouldn't let them out for hours. But anyway, haha
yesterday she was so happy for some reason. She came up to me during
sacrament meeting and said she had a gift for my companion and I. Then
at the end of relief society she came up to me and shoved a half-used
deodorant stick in my face and said smell it! Smell it! Then she gave
it to me as a gift. She gave Sorella Tingey a bottle of lotion that
was almost gone. So in case any of you were wondering, I'm all stocked
up on deodorant for a while... No don't worry I threw it away as soon
as I got home.

Well that's my life! Sorella Tingey and I are getting better at
cooking which is a plus. Everyone loves our "biscotti americani," and
we're getting around alright! God answers prayers, and life is good. I
love you all!

Fhe last week (this isn't everyone) Daniela (on the right) made that
cake for us that says "love missionaries"

We made these bomb chicken pot pie things that were so good. We're getting better!

This is above a members house and has a great view of Cagliari but she didn't get it super well in this picture

This was a legit thing

Today at the beach with Daniela!!

Queen of Cagliari 👑

😂😂 excuse the title. Last night my district leader's like "so you
know that you're like the queen of Cagliari right? Because you've been
here the longest, and you're a girl." I willingly accepted my title
and plan for it to stay this way for a while (speriamo.)

This week was a blur. The first half we were in a trio running around
trying to say goodbye to everyone for Sorella Clark and Sorella
Biccherri. It was crazy and we were super busy, all the while we were
trying to get them packed, clean the apartment and the area books, and
prepare for Sorella Tingey's arrival.

One of my new investigators (from the other Sorelle) Raffaella
accepted a baptismal date for June 25th! I also got to meet Claudia
(another new investigator from the other Sorelle.) She is amazing!
She's 19 years old, doesn't really believe in God, but is so curious
and wants to know everything. She is such a deep thinker and really
has a desire to know everything.

Sorella Tingey got here Thursday and because she's the STL for our
zone I got to go with her to the mission-wide leadership meeting
Friday. It was awesome, and so is Sorella Tingey! She and Sorella
Clark are like complete opposites. I think God wants me to learn
different things from each of them and I'm super excited. Sorella
Tingey is more like me, she's mellow and quieter which helps me a ton
because it means I have to talk more haha Sorella Clark often did all
of the talking and didn't leave much space for me to fit a sentence
in. With her I learned what to say and how to say it, with Sorella
Tingey I am able to put those things I've learned into action!

We're continuing to teach Mara. She's a bit stubborn and won't accept
the invite to be baptized ma piano piano. She'll come around.
Yesterday we went to see a new convert who is like 95 years old. Her
name is Rina. She is the cutest little lady ever. The other Sorelle
had been going through the Christlike attributes with her so yesterday
we taught her about patience. It was really funny because she's just
this cute little old lady who just sits there and smiles and she's
probably the most patient person I've ever met, and we were teacher
her about patience! We asked "why is it important to have patience?"
And a few other questions and she just kept saying "we have to have
patience to live" and then chuckle. She showed us a bunch of super old
pictures of her family from like the 30's it was so cool. I just love
her so much.

Sorella Tingey and I are learning tons together. I probably don't know
this city as well as I should because there's so many different buses
and routes that we take for different things and most of these places
I've never even gone before. Sorella Clark had been here so long she
literally knew everything about this city. She never had to look at a
map or look anything up so I didn't learn how to do that haha but I'm
getting good at figuring things out and have definitely been guided by
the spirit. We also realized the past few days that both of our
previous companions had the talent of cooking and we would just help
them.. But now, neither of us really know what we're doing haha.
Either we burn our food, it has no flavor, or it has WAY too much
flavor..it's a work in progress. But don't you worry, after this
transfer we'll both be master chefs, just you wait.

Along with that is my funny story for the week: Having 3 Sorelle leave
we were left with a bunch of random food in the kitchen. Like I can't
even tell you how many grains we were left with, it could last a
lifetime and don't even get me started on the rice cakes, sisters eat
them here like they're chicken nuggets..but anyway, we didn't really
have tons of things to eat for like dinner super fast. So Sorella
Tingey found some popcorn kernels and decided to make popcorn. Neither
of us really knew how to do that so she just put a bunch of oil and
kernels in the pan and closed the lid. I don't know if the burner was
up too high or there was too much oil or not enough, but within a few
minutes it started smoking. She opened up the pan and the entire
apparent was filled with smoke and we couldn't breath 😂 needless to
say we need a little help hahaha. We left all the windows open but our
apartment still smelt like smoke 2 days later. Aiuto.

That's all I have for now! Oh I just thought of something else.
Sorella Tingey was in Rome before and apparently they never had
problems with men like we do here hahah so when we were stopped by two
Africans who wanted to "uscire" (go out) she was a little shocked.
haha I assured her that she'll get used to it. You start to learn how
to pick up on things like we made a bunch of calls to potentials and
for some reason most were men, a lot agreed to meet with us but
because they asked our age and if we were American, those are 2 red
flags that you learn to look for and then you just pass them to the
Anziani.. They've always got our back.

That's all, I love you, keep the faith, and pray that Sorella Tingey
and I will learn how to function (or at least cook) soon. 😂
Ciao ciao. Un abbraccio.

Letter to president:
This week was long, but so good. We've been really busy with double
the work which I recognize as a blessing. I am so excited for this
transfer with Sorella Tingey. She and Sorella Clark are very
different, but both amazing missionaries so I am excited to learn
different things from each of them. I don't have a ton to report on
this week, we've been seeing tons of people and trying to learn this
new work together. I feel like I've grown so much just in these past
few days because I haven't had my trainer to rely on. Sorella Tingey
always has my back but I've been learning how to lead more with her
because I've been here longer, it's helping me so much!! Sorella
Tingey is so awesome. We're going to learn so much together..
Especially how to cook.. We may have burned almost everything we
cook.. But like i said, we're learning together haha. I do feel a
little bit like the blind leading the blind because I don't know this
city as well as I should, but we've been making it around alright and
haven't gotten lost yet, so that's a bonus!
We have an investigator, Mara, who has met with a lot of missionaries
in the past, loves meeting with us, is willing to keep commitments,
but will not accept a baptismal date. We tried to help her understand
by relating it to training for a marathon and she told us that she
wouldn't plan the date of her wedding until she know for sure that she
wanted to marry this person haha so basically her excuse is that she
doesn't know for sure. She tells us that she believes everything we
say but it's a huge life changing thing and she just doesn't feel
ready for it.
Well, we've been organizing the work, cleaning up our area book, and
preparing our house for the arrival of President Pickered. I know that
this transfer was inspired. Cagliari's work (and home) really needed
to be cleaned out and now we are having the opportunity to do that!
We're excited to see miracles as we organize this work.

This is Claudia. She's wonderful.

Bye Sorella Clark!

Hi Sorella Tingey!

our sad popcorn.

Rina ☺️