Back in Cagliari??

Last pday after I emailed you guys we met up with the Anziani and got
Brioscia for Anziano Ray's birthday! It's basically gelato inside of a
brioche bun. It's SOO good but really heavy haha. It's a Sicilian
thing.

Then we as Sorelle went and toured a big theater where they do plays and stuff like that. It's super ancient and so cool. I couldn't get very good pictures though because the light wasn't very good inside. One room we got to see was the dance studio where the dancers practice. It brought me back for sure with the studio floor and the bars and mirrors.

Then we hit up H&M because it's saldi (sales) season which means everything in every store goes on sale. You can get some really good deals this time of year. My companion wants to have an Italian style when she gets home so she had Sorella Bellomo help her pick out a bunch of clothes. I just got one shirt and it was only €4!! Woo!!

As a mission, our president has invited us to study what it means to "walk with God" In the scriptures because we will be talking about it at our next zone conference. It's super interesting actually. You can look in the topical guide and find tons of scriptures on it. I have especially been studying the story of Enoch and how he was able to go from "an unworthy servant" to walking with God, and then eventually getting all of his people to walk with God until they were lifted up to heaven. I am looking for patterns in all of these scriptures and trying to see how I can personally walk with God while doing his work. If you guys would like to get into some cool scripture study, I'd invited you to study what it means to walk with God. (Enoch's story is found in Moses 6:26-34 & Moses 7)

I had my first arancina after district meeting Tuesday!! We all went and got them together. It's basically just a fried ball of rice with stuff on the inside. I got mine with tomato, mozzarella, pesto, and basil. Then my comp and I split a Nutella one. Apparently these are only good in Sicily. It was good just really hard to eat, or at least I struggled for some reason.. I'm not really used to eating stuff with my face.

The Sorelle had been working with this less-active Katia for a while. She's super awesome, I love her. neither of her kids are baptized. Her son is 10 and has no interest in coming to church or getting baptized. He tells us that he doesn't believe in God. But we found out that her daughter Anna is turning 9 next week which means that we would need to teach her the lessons before she could get baptized now. She is so cute and loves the sisters so much. The only thing that's been keeping her from baptism is that she's afraid of water. We started working with her this week and I feel really hopeful about it. It is so much fun teaching kids!! We've had to really prepare these lessons and change our teaching style tons. We use lots of pictures and teach everything as simply as possible. I love it and her so much!! She is so cute. We ate lunch with this them (my first Pranzo appointment in Palermo!!) and after she ran and grabbed her Book of Mormon and asked if we could read together. She was on 1 Nefi 8 which talks about the tree of life! We took turns reading each verse and talking about it. I love her excitement about the Book of Mormon and after we asked her mom if they would read together every night. And then guess what?! They both came to church on Sunday!! It had been super long since they'd been. It's so cool to be able to teach Anna and also reactivate Katia at the same time. Now we're just hoping to soften the son's heart a little haha we're working on it!

Wednesday was crazy!!! I had to go back to Cagliari to pick up my permesso di soggiorno (visa type thing). My day was full of difficulties but also miracles! So this is how it went- I got up at 4AM because I had to be out of my house by 5 to get to the airport. My plane left at 6:25 for Rome. But of course it was delayed to when I got in my plane for Cagliari was already boarding. I got to the gate and it said that they were boarding for Madrid. I was like what?? So I asked the lady and she's like "oh they must have switched your gate, go talk to the people at that desk" I went over there and waited in a line for a little while then the lady looked it up for me and told me which gate my plane got switched to. She's like 'you better run because they're boarding right now" I ran across the airport again and when I got there the lady's like "sorry you missed it!" So I had to go back to the lady at the desk and get a new flight. I was supposed to get into Cagliari at 9:15 but then my switched flight was at 10 so I wouldn't get there until 11.
So I finally got there and was starving. I literally lived off of little airplane biscotti that they gave us on every flight. The Anziani were super awesome and brought me food because they knew I'd be hungry. I got to see my best friends!! Anziano blocker, Anziano segura, Sorella Tingey, and her companion Sorella hills picked me up in the car and proceeded to take me to where they thought the questura was. I told them that it wasn't right because I'd been to the questura in Cagliari 3 times already but they insisted that they were right. We tried to go there and the guy told us that we had to go to the other one across town (the one I was talking about) but then he told us to go to this street so we looked it up and went there but it was wrong and anyway we basically just did a lot of driving around to find it until they finally would listen to me and go where I knew it was haha. It was a struggle but we finally got there just after 12...and it was closed. We walked in and the lady said "what are you all doing?! We're closed!" We said that I needed to pick up my permesso and asked if we could come back tomorrow morning. she said "we only do permesso pick ups on Wednesdays. You'll have to come back in a week." That means that I would be spending a week in Cagliari in a trio with the sisters because the mission wasn't going to pay to fly me back to Palermo and then back again. I was going to give in but I am so blessed that we had the Anziani with us because they told her that I had to catch a plane back to Palermo in a few hours and she said "okay fine i'll do it." Then it only took her 5 minutes I'm not even kidding to do it!! I cannot imagine having to stay there for a week just to do that. So that was a miracle!!
And I got to see Sorella Tingey and my old home one more time so that was another miracle!! I've missed her so much!! 💕

Then we went home (my old home) and ate lunch and then they picked us up and I was back to the airport to wait for 2 hours until my flight home. Needless to say I was very sick of airplanes by the end of the day. So I finally got on my last flight home and I was completely exhausted. The plane was already behind schedule but we were about to take off and then they come on the intercom and announce that they have just discovered that the entire flight crew is over hours and cannot work this flight so they have to call in a completely different crew. The flight was supposed to leave at 7:15 pm and I don't think it left until around 9... But the miracle that came out of this is that because of the delay I started talking to the girl next to me on the plane because she didn't understand Italian and wanted to know what was going on. We got talking and I found out that she actually has the coolest life story. She's lived in like 6 different countries and speaks 6 languages...but unfortunately not Italian. She was meeting a friend in Palermo for a vacation. She asked if I was here on vacation as well so I got to tell her that I'm missionary in Italy. She was really interested in what I do and believe, she had tons of questions and I ended up teaching the whole restoration--in English which was super weird and a little hard for me because Italian just kept coming instead of English haha. I invited her to visit our site and ask for the missionaries to come visit. She said she definitely would..I hope so!!
Then I finally got home around 11..man what a day.

We had tons more cool things happen this week including meeting with another new investigator and finally meeting our most progressing investigator who will be baptized on September 3rd!! But I realized that this email is way too long already so I'll talk about them next week.

Today the senior couple Anziano & Sorella Garrett invited all the Sorelle over for Pranzo. We ate fajitas and chocolate chip cookies. For a second I thought we were back in America again. It was so yummy 😊 then we just hung out with them for little while which was fun and that's basically how we spent our pday! It's been a nice and relaxing day.

Funny story: today as we were on our way to the garrett's house we saw this guy who was changing his license plate with a bucket of white paint and a sharpie 😂😂 that's Sicily for you. As Sorella Bellomo says, "Sicilia is like another world. This is not Italia." Haha it's true.
Also today I learned from Sorella Bellomo that when Italians are full they say "sono piena come un uovo." I'm full like an egg! Hahaha I'm going to start using that.
Random observation about Palermo... Quoting Anziano ridd "While walking on the street within 10 meters you can smell the best and worst smell you have ever smelt in your life." Literally it's so true. You will be walking down the street and get tons of whiffs of strange smells, some good, and some not so good.

Alright, I'll be done for this week. I love you all so much!! I know I say it always but it's true! Alla prossima settimana!! ❤️

The homies in Cagliari--craziest days ever but it was worth it to see them.

x

Arrivederci Cagliari!!

Highlights of the week:
- Monday was my last family home evening in Cagliari. We played "do
you love your neighbor" for the game then talked about charity for our
spiritual thought. They got really into it and love it hahah.
- We had Pranzo appointments every day until I left so that was fun!
And none of them had it ready when we got there so we got to learn how
to make a bunch of food!
- I basically just spent the first part of the week saying bye to
people and getting the house ready for the new sisters. There will be
four again in Cagliari!
- English course was sad that Anziano Martin and I were leaving so
they asked if we could go next door to McDonald's and get gelato
together. It was super fun haha our English course students are so
crazy I love them.
- I got to do a TJ split for half the day Thursday. TJ=Jehovah's
witness and there's tons of them here but a lot of the time they do
companionships of men and women together. So basically I got to have
an Anziano as my companion for the day because we were the only ones
flying from Sardegna to Palermo.
- I tried a cannolo (you say cannoli in American but that just means
plural cannolo) and a bomba (it's basically a donut rolled in sugar
with Nutella inside.) I got a pizza with horse meat. It was
surprisingly really good. They weren't lying when they told me that
the food here is the best in the world. I also ate some bomb pistachio
gelato.
- I've met a lot of members already. They're all super nice. It seems
like everyone here is a lot more loving and friendly. They hug each
other all the time and it's super normal for the men to do baci (kiss
each other on the cheeks) here than it was in Cagliari.
- It's really really dirty here. Like there's just trash everywhere.
One of the problems is there aren't any garbage cans to throw your
trash in so people just throw it anywhere. So then when it's windy
like it has been for the past few days it's super dangerous because
your just be walking and then all of a sudden you'll have all this
garbage flying at you. I've gotten so many nasty things in my eyes the
past few days.
- Basically everyone smokes here so you just always smell smoke
everywhere you go. Even in the church because there's some kid of bar
thing right next door.
- We live in 4 with the Sorelle who cover Palermo 2 and 3 (I'm in
Palermo 1) and one of the sisters is Sorella Bellomo-she's Italian! We
did a trio with her my first few days here because her companion (our
STL) was in Rome for a leadership conference. Those days we spoke only
in Italian..it was so awesome I loved it!! By it was also absolutely
exhausting. I had to take a quick nap during lunch and my brain was
still super tired by the end of the day. But I love it so much. I feel
like my language has kind of hit a plateau the last transfer and so I
really wanted an Italian companion to help me to become fluent in this
language. To just correct me on every little mistake i make. And I was
blessed to share a house with Sorella Bellomo!! She has been helping
me so much. And she's also a super good cook and has promised to teach
us how to cook like an Italian. She's an answer to my prayers!!
- We live in a little attic but it's super cute..just super small and
hot. There's only 1 shower that we share with the four of us so that's
kind of hard but we make it work. My companion and Sorella Rogers
(Sorella bellomo's companion) are super awesome too so we all get
along super well!
- Our bishop is our landlord and he lives below us so if we ever need
anything he's always super nice and willing to help. Like for instance
we ran out of toilet paper yesterday so we went and asked for just one
and he was more than happy to give us 4 and some gelato too! Haha he's
great.
- Oh we did a gesso last night in centro. That was fun! Palermo is
really big and centro is super nice. They have tons of shopping there.
We did it with both the companionships of Anziani in Palermo 1 and all
the Sorelle. We also invited the senior couple to come! They've only
been here 3 weeks, they're doing super awesome. Anziano Garrett speaks
Italian really well. Sorella Garrett doesn't speak Italian but she was
still working just as hard as the rest of us! She stopped a man and
Sorella Anderson was able to help her talk to him and ended up setting
an appointment to meet!! What a miracle!! They're super awesome I love
that I finally get to be with a senior couple.
- Funny moment: while we were at the gesso this group of teenagers
come up to us so I started talking to them and invited them to English
course and they said that the reason they came over is because Sorella
Roberts looks like a pokeball 😂😂 (she was wearing a red shirt with a
white skirt and a black belt). One of the girls ran up hugged her and
goes "you're my hero!" Hahaha that was probably my favorite part of
the week.

K well sorry that was kind of random. I still love life, love the
gospel, and although Cagliari still has my heart, I love Palermo! And
of course I love all of you, I hope you all have a wonderful week!!

I may not look like it but I was definitely really sad that I had to
leave Sorella Tingey.

Flying into Palermo!
x

My companion surprised me with a cannolo!

A little bit of Centro ..I think this is actually a police station. They really go all out with their government buildings here haha

ISLAND HOPPER

IM LEAVING THE NEST!
Well, I'm spreading my wings and flying (taking an airplane on
Thursday) out of my birth city! We received transfer calls on Saturday
and found out that I'll be island hopping down to Palermo in Sicily! I
was raised like a princess here in Caglari. It's one of the cleanest,
most organized and Americanized cities in our mission. And from what
I've heard about Palermo, it's one of the sketchier areas in the
mission haha but it has some of the best food in all of Italy. The
Anziani told me that it's okay if I get fat in palermo because I'll
never get food like that again 😂. This week I was going to complain
about how hot and HUMID it's been here in Cagliari, because it's been
bad. I've never sweat so much in my life. But apparently it's even
worse down in Sicily...pray for me 😅. I am going to miss Cagliari so
much, it is such a wonderful city. But above all, I'm going to miss
all the people here. They have been so good to me. In fact I'll
probably gain 10 pounds before I even get down to Sicily because we
have Pranzo appointments every day this week!! Oh mamma mia, this is
the life my friends.

THIS WEEK:
Thursday was the highlight of our week. We did an exchange with the
Sorelle in Sassari! It takes about 3 hours to get there by train but
we didn't want to waste time with all the travel so we decided to get
up at 4:30am so we could exit out house by 5:30 and get on the
earliest train which was at 6:40. That way we could just do our
studies on the train and not waste any time! We got to Sassari around
9:30. I was with Sorella Anderson this time! She is such an amazing
missionary!! In the morning we got to do a service project in the
morning and help a member who is a little disabled (her legs don't
work very well) clean out her storage unit and put in supplies for her
food storage/72 hour kits.
Then somehow every single one of our appointments that day fell
through so we were left to doing finding all day in the warm sardegnan
sun. Luckily it's a lot dryer up in Sassari. It was hot, but I wasn't
sweating as much because there's not as much humidity there like there
is here. I learned so much though about street approaches by stopping
literally everyone we saw. Not very many people wanted to stop and
talk with us. I think a lot of the reason would be that it's so hot so
people just want to get where they're going. We walked all around the
city and by the end of the day our feet hurt so badly and we were both
sunburned, but we were happy because we knew we did all that we could
that day.
It was actually such a miracle because we had just been talking all
day about how we should be trying to talk to and teach young people
because they are more willing to change (not as rooted in the Catholic
Church) and they are the ones who will grow up and raise families in
the church. But it's so much easier and less scary to talk to older
people! We decided together though that we would talk to everyone, but
especially try to talk with every young person that we could. Right
after we got on a bus (actually the only one we took that day) and
there were 2 young girls sitting right by where we were standing.
Sorella Anderson looked at me like 'this is what we've been waiting
for' we were both scared-I don't know why, young people are just
really intimidating here- but she started by inviting them to English
course. We bounced off each other to keep the conversation going and
then when they asked how we could speak Italian well so quickly
Sorella Anderson immediately responded, "honestly, because we're doing
this mission, we have the help of the lord." And after that it turned
into a religious conversation (that's always the hardest part, turning
a normal conversation into one where you can bear testimony and invite
them to learn more.) We told them about what we do and teach as
missionaries and asked if they'd like to know more. They said yes and
we exchanged numbers!! Then after they got off we were able to talk to
2 more people and get their numbers' as well! It was a miracle and I
hope everything goes well with them!!
Thursday was also Sorella Tingey's year mark so Sorella Anderson and I
stopped by a sard store that was close and get her some earrings she's
been wanting to buy. Then that night we celebrated by ordering pizzas.
I want to try something new/different every time I get a pizza so this
time I tried one with hamburger french fries, and a fried egg on
top...not my favorite but it wasn't bad! My favorite pizza I've tried
so far had eggplant on top. I'd never tried eggplant before I got into
the mission but they use it a lot here and I love it now!

Friday morning we woke up at 4:30 again and caught the earliest train
back so that we could get back to our area and start working again! We
actually almost missed our train because this crazy old lady asked if
I would carry her huge, heavy bag of plants and pots to her train
because she was having a hard time with it. Of course I was willing to
do it but holy cow she was insane and made us walk all over and then
when we're like "our train leaves in 5 mins" she's like "oh! That's my
train up there! Run run run!" We were able to get her on her train and
run to ours and luckily made it on time.
We dropped almost all of our investigators this week because of the
lack of real intent or willingness to meet so in the morning we met
with Raffaella then the rest of our day we were on the streets
finding.
Funny story: we were doing some address finding which basically means
we went through old potentials sheets and wrote down and mapped out
the people we wanted to go and find to see if they were still
interested. We rang the citofono of this lady who was like I'm busy
right now and blah blah blah basically saying she didn't want to meet
without actually saying it. So she didn't want to meet but since we
were there we decided to just ring all of them and ask if they'd like
to hear our message. We were going down button by button and most of
them didn't answer then Sorella Tingey rang that lady's again without
noticing it, She answered again (it had been like 5 mins since we
talked to her) and I was like we already rang her! But Sorella Tingey
thought I meant that it was one of the ones who didn't pick up so
she's just like "hi we're missionaries and we have a message of
Christ.." Or something like that and the lady yells "ANCORA?!
BASTA!!!" (Still?! Enough!!) and hung up the phone. I then explain to
Sorella Tingey that that was the woman we had come here for and then
we could not stop laughing..super awkward.
I wish I could say that we saw fruits from out labors that day but no
one really wanted to listen to us except for one girl named Veronica
who we found in a park next to one of the apartments where we were
looking for someone. She was really nice and interested and we taught
her about Joseph smith and got her number but she was with her family
who did not seem very happy that we were there. We tried calling the
next day to make an appoinemt and she had blocked our number (we think
probably because the family gave her a hard time for giving it to us)
so that was sad.

Saturday morning was transfer calls day! The Anziani got their call at
like 9:30 in the morning which is usually around the time that we get
ours. We waited and waited (not being able to focus very well on our
weekly planning) and then finally at 12 the assistants called us.
Telling Sorella Tingey that she will stay here and 3 other sister will
arrive, making it 4 in the house and ward again which is exciting. And
then I was told they I'll be going to Palermo 1 to be with Sorella
Anderson (not the one in Sassari a different one)

We've really been hitting the streets and trying so hard to find new
investigators (especially with all these new Sorelle coming in) but
it's been super hard because it's summer so everyone's at the beach,
all day, every day. That's the culture right here now. No one will
meet because they're at the beach. No one is in the park or on the
street because they're at the beach. But we were able to find and talk
to one girl Martina who seems like a really cool person. She's a
university student (which means she's young!) and is studying
philosophy. She told us that she believes in God as like an energy and
doesn't believe in Christ, she told us, "honestly, I don't really know
what I believe right now, I'm kind of studying and searching until i
find what I feel is right" we're like perfect! Do you wanna meet?! She
said she'd love to so I'm excited for them to get to work with her!

Daniela was so sad when I told her I'd be leaving. She's doing so
well, doesn't feel ready for baptism yet and doesn't want to be forced
to do anything, but she comes to church every week and is at every
activity including the baptism (for a member who turned 8) last night.
I promised her that I would email and keep in contact with her. I am
praying so hard that she'll finally have the desire to be baptized! We
met with her and did more of a spiritual thought type thing and she
loved it. She said that the video we showed and scripture we shared
were her favorite she's ever seen and heard, I think it's because it
was exactly what she needed right now. I know that we were inspired to
share those things so that felt pretty good.

I had to say goodbye to my best friend rina 😢. She is literally one
of my favorite people in Cagliari. I can't wait to see her nel regno
celeste 😊
Yesterday was my last Sunday of course, sad, but good. I'll definitely
miss this ward so much. Even the crazy old people like the man who
gave half his talk yesterday in sardo (their dialect that is closer to
Spanish than Italian so I understood nothing.) it's been fun.

We spent our day today with the Sanna family 😊 They are like my
family here in Cagliari. We went over at noon and Sorella Sanna taught
us how to cook this really yummy keisch type thing and some rice with
pumpkin. We ate and talked and laughed, it was such a fun day. I love
them so much.

FUNNY MOMENTS:
* A less-active says she can't come to church because she has feet
problems. she's been saying this for 3 months and keeps saying "I'm
going to the doctor this week," yet somehow she can manage to make it
to the church every week for our appointments because she won't let us
go to her house. This week after we met she said to me, "why don't you
massage my feet?! Maybe then I'll come to church." 😂 good thing I'm
escaping to Sicily 😬
* We were sitting in correlation with the ward mission leader, bishop,
and all the missionaries and all of the sudden our ward mission
leader's phone started ringing and the ringtone was some Beyoncé song.
You have to know that our ward mission leader is quiet, bland kind of
person. All of us sat there for a few seconds in awkward silence
trying not to laugh then we just couldn't hold it in anymore and we
just all started laughing.

Well I don't know how this email got so long, I'm really sorry if I
bore you guys ever haha. I hope you can see how much I love this work,
my companion--oh speaking of her I'm going to miss her so
much!!--these people, and Cagliari. It's going to miss it all so much,
but I know that Palermo is where I need to be now and I'm excited to
take on the new challenges that this transfer has to offer! Also, I
love all of you. Thanks for your wonderful support. You're the best!

con amore,
Sorella Bonzo 💕
The less active who asked me to message her feet 😂 she's so funny

Eating gelato with rina

In Sassari with our pizzas

Daniela and Sandra

La Famiglia Sanna

Eride and Roberto

Sorella Pistidda (our cute little bread lady)

Proud to be an American 🇺🇸

Happy Independence Day my fellow Americans!! I woke up today so excite
for the 4th of July because it's one of my favorite holidays. But then
I realized that I'm in Italy and while these people have festas
every-other week, they unfortunately don't recognize this holiday.. So
enjoy the fireworks, country music, and barbecues for me. Because
although we get some pretty delicious pizza today, I'm really missing
those things.

Today I'm going to start with a funny story because that's how my week
started. Every Monday night we do a family home evening in the park
with our investigators and ward some members. It switches off every
week which companionship is in charge of it but if you have an
investigator there you can come every time with them. It's super fun-
we do a game, spiritual thought, then eat.
Last week we asked our investigator Daniela to meet with us at 6- an
hour before it started. She told us that she was planning to go to the
family home evening with a guy in our ward (whom she is dating now)
but said, okay I'll see if he'll pick me up early! Is it okay if he
comes? So basically our investigator brought her own member present to
her lesson! But it was super awkward when we got there because he's
African and doesn't speak much Italian so they really couldn't
communicate besides with like Google translate. So they weren't even
talking they were just both on their phones. And I think the guy was a
little annoyed with us because we crashed their first date haha but
hey I guess it all worked out anyway because now they're together! I
don't understand their relationship but whatever works I guess. --they
doesn't seem as funny now, I guess it was just kind of a "you had to
be there" kind of moments because Sorella Tingey and I could not stop
laughing about it that night.
Oh man we get along so well together. This week has been filled with
laughs and awkward moments, it's been great!

Miracles come after the trial of your faith
Wednesday We were finding all morning and it had been a little rough.
The morning started with a terrible experience, probably the worst one
on my mission yet, we were looking for a former investigator and we
weren't sure which citofono was hers so we just started from the top
and rang all of them. No one was home but then we rang the bottom one
and they just opened the door without getting on the microphone and
asking who we were. This nice man came out and we told him we were
looking for Elisabetta. He went in and asked his mom if an Elisabetta
lives here. She came out and just started screaming at us. She said
that she was resting and just because our friend didn't answer doesn't
mean we can ring her and expect to be let in. And she just kept going.
Her voice getting loader and loader then she started clapping to add
more emphasis I guess. She was fuming and I thought she might explode
she was filled with so much hatred and anger. The shouting went on for
probably 5 minutes (although it felt more like 20) and while both my
companion I felt like we were going to cry, we just stood there
patiently and smiled through the whole thing. Then as soon as she
stopped taking for a second we quickly said how sorry we were and
bolted out of there as fast as we could. We also faced a lot of
rejections, lot of people making fun of us haha and tons of
uninterested people. We've really been focusing on trying to talk to
younger people because those are the ones who will most likely
actually end up getting baptized and will build up and strengthen the
church. This is hard because a lot of younger people aren't very nice
here and think we're weirdos. But we kept going. We kept talking to
everyone, and because of this we were able to talk to a set of sisters
in a park, teach them a lesson, and set up a return appointment! 2 new
investigators! It strengthened my testimony of the importance of this
message and the importance of perseverance. I known that when times
get hard, if we just keep going that little bit more, a miracle is
right around the corner. We receive a witness (or that miracle) after
the trial of our faith!

Rina
Rina is amazing!! Like Sorella Tingey says, "she's my favorite person
in Cagliari!" She's the like 89 year old new convert that we get to
visit. She's always making little jokes, smiling, and laughing. This
week we taught her the plan of salvation (because we're teaching all
of the members all of the missionary lessons) and we get to the part
"la morta fisica" (physical death) and she goes "I don't know about
you but I don't want to die" then just starts laughing. Haha she's
adorable. And she's such a missionary!! That night while we were with
her her friend called and said she'd be coming over in a little bit so
rina asked if we would stay so we could talk with her and didn't want
to say the closing prayer until her friend got there. Then as soon as
she got there she was like "do you have another pamphlet? Give one to
her!"
We visited her again on Friday and she's been bugging us about seeing
a less active who lives close to her. We told her that we'd bring this
less-active (Valeria) to her house sometime. In the middle of the
lesson rina just goes "let's go see Valeria right now. Call her and
tell her we're on our way." Then she got changed into her dress, put
some lipstick and perfume on, and was ready to go. We told her that
it's not that close and that she'd have to walk a bit but she was
determined! So me made the slow trek over to Valeria's. It wasn't easy
for rina, I was a little worried she might collapse a few times- we
walked really slow and took lots of breaks but we eventually made it!
She is an awesome lady.

Scambio w/ Sorella Moro & Meet the President
I'm running out of time so I have to make this quick. Friday I got to
do a scambio with Sorella Moro (one of the Sassari Sorelle) she's
super awesome and really fun to be with. Then Saturday we had a
conference with our zone to meet the new president and his wife. It
was awesome! Then that night there was a baptism for a 14 year old
girl whose mom is a member and she basically grew up in the church and
just didn't get baptized. She and her mom were so happy and excited it
was great. And Eleonora came!! We haven't taught her very much because
she's busy with school but she asked if we could give her number to
the oristano Anziani because she lives really close to there and will
be moving back home right after exams. How awesome is that?! she's
like "I'd like to keep taking the lessons." I'm super happy for her.

Funny story
After the conference president Pickerd came out and said "Sorelle,
someone left theirs purse in here." We go in and he's like "whose
purse is this?" We just look at each other and say "Anziano martin's"
then he's like "well I guess if that works for him" it was pretty
funny.

Letter to President Pickerd
Welcome President Pickerd!! We were so excited to meet your wife and
you this week! I learned so much from that conference and feel like it
was exactly what I needed to help this work move forward here in
Cagliari. I love it here. My companion and I are finally figuring
things out and really getting into a groove. We're making short and
long-terms goals to help this work and these investigators progress.
This upcoming week we are going to be really focusing on finding those
"golden" investigators and dropping those whom are not quite ready to
accept the gospel at this moment in time. We are also going to focus
on setting baptismal dates (as one of the power 5 commitments.) We are
looking for to this upcoming week and all of the miracles it will
bring. A highlight from last week was on Wednesday. [the story I
already told you about out finding experience]
Thanks again for the wonderful conference! I hope that Sorella Pickerd
and you felt of the love that we already have for both of you! We're
excited to see you again in a few weeks for zone conference!

I love you all so much! And as much as I love Italy, I'm proud to be
an America.


Rina is a champ

Scambi with Sassari Sorelle

We made this poster for the pickerd's :)

Anziano Borden's last Sunday here. (The guy in the middle was a former missionary here)

We ate the best pizza in Cagliari today at the red tomato (rosso pomodoro)

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