tons today so I'm super exhausted and really don't want to write a
group email. Plus I forgot my planner so I have a hard time
remembering what even happened this week. I'll do my best but if this
just turns into me sending you a few pictures with explanations,
you'll know why.
We taught Anna and Katia (and Francesco- Anna's brother- he won't
participate in the lessons but he's always there on his phone..but we
know he's secretly listening) twice this week. Last Monday we
committed them to read the Book of Mormon and pray together. Anna is
progressing so much! She is very shy but she's been opening up a lot.
She originally didn't get baptized because she is afraid of water. But
we weren't sure if that we the only reason and the. With her mom being
less active for about nine months she hasn't really had the support
system to do so. But we have now established that she does want to get
baptized. And she is getting more and more comfortable with the idea
being baptized because we told her that the water will only be waist
high and she will go under for 2 seconds and have someone there to
hold her the whole time. Things are looking really good for her!!
We did exchanges this week! So I got to work in the Palermo 2 area one
day (shout out to my trainer Sorella Clark.) I thought I'd seen ghetto
here in the Palermo 1 area but boy we I wrong hahaha. It's so dirty
over there. We turned a street corner and Sorella Roberts is like
alright "I have to warn you, there's a lot of garbage" and then I look
and see just tons of trash piled all over the sidewalk. So gross. The
sisters in Palermo 2 also work in the Palermo 3 ward which is an
English-speaking ward (it's a ward made up of Africans) so I got to be
an English-speaking missionary for the day as well! That was soo
weird. Africans are so funny! The whole day it was like one second
they were arguing with us and quoting the Bible, and the next they
were like "yes I'm really interested, I want to meet with you to learn
more" and we were exchanging numbers?! On one occasion we were talking
to a man who Sorella Roberts talked to a few days ago. She said he was
crazy and loud that day, not wanting to listen, just arguing. We saw
him again so we talked to him and h asked how we learn Italian so
quickly. We told him only through god's help can we do this. I told
him that we study and do our part, then pray every day for God to help
us. Sorella Roberts asked if we could pray with him to help him learn
this language, because he says he studies and wants to be able to
speak it. She asked me to pray. That is the first time I have prayed
in English in 6 months. It was hard and actually pretty awkward. I
don't remember how to pray in English and everything I said came out
like I would have said it in Italian. Being an English missionary was
really hard for me because I'm just not used to talking about the
gospel in English! But guess what?! He ended up coming to church on
Sunday!! So cool, that never happens with Italians.
Also, okay so Sorella Bellomo is a sister in p2 and she's Italian,
she's trying to learn English right now. She comes home frustrated a
lot because she can't understand these Africans and now I can tell her
not to worry because honestly, I couldn't understand a lot of them
either 😂 I felt like a greenie again only being about to pick up bits
and pieces of the conversations here and there, but as the day went on
I got better at understanding them.
Today for pday we hung out with the senior couple, Anziano and Sorella
Garrett! We went and at Fratelli la bufala (a well-known, very tasty
pizza restaurant) then drove up a mountain with them and were able to
look out and see all of Palermo. We also got to see the cathedral of
Santa Rosalia (zone patron saint of Palermo). It is the coolest
cathedral I have ever seen. You'll have to look up her story because
it's long but part of it is that she went and lived in this cave and
died there and they believe that this cave on this mountain was her
cave so they made it into a cathedral. So it's a church inside of a
cave!! So cool. We got tons of good pictures.
Yep, that's about all I remember for this week. It's been fun, we're
working hard and sweating tons.
Con amore,
Sorella Bonzo
Welcome to Palermo 2! (I couldn't capture it very well in this picture because of the lighting)
Fratelli la bufala
Palermo❤️
