Okay first, last week we had a lunch appointment with Anna's mom, Anna
left right before we got there to go to her cousins... Anyway we still
did it with her mom who's a less active and she made us pasta with
tuna and pana.. Pana is this cream stuff you use for cooking, I've
never heard of it in America but it's basically just fat. But it's
really good when you put it in stuff. So usually when you use pana you
just put 1/8 of a box in when you're cooking for like 4 people. There
were 3 of us there, and she put in a box of pana for each of us...3
BOXES OF PANA..and 3 cans of tuna..and pasta. And that's it. It was
soooo heavy. I was just eating straight up cream. I was going to die.
Then she also made us eat sandwiches, salad, and gelato. Sorella
Anderson and I literally almost through up on the way home and I felt
sooo heavy and sick the whole day afterwards. During my language study
I just did it while laying on the ground because I couldn't move. Oh I
can't even explain it but it was so funny and also the worst thing
ever at the same time. ....and she told us yesterday that she wants us
over for lunch again this week!! Pray for me please.
Okay, miracle time!
So we've been planning a talent show for a ward activity this week and
I think it was Saturday night we were talking to Anna and asked if she
wanted to sing for it with Sorella Anderson. We were thinking that it
would help her get over the fear of being in front of people and then
she'd more easily get over her fear of water for the baptism. She
decided to sing her favorite song, I am a child of God. And I don't
know why but I volunteered to play it on the piano..but the funny
thing is I don't know how to play that song. So on Wednesday we were
in the church doing a lesson with some less actives then afterwards I
was practicing that on the piano for a few minutes while my companion
was making some calls. If I didn't have to practice that song we
would've left the church by then. BUT we were in the right place at
the right time because while we were there this man showed up at the
church. His name is Alfredo. He told us that he talked to the Anziani
yesterday and was here for English course. We only do English course
Tuesday and Thursday and this was Wednesday but we thought, well maybe
the Anziani were going to meet him and do English just with him or
something (we later found out that he thought that said Tuesday
THROUGH Thursday) and he said he was like 15 minutes early so we tried
to call the Anziani but they didn't answer so we're like well, do you
want to take a tour of our church? He's like "this is a church? Sure!"
--you have to understand that this church is super weird. It's like
really small when you first walk in at the bottom then you walk up
tons of stairs to a bunch of classrooms then you walk up even more
stairs to the main floor with the chapel and all that, then you walk
up even more for the primary and stuff like that, and the baptismal
font is in the basement. So basically it's just all stacked on top of
each other.
It was so awesome though!! We gave him a tour and as we did it we
taught the restoration as we showed him the paintings. He was really
interested and had tons of questions. He started to talk about how the
bible is not completely correct (like everyone here thinks it is)
because of all the translations it's been through. He's really smart
and knows the bible super well. So ended up going into a classroom and
sitting down and we taught him about the Book of Mormon! He was so
happy when we gave him a copy and so interested to read it. It was the
strangest but best restoration lesson I've ever done and you guys..IT
FELT SO GOOD. I could feel the spirit the whole time just directing us
on what to say and how to do things. I was soo happy afterwards I was
just like rambling on about how happy I was and my companion took a
video because she thought it was so funny. But seriously. It feels so
good to fulfill our purpose as missionaries and teach the
restoration!!
He's a pretty young guy so we passed him to the Anziani but we have no
doubt that he's golden. I'm so grateful that I got to be apart of that
miracle!
The talent show was so much fun. We had so many different things from
singing to dancing to to poetry to baking to people demonstrating
their art work, one guy even showed us his animation video that he
made all by hand. It was crazy. Such a good night. And Anna performed
her song!! She was so happy afterwards. She's doing so awesome.
SUNDAY--the best day ever.
God has been preparing me a lot for motherhood lately as we teach
Anna. We always have to come up with creative ways to do things and
she's really quiet and won't talk or do things unless you show her
tons of love and encouragement. Her mom doesn't really understand how
to discipline her kids(most parents here have a hard time with this)
so every time she wouldn't come to church or read her scriptures her
mom would just say, she didn't want to. She's only 9 so she needs a
little more help. So every single night this week we called them at
9:30 and reminded them to read the Book of Mormon together and pray.
Then the reason she says she doesn't want to come to church is because
it's boring. Her mom only comes to sacrament meeting and hello she's
9, of course she's going to think it's boring. So this week we told
them we'd be at their house at 9:15 am (church starts at 9:30) to pick
the up.
I cannot tell you the amount of joy that I felt when I saw their cute
little family (all 3 of them including the brother who doesn't want
anything to do with the church) walking down the street in their
Sunday best to meet us.
Anna was teased by some of the kids in primary a little while ago so
that's why she hasn't wanted to go back. I promised her I go with her
and stay with her the whole time. So I got to go to primary!! It was
so fun and cute! The primary president was also soo sweet and
welcoming to her! Then after sharing time (while we were eating our
snack) the primary president said "sister, I think Anna is comfortable
enough and know us well enough if you want to go you could." So I ask
Anna, i said "would you like it if i stayed here with you or left?"
She just shrugged her shoulders. I said you choose, we can do whatever
you want! Then she just smiled and said "vai" (go) so I said okay I'll
see you after and left.
I picked her afterwards to go to Sacrament meeting and she was so
happy!! She said she loved it and can't wait to go back! She also was
so reverent and great in sacrament meeting, I couldn't have been
happier. --not to mention we had 4 investigators in church that day as
well..just sayin..that was pretty cool. 😏
There was also another super super awesome miracle that happened on
Sunday but we're meeting with her this week so I'll tell you more
about her next week.
Today we went caving!! It was so cool because we went In these caves
with a member and the tunnels got really small at some points (I kinda
freaked out just a little) and at the end it opened up and we saw a
cave where tons of past missionaries had signed their names. We got to
sign ours as well :) it was super awesome because there was the cave
we went in and we were in this little forest thing but from there we
could see the ocean! You guys, I'm so blessed.
Life's good here in Palermo! Il lavoro sta crescendo e Palermo sta
fiorendo! I love you guys!
Love,
Sorella Bonzo
Oh ps: I also cut off like 5 inches of my hair so that was fun. But I
haven't taken any pics so sorry.
Inviato da iPad
I'm addicted to cannoli and this was the best I've ever eaten.
Well this was my hair before I cut it but I forgot to take an after pic
The cathedral from last week. I couldn't get the whole thing in one pic this is only a small part of it
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