Tuesday, December 6, 2016

I'm never mopping the apartment again...


Beverly is an angel..literally the most golden person I've ever worked with. We met with her every day this week to finish the lessons then she had her baptismal interview on Saturday and she passed! My district leader said that she is so prepared. She's so mature for her age it's amazing. So she's getting baptized this Saturday!!! Woooh!! We're super excited. She can't wait.

A new convert, Cesare, told us that his 21 year old daughter just moved in with him and is working at a bar by our house and he wanted us to introduce ourselves so we went to go find her and she was so sweet! We walked in and we're just kind of looking at the pastries, because we didn't even know who she was or what she looked like and she came up to us and after seeing our tags said, "I'm sure that you know my dad." We bought a little pie and talked to her while eating. She was so sweet and excited when we invited her to English course and the ysa family nights. We're hoping to start working with her soon! She just works a lot which is the only problem. We also met tons of workers in that bar who all wanted to come to english course so that was cool! 

Carolina got baptized about a week ago by the Anziani but we're doing her new convert lessons. We had our first lesson with her this week. She's so cute and is the strongest new convert that I've ever met as far as her testimony goes, she's so solid. She asked if she could come finding with us some time! She's 20 so fingers crossed that she serves a mission!! 

We had Zone conference on Friday! It was great as always. Our zone is on fire, I love serving here. Something I loved that President Pickerd said was, "Nothing's too hard for the Lord, no matter where you are, nothing's too hard for the Lord." We all know that that's true, but do be truly BELIEVE it? I hope so. 

That night Francesco was baptized!!! It was so cute, the Anziani we're like, "Francesco, how did you already know all of the lessons before we taught them?" He's like "the sisters taught me well." It was touching to know that although Anna didn't get baptized back in September, we were there to help Francesco prepare for his baptism. It has been such a miracle to see him grow and change and mature over the past month. He was so brave because he too is afraid of water so right after the baptism he ran out of the font, but the man baptizing him didn't say the prayer correctly so he had to do it again. We all feared that he wouldn't come back out, but he bravely got back in the water and did it again. He was so happy. 

As I looked at Anna, I noticed that she was in tears. I worried that she was still feeling ashamed about her baptism so I asked how she was and she said, "good, I feel the spirit." That sweet little girl bore her testimony is sacrament meeting yesterday (which was also the day of her brother's confirmation) which surprised me so much because of how timid she is. She said, "Cari fratelli e sorelle, so che la chiesa è vera. Amo la mia famiglia. Sono felice che mio fratello si è battezzato. Nel nome di Gesù Cristo, amen." (Dear brothers and sisters, I know that the church is true. I love my family. I am happy that my brother got baptized. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.) Her sweet little testimony brought me to tears. She told me afterwards that she was so nervous, but she did it anyway!! I complemented her on how brave she was. With all of this happening, we want to talk to her about baptism again. We pray that her desire to be baptized and her newfound courage will motive her to try once again. I love that little girl so much. 

After church we had a lunch appointment with a sweet lady in our ward who also invited Katia, Anna, and Francesco. It was really good but sooo much that I felt like I'd throw up again haha. My companion and I just kept looking at each other as the courses came out, remembering what happened at the last appointment haha. Luckily we didn't vomit, unluckily, we were also scheduled to have a dinner appointment. We are a late lunch, we didn't start until around 3, so by 7 (our dinner appointment) we were still stuffed. We had tried to do jumping jacks and crunches and even drinking water a bunch of water to make the food go down haha but we just ended up with a side ache.. but then, god answered our prayers because the lady who was supposed to make us dinner forgot to buy the food for it so she didn't make it!! But she wouldn't let us leave without giving us something.....so we made this less active sin because it was Sunday she went to the store to buy stuff to make us hot chocolate and cake while we helped her daughter with her English homework. When she came back to the house with a grocery bag my companion and I just looked at each other like what did we just see..Hahaha....so we're basically the worst missionaries ever.

What did we did for pday? We've spent the whole day in the hospital! At about 7 o'clock this morning after I mopped the floor Sorella Frogley slipped and fell backwards. She landed right on the back of her head. She laid on our floor for about an hour and a half, unable to move because she had a lot of nausea and terrible head pain. Our zone leaders came over and gave her a blessing, squatting down to put their hands on her head and she lay helplessly on the floor. Then we helped her scoot to her bed because the nausea was too strong for her to get up completely. She has had a concussion in the past, and said that this felt even worse than last time. The mission nurse asked us to go to the hospital so our senior couple came and picked us up and helped her down the stairs to the car. We've been in the hospital now for more than five hours just waiting for someone to help her. When they checked her in they just checked her pulse and then put her in the "green" zone meaning that she wasn't serious and was pushed to the back of the line. Now every time someone comes in that is in the yellow or red zones, they get put before us. The headache and nausea were slowly getting worse because the room was really bright and there was tons of commotion and noise in the waiting room. We asked a bunch and she finally got a gurney and we were moved to a room with less people and noise. 
I feel so bad for her. You guys have no idea what these Italian hospitals are like, especially in the ghetto Palermo haha. To give you a picture, they rolled one guy into the waiting room who I thought was dead. He legitimately looked like a skeleton with yellow skin. But he started yelling a name so I knew he was in fact alive. This lady came to his side and put his pack of cigarettes in his hand, and then he was content. 

Right now we're sitting in a room with a lady who keeps farting and groaning. Her daughter had been on the phone for like 2 hours meanwhile smoking every once in a while. My companion is so strong. I admire her so much because I couldn't deal with something like this if I was in that much pain.

But we found out how much everyone actually care about us today! I was on the phone all morning canceling our appointments so I didn't have time to eat or get ready or anything. I got to take a 5 minute shower and that was it. But the elders came to the hospital and stayed with us for about an hour at the beginning to help us figure out the paperwork because one of the has lived in Italy most of his life and the Garrett's stayed with us for a while then brought us some food. All today I've been getting messages and phone calls from ward members and investigators and missionaries wondering what they can do for us. So don't worry, family, we're taken care of here. 

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the church's new charge to us as members to #LightTheWorld but I realize that this email is long, so I'll just leave it to you all to watch the videos every day (you can find them on gospel library under Jesus Christ and holiday videos) and do the little acts of service every day to become more like church during this, his special season, and light the world!! Today's challenge is "Jesus healed the sick, and so can you." Fitting, no? Haha so call up a sick person that you know, go donate some blood, or make a meal for a family in need. Whatever it is, that little act can help others but also you feel closer to Christ today and every day this month. 

With love,
Sorella Bonzo

We told Carolina how much we like Nutella so she brought us a baby one that's used as a Christmas ornament 


Francesco's baptism

My poor companion. She's a cute little sick person. 


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