Sorella Bonzo: Crotone Chillin'

Cari miei, buongiorno!☀️

We were so excited for this week because we had scheduled tons of appointments with a lot of really cool, young potential investigators, but unfortunately every single one of them stood us up 😔 It was really sad, but we're going to try to contact them again this week, and if not, we'll just hope that the next time that they talk with missionaries, they'll take that step of faith to meet with them. In the meantime we'll keep doing our best to look for all the people that God has prepared for us here. We've freed up our time by dropping some investigators who aren't quite ready to make covenants with God right now so we have plenty of time to find those who are!

Monday:

We got to do family home evening with the Africans again. Although African food is really different, so far I had liked everything that she fed us--or at least was able to stand it--until Monday when she fed us the nasty stuff she called porridge. It was spicy mashed up beans with all kinds of crazy stuff inside including some kind of fish, beers, and these little dry crunchy shrimp type things. Every time I got one of those in my spoonful I felt it poke me all the way down my throat. Haha anyway, eating something that makes me a little nauseous is not my favorite way to get super full, but I can't complain because she's always so good to us.

For our lesson we showed the children's bible video who is Jesus? Juliet loved it and we all talked about our testimonies of Jesus Christ. We then invited her to share this testimony with her friends and invite them to learn more about him from us. She goes okay, turns around to the man sitting behind her and says, "my brother, you want to be closer to Jesus? Meet with them, they can help you." Then she turned to us and said, "you can come and do lessons here in my home with him whenever you want." It made us laugh because it really is that simple! I love Africans because they just tell you like it is and they also love God so much.

We got our transfer calls Monday night and we're both staying 😊 Crotone has definitely become my little home and I can't imagine leaving it.

Tuesday:

We had to spend most of the day traveling to and from Cosenza for district meeting. My district covers almost the entire regione of Calabria so it takes about 3 hours to travel from Crotone to Cosenza. We did our last meeting with this district before two of them got transferred, ate some good kebabs, and got back on the bus for another 3 hours. After English course that night we went to wish our friend Bob (an African who I found that the elders are now teaching) a happy birthday. He invited us to his party which was supposed to start at 7, but we were running on Italian African standard time which means it didn't end up starting until like 10:30 I think they said. So unfortunately we couldn't stay for the party, but he was grateful that stopped by.

Wednesday:

We got to see Caterina and Damiana our new investigators. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation because their husband &a father had recently died and they are really suffering because of it. The lesson went beautifully and we actually found out that Damiana has a Mormon friend in Bergamo (where she lives) who comes and visits her to talk about religion once a week. We feel that in this way, she has been prepared to receive the gospel. We used scriptures from the Book of Mormon to teach each point of our lesson and at the end we gave her one and invited her to read a chapter that talks about the Plan of Salvation. She said that she's never read to Bible before, but that she would start this book that night.

Thursday:

We went finding on lungomare at like 12 which wasn't my first plan because usually at this time everyone here is already inside getting ready for lunch and the younger people haven't gottenout of school yet. But our plans hadn't worked out like we wanted them to so we went with this which was our for that morning plan D. We were getting rejected pretty badly by all of the peoples hurrying to get home to cook lunch but then we saw this girl sitting on the little wall smoking and looking at the ocean. We walked around to face her and introduced ourselves and our church and say "they call us Mormons." And she goes, "why?" So I pull out my Book of Mormon and explain it to her a little bit. We talked about what the Book of Mormon does for us like helping us understand the plan of salvation. She told us about how she feels lonely and empty inside because her dad died when she was 4 and she doesn't know where he is. We got to testify that we know god's perfect plan for us and we can meet and explain it to her. She agreed and we set up an appointment.

We also met another lady who told us that she was too busy to meet with us because she has a 2 year old child. Then sorella Zapata goes, "do you want your family to be eternal?" I was shocked at how bold she was but it made her stop and think. Then we got her number! Wooo! It was sorella Zapata's goal to be bold this week and she did well!

Saturday:

We taught Damiana and Caterina again and extended a baptismal invite but they're going back to Bergamo next week and aren't sure when they're getting back. They will come back for the summer though so there's still hope.

Sunday:

We had very little members in church because all of our usual members were sick. We visited a member later and she told us her whole conversion story. She was the first member baptized in Crotone so it was an absolutely amazing story. I admire those missionaries who worked with her so much because it would not be easy.

Things are good, we love Crotone and are working hard to find that one who is ready for us.

Love you,

Sorella Bonzo

African food