Saying Goodbye to Sorella Webster!

Last P-day we went to the Reggia di Caserta, which is this beautiful, HUGE building and HUGE garden filled with statues. We rented bikes (it was SO hot) and had so much fun! 

La Reggia di Caserta

 La Reggia di Caserta

 La Reggia di Caserta

 So my dearest Sorella Webster left me this week so our first half of the week was filled with non stop appointments trying to say goodbye to everyone.

saying goodbye to people

saying goodbye to people

Okay so next week is Sorella Webster’s Birthday, but she’s going to a new city where the people don’t love her yet so I had to celebrate it before she left. I planned a surprise party every morning while she was in the shower (luckily Sorella Webster is also known for her ridulous long showers). But the problem is that I wanted to make her a cake. But how do you make someone a surprise cake when YOU ARE WITH THEM 24/7?!  Well I decided to stay up late to make her the cake (broke the rules I know!) but the thing about Italian apartments is that you can’t have the washing machine (which I turned on to make noise so she wouldn’t hear me in the kitchen) and the oven on at the same time, otherwise the power will go out. So the power went out and per forza I had to make the cake in the morning. While she was in the shower I baked the whole cake (I made the famous Holy Cake complete with the syrup) and then made crepes to cover up the smell. I hid it on the balcony and Sorella Scherbel picked it up while we were out. I am the most sneakiest companion! She loved it and the party was a success!

surprise birthday party

I dropped her off in Napoli and picked up my new companion—Sorella Williams! From Calgary Canada! She’s really great and funny! Well at first I thought she was really negative and hated all our investigators, but then I realized she’s just really sarcastic and now she’s really funny! I think we’ll get along just fine. Also, so I don’t know if it’s the same in other missions around the world, but here in Italy, you get assigned to a city and there’s usually a couple other Elders and then you don’t see any other missionaries except for zone conference. So you become really close with the people in your city and we always help each other out. We make food for the Anziani and they chase away creepy guys. It’s a good match haha. Anyway this city just got a Greenie! Anziano Rasband from Washington DC and he also speaks really good Italian! Also, I’m sure dad will find this interesting, but an Elder just got here and he’s from Alpine, his name is Mica (last name). I guess he’s going to be the next MBA player or something  and all the Elders are freaking out and wanting to be his companion. I feel like I kind of heard something about him, but I don’t remember my previous life too much so who knows.

We got some great contacts this week. We met the parents of this member family and they want us to start working with both sets of grandparents! Hopefully that will go well! Also, a member brought a friend to church and she wants to meet with us! She’s from brazil and seems super awesome!

visiting teaching in the hospital

Yesterday we saw a miracle…we were given a couple visiting teaching assignments and since it’s almost the end of the month I was thinking we could wait a couple weeks to do it. But then I thought ‘’I’m a missionary, I should be on top of things.’’ So I called everyone up. We called this less active Gina and she told us that she’s in the hospital. She’s been in the hospital for 15 days and no one in the ward knew about it! We went out and visited her and I think that visit made such a difference for her (even though her husband wasn’t too friendly). I am so glad I followed that prompting so that we could visit her and help her out!

Anyway I LOVE being here! Italian people are just the funniest and crack us up everyday which the weird things they believe, but you just have to love them. I’m so grateful that I get to be a missionary and try my hardest every day to share this message that I love so much! I KNOW that this church is true and I KNOW that the BOM is true. I’m feeling myself being changed everyday and God is teaching me so much everyday. I can’t even imagine ever leaving. I love being a missionary!!

Ma vi voglio bene! 

Too much Dreams, Saints and Men!

Okay so last week the Scherbels had their son, his wife and their two kids come over to visit and for P-day they invited us out to see Pompeii and Mount Vusivo! It was so much fun! Sorella Webster and I ran all around with these two little girls and made best friends with them. But they got really competitive about who would make it to the top of the mountain first so we had to run all the way up the mountain haha! The mountain had a beautiful view and the crater from the volcano was huge! Then we visited Pompeii and I had no idea that city was so huge! It went on for miles and so much of it was intact! It was cool to see this huge, ancient ruin!

Webster and I with the girls.

Pompei!

Pompei!

Pompei!

Pompei!

Pompei!

 So this week we got to do a scambio! ...exchange in English I believe. Sorella Baker and Clyde came down and we had a ton of lessons planned! So Sorella Baker and Webster went on taught Rosaria. Okay so Rosaria is great, reading the BOM, but she still has a strong belief in saints. Specifically Padre Pio. Okay let me explain who this man is. He was this Priest who died only 30 years ago. Supposedly he had great faith and he prayed so hard that Christ asked him to carry a third of his pain for 50 years. He has nail marks in his hands and feet that just appeared as a sign of this task. They made him a saint and they think of him like Christ. I'm not a fan of him. Christ did the whole atonement by himself, he couldn't have asked this man to carry a third of everyone's sins. Ah it just makes me sad every time I think about him and how many people believe and follow him here! Actually the Catholic church rejected him, but then he had so many followers that they accepted him as a Saint and now he's HUGE! Some churches have more pictures of him than anyone else. It just breaks my heart. Anyway Rosaria has had many dreams about Padre Pio and he has helped her out a lot in her life. During the scambio, Saints came up and I guess Sorella Baker and Webster taught her that we don't believe in them and I guess they had a bit of a discussion (I wasn't there). The next day when we went over Rosaria was still really upset and felt like Sorella Baker had really offended her (I'm sure Sorella Baker was just being blunt, not rude). We just bore testimony a lot about Christ and the church. Anyway a lot of think week has been dedicated to studying about Saints and trying to help her have more faith in Christ. 

Gerardo, Gina, and I !

We are also working with this older couple named Gina and Gerardo! Gerardo has actually lived in England for 20 years and speaks perfect English. They weren't really progressing so we haven't done a lot with them, then this week they called us and invited us to dinner. I found out he has a great desire to do family history! So we're going to set up a time and do that! He also asked us to come over one day to help him pick some cherries from a tree. We spent a few hours picking all these cherries and talking. I started thinking about Padre Pio and was just distressed about it so I started asking him some questions. He's catholic, but has a lot of doubts. He used to believe in Saints, but then stopped once he found out that it's man who creates saints, not God. I had one of the coolest conversations with this guy that I've had on my mission. We talked all about the apostasy and prophets. I got him when I asked him why there weren't any more prophets today and he stopped, thought for a long time, and said that's a very good question, then I got to tell him all about the Restoration. It was awesome!

Us and the handicap kids we help with.

Martina's first Peanut butter sandwich...she loved it!

 So I LOVE Italy! You guys all know I do! Love everything about it! But man...I've had so many talks about saints and crazy dreams this week. TOO MUCH CATHOLIC FOR ME. Also I'm sick of the men here. They are harmless, but they love saying gross things to us every time we pass them. Agh I am so sick of Italian men! 

Marianna and Martina!

We had a huge miracle in church this week! We have a great group of English course students who come every week and love the church...but they don't want to quite take the lessons. There's these two especially that I just feel like are ready, their names are Marianna and Martina! They completely surprised us this week and came to church!!! I know they loved it and my goal is to invite them to take the lessons with us! We also have a new investigator this week—Pina! We found her in the areabook, I called her one day, she let us come right over, and we had a great first lesson with her. She already loves the BOM and wants us to come back again. She also has a son who took the lessons in the past and a daughter who just found out she's pregnant and seemed interested! I love this family!  

Also....transfers came!!! Sorella Webster got transferred to Fioggia and I'm getting a sister named Sorella Williams, from Canada! Sorella Webster is my first companion that I've only been with one transfer so it's weird that she's leaving! I've had so much fun with Sorella Webster and we have really worked hard to improve this area. So now I get to have a few days of saying sad goodbyes. Anyway everything is great! I love you guys!  

I ate a lot of blood this week.

IT IS HOT HERE. I'm already dying. 

This week was awesome! Last week we went to the Amalfi coast which is this coast between my city and Napoli and it is BEAUTIFUL!!! There's all these great colorful houses built on the mountains by the city. Anziano Sherbel took us on a ride through it all and we stopped in a couple cities to take pictures. Also the Sherbel's have their son, his wife, and two kids staying here for the week. It is so fun and weird to be around American people! Today they took us out to Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii!! I'll send you those pictures next week! 

Amalfi coast!

Amalfi coast!

Amalfi coast!

Amalfi coast!

Amalfi coast!

Amalfi coast!

At the beginning of the week we had zone conference in Pozzouli and that was really fun. We have an American Navy base here which for missionaries means...American food! Which means Peanut butter sandwiches and chips and all those great, gross American food. It was funny when our Zone Leader said “And we would like to thank the US Embassy for providing lunch” haha we are so important here. 

Zone conference. familiar face!

This week we had some cool lessons with Rosaria. On Thursday she told us about how that was the anniversary of her dad's death date, but then she told us how the other day when we explained the temple to her, it really hit what we said about baptisms for the death and she would like to do that for her dad. She asked all sorts of questions of baptism and the temple and we brought her this temple magazine and she's really excited. On Sunday, she wasn't feeling so well and she knew we did blessings so she asked us if we could bring the Elders over for a blessing. We did and the spirit was so strong! She just cried the whole time and loved it. After we got out the calendar and had her chose her date. We really wanted her to chose it and be committed to it. She chose September 13^th! Which is a bit far away, but I think it will be a good thing. I remember Emilia in Pescara chosing a date two months away, but all that time really helped her prepare. Also Rosaria still has a strong belief in Saints which is something she is going to have to give up and I think having more time to read and understand everything will be good.

While we were at Rosaria's this week...she brought out this brown can from her fridge. She told us it was called Sangue nacho. Sangue means BLOOD. Basically pigs are kind of sacred here. They are more expensive and it is NOT okay to waste a pig. So in an effort to save EVERY part of the pig...they take it's blood and mix it in chocolate to make a snack. I'm not kidding PIG BLOOD in chocolate. And I ate it. It actually wasn't too bad...just tasted like chocolate...but there was this other taste to it...and I just knew that taste was BLOOD so I couldn't handle it. Then she made us eat more. So gross. WHO KNEW THEY EAT WEIRD THINGS IN ITALY? And who knew I would be stupid enough to try them all. 

We also got two more investigators this week! Both are referrals from Rosaria! Elena is this Romanian who has been baptized three times, but is interested in reading the BOM. We had a great lesson lesson with her and her daughter came in (25 years old) and asked us all these great questions about the church and seemed really interested in learning the truth. The second is this girl named Giovanna. She is 32 years old, is married, has a 5 year old son, her dad used to meet with the missionaries in the past and loved them, and it seems like her whole family is really confused on religion and what is right. They've studied with a lot of different church, but are still catholic. It was hard to teach a lesson because she had nonstop questions, but she wants us to come back this week and teach her and her husband! We have a cute little family!! I just have the best feeling about them! They seem like such good people! 

These past couple of weeks, I've actually been really frustrated with my scripture study. I do love reading the scriptures, but I felt like I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it and nothing was connecting. It was really frustrating and I kept praying for help. This week I received it. I found a BOM manual that you use in church and I've been studying it along with my reading and it has changed everything for me! (yep...I study with a manual. The mission has made me do all kind of nerdy things and I love it) The manual explains everything well, makes lots of connects that I haven't noticed before, and asks a lot of questions that really gets me thinking. My testimony has strengthened so much and I really feel this great love every morning. I'm better able to share with other people the importance of the scriptures and help them read better. For example, I found a smaller manual for our investigator Rosaria and gave it to her. This week she has read and learned more than the BOM than she ever has. I think the main difference is the questions; it's really hard to come up with questions for myself, but having all these questions to answer really helps me. LOVE the scriptures! Read them they are so awesome! Especially Alma 33, 34 in Italian. Who knew.

 Miracles: This week we were in this city and we needed to come back to our apartment for lunch. We waited at the bus stop and the bus came and completely passed us! It was so strange it did that. Another bus finally came and I went up to pay my ticket and ended up sitting next to this girl. While putting my money away I noticed she was starring at me and I got a big prompting that I needed to talk to her. But before I could even talk, she asked me if I was American. I said yes. Then she told me how she has this really good friend who was a missionary in this city a long time ago, but comes back almost every year to visit. I asked her what this missionary's name was and she said “Kendra”. (For a second I was like...that name sounds familiar...didn't they used to call me that in America?) I said “Non ci credo. Mi chiamo Kendra” (I don't believe it. My name is Kendra!) I just knew that this was a coincidence and that God was telling me that I was put in her path to specially find her. I hurried and got her number and hopefully we'll be meeting this week! 

Italy pride

 

Also, the world cup is HUGE here. Every street is covered with flags and banners, it's fun.

I've been in Battipaglia for almost six weeks now. TIME GOES BY TOO FAST. Love the mission!

Ciao! Bacio! 

Shh! I'm coming to church and surprising you!

Little car

So I don't have much time this week because we are going to the Amafli coast today so I'm writing fast. But this week Sorella Webster got a little sick and we did a lot of service, so there's not too much to report. Although when she got sick we took her to this less active who gave her all this stuff and it was a blessing to see the less active and get her more involved in the church. But this weekend we had some awesome miracles!!

Okay this weekend we had stake conference! So our dear investigator Rosaria, who is preparing for baptism, but has not come to church yet because some family problems. Well unfortunately (but fortunately for us) this family member got sick and was in the hospital...which means there wasn't any problems for her to come to church! She came Saturday evening and it started out really great and she loved everything then her son started calling her nonstop and asking her to come home because he was locked out and she was really stressed because she didn't want to ask President for a ride home yet, also I thought the conference was only one hour long...but it turned into 2.5 hours long! So she was having a hard time and wanting to go home, then her son got into the house and everything was fine and she stayed till the end. She told us that she couldn't promise that she would come to church on Sunday and we decided not to push it too much. Fast forward to Sunday and all of us are sitting watching the conference when I get a text from Rosaria saying "shhh!! I'm coming to church and surprising you guys!" Hahaha how cute! So it didn't end up being a surprise, but it was so cool that she called all these people to get a ride to church and showed up in the middle of it! She was a little disappointing it was stake conference and not sacrament meeting, but she promised to try and come next too!! She is so awesome! 

Me at the market

Lots and lots of Olives

 Also, we're teaching this lady named Irene who is the mom of some recent converts. On Saturday I called her to see if she wanted to come to church and she said she was going to her church. I told her, we would love it if she came to church here. I used my persuasive skills and she couldn't say no. She came and loved it!  

Making lasagna

Making lasagna

 For the Sunday session we actually had a broadcast from Switzerland where Elder Anderson and Uctdorf spoke to everyone in Europe. It was so great! 

This week two guys from Boston are staying here trying to find information about their family. Yesterday a member had us missionaries and them over for lunch and it was so funny! I'm so used to Italian culture by now and it was hilarious seeing these two guys having to adjust to it. It was their first Italian meal and she gave us a lot of food and they were dying because they weren't used to eating that much (babies, that was not a lot of food at all). We told them all Italian really in having spiritual experiences through their dreams (sometimes I feel like people's faith here are based off the dreams they've had, it's interesting) and then this member went off of this huge spill about all the dreams she's had about Christ. It was mostly just funny talking to one of them who served in Korea and hear what his mission was like compared to ours. 

Anyway I'm off to see the most beautiful place ever. Ciao! vi voglio bene! 

Lunch with the Sherbels. The best!

Martina!! My favorite!!

Helping and working with lots of people.

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun at the family party! I love the tie dye shirts hahaha ;). Aw poor Jordan! First car accident. How is he doing now? I am so glad that everyone was okay!!!! BE SAFE ! Is school out now? What are the plans for the summer? 

We made cheesecake for English course

Well this week was awesome! I can't believe it's PDAY again! The mission is going by too fast. :(

Okay so we have Rosaria who is awesome!!! We get to see her everyday and she is making such great progress! Everytime we go over there she tells us all about what she has read and it is so cute. Also...she gave us THREE referrals this week! She's been talking about us and how great we are to all of her friends and she told one day how two of her friends want BOMs...so we have two appointments set up this week to see them! Then yesterday while we were teaching...her friend stopped by and Rosaria invited her in to meet us. This friend is named Elena and has actually been baptized three times...she was born orthodox, then became catholic to get married to an Italian, and then became Evangelist haha. She was way interested and asked all these questions. The best part was that Rosaria responded to all of them! Rosaria loves the story of Joseph Smith and has seen the movie three times...and she told her friend his story better than I have ever heard any missionary tell it, she even quoted exact lines! The spirit was so strong as we bore testimony! We have another appointment with them tonight :). 

This place is known for their mozzerella di buffala (buffalo cheese!) they eat it here so often. This member brought us a bowl of 35 balls that us four missionaries were expected to eat! I could only eat five though. So much cheese. so good.

So we're working with this family named Melella who are two parents and four crazy young boys. They are new converts, but becoming inactive because the dad never actually stopped smoking. The Anziani are teaching the dad and Sorella Webster and I have been trying to strengthen the mom and the boys. The parents don't actually seem to care too much, but I feel like these four boys have so much potential and could become great missionaries one day so I really want to help them out with learning the gospel and having good examples. Our idea is to help them have a FHE every week and to help the mom teach her boys about the gospel. Last week we made cheesecake together and it was CRAZY! Four boys with fingers, spit, and blood flying all over the place (I'm not kidding about the blood part). But we brought some pictures of Christ and the BOM and one of the sons, Emanuele, was so interested in the BOM stories and wanted to hear all about it. It was so a cool moment teaching him about the BOM. Also, this week Emanuele got the Aaronic Priesthood to pass the sacrament....but he didn't come to church in church clothes (this is a normal thing in Italy, most people don't have money to buy suits), but they found a shirt and tie for him...but no pants. He happened to be wearing gray sweats with the name of a soccer team written in pink on his bum. It was so awesome because he's passing the sacrament and trying to be a good member...but I just couldn't stop laughing at how inappropriate his pants were! 

                  This is us with a less active and her grandchildren. We also helped them do their hair hahah!

 

This ward has kind of proved to be a little difficult to work with...it is really hard to get members to come to lessons and they seem really annoyed when you ask, which is a bummer because Rosaria needs to meet all these members! Then we have this one member...Maria. Bless her heart. I really love that woman to death. She is so sweet and funny and us missionaries just love her. But she has had quite the past...she has tried to kill her husband (luckily it didn't work), has had gambling problems, and almost every other problem before joining the church. Everyone in this town knows her and does not like her and does not believe that she has changed. She just causes problems with everyone and everything that it makes it so hard to get investigators to come to church. This week she went over to a new convert's house with beer to see if he would drink it. Haha she's the worst, but I love that crazy lady.

This week the Elders were teaching a girl named Anita. She is so awesome! I can't explain how special she is and how much I already love her. But at the end of their lesson....she had a seizure attack. I got to go up and hold her during some of it and it was a really cool experience. The more that she meets with the missionaries, the more attacks she has. I don't understand why it is like that, but I'm sure God has a reason for it.

Also, each week we do service for two handicap kids and help them do their exercises. I was paired up with this lady named Antonella and she is kind of scary and really hard to talk to. But I knew that I wanted to make a good impression so I tried so hard to talk to her and kept praying for help. It was still awkward and I felt like I failed. After, Sorella Webster told me how surprised she was that Antonella was talking to me that much because she never talked to the sister before me at all. So actually I guess someone I got on her good side and she loves me now. We've seen her on the street and she introduces me to all her friends and on Friday she was telling the family what a great helper I am and how I have “the eye” for taking care of this girl and how much we get along. So I learned when we put in our best effort...God takes our efforts and magnifies them by a hundred.

Besides Rosaria, we're kind of losing a lot of our investigators right now. Our goal was to get a lot of new investigators this, and that didn't really happened, but we got a ton of potentials!! We have the three referrals from Rosaria. We really want to find some families to teach so I quickly looked through the areabook for all the families that seemed interested to me. I made four phone calls...and three people said they would like to meet with us again in the next couple of weeks! We did some great park finding and we got some numbers of families and we have an appointment with one of them Tuesday. Actually that's a great story! We met this mom with three kids in the park and she seemed so interested, but there was this old lady who was very catholic so the mom wouldn't give us her number which was such a big bummer. A couple days later we happened to see her walking with some heavy grocery bags (and she is very pregnant!) so we helped her out and she told us to come back another day! Such a miracle that we got to see her again. Miracles!

UN GRANDE BACIO DA ME! VI VOGLIO BENE.