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!