I went on a boat!

Beautiful Italy!

 I can't believe Ashley and Lizzie are home. Give them the biggest hugs from me!  Okay so today for Pday we got special permission...to go on a BOAT!! We drove out to this city and took a small boat tour around the coast to visit all these caves. It was SO beautiful!! It was pretty funny though when they stopped the boat and said “okay now we'll stop and everyone can go swimming.” So everyone swam while us missionaries sat in the boat. But then Anziano Scherbel (the senior couple who took us) wanted to take a short cut home which actually took a lot of time so now I'll a little behind time purtroppo.

Boat Ride

Boat Ride

Anyway this week was great! We had another busy week filled with so many lessons! Man I love having my days full of lessons every hour (okay it's not quite like that) and feeling like you've accomplished so much! We had a lot of great lessons...but most of them aren't too interesting to report. I'll just tell you about a few. Do you remember Brian from my last letter? The English/ South Africa guy who used to live here in Salerno. Well he is so awesome. He comes to Italy every year just to visit all his friends and invite them to get baptized. He has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever see. He also taught us some African. He took us to see a less active family. The husband actually just passed a couple of months ago and he told her straight out that she needs to start coming back to church so she can be sealed  to her husband. She said I know, but that she’s not quite ready yet. But she said we could come visit her everyweek and help her come back! Hopefully we’ll see some success here!

This week we made actual chocolate chip cookies (like with BROWN SUGAR—doesn’t exist here, but Sorella Scherbel has a lot bunch!) with two of my favorite people..Martina and Federica (they are sisters and come to English course every week). 

Chocolate chip cookies!

We also have another baptismal date!! (Our first one is Rosaria! She’s still doing great with reading the BOM, but she has some family problems that are getting pretty pesante (heavy as they say here) so prayers for her). Anyway there's this lady named Anna who is an eternal investigator and comes to church every week and has been taught many times. Her scheda (oh…what do they call that in English? The paper where we write about the lessons we have and how it went) is 19 pages long!! She knows EVERYTHING and has a testimony of everything…but she has this mental block that I don’t quite understand. We decided to visit her and I felt impressed that we should pray and have her chose another date. We did it and she chose September 27. I don’t want to do what all the other missionaries have done by just reteaching her all the lessons, but really trying to figure out what her problems is. It will take a lot of prayer and trying to receive revelation I think. Speriamo bene.

Fhe. We tried our best teaching these four crazy boys. and crazy sister missionary.

Now a story about how I’m very unchristian like. Jk. So there’s this man named Giulio here who owns a gas station and also a ton of super awesome cars. He’s a nice old man, but the sisters in the past decided it was okay to let old harmless men kiss them (I don’t mean the actually kissing on the lips, but the two kisses on the cheeks thing). Well I didn’t want to kiss (again, just two kisses on the cheeks. I felt like emphasizing that twice) him and he got all offended. Then another day he tried to pull me into his shop alone without my companion. So I’ve been avoiding him all transfer long. He keeps asking the Elders why we don’t stop by. Anyway on Friday we were running late and had to get to the bus stop…the closest bus stop is right by his gas station so we had to go there. He is also a chatter so I knew if we stopped by, we would have to talk to him and miss our bus. So what do we do? We ran. We ran right past him to get to the bus stop. He got up and started screaming and yelling at us. I have to admit, this moment was so funny! Us two sister missionaries running for our lives while this man was in shock that we ran past him instead of talking. This was probably one of those “you had to be there moments”. Anyway it was really funny and then I felt really bad so we brought him a piece of cake the next day (we took the Elders with us for protection just in case). He’s a really nice guy afterall (although he still wants to kiss us) and then he took us in to sit in his Cinquecento (a very small car that Italians drive all over the place), a Porsche, and a FERRARI! We got to touch and sit inside of them!  

Cinquecento

Me and a Ferrari.

Cinquecento

Anyway transfers are this week! How does the time go by so fast?! Can I just tell you how grateful I am for the gospel? Every day I meet the saddest people in the world who don’t know that God exists and loves them or that families are important or that life can be better. The gospel is not easy to live, but it is the easier path after all! Praying, reading the scriptures, going to church, repenting are the little things that can give us the greatest joy that we can experience. I know that the gospel makes families eternal, gives us better health, makes us happier, helps us with money, etc. all we need to do is be obedient. I love this gospel! I am so grateful it has changed my life!

Vi voglio bene!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Week full of Miracles!

  It looks like you had so much fun in Snowbird!! The pictures are SO cute!! Aw my cute little niece and nephew! Ah I can’t believe Ashely Mecham is home already from her mission!!

Companion in Sorrento

Last week for P-day we went to Sorrento! Which is this beautiful city on the sea. We met this old man there who is famous for making these handmade music boxes. He loves the missionaries and he offers us a really good price. So I got the most special little music box ever! 

Sorrento

Music box

 Okay…you ready…this week was FULL of MIRACOLI! Last week we hardly taught any lessons at all (well we had zone conference and scambios), but this week was FULL of lessons! We taught over 16 lessons (this is an accomplishment here). All of our investigators were able to see us this week and we had so many great lessons with them, but mostly I want to tell you about the miracles we’ve seen Saturday and Sunday! 

me and a buffalo

a beautiful catholic church

But the biggest miracle of all is that we taught SEVENS LESS ACTIVES!! I have never ever taught that many in a week and all of these were really awesome people. I’m going to tell you about Saturday where we visited FOUR less actives in one day. The first one lives about an hour away (walking there’s no buses that go there…also…it’s getting SO hot here!). The daughter is active, but her mom…is stubborn you could say. But the mom loves indexing so now we’re going to start an indexing program and she wants to teach it! In the afternoon we were able to find this less active named Marishenka who is only about 21 years old and is the sweetest thing ever. She hasn’t accepted missionaries for almost 2  years, but we called her up and straight away she said yes and invited us over. We were also able to bring a member to that lesson and they became really great friends. Then we got on an hour bus to go to Salerno to find this other less active Elivera. She’s really nice, but just kind of old and doesn’t want to travel all the way to church, but she is interested in doing indexing!! One less active is going to activate the other. Then we did an hour of finding in Salerno! 

Then we tried to find this lady named Enza. I thought she lived close to Salerno, but turns out she lives 30 minutes away and we didn’t have a lot of time, but we decided to pray and try to go find her anyway. It took so long to find her house, but we finally did and it was well worth it! Her name is Enza who I just already love to death, she is so sweet. She doesn’t come to church because she has to take care of her sick mom and some other problem. She still has a testimony of the gospel and would like to change so she can prepare to go to the temple. She seems like she could be a really solid member so I’m excited to work with her! Because it took so long to find her house, we were scared we would be home late, but the minute we got to the bus stop… it came! Then we met the coolest lady on the bus named Giovanna! We gave her a BOM and we hope to meet with her this week! A day full of miracles!

THEN it was Sunday. Honestly, we didn’t think any investigators were going to come to church, then while we’re in relief society…in walks Irene who randomly decided to come! We were so happy! THEN in walks Rosa, this less active we’re been working with and has been refusing to come to church. THEN in walks another less active, Giovanna, who came with her little granddaughter, Melica (she used to be an investigator). It was such a miracle to have all these people come to church. During relief society a funny thing happened. So there’s this family that just moved in from Brazil and they can speak enough Italian to communicate, but not a lot yet. Well this family was teaching part of the lesson, but with a translator. Also, this random German lady showed us who could speak a little English. So the lesson was given in Portuguese which was translated into Italian which I translated into English for this German lady. Four languages in this one class.

During Gospel Principles, I heard a lot of noises going on upstairs, but I just kind of ignored it. Then when we went upstairs for sacrament meeting…the whole room was already FULL! With people I have never seen before! I looked at the Elders and they told me we have tourist from Norway, Germany, and Utah. Normally we have about 30 members who come to church (I’m working in a very small branch remember), but yesterday we had over 80 people in church!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was CRAZY! There was not enough room for everyone. All the members were freaking out and taking pictures of all the people!! Ahaha so funny! Sacrament was in both English and Italian. One of the families is actually from Highland! It was fun talking to them, and they promised to give you a call when they get home. It was so fun having that many people in church though! Reminded me of the church in Utah hahaha! After the relief society president asked if we could take a picture of everyone and everyone was like…why? And she was like “I have never seen this many people in church before!” It was funny having these families from Utah see how excited the members were here. Haha but hey it was a big deal for us Battipagli-ers. 

Tourist

Also, another funny culture thing. This guy named Brian came and visited the branch this week. He used to be the branch president from Salerno before that branch was closed down and he came back to visit people and try to bring them to church. So this guy’s parents are from England and Argentina, but he was born and raised in South Africa, he has the strong English accent you’ve ever heard, and he knows about ten languages fluently. He is so cool. Anyway it was just funny to listen to this guy from Africa speak in half English half Italian with a thick British accent in church!

Brian

One of the Elders here, Elder Rasband (his cousin is actually David Creighton!), had to get his military license renewed so he got to go to the navy base…and he brought us back Reeses, double stuff oreos, a muffin mix, KFC and TACO BELL! Who knew I would miss this stuff so much?!? 

Bacio! 

Sorella Knudsen 

Finding, Finding, Finding!!!

Looks like you are having so much fun at Snowbird!! Love Kelsey’s dress. What a babe.  Okay this week has been great! Last P-day we got to spend it in NAPOLI! Where pizza was born. We walked through the whole city which is full of all these alleyways and a million HUGE churches, it is crazy. We also saw Castel Nuovo (see included picture) which was actually built by the French.  I love Napoli, seriously one of my favorite cities, too bad that sisters can’t serve there yet. And of course…we got the pizza.  AND IT WAS SO GOOD.  Seriously heavenly. Nothing in the world compares to it. I even had dreams about it. Don’t worry dad, I’m taking you there!! 

Napoli

Napoli

Napoli

We also had zone conference and it was super great. I love zone conferences. I always leave them feeling on top of the world and that I can accomplish anything in the mission.

Zone Conference

Zone Conference

 Right after Zone conference we had an exchange, or as I call it Scambio, with the sisters from Pozzuoli (one of the cities that Paul preached to! I’m right in the middle of the bible!). I was given the choice…finding or teaching a lesson. Sometimes I suck at finding, but when I get into it…I can be really good. Right after Zone conference I just felt so…motivated that I knew I had to do finding. Sorella Baker and I hit the town and talked to people for over four hours. It was awesome! We talked to EVERYONE, met a ton of great people searching for the truth,  got a lot of numbers, etc. It was actually a lot of fun and it feels really good to work hard and share the gospel with so many people. Doesn’t matter who rejects you. One of the miracles that we saw was we were walking down a street and there was this lady talking on the phone (I normally don’t talk to people on the phone, because I feel like it bugs them) and we decided to invite her to English course anyway. She looks at us, tells her friend on the phone who we are, and hands us the phone. This lady then tells about how she just got a job offer but she has to learn some English and had no idea what to do…then here we are, offering free English lessons…it was a huge miracle for her. She asked to meet with us the next day. She is actually really interested in the gospel and is now a new investigator for the Pozzuoli sisters! So awesome! 

Scambios

The next day I did a scambio with Sorella Marsh (from Murry, she’s the cutest!) and we taught this new convert who is like 75 years old! He has this awesome testimony and wouldn’t even let us teach him anything because he wanted us to teach all the people on the benches by us. I love people like that. This scambio I learned to stop having mental roadblocks. Like sometimes I don’t like to talk to people on cell phones or old people because they way stuck in tradition and don’t want to change. But that’s not always true. I need to talk to EVERYBODY because you never know who will accept your message or what miracles the Lord wants to show you. 

Scambios

When we came home from the scambio, I looked at our list of investigators, and most of them aren’t progressing or won’t even answer the phone to see us…so we kind of dropped a lot of them…which meant a lot of finding here in Battipaglia this week too! We don’t have a lot of great contacts from those efforts, but we talked to a lot of people this week and I know a lot of them were prepared. Even if people aren’t going to accept your message, I know that God places them in our path for a reason and I could definitely see that happening this week. Also, with this extra time we had time to call up all of the less actives in Battipaglia. Let’s just say that the number of less actives is about 20 times as long as the active members here and it took all morning to call everyone. God showed us more miracles as a lot of them answered and wanted us to come see them! Now we have a good list of less actives to strengthen here!

Also, our mission lately has trying to get family search and indexing going really strong here. Sorella Williams had a lot of success in her past city with it and we’re trying to get it all organized and use it as a great finding tool. Now I have a favor to ask of all my relatives…well first off, I am so grateful that a lot of my family history is done and that someone uploaded a ton of photos of my great-grandparents online—I printed some of the pictures off and people love see them! But I would love to also have some stories or details about them…Any stories or facts about my great grandparents or ancestors would be greatly appreciated!! Already, we’ve seen a lot of miracles with family history! When I talk to people on the street, I first try the gospel and then if they’re not interested…I tell them about this free service we offer to help them find their families…People LOVE it! So many people want to find out more; it’s a great finding tool! Thank you!!

This week…President gave us a call (it is so scary to see his name on your phone because who knows what he wants). He actually called Sorella Williams to tell her that her grandma passed away. She knew that is was going to happen, but it was still sad. Her grandma was really catholic and did not want her to go on a mission. The next day, the Elders gave her a blessing and it was really cool. It talked about how her grandma is okay and that she will be a great missionary in the spirit world and that she is learning how to teach from watching Sorella Williams’ example. It was so cool. The other side is closer than we think!

I know this gospel is true! I love being a missionary and trying my best every day to bring people unto Christ, even if sometimes it’s really hard! I love ITALY!!!

Lastly, I will leave you with a funny fact about the members at Battipaglia. People REALLY love animals here, okay they really love CATS and DOGS here. . Every time I’ve told an Italian that I ate dog in China…they FREAK out and think I’m the worst person in the world. You do not harm cats or dogs here. They are sacred. Anyway all the members here pray for all the animals in all the prayers. They pray that they can all be safe, have health, find homes, and don’t have to suffer. I love the animals too, but I just think it’s funny haha!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!  

Minute to win it game competition and Italian 60ish year old man. Oh My!

Happy fourth of July!!! I'm so sorry to hear about all the health problems with my cousins. I will definitely keep them in my prayers! Give them my love!

I'm loving Battipaglia more and more each day! Sorella Williams is great and we were able to really bond this week. We also celebrated Canada Day! She made a traditional dish named pouten or something. Then we also celebrated the fourth of July! We had lunch at this familys house and it was the best lunch I have ever had! They have this huge garden and everything was fresh from the garden! Also...so our English course here has been kind of dying and so we decided to try and get it back up and have a party! We have spend a lot of time these past couple of weeks making posters, planning, and inviting the whole town. Luckily it turned into a huge success!! We decorated the church with stars, split everyone up into two group—Americans and English and fought for our freedom with minute-to-win-it games. Lots of people came and had a lot of fun (and we only had one injury). We also made America's finest...cheesecake, apple crisp, and pumpkin pie (made my first homemade pumpkin pie! Except turns out pumpkin pie is really strange for Italians and not many of them liked it...). Also, the English won...so there goes our freedom everyone.

On Monday I was shopping at Lidl (a supermarket here) when this guy asked me who I was. I told him all about us and he said how he knew missionaries in the past. He randomly said he played the organ (we have this organ player in the church, but he is going to be gone all July and by chance none of us missionaries here or the members play the piano) so I asked him if he would like to play for us. He showed up at church already and excited to play the piano! Miracle! God gave us a piano player! ...Okay now for the funny story after...this guy...is older...like at least 60 or 70 years old. Well he started hitting on Sorella Scherbel (the senior missionary here) so I made sure to introduce him to her husband. All was well. Then he asked me to sit by him in church and he kept whispering to me the whole time about going out to take a walk and getting gelato. I politely declined because it was Sunday and I felt weird about him. After, he kept bugging me about when we could see each other and go out. He kept saying ''tu mi piace, sei bella'' (I like you. You are beautiful). But he's an old man so I thought he was just being nice. THEN he told me how I make his heart beat fast and how he's in love with me! AH! My companion and I were just like no! No! No, not okay! We're missionaries! He asked how we could make it work anyway and I told him I'm too young for him. I told him I was 20 and he said he was 53 (Lies! He is older than that) and acted like it didn't matter. Eck! This is the worst part of Italian men...there is no age limit and no fear in telling someone how you feel. Gross!

Also, this week the ward here has been difficult. I love them so much...but they offend and get offended all the time! Half the ward doesn't come because they got offended by someone. It's really hard to deal with because I love all the members and I'm on every side. It just makes me sad to hear how someone is missing out on so much, just because one thing someone said once. I've really learned how stupid gossip is and the power of reaching out to people.

Also, here in Battipaglia....it's its city’s saint week! Almost every city in Italy has a saint dedicated to it and they do a huge festival for it. Their saint is Maria di Speranza...I don't know her story yet. But all the streets are covered with stands, food, music, and lots of catholic things. Wahoo.

Also, Italy is COVERED in cats right now. They are all getting pregnant and having a million babies and there are cats ALL over the place. The best is that we get to go over to people's house and they-'ll have all these kittens so I get to play with a kitten while teaching the gospel! Yeah!

Anyway sorry this letter is kind of all over the place, I wrote it fast because right now I'm getting a train to go to NAPOLI (Naples that is....WHERE PIZZA WAS MADE) and tomorrow I have zone conference and exchanges in Pozzuoli! Should be fun!

Love you!!

And I will send you pictures next week!