Recipe Finding!

I can’t believe Kelsey is already leaving on her mission!!! I’m going to miss that face! Her pictures are so cute!!!Well this week was awesome!! Almost all of our investigators are reading the BOM right now! And not just reading here and there, but starting from the beginning and trying to read at least a chapter every day! It is really awesome! One of our investigators, Giovanna, hasn’t read at all, but this week she read!

But sadly…none of them came to sacrament. We had one investigator tell us that if it was sunny than she would have to go with her husband to the sea, but if it was bad weather then she would come to church. Then another investigator said that if it was sunny than her family would go to the sea and she could come to church. Either way we would have someone come to church! We prayed really hard that weather would work out well for both of them somehow… then at 9am on Sunday, they both called and cancelled…so that was sad. 

We are as tall as this vegetable

This week I figured out the best finding tactic in Italy. Last week during programming (I think the correct word in English is planning, but in Italian it’s programmare so it always comes out as programming in English) we were trying to think of something new we could do for finding. A couple months ago the mission came out with this long list of finding ideas and conversation starters. We read through the list and I read “asking for recipes”. We thought why not? We called up the Elders and challenged to a finding contest to see who could get the most recipes for the pasta by the end of the week. This was such a great finding idea!!! First, because it was really fun for us. Second, because hardly anyone rejected us! There were a lot of people that were a little standoffish and you could tell that they didn’t want to talk to us, but once we said “We are Americans and we want to learn how to cook Italian, do you know a recipe?” They immediately opened up and were willing to talk to us. Third, because all of these conversations ended with them asking about who we were and us sharing the gospel! And fourth, because I have so many awesome recipes!  

We asked these old ladies in the park for recipes and one of them was like, “I have a question…why do you do baptisms for the dead?” (which was kind of weird…no one knows who we are, and if they do…they usually don’t know we do that)Turns out this lady was an old investigator and went to church a lot and read a lot of the BOM. She also has a great knowledge of the Bible and was telling us everything she believes about baptism. She also talks in parables…which are really difficult to understand. We invited her to come to church and she came!  But had to leave before sacrament…and we haven’t been able to schedule a return appointment yet so next week she’ll be an investigator! 

Recipe count for the Elders: 6. Sisters: 24  They have to make us pasta this week and they’re begging for a rematch. 

These next four picture are from a hike behind my apartment area.  

Also, we got two new investigators this week! We live right next to this Carrefour (it’s a supermarket) and everyone there knows us missionaries. There are couple people who always asks what we are up to and last Monday I told them all about the lessons we teach and invited this girl named Giusy and a guy named Umberto to meet with us. They accepted, but also wanted to learn English. So we are teaching them both English and the gospel!

Besides that, we also got locked out of our house this week. The key just would not turn at all! Luckily the senior couple lives right next door to us so we got to stay with them for the night! Sleepover with the Scherbels! We then spent the whole next day calling all these guys to fix the door. The first guy came over and gave up. Then this other guy came and spent two hours drilling at our lock trying to break it. There were lots of sparks, it was cool. We finally got in and now we have a nice lock J. Also, I had strep throat this week, but it wasn’t too bad and now I’ll completely healed! 

The cake for Anziano Rasband. He likes Ferraris

Anziano Scherbels birthday

We celebrated two Birthdays this week: Anziano Rasband and Scherbel and everyone made cake. Cake count this week: 4. This week I’m having no sugar. 

Our name tags that the Elders stole. Mine is on the bottom.

Also, remember how a couple weeks ago I sent home a picture of the Elder’s name tags that we decorated? Well as payback…they came to DDM with a huge ice block…with our nametags inside…and they put stickers on them. Ours was cooler though.

And that’s about it folks…today the summer holiday ends, people are going back to work, and coming home from vacation, and it is getting colder outside!!! 

Ferragosto

So this week was FERRAGOSTO which is basically the biggest summer Italian holiday and everything in Italy shuts down (besides tourists places) and everyone goes on vacation. If you have to take a bus or train anywhere, you might as well forget it because they go on vacation too. Hey have I ever told you how Italy is known for being the least organized country in Europe. Well it is very true. Italians don’t care about anything but food and the sea. Agh gotta love these people. The official big holiday was on the 15^th (btw…people with Google access…anyone want to tell me why exactly they celebrate Ferragosto. I’ve asked people and they’re like “IDK we just all go to the beach on that day.”) And since everyone is gone, we did some DEEP cleaning in our apartment! More on that later…Anyway half of our investigators left town on vacation so we didn’t have a lot to do this week… BUT we still had some great lessons and saw some miracles. 

Small  ice cream cones

 We had a great lesson with our investigator Gerardo before he left on vacation to his summer home (sad we don’t get to see him as much, but he’s coming back once a week). He’s a really great guy, but for some reason he doesn’t believe in God. Most of his life he hasn’t cared, but right now he really envies believers and wants to know more for himself. We gave him the challenge to pray and read the BOM every day and to ask if God exists. I feel like he is so sincere and I’m sure he will find his answer. 

All the horrible patterns in my Italian apartment. 

We also had a great lesson with his sister Teresa, who we are also teaching. I don’t remember how much I told you about her, but she is kind of a miracle in herself. She has lived the past two years in Milan with her daughter and son in law—who are both Mormon, the son in law is this really great bishop from Milan. She has met with the missionaries a lot, has read the whole BOM, and now she lives in Battipaglia for us to teach J.  To a certain point, she believes the church is true, but she has a hard time leaving the catholic church behind. We want to explain that by coming to our church, we are only adding to her faith, not taking anything away.

We also saw Rosaria and had a really great lesson. She’s scared to come to church because she’s scared her dad will be really mad because there’s this member who the dad hates that comes to church. We promised her, as representatives of Christ,  that if she came to church, then everything would be OK. But then she still didn’t come to church. Some people take a bit more time. 

Martina helping us clean

Making pizza

-We’ve also seen huge miracles with Martina, who the Elders are teaching for now. Martina is one of my best friends in the mission! I can’t wait to have you meet her! She speaks really perfect English so there’s no language barrier (I can speak good Italian…but it’s hard to be really funny in Italian so sometimes it’s hard to really be yourself).  She has been coming to English course for 6 years,  loves the missionaries and has become really great friends with all of us. But she has never taken the lessons. Then our Anziano Rasband here invited her to take the lessons and she said yes. Later we were talking and she was like “Why has no one ever asked me to take the lessons before?” I just felt awful because I assumed she has been asked a million times, but has always rejected. I think all the other missionaries thought the same thing. But it’s better late than never! On Thursday we had a lesson with her and the Anziani (elders) . She comes in and was like “I quit smoking!” and we’re all like “WHAT?!?” We’ve been trying to get her to stop for a long time, and suddenly this week she decided to stop. She already had the program and planned out everything by herself and we were like …”but wait…we wanted to help you…with that..!” Haha but it’s better that she decided to do it by herself! This happened on Thursday and then we found out that on Friday she had NOTHING to do. Her family was all going to be gone and she was just going to be alone in her house where there are cigarettes. She needed something to keep her busy, but that was Ferragosto and we had to deep clean our house all day long. So we called up our Mission President and asked if she could spend the day inside our apartment to help us clean. He said yes. No one is allowed in missionary’s apartments besides missionaries, so it was so fun having a friend over! I felt bad making her clean, but I think it really helped her out having something to do, being around good people and away from all those cigarettes! It was actually a lot of fun and the Scherbels invited us over for lunch to have delicious Mexican food! But the best part is that she has not smoked since Thursday!!!!!!

Paestum

Planking

Paestum

Paestum

Sacrificing my companion

Besides that this week has actually been pretty fun! Martina and her mom taught us to make pizza, we saw Paestum today for PDAY! Paestum are the big roman temples and they are so beautiful! I couldn’t believe how well intact they were. They are most intact roman temples in the world and I live 30 minutes away from them. Crazy.

Anyway hope you all have a great week! I can’t believe school is starting! I swear it got out last week! 

Hiking and funerals

Have I mentioned HOW HOT IT IS? Well it is pretty hot here and humid. Walking to appointments...I just feel like I'm swimming! 

Hiking

Hiking

 This week we had a fun ward activity! We went to the mountains to go HIKING!!! Dream come true! The only part I was missing from home :P But turns out that Italians don't really like the outdoors so no one showed up...besides us missionaries, one family, and a couple English course students. We drove out to this city and hiked up this mountain. It was so hot, but it felt SO good to be in the outdoors and get some good exercise in! So we had this great hike, ate a sandwich and some snacks at the top, and then came back down...only to find that the relief society had a five course meal waiting for us!!! So after our great, refreshing hike where we all feel great...we were forced to eat for the next two hours and we all felt awful after that. I really love Italians and their food...but I can't wait till I get to control what I get to eat! Why do Italians have to be the most generous people? 
 

Hiking

Meal after hiking

  
So last week I told you about how we decided to drop Rosaria because she's still way catholic? Well this week she invited us over for lunch right after church because her dad wouldn't be there (which is always her excuse for not coming to church) so we're like “COME to church! And then we're come and eat!” and she's like “fine.” So she came! And loved it, but at the same time...complained about everything, and made a huge fight out of it. Also, she heard that some members are getting some money from the church and now she's really interested in that...sooooo idk what to do about her. We'll see. 

the mail man car haha so small.

Then do you remember Gerardo from last week? Well last week we gave his brother a blessing (the elders came and gave the blessing)...and this week...we had an appointment with Gerardo, but then he called and canceled because his brother was doing really bad. Then we talked to Gerardo's nephew and found out his brother died. We gave Gerardo and his sister Teresa (who we are also now teaching!!) a call and they were both pretty upset. They invited us to the funeral and we went the next day. The funeral was in a catholic church and we had to watch mass (their sacrament diciamo)...and that was interesting. It's just basically a priest reading from a book and everyone repeating prayers and lighting incense and things. Gerardo and Teresa were really touched that we came and Gerardo told us that we've been a really great comfort to him. Every time we go over to one of their houses...there's always a new family member that we get to meet therefore at this funeral...we knew a ton of people! We walked around and said hi to everyone and then they would introduce us to more people and by the end we knew almost everyone! The cool thing is that two members of this family are already members, two of them are now serious investigators and the rest of them at least know the missionaries! This family is prepared! I can feel it!

Also, Gerardo came to church again this Sunday for all three hours! At the end he told us that he felt rejuvenated and was glad he came! We are so excited for this family! 

Cute man. Real Mustache.

Cheese

  
I am doing really good! Battipaglia is growing and I'm grateful to be a part of it! Sorella Williams and I are working on studying Christ and trying to become more like him. Every morning I want to write something I learned from him in my study and try to apply it. Like yesterday I studied the temptations of Christ and how he didn't give in to any of the temptations because he knew who he was and he knew he had to complete his mission on earth. Today I know that many temptations come my way, but I am a missionary and I am here to complete my mission and help other people. 

And that's all folks. 

Sorella Knudsen 

Fa Caldo

    Looks like you had SO much fun on the vacation! Thanks for sending me photos! Aw Jordan is getting so big haha!   Well it is HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are all dying here! All the Italians go to the sea everyday while I walk and swim in the humidity. :) yay August in Italy! Today for Pday we went to Amalfi! A beautiful city on the sea known for it's fried sea creatures in a cup. *see following picture. There's octopus, squid, clam, and lots of tentacles and things haha. 

Amalfi! 

Cup of fish

 This week has been great, but it definitely has had it's hard moments. Last week we had two baptismal dates, but this week we dropped both of them. One of them is our eternal investigator, Anna, who has had many baptismal dates, but has never showed up to any. She knows she needs to be baptized, but...thanks to some crazy dreams...she believes that if she gets baptized...the second coming will happen. She says “Io sono la donna” (I am the woman) in Revelations 12. So she is kind of crazy haha. Anyway we don't feel like she has changed at all since the missionaries have started teaching her and that she doesn't have real intent right now. 

Lots of mopeds. Typical Italy.

Another Catholic Church

The second one is Rosaria...who I've worked with my whole time here and who we've seen a lot of miracles with. Well teaching her has just been kind of difficult lately and she hasn't made any progress. Last night we asked her what her desires are and she confessed that she has never liked going to church and that she'll never want to come to church. She told us that she prays everynight the way that we taught her to, but then she has to pray to Maria or Padre Pio. She's still way catholic and at the moment does not want to change. So we're still going to keep in contact because we're friends, but in our minds...she is dropped. It is really sad to have to drop people after you have worked so hard trying to help them out. But that's the mission and we need to find other people who will accept the gospel. 

The Elders left their name tags in the church so we stole them and decorated them :) They loved them ahha

So we lost these two, but we saw some other big miracles! First, Irene (she's this old evanglist lady who is the mom of a couple members), has been reading the BOM and understands it beautifully. We went over there and she had read Nephi 13 (which talks all about the apostasy and restoration). She sat down the book, looked at us, and said “I know what abominable church is it talking about.” We're like that church? “The catholic church of Rome” We're like... “well it's just all churches that are against the church of god.” She's like “No. It has to be that church.” Anyway she understands the apostasy really well, which is always a good thing here in Italy. 

Yard work outside the church

 

Then there's Gerardo. He's the sweetest old man ever and when you come here...you HAVE to meet him! Last Sunday he asked us and the Elders to come to the hospital to give his dying brother a blessing. After a while we were talking, he mentioned how he actually has a big interest in our church. He has a lot of doubts about the catholic church and has searched a lot in life, but has kind of been disappointed in what he has found. He's reading the BOM, a bit slowly because he's kind of old though. Then one day he found out that his nephew is actually a mormon bishop in Milan! On Saturday morning, he called us up saying that his nephew is in town and that we have to meet him. We went to Gerardo's sister's house and met these two great member couples who came down to visit. It was such a great lesson!! It made a huge difference for Gerardo to actually see how his own family members have become converts to this church. There was a very strong spirit as we all taught him the gospel and bore our testimonies. After, he told us he's worried about his wife because she is super catholic and will not want him learning about this church. So we will see on that. Anyway then Sunday came around. At 9:30 am (when church starts here) Gerardo comes to church in a sweat saying he was so scared he was going to be late. Then all the rest of the members came at 940 haha. Anyway he stayed for all three hours of church and I think he really liked it! It really helped to have his family be there! And today we're doing an FHE with all of them! I have so much hope for Gerardo! He's such a nice man and really just wants to find the truth.

One last story hahah...last Sunday I found this cat on the side of the road that was very badly hurt and was dying. It layed on the ground, breathing really hard and I felt bad for it so I got out my Plan of Salvation pamphlet and petted it. Then it freaked out and died right before my eyes. It was so sad. But then we left because we had an appointment and I had no idea what to do with a dead cat. Well no one else knew what to do and it sat out in front of our church for four days in the hot sun and it stunk soooooooo bad. Seriously. So bad. Finally the city cleaned it up. But now knowing what dead cat smells like...I've realized Italy always smells like dead cat!

And I will leave you on that note :) Love you all!