Helloooo helllooo helllloooo! Monday,
September 29, 2014
Sorella Brunson here! Ah I was so excited
to email today! It was great to read your emails and get all the details about
everyone’s lives. It feels good to know what is going on in the Brunson
household. You may be the cutest family in the whole wide world. Actually
you totally are.
My companion. She is from Pleasant Grove,
Utah. She is the best person in the whole wide world. I have
learned a ton from her. Mostly I think I’ve learned how to have fun while
doing missionary work. It think that’s a main reason she is training
me. She only has one transfer left after this. Normally trainers
stay with the person they are training for two transfers, but she might get transferred
after six weeks for her last six weeks. So we aren’t sure how long we
will be together. I might be her last companion! She is amazing at teaching and talking to
people. She has taught me how to easily teach the gospel and how to talk
to random people and make it not weird. Plus we’ve had looots of fun and
laughed a lot. It’s wonderful.
Here is my schedule!!!!!!
6:30 Wake up.
I can’t believe it’s already six thirty because I literally JUST WENT TO
SLEEP.
6:30-7:00 Work out. I do one of my little workout routines like
crunches, jumping jacks, squats, pushups, stuff like that. I’m pretty bufffff
obviously.
7:00-8:00 Get ready. This consists of cereal. ahhhh wait
lemme tell you about cereal. It’s way different, but still appetizing. I found some stuff like coco dinobites. It
doesn’t taste like them at all but kinda. I still love cereal. Most people here don’t
eat breakfast. If they do they eat these cookies hahaha cookies for
breakfast. Welcome to Italy. They literally say on the bag,
"breakfast cookies."
8:00-11:00 Personal study, comp study, and then
the training program called 12 weeks.
12 weeks we just do like role plays and read
scriptures and my comp tells me about how to be a good missionary.
11:00-1:00 We go to an appointment if we have one, or
finding or other stuff.
1:00-4:00 THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. Also
know as pranzo. Also known as Italians take a huuuuuge lunch nap break.
ugh. so we have an hour for lunch and language study and additional
study. We can’t really do anything during that time unless we get invited
for pranzo at members houses. So everyone in the mission chills and studies and
eats lunch and stuff during that time. Our dinner hour is also attached
to that time.
4:00-9:00 Work our tail ends off. Teach
people, investigators, members, less actives, and works. It’s a
partttyyy.
9:00 come home (or 9:30 if we have an appointment).
Do nightly planning. Eat dinner. YES EAT DINNER AT 9:00!!!! hahahah
I’m always so hungry. Everyone says it’s the life of a greenie to be
hungry all the time. Someday I might be used to waiting till 9:30 to eat
haha but definitely not yet bleeeh but It’s all good seriously.
We eat pasta lots. It’s delicious. Last night we had pasta with
pesto and cheese and I died and went to heaven. Tomatoes here also taste
better almost everything here tastes better. Except for candy and cereal. But
real food wise, yes.
To get around Ladispoli we walk. My shoes
have been great! My feet haven’t hurt a bit. Except for my borne
flats, the ones with holes in the top, cut my heal open but it’s getting
better. Our farthest appointment is like 30 min away. Ladispoli is super small so unless we are
going to Rome, we walk. If we are gonig to Rome we take a train. We
go to the station and hop on the train on platform three. It takes us to
the main station in Rome, termini. From termini we take buses or the
metro depending on where we are going. It’s
prettty easy actually. We buy an extremely expensive pass every month
that lets us ride buses and trains anywhere around here. It’s like 73 euro idk
what that is in dollars. a lot of money.
Mom, I have not been cold in this country! I kid you not (only in the apartment). We
are suuuuper lucky and have ac in our bedroom so I get cold there but
everywhere else, no. AC barely exists and Italians don’t like it.
So I am NEVER COLD AND IT’S THE BEST THING OF MY WHOLE LIFE. The weather
is starting to cool down a little. Right now it’s like the perfect temp, 70
degrees, an ocean breeze. I’m loving life. It will get cold eventually. I will buy
boots then, probably in Rome and I’ll figure out the coat thing there
too. I can’t imagine being cold yet haha.
Here is a story for you.
Me and Sister Marquies were walking around,
trying to find people who wanted to talk to us. There was some loud
thunder, so we thought maybe it might rain. Obviously we have no weather
forecast on our phone or no newspaper, so we don’t know nada about the weather.
We were walking and then literally everyone was just gone from the
streets. Italians don’t like thunder. So we kept walking and
decided maybe to head in the direction of home in case it started raining. All of the sudden this HUGE wind came out of
nowhere. Gravel was pelting us in the face from the street! Then it
started poooouurrrring rain so we ran into this store to take cover. The
store is called a Chinese store. It’s because Chinese people run it and
there’s like EVERYTHING you could ever need in that store. So it was a
good store to be stuck in haha. All the sudden stuff was going crazy. The
wind was super strong and the rain was pelting and it started hailing and the
street was getting full of water. It was crazy. We waited a bit and
took some funny videos. Once it calmed down a bit we decided we had to go home.
We bought some extremely good-looking rain ponchos and headed home hahah.
We looked ridiculous. A member
told us it was a TORNADO!!! We were in a real-life tornado. haha crazy. I’m
guessing we weren’t in the eye of the storm but still pretty exciting.
Don’t worry mom, the Lord protected us and He even sent us to a Chinese store
so we could have ponchos and not get our dresses wet on the way home.
Yay!
Ok.... this letter is super long and I’m
running out of time. Let’s make next week a letter more about the
culture. That’s what I really wanna talk about a lot!!!! haha It’s sooo
great. But this lettter is sooo long and I’m not sure if people are even
still reading. I can tell you that most Italian
stereotypes are true. Everyone is pretty loud, even if they aren’t mad.
There is pizza and gelato everywhere and it’s delicious. One weird culture thing, in America old
grandpas are not super talkative but here sometimes if you walk past the
men, especially old men, they say "ciao bella" which means, hello
beautiful. It’s very strange. We
ignore them. Men are pretty forward here but it isn’t too bad in Ladspoli.
Some teenager took a selife with us the other day so that was funny. I
promise more about the culture next week!!!!
Here are some questions you asked about last
week.
What was it like to be interviewed by the
President?
Since it was 2 in the morning it was
difficult. I was sooo tired. He didn’t interview me. He told
me that when he was called as president he prayed to know what to tell the missionaries and
he got the answer that he should tell them individually that Jesus Christ and Heavenly
Father love them. So he told me that. The spirit was sooo strong,
our mission president is so close to Christ, you can feel it! I was tired
so I teared up a little. He interviewed us before we had zone conference
though so I talked to him again. He told me to keep up the good
work. He also told Sorella Marquies that 5 people are ready to hear the
gospel in Ladispoli this transfer. So we need to find them!!!!! It
was really cool.
What is his wife like?
hehe She is the funnest, best person. She
totally tells it how it is and its sooooo funny. Plus she loves taking
pictures. As you can tell from the blog and which I’m sure you
love. She looves the missionaries and its always great to see her.
How is the mission home set up?
The mission home isn’t super close to the
temple, like 20 min maybe? They are two rooms downstairs with only
bunk beds in them. So room for like 8 sisters in each room. Same
thing upstairs for elders. And there is ONE BATHROOM for the elders and
one for the sisters so it was crazy taking showers. The house itself
is beeeautiful. It used to be owned by Mussolini or something like that.
It’s old and beautiful. I’ll take a pic next time I’m there. There is a living room, kitchen and two dining
rooms. It’s pretty big as far as Italian houses go. In fact, it’s
the only house I’ve seen since I’ve been here.
What was it like for the girls that had to
leave on the train at 4:30 am and only got a couple hours of sleep?
They were ok because they could sleep on the
train. The train they went on has beds and stuff so I’m sure they slept
the whole train ride. They were going down south, to like Sicily or down in
that area. It’s really fun to go down south. It’s also fun to serve
in Rome. You wouldn’t want to serve in Rome your whole mission though. Eventually I hope I get transferred down south
for sure. But I’ll do whatever!!! Serving in Rome is crazy. It’s
really dirty and stuff. so ya.
The mission home is in Rome. Also in Rome
is the mission offices. They are in one of the Rome churches. We went to Rome
every day last week because we had zone conference. And since Sister
Marquies is a Sister Training Leader she had a conference the next day.
So me and Sorella Robertson were companions! Me and Sorella Marquie went to Rome, met them
in Rome, and then me and Sorella Robetson went (alone) back to Ladispoli! AHHHHHH. I was in charge! In Italy
BY MYSELF!! Wow. It was stupendous. We taught a lesson in English
to a lady. It was a way cool experience to teach with Sorella Robertson
again. The next morning we did some Finding (trackting). We talked
to people by asking where the best pizza place was. hehe. then we talked
to them about English course and a little about the church. We had pizza
and gelato and looked at the beach. It was a party. I’m glad you
saw the picture! Anyway we go to Rome lots for things. Like this
week we are going for district meeting. This pday we are going to play
volleyball with a bunch of people in Ostia and in the next couple pdays we will
go to Rome and look at stuff. I did get to see the coliseum because we
hoped off and that bus stop for a second on our way to zone conference. It
is HUGE. haha it was so weird to see it in real life. wow.
Phew. My fingers hurt bad. I love
you all so much! I sent you a letter. I hope you get it. It
has more information about life in it. Tell me when you get it. I
will send you some more letters with more fun stories and stuff. Also
probs send some individual letters. It’s just kinda expensive so I have
to be wise and write a lot in them before I send them haha.
Spiritual thought: I sent you a photo last week
of a family with two kids that got baptized. We went to visit them
yesterday. The mom was at church for the first time in 3 months and the
whole family was together! All like 5 or 6 of them. We visited them
after church. I had only visited them one time before this. It was
before the kids were baptized. This visit, they were a different family
then they were before. The Spirit was in their house! They were
happy and all together. I testify that through baptism, attending church,
and being closer to God, the Spirit can CHANGE LIVES and the gospel can CHANGE
FAMILIES. I am so blessed to be watching peoples’ lives change. It
is indescribable how blessed I am to be here. It’s tough, the language
isn’t the easiest thing in the world. But I communicate what I can and
let the Spirit (and my companion haha) do the rest. The Gospel of Jesus
Christ is on the earth TODAY. WHAT A BLESSING!!
Ok, I must flee. I love you all times a
million!!! Sorry this letter was so long. Mom I love you!! I
am glad to hear life is going well. I’m thankful for you so much. I
miss you. And I miss talking to you all the time. Keep having fun
and loving life. I LOVE YOU ALL!
Much love,
Sorella Brunson
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