When In Rome....

Feliz Navidad!!! Ciao!! Buon Natale!!!!!                                                   Monday, December 29, 2014

Whoo hoo Christmas week was AWESOME!  But I already talked to my parents about it on skype so they can give you all the details.

haha ok I’m just kidding!!!!!!!  Here is how Christmas week went down. 

Christmas Eve: We had TWO dinners. ahhhhhh.  The first was with the Stake President here in Rome, President Dinicaci (didn’t spell that right).  Their family is SO CUTE.  They have a son and two daughters.  President Dinicaci is the head of the translation office for the church in Italy.  He speaks perfect English.  His wife speaks perfect Italian (well obviously because she’s Italian hahahha).  So HE speaks English to the kids and SHE speaks Italian. Their two oldest kids (8 and 6) speak perfect English and Italian. WOAH.  They did this cute nativity for us in a mix of Italian and English and then we ate!  We had potatoes, oranges, lentils with meat, delicious pasta soup, this stuff called struffle or something like that (its fried dough with syrupy stuff on it) IT WAS GREAT.  Some of the mom’s sisters family was over too.  So it was a party.  Also fun fact, President has met almost all of the twelve apostles and the Prophet.  He showed us a picture of President Eyring with a bunch of Nutella jars in the background (people love Nutella here).  He told us all this information about them!  Crazyzzzyzyzyzyzyyz. 

Then we ate our SECOND meal of the night.

This one was more straight up Italian.  Everyone in Italy eats fish for Christmas Eve. When you ask them why, they say "for religious reasons" even if they aren’t catholic....hahahahha. It’s pretty much just a tradition that they have been doing forever.  So our second meal was completely fish.  Both of my companions don’t really like fish...haha. 

We had....swoardfish, salmon lasagna, octopus (yes my friends, suction cups included), and like 10 other types of fish.  It was crazy.  There were 12 of us there.  I have NEVER been so full in my whole life.  I thought I might throw up but I made it through without upchucking anything. 

Christmas day: I woke up and opened my presents from my package.  Then we went to the Sicardi’s house in our ward.  They live in this HUGE house in the country.  Ok, it’s actually a house smaller than mine in America, but it seeems way huge.  We played Uno, ate pranzo, then....the best part of Christmas.  Fratello Sicardi challenged me to PING PONG.  He was pretty good, but I ended up beating him one game, which I was proud of.  Everyone was cracking up at my game face.  I might be a little competitive haha.  But it was stellar, couldn’t have asked for anything better.  It was almost like I was playing tennis.  ahhhh it felt great.

After that we skyped the family!  There were some technical difficulties.  Turns out you have to PLUG THE SPEAKERS IN in order to hear your daughter speak to you from Italy.  That one was TOTALLY fault of the Brunson fam but we got it all worked out and it was delightful.  Kevin has totally changed the most, his voice is sooooo deep. 

The day after Christmas: This is a holiday in Italy called Santo Stefano....I think it’s for a Saint. I haven’t found much about it.  On this day we watched our two Christmas movies (Emperor’s New Groove and also National Treasure).  We also ate French toast for pranzo.  It was soooo werid to watch movies and do nothing.  I felt sooo weird.  I’m glad things are (almost) back to normal. 

I hope that was enough details!  Christmas in Italy is really beautiful.  One thing weird about it though is that all the stores are open on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  When we walked by the main street on Christmas Eve at like 5 or 6 everyone was still out shopping and all the stores were open.  They all eat at like 8:30 on Christmas Eve night and then stay up until 12:00.  They also play this game kind of like bingo but more fun because almost everyone wins a prize.  I can’t remember what it’s called right now.  

All in all my Christmas was fantastic!!!  It’s weird not being home.  But you only get 2 Christmases in Italy so you better live them up, eh?  

Alrighty.  Now for my cool Christmas story.  Listen up.  

We have been asking people this survey.  We ask them "What do you want for Christmas" and "what is the significance of Christmas for you."  I think I already talked about this. Anywhooo we had asked those questions to around 40 people and not ONE person mentioned that the significance of Christmas was the birth of Jesus Christ.  Che triste.  One day, we went out finding for a second before an appointment.  We went up to this little family:  a mom, dad, and a baby.  We ask them what they wanted for Christmas and they said, "we have our baby, that’s all we need."  Then we asked, "What is the significance of Christmas?"  Immediately the wife answered, "Well, it would be the birth of Jesus Christ."  My heart literally dropped in my chest.  We all loooked at each other and then explained to her that she was the first person to mention Jesus Christ as the answer to that question.  She was a little surprised.  After a good conversation we walked away and Sorella Barona told us that the night before in her personal prayer she had asked that we find someone who would say that Jesus Christ was the significance of Christmas.  How cool!!!!!!  And want to know the coolest part? 

GUESS what the names of the parents were that we talked to?

Maria and Giuseppe.  aka MARY and JOESPH.  AND they had a baby. (no, sadly his name was not Jesus.)  Merry Christmas.  

I know Christmas is over, but really it shouldn’t ever be!!!  PLEASE be the person that knows that the significance of Christmas is Jesus Christ.  If He is not the first thing to pop into your head, figure it out and make it that way.  Because of Jesus Christ, we will live again, with our families forever.  Without Him, all is lost.  So yes, Christmas is a great time to specifically remember Christ, but we also remember Him every Sunday when we partake of the sacrament.  Don’t forget what’s REALLY important in life. 

I hope everyone had a stellar Christmas and some cool New Year’s Eve plans.  For my new year’s eve I’m running a 10k in Rome....no joke actually.  President approved it because it’s really hard to do work on that evening anyway.  So this is a good way to talk to some people and get the name of the church out there.   We are making shirts that say, "I’m a Mormon" and wearing our nametags.  Look up we run Rome online!  It’s cool.  Hopefully I can run six miles without dying.  

Alrighty, that’s pretty much all I got for this week.  Oh...and there are maggots on our ceiling we think....like 78 little bugs in little cystalisis hanging from the ceiling...so if anyone knows anything about those go ahead and hit me up.  hahaha our house really struggles.

Oh and Brunson kids.  Funny story.  The other day we were pushing on buttons to be let into apartments (mom has a picture of it she can show you) anyway we pushed on this guy’s button and were like, "We have a message about Jesus Christ, can we share it with you?" and all we heard on the other end was this guy WHEEZE LAUGHING and then he hung up. hahahha it was the funniest thing of our life.  He was literally wheeze laughing like a boss, but kinda it was dumb he was laughing at us.

Birthday shout out to 

Stacy and Scott Ottley

My cool bro Tyler

Cheryl Lyons

Kirk, Parker and Madison Ottley

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!! 

Alright, now I’m gonna go.  Happy Christmas and Merry New Years!!!!!!!!  Eat some yummy treats for me because Italians can cook everything besides treats. 

VI VOGLIO BENE!!!!!!

Sorella Brunson