When In Rome....

Monday, October 26, 2015

You are Mormons.  I can see it on your face.

CIAO CIAO CIAO CIAO and CIAO again.

Here we are. Week....105 of my mission?  boh. I don’t know how many weeks I’ve been here...or how many I have to go honestly. I’m just kinda hanging out in this sweet country. 

This week was full of the normal crazy things: buses, people, dogs, good food etc. 

To start it off we went to Reggio this week for DDM which is across the ocean.  That was cool.  It takes about 40 minutes.  We walked to DDM and it was raining a lot (did I have an umbrella....from my past track record what do you think?) We made it there and had a great district meeting.  But on the way BACK to the station it was POURING. I refused to buy an umbrella until finally I couldn’t take it anymore and bartered with a man on the side of the street who sold me an umbrella for 2.40.  I was SO WET.  We were like, "well, when you’re wet and cold and hungry...you just gotta get gelato!"  So we got gelato from this famous place in Reggio and it was so good.  Gelato is good even in the rain.  Maybe someday I’ll actually have an umbrella in a rainstorm. 

Wednesday we had more rain issues.  We were going to Siracusa to do an exchange with the sorelle there.  We took a pullman to Catania.  It was raining SO HARD.  There was water everywhere and the bus driver could only see like 2 feet in front of him.  But of course it didn’t start raining till we were like half way there so it was too late to do anything about it.  We finally made it to Catania and then hopped on a bus to Siracusa.  It wasn’t raining but the highway was flooded!  We were driving through a legit river.  I’ll send videos.  Traffic stopped for like an hour.  Mamma mia mia mia.  It took us 5 HOURS to get to Siracusa. Normally it takes like 3.  haha.  It was fun though.  Our time in Siracusa was fun with the Sorelle there. We taught a Muslim about the plan of salvation that God has for us.  It was interesting.  I LOVE learning about Muslim’s religious beliefs so it was cool.  Their beliefs are similar to ours but it always makes me so sad they don’t believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior!  He is central to everything.  The Sorelle there are a crackup and we laughed a lot.  Plus we went to ward choir which is always an adventure in Italy.  So intense man. One time in ward choir the director made me sing a solo in front of EVERYONE.  I was freaking out.  Now I’ve become sort of Italian so I’m just like, "eh, whatevs." 

Once we made the voyage back from Siracusa that night we had the cake war!  It was a ward activity. Here is how I imagined the cake war. We would bring cakes, they would judge them secretly and then announce the winners.  NOPE.  Forgot I was in Italy.  They took each of the cakes one by one, and with no shame told everyone EXACTLY what they thought about the cakes.  Like, "I give it a 1 because it’s too dry and this type of cake shouldn’t be like this." In front of everyone.  Well...we made brownies...but they didn’t really work out too well because of a lot of circumstances that I won’t explain, but yeah, these brownies had several, several issues.  So they are going through all the cakes, one by one, and just MASSACRING them and giving them really low numbers and we were just like ohhh man we need to pull our brownies out NOW.  One of the grades was presentation....hahahah we had just thrown them quickly in a Tupperware container that is like a million years old.  I mean literally on a scale of 1 to 10 we put about an effort of a 2 for these brownies.  My heart was pounding as the judges ate the brownies.  Ohhhh man you should have seen their faces.  They were like "hmmm… I wonder who could have possibly made these brownies" (cause brownies are American) then they judged them pretty harshly.  We were cracking up.  One guy said, "Sadly I’m not allowed to give out a zero...." hahahha.  They really weren’t that bad but it was really funny.  I love how Italians just say what they think, no shame.  Sorry if I’m too blunt when I get home.  A cool thing about this cake war is that the lady that takes care of Signorina came!   We are going to teach her and we are super duper excited.   She is the cutest ever and she loves when we come see Signorina.  

Also this week we went to see another old friend we have, Giovanna and we explained the Book of Mormon to the people who take care of her!  There was the CUTEST dog there, one of the lady and the tramp ones.  I could totally own that dog.  She was so cute.  She came right up to us and just hopped up in our laps. Her owner was shocked and said she never does that with anyone!  She said, "This dog stays away from people who have bad souls, so you guys must have pretty good souls."  Then she started talking to us about this church!  So cool.  

We had dinner this week with Luisa and Leona!  It was so fun.  It was a Philippine feast.  It was so cool to see how Leona is taking care of Luisa.  Luisa came to church this Sunday for the first time in 5 years.  It was SWEETTTTTTTT.  She sat by Leona and it was so cool to see them strengthening each other.  

Funny comment of the week from the best ever Sorella Embley.  We were walking up a huge hill.  Remember viale Europa? double that hill and that’s the hill that Luisa lives up.  We saw this sign that said "Helen Keller" on it and Sorella Embley was like "hmm do you think that’s like a driving school or something?"  

We got one extra hour of sleep on Sunday which was so awesome.  Last year me and sorella Marquis forgot about it and showed up to church an hour early.  I was like "nooooo way am I gonna do that again."  I felt like a sinner because I was sleeping in till 7:30 but it wasn’t breaking the rules but my subconscious felt like I was and so there was this internal battle inside of me for the whole hour that I was "sleeping in" mamma mia. haha.  

On this week’s agenda is a Halloween party with English course and the ward that we are planning AH.  If anyone has Halloween game ideas email them to me.   And also I have to go to my permesso appointment BLEH.  Also Reggio anziani have a baptism and our anziani have one as well!  Two Africans that are the bomb.com.  I’m so excited to see a baptism.  It’s so fun and awesome!  Hopefully some of the people we are working with will come and see it.  

Other than that we are just working really hard to get some new investigators and teach them!  We were excited this Sunday because there were SO MANY people in church.  It’s been great to really work with the ward and the members and see how many of them are coming to church.  I love Messina! I never want to leave.

Last story. Half funny, half spiritual thought.  We were walking home at the end of the night and all of the sudden we heard this homeless man shout at us (in English) "YOU ARE MORMONS.” and then more quietly he said, "I can see it on your face."  We laughed about it but as I was thinking about it I was like, "Man, I hope for the rest of my life that people will be able to see on my face that I believe in Jesus Christ.”  If you are Mormon, or Christian, or Catholic can people see it on your face?  Is it part of your countenance?  Has it made up who you are?  Do people know you believe in Jesus Christ? Do they know your standards, who you are, and what you stand for?  Are you willing to keep those standards, even if it may set you apart from what the world does?  Just some soul searching questions.  I hope that I am always known as a believer in Christ, and that others can see it on my face.  

I love you all! I hope you have the best week ever.  

VI VOGLIO BENE ASSAI!!!!

Sorella Brunson