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Monday, October 5, 2015

Monday, October 05, 2015

Buon October!!!!!!!!! Man how in the world did October get here?  I love October in Italy. It's one of my favorite months. It's the perfect temperature.  People are happy, and no one is stressed about Christmas yet.  It’s great.  Who am I kidding, every month is great in Italy but definitely October is stellar. This week was fun.  We started off the week by putting up a TON of English course posters all over the city, at all the cool "hangout spots."  Since converting the granita lady hasn't worked out quite yet, our next plan is to convert all the bar owners of the coolest bars in the city.  We made some cool friends and have some new awesome potentials.  Whoo hoooo.  The day after putting up all those posters for English course, BOOM we had a ton of students!  That was sweet.  The bigger the English course, the better.  I love getting to know the students and loving them.  Sometimes it feels like they are my children Haha.  I've gotten pretty good at teaching English actually.  So the offer is always standing....if any of you need help I'm here.

Tuesday morning at 7:00 we got a call from the anziani asking if we could go visit a lady in the ward. They failed to mention we would be weeding her garden!  I'm always super down for weeding, don't get me wrong.  But weeding in a skirt is one of the weirdest things ever.  We worked hard and weeded for like 2 and 1/2 hours.  It was actually pretty fun. Then we had the most delicious pranzo evvveeeeerrrrr.  I'm super craving it right now.  Ahhh man it was this pasta that they make with one of the weeds that grows in the garden.  But it's a delicious weed!  It's called....man I can't remember.  But it was so yummy!  

This week I checked off an item from the Sorella Brunson mission bucket list: helping someone carry their groceries!  I think in my mission I have probably asked at least 300 people if I could help them with their groceries.  But they always say no because Italians have a hard time letting people help them.  I was thinking about it this week and I was like, "I'm just really in the mood to help someone with their groceries."  We were walking back from an appointment and BOOM I spied an old lady struggling with heavy groceries.  Perfect.  We pounced.  We asked her if we could help and she said YES!  We ended up like walking a mile with her at an incredibly slow pace because she had gone shopping super far away from her house so she could get a deal (reminded me of my mom).  It was pretty funny.  She was the cutest and would stop and salute like everyone around her.  We actually ended up talking to some of her younger friends and getting their numbers so we could teach them.  It was fantastic.  Now all that's left on the bucket list is kicking a pigeon...

We got a member referral this week!  We went to visit Signorina (the old lady we visit every week).  One of her relatives is a member of the church and was visiting her with her non-member friend.  She was
sooooo nice and the member invited her to listen to our message.  Daniella (the friend of the member) is a woman with a ton of faith and she loves her family.  We are so excited to teach her!

It's a bummer today because our good friend Dihlani is leaving.  She's the one we went to Taormina with a while back on pday.  She has black curly hair?  Anyway, we had to say goodbye to her which was a bummer.  She has found a nice house in Verona and a job so we are really happy for her.  And she will be able to go to church!  She wasn't able to here because she had a really bad job.  We were able to help her get ready to leave and she was so thankful.  It felt great to be there to help her, especially because she doesn't have any family members or anything in this area.

Alright.  Brace yourself for some sad news.  Remember how there is a delicious gelato place right in front of our house?  Well IT’S CLOSING!!!!!!!!!! Noooooooo.  It's such a bummer because we were good friends with all the workers and stuff (not because we got gelato a lot or anything....😜) and we felt prompted to stop by and say hi to one of the workers Saturday night before we went home.  And she was like, "Sorelle I'm so glad you stopped by because I needed to tell you we are closing the gelato shop."  So sad.  We snapped a picture with her though.  There is another perigolosi in Messina it's just further away.  So sad.

Also this week we had the sweetest experience with a lady we met named Pauleen.  So back up.  We have been teaching this guy who works at a gas shop.  His wife is Chinese and one of her friends came to visit from China.  He had told us about her but we hadn't had the opportunity to meet her. One night we were walking home and I felt like I should talk to a person walking by.  So I did and she was like, "Sorry, I don't speak Italian" in English.  We were like, oh that's ok, we speak English.  We started talking to her and found out that she was the friend of the guy we had been teaching!!!  So we made an appointment to see her again.  We got to see her and help her buy a coat and then we sat down and talked.  We asked her about her religious beliefs and she said she believed in God and believed that God sent us to her even though she grew up in a Buddhist background.  She said her aunt is Christian!  We got her email address and gave her a Book of Mormon!  It was the coolest thing ever to teach someone about the Book of Mormon from China!  Plus she works in international trade so she's a very successful business woman.  She was so cute and I'm so thankful Heavenly Father let our paths cross!  If someone would have told me two years ago that I would teach someone from China about the Book of Mormon in Italy I would have been like...uh....what....

Ok so general conference was SO GOOD. I won't be "that missionary" who writes up all my conference notes in my email home, but I encourage you all to watch conference if you didn't get the chance!  It's so awesome.  How awesome to hear the new three apostles speak as well.  Their testimonies were so strong.  I loved how much everyone talked about using Heavenly Father and the atonement of Jesus Christ to get through trials.  I wish everyone here could understand that!  So many people are sad and they just don't know how to find happiness.  I'm so thankful that I have the happiness that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life, no matter what might happen.  We talked to a lady this week sitting on a bench who had so much despair.  She wasn't listening to us and seemed so content to just sit in her own misery!  Do not sit in your own misery!!!!!  Overcome it through faith in Jesus Christ, hope and love.

I love you all so much!  This gospel is so so so so true!
Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Sorella Brunson

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