Buongior!!
It's been yet another stellar week here in Bari. This city rocks. Italy rocks. Can you guys believe that it's almost Christmas? How did that happen? We put up our Christmas tree in our apartment this week. Yippie! Also happy Thanksgiving. We are going to have a Thanksgiving pranzo with the Hansens, the senior couple serving in this area. It's going to be so legit and so much fun!!!!!!! I'm stoked. I've heard Sorella Hansen is the best cook ever.
Life in a trio is good. There are so many benefits to being in three. Some examples. We can ride in a car with anyone even if they are male. We can ride with the anziani in the car. We can do two lessons at once if we grab one member. Mannnnnn it's the life. This week was kinda crazy because on Thursday we had three things we wanted to do all at the same time. So we got all of the gans (young single adults) and each of us went with one of the gans and covered the three appointments. It was way way cool! It takes a lot of planning though. It's nice to get to know the members that way. Even though yesterday was my first real Sunday here (my actual first Sunday was stake conference) I knew lots of members already so that was sweet. I only have two transfers here so I've been working hard to learn everything fast.
Ok so other cool things that happened this week. Giuseppe received the priesthood. That was way awesome. You guys he is so funny. We will be teaching him and start wrapping it up and he'll be like, "Sorelle please, just one more hour!" He loves learning about the gospel. I'll tell the story about how he was found. So there was a gans in our ward who had been inactive for a pretty long time. He decided it was finally time to come back to church (this was about a year ago). When he started coming back to church he brought his two best friends and his girlfriend with him and they got baptized. Giuseppe was one of those friends! He loves the gospel so much, it's the best. After lessons with him I'm always like, "the church is so true." He asks us for Book of Mormons and gives them out like candy. Tonight we are teaching his family about the gospel!! They came to his baptism and loved it. So it's really exciting.
Also this week I got to go visit Sorella Battezzato’s aunt! Sorella Battezzato is a missionary in our mission who is Italian but grew up in Boston. I served with her in Catania and when I got transferred to Bari she asked me to go visit her aunt. It was awesome. Her aunt used to be totally against the church, but has been softening up over the years. When we went to her house she asked us really good questions and we are really hoping she can start learning more about the church. She loves the missionaries.
We had a cool lesson with Grazia this week. I was with two members. We walked in and Grazia was just super angry and not having a good day at all. You could just feel the tension in her household. We started talking though and taught her about overcoming trials with faith. You could feel so easily the spirit enter the room and the atmosphere completely change. One of the members I was with shared the story of Joseph smith when he was in Carthage jail and bore strong testimony. Both the girls I was with are about to go on missions and it was so awesome seeing them testify with power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was a lesson that I won't forget! After the lessons Grazia was so much more tranquil, and thanked us for coming.
We all did a zone blitz in Bitonto this week. It's still so weird for me to be so close to so many missionaries. It was cool. We all went to Bitonto and split up and tried to convert the whole city. I had some good conversations and it was a blast.
Here’s a super crazy story. So we were sitting in sacrament meeting, in the middle of taking the sacrament when all of a sudden BOOM. This super old fratello faints and falls on the lap of the guy sitting next to him. Everyone started freaking out and rushed over to help him. He was like crying and moaning and we were just sitting staring like "ahhhhhhhh." It was pretty scary. We left the room to give everyone some space and help with the little kids. They called the ambulance and gave him a priesthood blessing. He left and everyone got back to their seats and we continued. About 15 minutes later we were listening to the children sing (it was the primary program which was sooo cute by the way) when Sorella Tapia nudges me and is like, "Sorella Brunson, the ambulance is back!" All of the sudden, the cute old man walks into the room, and goes and sits back down where he was sitting before! Like nothing happened! Apparently he had really high blood pressure, but they fixed some stuff in the ambulance and so he ordered them that they better not THINK about taking him to the hospital, and that he was going back to church. So cute.
So yeah, I guess that's like pretty much the week. I'm finally getting to know all about the people we work with, and I don't feel as lost all the time haha. Transfer calls are on December 5th. If both my companions leave I hope I can take over the city. I think it'll all be good. Today we are going to Lecce for pday! Look it up, it's a beautiful city. I'm so excited. Also they have really good food there. I'll send some pics later probably.
Life is great you guys. One of the best experiences we had this week was with a less active family. We went to visit them and were able to really hit it off. We were all rolling on the floor laughing. Then we gave an awesome spiritual thought from Ether 6:5-11. Read it! The spirit was really, really strong. Normally these people aren't super open to the missionaries. So it was so cool. They even invited us to come back again for pranzo. It was a huge miracle and I was reminded for the 4,000 time that it really is Heavenly Father who leads the work. I'm glad he's the one in charge!
I hope you all have a great week of thanksgiving!! Eat some yummy food and say a prayer of gratitude. We really do have so much to be thankful for. I'm thankful for another thanksgiving in Italy among these wonderful people.
Vi voglio bene!
Assai!
Sorella Brunson
Inviato da iPad
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