When In Rome....

Monday, November 16, 2015

Bald guys and a day with the anziani

Hey you guys!
Here I am hanging out in BARI.  Gotta say I am totally loving this city.  It's super awesome.  I'm having a fantastic time and I love the people here already!!!!!!!!!

SHOUT OUT to my wonderful mother because today is her birthday.  Also like Tyler, I forgot to how old she's turning.  I think it's early 40s.  I'm gonna go for 43.  (wrong, 44)  All I know is everyone in Italy thinks my mom looks like a movie star (but seriously, people have actually asked me if she is a movie star) besides being pretty, she's the best ever.   She has always taken care of us and made sure we are doing alright.  She is the most selfless person I know.  Also she is super fun and there's no one I’d rather jam out to Chicago or Whitney Houston with.  Happy birthday mom!

This week was pretty crazy.  Monday Tuesday and Wednesday I spent saying goodbye to everyone and packing and running around like a crazy woman.  Wednesday night we grabbed a Pullman and we went to Catania and slept there. The next morning I got up and grabbed a Pullman at 9:00.  It was me and four anziani traveling to Bari. Soooooo weird. Sooooo  weird.  We traveled all day.  I slept, hung out, and it was actually kind of like a vacation.  The bus was practically empty.  Finally at 6:00 I arrived in Bari!  You guys this is the cutest city ever. The ward is fantastic.  I ate at the Bishop’s house my first Sunday in the ward. That's a record!!! The Bishop is the coolest.  He helps so much with missionary work.  Our ward does bomb missionary work.  The sorelle here just had a baptism and we have one scheduled for next week as well!  The work is booming here.  Some info about Bari....

-I live in a house of five sorelle!  Sorella Dew, sorella Tapia, sorella Taylor, and sorella Rackham.  Sorella Rackham and Tapia are my comps.  They are the best.  I wish I could finish my mission in this trio.  It's sooooo fun.  Man living in a house of five is way awesome.  It's super different from living in two, it kind of feels like a sleepover every day.

-Bari is a huge city but it is split in half so there are two wards, Bari Liberta and Bari Poggiofranco.  I serve in Bari Liberta. There are four anziani as well.  So many missionaries!

-Bari is the city where the original Saint Nicholas is buried.  I’ll post a video.

Here are some people we are working with :)
-Stefania. Her son is a new convert of almost a year.  He is around 23. She wants to get baptized sooooooooo bad but her husband won't let her. We fasted for her and as of right now she is getting baptized at the end of November.  We will see what happens!  She is the sweetest lady ever and is pretty much already a member of the ward.  It's awesome how much this ward helps out these investigators.  Stefania is like an Italian mother.  I love her!
-Grazia.  She has two daughters and she is wonderful.  She recently went through a divorce and is looking for peace. She came to stake conference this week and she totally loved it. Whooo hoooooooo.
-Giuseppe is a new convert who is also a YSA and sooo awesome.  There are so many young new members here in Bari and it's so sweet.

There are a bunch of other people but that's all I'm gonna write for this week.

I love Bari for lots of reasons but one of them is that we do cool mostras every weekend.  We lay down sheets and write stuff about Christ on them and talk to people walking by.  It works sooo well here.  I love it!  Anyway, a funny story of the week is what happened while we were doing a mostra.  I stopped this cute couple and this is how the conversation went:
"Hey how are you guys?"
"Great"
(Talking to the wife) "I love your hair!"
"Thanks"
(Talking to the husband who was bald) "I love your hair too."
I thought it might be a funny joke....but then I realized normally you don't joke like that with people you don't know.  The wife started laughing soooooooooooo hard and I was just face palming my forehead and in my mind thinking, "Sorella Brunson, you don't joke about people being hairless when you don't even know them."  It ended up being a good conversation though.

Anyway just know that I love Bari so much and love the mission.  I am excited for my first full week in Bari.  The church is sooooooo true!!!!!!!!!!!!! I loved that this week I happened to get to talk to lots of young teenage girls.  I stopped them and showed them "Grazie a lui" and then testified that Christ loves them. You could just see in their eyes how much they wanted to believe it.  It's tough to be a teenage girl in Italy. I was thankful for the opportunity to help them know they have loving Heavenly Parents and divine potential.  Ohhhh maaaaannnn I love being a missionary.

Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Brunson
 da iPad