Wednesday was our P Day and we went to Ravenna to spend the day with the missionaries there. We went to lunch there and on the menu was a pizza with habanero peppers and ghost pepper oil; it wasn't as spicy as I thought and hoped it would be, but it was so gretchen good. The next day came upon me and wowzers, the ring of fire is real. That pizza was as spicy coming out as it was going in. In the bathroom next to the glorious throne is a heater, which only produces heat all gretchen day. It was a pretty heated moment. What a time. It was incredible, quite the experience, but I don't recommend it. Mom if you decide not to include that one on the blog, thas totes fine.
After months (most likely years), the bathtub drain has been unclogged. So hallelujah amen *mmmhm amen brother*! Woohoo! This appartment is absolutely disgusting. Mom and nonny you both would gag if you saw this place. I'm disgusted with it, which says a lot. I would be confident to bet that this place hasn't been thoroughly cleaned since the Sorelle were here a couple years ago, but I'm a missionary and Frarbin said I cant bet. It's nasty in here, but we got it cleaned up because the senior missionaries do cleaning inspections and they came on Friday to inspect our appartment. It's still junky, lots of clutter, but not much I can do about that. I refuse to clean up my companion's messes and I'm done letting him wash the dishes his way. He just rinses the dishes and that's it. Its gretchen nasty and all our dishes are sticky and have crusted food on them. We don't have a dish washer so everything is hand washed. Yeeeeet.
We're gonna back up to Thursday real quick. Thursday was one of the most unproductive days I've had as a missionary, which really felt horrible. I felt as though I had wasted God's time by sitting around. I got lots of studying in which was good. The reason we didn't do much is because my companion is "sick". That didnt stop us when I was sick, but I am still a teenager and he hit 20 so now "handle with care". What I really enjoyed on Thursday, was during English class. Only one person showed up which is kind of a bummer, but he showed up. He brought an Italian book with him for the sole purpose of having me read it with him out loud. I got to hear how my pronunciation is compared to a true Italian which was awesome. It helped me know how to better pronounciate certain things. I'm still praying that more people start coming to English class. If anyone has ideas on how to teach English, I would love to know what they are. The way we teach is letting the people read a poster about simple, every day things like haircuts and all the vocab for that. It doesn't seem too effective and I think we waste the person's time.
Now we're back to Friday and the senior missionaries stop by to inspect our home. Sorella Roper was looking in the kitchen (which I cleaned) and she was impressed. She was like "Anziano Roper, come look how clean this kitchen is!" And I was thinking to myself "shoot, my momma done did teach me good" and yes mom, you would have been proud. So we passed the inspections and they left us some treats. Sorella Roper also told me that the police at the Bologna train station called and said they had my packet of documents. I had left those documents on my way from Milan to Forlì, so almost 4 weeks ago. We got to go to Bologna on Saturday. We're out walking to Centro and a little man stops us, my guess is he's 5'4" MAYBE. He says to my comp "you can walk with lots of confidence with that guy behind you" as he pointed to me haha. He kept grabbing my arms and punching my chest with his old man power. He's from Sicily so it was crazy hard to understand his Italian. It all just sounded like a slur of words and sounds put together. We headed to our weekly service at the charity kitchen and that's always an interesting time. I'm surprised with how picky people are with food when they have so little and I think to myself.
Saturday, real service. It's about time. Every day, I see opportunities to serve people and I suggest to my companion that we should go help them. He usually responds with "it isnt on the schedule anziano." or "we don't really have time today." So I decided to leave him and go help people and he usually just stops and watches. I decided that my 21 months left are about service, not what's on the schedule although some of the things are important. The service we did on Saturday that was planned was to help 2 of our investigators move. We got everything moved in now they just have to unpack their stuff. They want to meet with us when they finish settling in which is awesome. I'm excited even though I cant speak the language yet. It's coming slowly, but my comprehension is at a standstill. That's okay though, itll get better.
On Sunday when we were home after church and doing our personal study, someone rang our doorbell. My comp and I looked at each other with puzzled faces because no one rings our door bell. I go answer the door, she looked at me and then saw my nametag and said in Italian "oh I thought 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' was a joke." She was holding communist propaganda and asked if we would like one to help support. We said no and she went her way still laughing. On all the doorbells here, it has a sticker or tag that usually says the family name or business name. That's what she was talking about.
Monday came along and we went to Sorella Rossi's shop to do service. We're there from 10:30 to 1:30 and then we go to her son's home for lunch and to share a spiritual message. After lunch, we backtracked about 2 miles to get a bike for me. We get just just about a mile away from our home and *grinding sounds* I look at my back tire and there's a problem. My comp is just staring at the bike for a solid 5 minutes and just starts walking back. The back tire had come loose and had lodged itself against the rod so it wouldn't even move. I carried it back 3 ish miles to where we got it. It works now and it's awesome, it feels so much better on my back.
Monday night we were starving, so I made some pasta. The pasta finished cooking and I had the strainer out and started pouring the contents of the pot into the strainer. I guess I poured too much out too quickly and a good amount of the boiling water splashed out and onto my thigh. I didnt feel it at first so I was just staring at my leg with horror, waiting for the burn. It burned. I didnt have a clear spot to put the pot down so I was holding it and couldn't pull my sweats off that was burning my gretchen leg. Wowzers it was great. The pasta turned out good though, that's all that really matters.
Something molto gnarly happened. We had just finished district meeting and doing our power hour so we got on the train to head home. The train cabin that we were in was completely empty, there was no one else but us. I don't like sitting with my comp so I sit on the other side of the train by myself. A younger man, about my age, walked in and chose to sit in front of me, in a train that is completely empty. I was drafting all this good stuff above which I shouldn't have been. He asked me in Italian if I was a protestant and I told him I didnt understand so he started speaking English. He repeated his question in English and I told him no and he asked why our church is unique. I got to tell him about the plan of salvation, modern revelation through prophets, and the God Head as 3 separate beings. We talked for about 20 ish minutes and he took our pamphlets and we got his number. Ah it was so cool to have that experience. It was surprising and different because the people here don't want to hear our message, and he was asking all about it. It was super cool.
After months (most likely years), the bathtub drain has been unclogged. So hallelujah amen *mmmhm amen brother*! Woohoo! This appartment is absolutely disgusting. Mom and nonny you both would gag if you saw this place. I'm disgusted with it, which says a lot. I would be confident to bet that this place hasn't been thoroughly cleaned since the Sorelle were here a couple years ago, but I'm a missionary and Frarbin said I cant bet. It's nasty in here, but we got it cleaned up because the senior missionaries do cleaning inspections and they came on Friday to inspect our appartment. It's still junky, lots of clutter, but not much I can do about that. I refuse to clean up my companion's messes and I'm done letting him wash the dishes his way. He just rinses the dishes and that's it. Its gretchen nasty and all our dishes are sticky and have crusted food on them. We don't have a dish washer so everything is hand washed. Yeeeeet.
We're gonna back up to Thursday real quick. Thursday was one of the most unproductive days I've had as a missionary, which really felt horrible. I felt as though I had wasted God's time by sitting around. I got lots of studying in which was good. The reason we didn't do much is because my companion is "sick". That didnt stop us when I was sick, but I am still a teenager and he hit 20 so now "handle with care". What I really enjoyed on Thursday, was during English class. Only one person showed up which is kind of a bummer, but he showed up. He brought an Italian book with him for the sole purpose of having me read it with him out loud. I got to hear how my pronunciation is compared to a true Italian which was awesome. It helped me know how to better pronounciate certain things. I'm still praying that more people start coming to English class. If anyone has ideas on how to teach English, I would love to know what they are. The way we teach is letting the people read a poster about simple, every day things like haircuts and all the vocab for that. It doesn't seem too effective and I think we waste the person's time.
Now we're back to Friday and the senior missionaries stop by to inspect our home. Sorella Roper was looking in the kitchen (which I cleaned) and she was impressed. She was like "Anziano Roper, come look how clean this kitchen is!" And I was thinking to myself "shoot, my momma done did teach me good" and yes mom, you would have been proud. So we passed the inspections and they left us some treats. Sorella Roper also told me that the police at the Bologna train station called and said they had my packet of documents. I had left those documents on my way from Milan to Forlì, so almost 4 weeks ago. We got to go to Bologna on Saturday. We're out walking to Centro and a little man stops us, my guess is he's 5'4" MAYBE. He says to my comp "you can walk with lots of confidence with that guy behind you" as he pointed to me haha. He kept grabbing my arms and punching my chest with his old man power. He's from Sicily so it was crazy hard to understand his Italian. It all just sounded like a slur of words and sounds put together. We headed to our weekly service at the charity kitchen and that's always an interesting time. I'm surprised with how picky people are with food when they have so little and I think to myself.
Saturday, real service. It's about time. Every day, I see opportunities to serve people and I suggest to my companion that we should go help them. He usually responds with "it isnt on the schedule anziano." or "we don't really have time today." So I decided to leave him and go help people and he usually just stops and watches. I decided that my 21 months left are about service, not what's on the schedule although some of the things are important. The service we did on Saturday that was planned was to help 2 of our investigators move. We got everything moved in now they just have to unpack their stuff. They want to meet with us when they finish settling in which is awesome. I'm excited even though I cant speak the language yet. It's coming slowly, but my comprehension is at a standstill. That's okay though, itll get better.
On Sunday when we were home after church and doing our personal study, someone rang our doorbell. My comp and I looked at each other with puzzled faces because no one rings our door bell. I go answer the door, she looked at me and then saw my nametag and said in Italian "oh I thought 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' was a joke." She was holding communist propaganda and asked if we would like one to help support. We said no and she went her way still laughing. On all the doorbells here, it has a sticker or tag that usually says the family name or business name. That's what she was talking about.
Monday came along and we went to Sorella Rossi's shop to do service. We're there from 10:30 to 1:30 and then we go to her son's home for lunch and to share a spiritual message. After lunch, we backtracked about 2 miles to get a bike for me. We get just just about a mile away from our home and *grinding sounds* I look at my back tire and there's a problem. My comp is just staring at the bike for a solid 5 minutes and just starts walking back. The back tire had come loose and had lodged itself against the rod so it wouldn't even move. I carried it back 3 ish miles to where we got it. It works now and it's awesome, it feels so much better on my back.
Monday night we were starving, so I made some pasta. The pasta finished cooking and I had the strainer out and started pouring the contents of the pot into the strainer. I guess I poured too much out too quickly and a good amount of the boiling water splashed out and onto my thigh. I didnt feel it at first so I was just staring at my leg with horror, waiting for the burn. It burned. I didnt have a clear spot to put the pot down so I was holding it and couldn't pull my sweats off that was burning my gretchen leg. Wowzers it was great. The pasta turned out good though, that's all that really matters.
Something molto gnarly happened. We had just finished district meeting and doing our power hour so we got on the train to head home. The train cabin that we were in was completely empty, there was no one else but us. I don't like sitting with my comp so I sit on the other side of the train by myself. A younger man, about my age, walked in and chose to sit in front of me, in a train that is completely empty. I was drafting all this good stuff above which I shouldn't have been. He asked me in Italian if I was a protestant and I told him I didnt understand so he started speaking English. He repeated his question in English and I told him no and he asked why our church is unique. I got to tell him about the plan of salvation, modern revelation through prophets, and the God Head as 3 separate beings. We talked for about 20 ish minutes and he took our pamphlets and we got his number. Ah it was so cool to have that experience. It was surprising and different because the people here don't want to hear our message, and he was asking all about it. It was super cool.
Love you all and thank you for the support, it helps keep me going when the going gets tough
