Week 22: A Muslim, a Catholic, a Buddhist, and two Mormon missionaries walk into a cafe. :)

Hello!

Did I make you all curious by my title? You should be.. But you will
have to wait until I write about Friday. ;)

So, this week, we had DDM. DDM is the best, because I think the
Catania area just gets the weirdest personalities for missionaries,
including myself. It's kind of funny. But this week, Sister G,
the American one in the ward gave us peanut butter and a batch of
chocolate cupcake mix. We were so excited, and so we go to the store
to buy eggs and make the muffins when we get home for lunch. As I am
mixing the cupcake batter, I think I realized that I have been seeing
too much dog poop around the city, because they almost didn't look
appetizing anymore. Dad, that is in return for all of your waste
remarks. ;) It would be an icky civil engineering project to determine
how much energy could be made by all the waste in the streets of
Catania. Anyone want to figure it out?

This week, I also realized that the princess Lizzie who wouldn't ever
touch or walk in something gross is not the same person anymore. It is
a daily occurrence here that I would rather not think about, but it
doesn't horrify me anymore. I'm writing this as a pigeon is circling
around my feet.

This week, I made a goal to do something scary or something out of my
comfort zone every single day. My goal kind of failed, but that is
what I am trying to do to exercise my faith this transfer. Maybe it
will become a twice a week thing, haha. On Thursday, I decided to
approach a girl on the bus and try to talk to her. I really hate
approaching strangers and just jumping into a topic about the gospel,
so I complimented her clothing, which was actually really cute. Then,
we were getting off the bus, and we figured out that we live on the
same street, and then she said she was a university student studying
physics and how she doesn't really know what to believe about God
anymore. We gave her a pass along card and invited her to English
course. Her name was Maria Rita and I was really glad that I decided
to talk to her even if nothing comes of it.

I also finally finished Jesus the Christ this week. 800 pages of pure
goodness. At the end, it kind of starts to talk about the Catholic
Church and the apostasy, but my companion and I decided that if
anything came out of our mission... Is that we know and we will always
know that the apostasy is a real thing and that the restoration was
completely necessary. Because I finished Jesus the Christ, I decided
to start the New Testament and that is what my spiritual thought will
come out of at the end of my letter. :)

After English course, we have to take a bus home, and the last few
times, it has been really super late. There is also this guy who waits
with us, and his super patient wife. Everytime it is late, he starts
raging in Sicilian about how the bus system is horrible here and that
nobody should pay for tickets because they don't deserve the money.
And then one time, he was explaining to someone that he always sees
the missionaries waiting for buses and how we don't show our
frustration about the bus being late. And he didn't understand. But it
is kind of cool that he noticed how we don't show our frustration even
though inside.. We are really frustrated. One day this week, we waited
for buses for a total of 2 hrs and 20 minutes one day. We could have
had 2 more lessons! It really does get ridiculous, but I can't imagine
Christ becoming upset about the bus system, so I won't either.

On Wednesday this week, there was a crazy storm. I was pretty sure
that it was the 36 hour storm spoken about last week, but that came a
week later. I woke up at 4:30 from the rain, and it continued to rain
all morning and all afternoon. It stopped for about an hour and then
started to rain again. All 4 of our appointments cancelled and we
decided that if the uphill part of Catania was flooding, we were
probably best off if we stayed inside. I was going crazy about halfway
through the day. It was frustrating, because I would much rather to be
outside than inside all day. Also, Anziano Bellini's iPad got ruined
because of the rain. And the water was said to be knee deep. That is
crazy!

Daylight savings was also Saturday night. That was an absolutely
wonderful day as I actually feel rested when I wake up now. It also
helps that it is lighter outside when we wake up. The extra hour of
sleep was heavenly. :)

We received some bad news from Destiny this week. She said that she
was having a hard time at work and that she started college classes
and she felt overwhelmed. And then she dropped us. That was the first
time that I have been dropped, and it was the most heartbreaking thing
ever. I hope the missionaries here in Catania will keep in contact
with her, because someday she will accept the gospel.

This week was the first week that we actually had a real companionship
inventory. And it was really nice to finally have one where it didn't
end in being upset with each other. To answer everyone's questions, I
would love to "kill" (stay with her until her mission ends) Sorella Decker
 even if I have to stay in Catania
longer, however if that happens, I want us to be blown out and then I
won't have to be here for 7.5 months. Everybody's birth cities are
hard to break out of as everyone continues to see you as a greenie
even when you start to learn the language better. Catania will always
have a piece of my heart though.

Okay, so I can't remember what I told you about Mo and Ida. But that
is what the title of my thing has to do with. I loved both girls
Angela brought with her to our lesson. They are both super sweet and
they just reminded me that Heavenly Father has children everywhere in
the whole entire world even in Vietnam and in Iran. We ran into Ida on
Saturday and we got a gelato and we had a lovely conversation with
her. We decided that she would totally accept the gospel if we could
teach her. However, we aren't allowed to teach Muslims because they
can be killed for changing their religions if they ever go back to
their home country. It is a sad situation. But all the great people
from those countries that would have accepted the gospel if they had
the chance will still get to live in Heavenly Father's presence.

And my last thought for this email is from Matthew Chapter 3. I've
been reading the institute manual along with the New Testament and I
found something cool. It said that when Christ was being tempted, his
answers were immediate. He was tempted and he automatically said, no.
I'm not going to do that and here is the reason why. I really liked
this idea of immediate obedience. I really think that when we choose
ourselves to be obedient and that we are willing to be obedient, we
can have those automatic answers too. The hesitation comes when we are
being obedient for someone else or when we aren't entirely committed
to doing it ourself. Joseph B. Wirthlin then said something along the
lines of, "Willing obedience is what provides lasting protection from
the alluring and tempting traps of the adversary."

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

Love,

Sorella Flansberg

Friday surprise!

Hello!

Quick email to say how much I love all of you. Today, we took our half
pday that president granted us and we went sightseeing because some of
the things we wanted to see are closed on Monday. Well, actually.. All
we did was go up to this dome thing on top of a church and it gives
you a 360 view of the city. Say what? Italy is so cool!! We went with
Angela, our investigator, and two of her friends that we met today.
They are so super sweet. Angela is in the masters program for global
politics and all of the course is in English. Her friends are from
Iran and from Vietnam and they were literally the sweetest. But, the
view was absolutely breathtaking. I didn't want to go down, and I took
a billion pictures. I was sad that I didn't have my good camera, but
that will be for when we visit again. If somebody goes to Catania
without seeing this view, they are absolutely crazy. It is the best
thing I have done so far. And worth way more than 3 euro. Oh, and I
have the most beautiful birth city (first area served on her mission) ever. And the clouds were so cool
today. :)

Well, enough of that. This week is going by so fast, and it is already
almost Monday. I also can't believe this transfer is half over. I am
having too much fun with Sorella Decker. :)

Hope you all are having a fantastic week! Love you all!

Love,

Sorella Flansberg

Week 21!

La mia famiglia e cari amici:

This week was bound to be a really good one as we are teaching so many
people right now who have a lot of potential. Along with all our less
actives/new converts, we barely found time to fit all our appointments
in including our time of travel, which is actually a lot. Speaking of
travel, I have become really grateful for walking. Because I walk so
much, I can also eat a lot. And the food here is so so good. I am also
grateful that Sorella Decker enjoys food as much as I do. But I also
hate walking because it takes forever, and a lot of our time is taken
up by it. But anyways, we were a bit stressed during weekly planning
last week because we had zone conference this week. And as amazing as
zone conference is, it takes up pretty much an entire day. But we
found the time to plan everything out, and it was going to be a really
good week. I just wish everyone else's schedules would work out the
way we plan. Haha.. :)

Zone conference. I am sure you all saw pictures already, but the
pictures don't do any justice for how good it was. I love zone
conferences. They always motivate me to be a better missionary. This
time we talked about good role plays and inspired questions. The best
thing I learned is that it isn't always the words in a question that
make the question inspired, but it is also the way the person asks the
question. When we ask questions with charity and love and with the
spirit, they become inspired.

On Wednesday, we were cooking lunch and our power went out. I guess we
had too many things on at once. And since that has never happened
before, we didn't know how to go about turning it back on. So we
called the anziani and thank goodness they knew or we would still be
living in the dark. Haha.. We are geniuses, and I now have the
knowledge how to turn it back on. :)

We were warned on Wednesday that there was going to be a 36 hour storm
starting at midnight that night, and it was supposedly a code red
storm.. But literally it rained for like 2 hours the next morning and
then nothing else. Although the sky looked absolutely sick. Sick as in
really cool. :) We were really grateful that it didn't rain that much
though because we already were squishing appointments together real
tight. Just more proof that weather reports here are not ideal.

We had a lesson with Gabriella on Thursday morning, and we were able
to finish teaching the restoration without a hitch. She also read like
all of the introduction pages to the Book of Mormon. That seriously
never happens. Then we invited her to be baptized, and she became all
excited and said yes. I love moments like that. The spirit is always
the strongest in those moments, and especially here in Italy.. It
becomes super surreal when they respond positively.

In English course, we talked about clothing and because we teach the
advanced class, we ended up talking about the nit-picky types of
clothing. Like all the types of shirt collars/lines. Then, one of the
men who stares at me a bit creepily asked what the tank tops are that
men wear around the house. In English, they are called wife beaters,
but we weren't about to tell him that. So, we just told him they are
called tank tops. Someday he will probably figure out that we lied.
Oops.

Also, that night while I was looking for a spiritual thought to share
with English course, I found something really cool on lds.org. It was
an article by family search called 52 questions for 52 weeks. So, they
put together 52 questions to ask yourself and then you are supposed to
write your answers down once a week until you have written out an
entire history about you after a year. I thought that was a super cool
idea, and it is something that I am sure grandchildren and great
grandchildren and great great grandchildren would love to read
someday. So hint hint... Look it up. And then do it. I will do it when
I get home, and then update it every so often since the questions
change over time. ;)

On Friday morning, we were really excited because we were going to
have a member present lesson. One of the 19 year old girls in the ward
here finally decided to serve a mission, so she asked if she could
help us out with a few of our lessons. We were like, "absolutely!!"
So, we called her Thursday night, she was miraculously available, and
Samuele and Teresa actually agreed to meet us at the church. It was
literally a miracle. Anyways, then Friday morning came, our bus was
late, Samuele and Teresa ran into a detour on the road and arrived
there like 5 minutes before they had to leave again, and so it ended
up failing big time, but at least we tried. We were a bit disappointed
that it all didn't work out, but then they told us that they have been
following the calendar for reading the Book of Mormon that we gave
them. And Sorella Decker and I *exaggeratedly* fell to the ground and
gave thanks to the Lord. But really.

Then, this week was the beginning of pranzos with members. The anziani
had the idea of meeting with more ward members so the ward mission
leader is trying to coordinate more meals for us. It is super nice,
because now we get to eat more delicious food. And get to know the
members better. Win win situation.

I also started to read conference talks in Italian for language study
with Sorella Decker since she actually wants to help me with learning
the language. It is really cool to read them, plus it helps me with
speaking Italian since we read them out loud. I just love conference
talks even from a few years ago. I can't wait to get to the super old
ones, but that will take awhile since I am going backwards.

Jennifer's new job offer did not go so well. Then things got hairy
scary last week with her. I won't go into details, but please pray for
her. She is still coming to church so it has nothing to do with that.
I am just really grateful that the ward members are taking care of
her. Because at this point, we are unable to get involved because we
are representatives of Christ and of the church.

We also had a lesson with Iole and Gesualdo. I can tell that my
Italian is progressing, because I was actually able to understand
almost all of the intellectual conversation that was taking place. I
understood the jokes.. And ahh. I was so happy. I just need to work on
expressing myself now that I understand most everything.

Angela came to church yesterday. We were so happy to see her and we
got to finally talk about what her parents said. She still wants to be
baptized and we are working towards that, but she needs to take time
to explain it all to her parents bit by bit. Slow and steady wins the
race. At least we are out of the "I don't know" stage. She came to
zone conference because the Clarks invited her, and all of the anziani
were staring at her with their jaws to the floor. But they had good
reason, I suppose. She is the Italian version of Rapunzel and she is
gorgeous. :)

Sorella Clark referred to me as her secret weapon this week. And I
guess I know my scriptures really well, at least from the Book of
Mormon. All I know is that in lessons, I try to use the scriptures
often because they teach better than I can and it is a great medium
for inviting the spirit in. And also, I listen to the promptings of
the spirit which is obviously easier to do when I teach in English.
I'm glad she thinks I am a good missionary though. I am doing my best.

So, you know how we all want some super human abilities someday? Well,
I read in Jesus the Christ that after the Resurrection, we will all be
super heroes. Haha.. We can be invisible, defy gravity or fly, and
walk through walls with our resurrected bodies. How cool is that? ;)

Alma 31 reminded me a lot about the Catholic Church at least with the
recited prayers and the going to church once a week. Although here, I
have also met the most people who are active Catholics but also the
most people who say they are Catholic, but don't know anything about
it. I just wish everyone would want to join the church, because there
is a lot missing from all the years of the dark ages.

Alma 41:8 was a scripture that touched me this week. It talks about
how Christ's plan is already set up, and already completed. All we
need to do is accept it and turn to Christ. The decrees of God are
unalterable and all we need is to walk in the path. The thing that hit
me, or (mi ho colpito) the most was that it doesn't matter where we
have been or what we have done, there is a path for us to get back on.
That path is always there. It doesn't disappear when we do something
really bad. It is always there. It is unalterable. The atonement is
truly for everyone.

Covenants have also been on my mind a lot. I'm getting into the Isaiah
chapters of the Book of Mormon in Italian, and I just love the
emphasis Isaiah puts on covenants. That God will never forget his
covenant people. He keeps his side of the promises we make if we keep
ours. For we will not be ashamed if we are with those who wait for
him. I am so grateful for the covenants I have made with my Heavenly
Father. I know that he loves me, and I know that he will help me along
the path back home. He gave me a savior to help me out, and I will
forever be a disciple of him who took upon him the sins of the world.
I know that he lives and that he truly is the light and life of the
world. And I will proclaim it to the ends of the world until the day I
die, and most likely even after that in the spirit world. ;)

Vi voglio tanto bene!

Con amore,
Sorella Flansberg

Week 20

Hello from the city with the hidden secrets underground.

Okay. So, Catania got really cool this week. And I will apologize now
for a short email. We have zone conference tomorrow and with all the
sisters here, I am so distracted. But, I will do the best I can.

This week, I discovered a few things about Italians. But really it
just has to do with the fact that they are obsessed with their
families. They love their families. Italians literally live with their
families forever. People who were born in Catania will live in Catania
forever. It is so funny when people from English course say in their
heavy accents, "I was born in Catania, I live in Catania". Everybody
wants their families to be near them forever. It is a good finding
technique, but I just wanna say, "Fly free. Be independent." Haha..

I also tried Italian hot chocolate for the first time this week. It is
more like hot chocolate pudding, but they have white, dark, and milk
chocolate. I will be making some room for boxes of it in my suitcases
on the way home. It is called ciobar here.. And I am so excited to eat
more. Also, the different flavors make my life.

Monday night, we finished watching general conference. It was so good.
I think the ponderizing scripture thing is a really good idea. Last
week, mine was Alma 26:2 and this week, mine is Alma 7:24. I like to
pick short ones because it is easier to memorize. :) Also, that
speaker looked and sounded like an older Matthew McConahey... Don't
know how to spell that. Sorry if I completely ruined it for you with
that. Haha.. I also really liked Elder Bednar's talk. What a sweet
memory thing for the general authorities. Sorry, my English is slowly
going down the drain. But my Italian is not that great either so I
can't speak. Haha...

On Wednesday, Jennifer got some good news. Someone offered her a job
at a hotel cleaning. They also offered her lodging and an additional
salary on top of that. She just had to check if the school would
accept her boys. We haven't checked back up on how that went yet, but
keep her in your prayers. It is closer to Messina, but there is the
church there too. This situation would be so much better than what she
is in now. :)

Thursday, we had a lesson with a referral from the anziani. We walk to
the hospital where we are meeting her, and we call her. No answer. No
answer. No answer. So, we walk to the building and sit down and wait.
She approaches us, and we get to teach her half of the restoration.
Her name is Gabriella, and she is really interested. But then this
Catholic guy came over and went all doomsday on us. He kept saying how
the anti Christ is coming next year, and how we are all going to be
Catholic when the end of the world comes. Sorella Decker said, "I hope
not." Not to this man, but it was so funny.

On Friday, we went to a pranzo at a less actives house. We get a call
before we get there saying she invited friends. Okay.. And her 40 year
old son. We eat lunch and it is delicious. The conversation was a mix
between Sicilian and Italian, so I was not following at all. We left
and Sorella Decker says, "I can't believe her friends were trying to
set you up with Lucia's son." I flipped around real fast, and was
like, "what?" Haha... I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. I'm like, "he
could be my dad.. And I feel so violated." It was an interesting
situation. Haha.. That is an awkward laugh.

Then we went on a tour of the city to see if we could get to know one
of our ex Simps better and see how we could help her. Catania is so
cool! So, the city has been rebuilt like 3 times because it gets
destroyed by the volcano. Also, there are so many churches and pagan
idolatry here. And, there is an underground colosseum and a river
which the city is built on top of. Crazy? Yes. Okay, sorry to cut this
short.

I love you all! Gonna go get food. And then pday is over. Today, since
we spent half the day getting ready for zone conference, president
gave us permission to take half a day pday another day.. So, if you
get a short email on Friday, that is why.

Love you!

Sorella Flansberg

Pictures :)

This was from a few weeks ago..

I bought this sweatshirt today. It says Catanese from birth... In Italian obviously. It is perfect because since I started my mission in Catania, I was born in Catania. ;) haha.. Puns

And my new companion.. :) and a dress from the death closet that I might take. :)

Love you all!Well, I have some fun pictures for y'all this week.:)

Week 19! That number is horrifying!

Hello everyone!

So in case you all didn't notice yet, it is October. When did that happen?

Haha.. Okay, so last Monday was a try my patience kind of day. I was
trying really hard to have a good attitude about running all over the
place and saying goodbye to people. But, I also didn't like not having
even a whole hour to email people. That is too short for me! So, I'm
sorry that I either didn't respond or the emails were really short. I
literally typed as fast as I could. Anyways, it was pouring down rain
all Monday morning so I was wet for the entire day which was not fun.
Then we went paint balling and I didn't want to play, so I watched in
the cold in my wet clothes. But I am glad I didn't play. Anyways,
after that we went to the clarks to teach Destiny. We taught her the
gospel of Jesus Christ and we extended a baptism date for Oct 31. She
accepted, so we are very excited for her. I absolutely adore Destiny!
She is amazing!

Then on Tuesday, we had our last district DDM. I was asked to do the
Addestramento or the lesson and I talked about patience. My favorite
quote was from Elder Ucthdorf's talk Continue in Patience and it says
how just like the lord is patient with us when we make mistakes, we
need to be patient with the people we serve. We shouldn't ever give up
on anyone and that includes ourselves.

Also, it rained again on Tuesday. And Wednesday and Thursday, and
Friday. Also, does anyone know how fast 160 km/hr is in mph?

On Wednesday, we literally ran around town like chickens with our
heads cut off saying goodbye to everyone. I think I walked the most I
ever have. We still didn't get to everyone which was sad for Sorella
Defranchi. We ran an errand in the morning, the skies were all clear,
and we run home to go to the restroom. We enter the building, go up
the elevator, and by the time we get up to the second floor which is
technically the third floor, it is literally pouring outside. I have
no idea what happened, but it was insane. Then we had a lesson with
both Angela's and Jennifer. I love the rain when I am inside or when I
am dressed in proper clothing. I really need to buy a rain coat.
Hopefully I can find one for a good deal that is good quality as well.

Thursday was transfer day, so we took Sorella Defranchi to the train
station that morning and we met up with the other Sorelle there who
were going to be my companions for the day. I was in a trio with
Sorella Thorpe(the STL) and Sorella Battezato. It was really fun. Our
lesson cancelled on us because of the rain. You would think everybody
is made out of sugar here or something. Then, we went home to eat
breakfast and we went to pick up my permesso. It is a pretty cool card
especially because it allows me to stay in Italy. And I love Italy.
Haha.. I look like a ghost on it though. :p Then we went to pick up
all of our new companions. The anziani told the Ragusa Sorelle not to
go home because it was going to take longer than the time limits in
which President wanted us to be traveling, so they stayed the night
with us and came to English course. Then after English course, we had
a lovely experience in a freak storm that I would rather not remember.
Welcome to Catania Sorella Decker. :)

Friday we had weekly planning. And it was tiring and very long because
I had to give Sorella Decker the whole rundown on every person we
teach. But it is super fun having a new companion because there is a
new perspective that you don't usually have. I feel like when you have
been in an area for a while, you kind of get stuck in a rut so a fresh
perspective is amazing. I also love Sorella Decker. We have so much in
common. :) She loves anchors and nautical stuff like I do. Haha.. But
a little more about her. She is from near Seattle, WA. She is studying
psychology and wants to be a marriage and family therapist. She goes
home in December which is so soon!! I guess the next transfer after
this one is 4 weeks long. That makes me really curious as to how
transfer calls will work out. Either I will leave in 6 weeks, we will
be blown out, or I will be stuck in Catania for 5 transfers or 7.5
months. Praying that the last one doesn't happen. As much as I love
Catania.. I would go crazy! Anyways, Sorella Decker loves to bake and
cook. And she is very sweet. We have a lot of cool things happening
around here, so the next 6 weeks will be very exciting. :)

Then on Saturday, we met a referral from Jennifer's ex
boyfriend/father of her boys. She lives in the same apartment building
as Jennifer and she is also from Nigeria. She is literally the coolest
and she has a really strong belief in God and in Jesus Christ. We met
her before, but now she is officially a new investigator. We are so
excited. :) She also agreed to come watch general conference with
Jennifer. Unfortunately, she didn't end up coming... But, we do have
another appointment with her on Tuesday. It is like a built in member
present lesson as Jennifer lives right next door. :) Her name is Ann.
I might have talked about her before. I can't remember.

General conference was absolutely phenomenal. I felt like on Saturday
the theme was how we need to keep the gospel simple and how each of us
individually can live the gospel more fully by asking how we can
better ourselves by using the atonement. It was really great, and I
learned a lot. Also, women's session was boss. I think that was the
first time in a long time where they broke our boxes. (That is an
Italian phrase for correcting the things we think we can get away
with, but that shouldn't be happening.) It was amazing. Since this
letter would be way too long if I mentioned everything I liked, I will
say my favorite talk from each session except for Sunday afternoon
because I haven't seen it yet. :) I also totally called Elder Rasband.

Women's Conference-obviously Linda S. Reeves, but I loved President
Uchtdorf's talk
Saturday morning-Neill F. Marriott
Priesthood-I didn't get to watch the last 3 talks, but I LOVED Neil L.
Anderson's
Saturday afternoon-Robert D. Hales (I guess everybody liked this one)
Sunday morning- Russell M. Nelson

I am so excited to go back and read all of the talks again. I read the
women's session ones, and they were even more phenomenal. Sometimes I
feel like general conference talks are too mind blowing to comprehend
fully the first time. But, so so good.

I was also a bit saddened by how hard of a time President Monson had
on Sunday morning. Just from being on my mission, I have such an
appreciation for him and for all of the general authorities. They
truly are men called of God, and I enjoyed his talk about how Jesus
Christ is the light and how we all have lights that we need to let
shine. I am grateful for President Monson's service and I know that he
is God's prophet on the earth today.

Well, this week was crazy. Training a city is a bit stressful as I am
responsible for getting us where we need to go and who and when we go
and see, and calling and confirming all the appointments. Ahh!
Thankfully, Sorella Decker is always more than willing to help. I
definitely need it. Anziano Pope said I looked really tired on Sunday
in between sessions of conference. I didn't feel that tired, but I
must have looked it.

Oh, and also... Right now, we have 4 investigators with a baptism date
in the next transfer. We are praying for all of them to receive the
confirmation they need that this church is truly the gospel of Jesus
Christ restored to the earth. This week was bomb as far as people
accepting bap dates! Woohoo!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Flansberg