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
No comments:
Post a Comment