Dear family and friends:
We had a good week here in Taranto. It felt like one of the longest
weeks of my life, but looking back on it... It's because so many
things happened!
On Monday night, we had all the other sisters from the zone in Taranto
and so we planned to do a gesso. We have all the supplies and we pick
our location and we get a solid 15 minutes in when rain begins to pour
out of the heavens. It is kind of hard to draw with chalk when it is
raining, plus we weren't prepared for it.. So we hid under the awning
of one of the buildings until it stopped. Then we continued to do
finding with English course cards down the center of the Main Street.
It was fun to do a little bonding with the other sisters in the rain.
On Tuesday, we had Specialized training or the shorter version of zone
conference. The zone leaders and sister training leader did a training
(addestramento) with an analogy to football. Here are some of my
notes. :)
We are on the football team of the Lord. Pres. Waddoups is our coach.
He has rules, guidelines, and standards. When the coach changes, these
change, but if we want to play, we'll accept the changes. We all have
an assignment to do that is fit just for us and our talents. We all
need to do our job and work together. One superstar doesn't make a
good team.
The linemen are the members. They protect us from the enemy, and as
missionaries we need to have a strong relationship with them.
The quarterback represents our leaders or the quality of leadership.
We are all leaders and we need to do everything with a bounce in our
step. When we teach, we teach with power, and when we study, we study
with a purpose.
The running back represents diligence. We need to put forward a
continuous effort to push forward even if it seems we aren't getting
as far as we would like. Every small step forward is a step closer to
winning the prize.
And the wide receiver represents boldness. Sometimes we need to
sacrifice our pride to be bold. We need to go for the ball and not
wait for it to come to us. We need to be fearless and push ourselves
out of the way to get the touchdown. The talents we have need to be
used and the talents we don't have need to be developed.
Do I have it in me to become great? Am I willing to put my work in?
Nothing good/beautiful/worthwhile in this life comes without work.
We were also able to hear some death testimonies. And one of the
senior couples said something I really liked. "Heavenly Father is the
one doing the hard work. He does all the heavy lifting. He is the one
who changes hearts." It was a good reminder for when we feel like the
work is hard. Because really, the hardness for us is nothing compared
to what it is for him.
Then Sorella Waddoups and President Waddoups did their last training
together... And we made bracelets. You can probably guess that Sorella
Waddoups came up with that idea. She told us this story of these
Taiwanese monks who wore these bracelets with wooden beads. They were
called blessing bracelets and for each bead we are supposed to name a
blessing, and the idea was that the bracelet doesn't have an end, so
the blessings just never end. She said that the bracelet can be
blessings and also circumstances that we have in our lives. And it is
up to us how to use our beads, the beads we don't necessarily want and
the beads that we choose. We need to make our bracelets beautiful.
Then we had to say goodbye to the Waddoups. The mission is going to be
so weird without them. But I'm so grateful for their service and for
all the things I've learned from them. I'm also excited to meet the
Pickerds. We are going to Bari at the end of June to meet them! It
will be fun to go to Bari!
On Wednesday morning, we had the lovely chore of renewing my permesso.
I felt like it was the first time I had to do it because the first
time, Sorella Defranchi handled everything for me, so I didn't really
pay attention to all of the different steps. But I know that Heavenly
Father blesses his missionaries when we are following the laws of the
country. And everything went smoothly. The people we needed help from
were really patient and kind and that includes the post office
workers. The guy who helped us there is actually related to one of our
less active members here and to a professor at BYU. He knew exactly
what we needed when we walked up to the window.
It has been really humid this week, and really hot. And I'm not
looking forward to July and August because it is supposedly worse and
I'm dying now. But I'm just drinking lots of water and taking cold
showers because that is the only way to survive.
We take the buses most places here, but we still get to walk a lot.
The buses are surprisingly reliable here, but we have had the
opportunity to run after them this week. We'll see one coming down the
street and take off running and the bus driver usually slows down when
he sees us running. And then they kindly stop once we get to the stop.
I think they like seeing us run. Oh well, it is good exercise and I'm
already sweating like a pig. So no harm done.
On Thursday, we went to have lunch with a Samoan less active here
named Fia. You can tell she is from the islands the second you walk in
to her house with the turtle shells on the wall and all of the beads.
She fed us fish... And I was just thinking how God has a sense of
humor for sending me down here to Taranto in the summer when everyone
eats it. I just don't understand the appeal to picking bones out of
your teeth. It is gross.
The YSA here or (GANS) is putting on a musical at the end of the
month. They are doing the Prince of Egypt. And Sorella Hess and I were
volunteered to sing a song together. We have to sing "there can be
miracles" or in Italian (vedrai miracoli, se crederai). These are the
things that I didn't know I signed up for when I came on a mission.
😂haha...
On Wednesday night, we noticed that this bucket we have on our balcony
was full from water that comes from our air conditioner. So, we threw
it over the balcony making sure that it went straight to the ground
without hitting our neighbors balconies, but after we did it, one of
our neighbors came up and was a little mad at us. We decided the next
time, we would take it inside to dump it. But the next morning when we
woke up, it was full again to the brim. So to avoid it splashing all
over, we dumped out like not even a 1/4 inch of water over the
balcony, and 10 secs later, the neighbors were all mad at us again
even after we explained what happened. I just don't understand. Water
doesn't hurt anyone and we didn't even affect you. It drops from our
balcony to the ground where no one lives. We're going to make brownies
this week and apologize to them. Italy just needs to make normal
cooling systems, but I'm grateful for what we have.
Another day this week, we went to see this old lady named Sorella
Parabita. She is sick and can't come to church, but she listens to
conference talks everyday. We go and visit her to keep her company and
she also has a less active daughter. This time, she was telling us how
she can't read anymore. So we read a chapter from the Book of Mormon
to her and you could tell how much she loves the stories. The Book of
Mormon is such a powerful book, and I'm so grateful to see how it
affects people's testimonies.
This week, I was also able to meet investigators and put some faces to
names. We teach some really cute people here. And I'm excited to see
how the gospel will change and bless their lives.
Another day, these ragazzacci (punk teenagers) were on the bus with
us. They were sitting in the back and we were in the last row. But
this guy started playing with a lighter and was trying to burn the
girls he was sitting with and he caught the seat and window slightly
on fire. It went out immediately because of the breeze, but it was a
bit scary. I could just see the scene from Footloose happening in real
life. This literally happened right after we were talking about how we
just love all the people in Italy and how we can see that they are all
children of God. Nice, huh?
On Saturday, we went out to see this contact that the anziani gave us
awhile ago, who we finally got in contact with. We got lost looking
for her house, but we finally found it. She's really cute. She's 73
and her husband died in October and she is a bit lonely. She didn't
really listen to our message all that great, but she said she would
read the Book of Mormon and she prayed and she set up the return
appointment herself. Needless to say we almost kind of got kidnapped
because she tried to get us to stay all night, sleep at her house with
her, and then go to church in the morning and come back for pranzo.
But when we went back on Sunday for pranzo, she kind of jokingly (I
hope) said that the next time we come, she's locking the gate so we
can't leave. But we can't drop her because she is progressing and she
did read. So, we'll see where it goes. We were rescued yesterday by
the senior couple, but she is really sweet. And doesn't mean any harm.
She's just really lonely. Also, she poured coffee over the gelato
yesterday and refroze it, but I didn't know it was real coffee until
halfway through. Ahh.
I also was able to meet Elena. She is one of our investigators. And
she is so smart. The only problem with that is that she believes
Joseph Smith was a prophet, but because of logic. She explained it all
to me using physics. Needless to say, my head was spinning after our
lesson with her. She doesn't understand the priesthood or the apostasy
so it is hard for her to understand why the church is the only true
church on the face of the earth. But she comes to church every Sunday,
totally agreed with the word of wisdom, reads the Book of Mormon,
prays (not correctly) but she is really sweet. Just too smart. And
talks too much. But I do love her already. She's cute.
Yesterday, as I was reading Alma 46 I think... I read the verse about
the title of liberty and I was thinking about how the things listed,
our God, our religion, our wives, our liberty, our children are the
things our priorities should be based on. If we are spending a
majority of our time on one of the things that isn't listed, we
probably shouldn't be doing it. It is so important that we have good
priorities and we choose to do wise things with our time.
Hope you all had and will have a wonderful week. I'm ready for another
week of serving the Lord here in the beautiful country of Italy. Love
you all!
Con amore,
Sorella Flansberg
Missione Italiana di Roma
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