2016-05-18 Senior Week

This week was great! I finished up my senior week (means I had to call
everyone and set up appointments and fill 7 days with things to do it
was scary) and then handed the phone back to Harris after Sunday's
last appointment, it was such a relief haha. I don't envy all she does
as a trainer. I have a newfound respect.

Anyways, we got spoiled to breakfast by the son and daughter-in-law of
Elena (the lady who's getting baptized this week!) and we've been
upping our member work because it's hard to find people willing to
talk to us just on the street or bus.

BUT it does happen and this week we also set up an appointment with a
lady we found on the bus named Lucy a couple weeks ago. She's Peruvian
and is already living the standards of our church. When she told me
it's hard to find friends out here because Peruvians love to drink
when they get together and she doesn't drink I just couldn't hold it
in anymore and I was like "Lucy you know you'd love our church!" So
she just handed me over her number even thought she just told me she
doesn't really like church, it was awesome haha. She seemed doubtful
about some things during our first lesson this week but she wanted to
see us again so yeah, we'll see 🙃

We also had Elena's last appointment before her baptism, it was pretty
sweet. We talked about the sacrament and then just like, asked her
what her baptism means to her and let her talk about how the gospel
has affected her life. Her husband, they were so in love, he's passed
away. She believes her husband has been a big part of her experience
she had when she felt really strongly that after 3 years she finally
wants to get baptized. Then she fed us dolce afterwards like always,
we love her to death.

Also we had another unbelievably good lesson with Xiao. She has a lot
of questions about Jesus Christ and we honestly figured that we can't
just teach about Jesus Christ without missing a TON of stuff, so we
gave her a Chinese bible and Chinese Book of Mormon, kind of like
"read this!" She was all like "wow this is a very good gift wow thank
you so much" and we were like "haha nah" and she told us that this
book can help you in your life, that it's filled with wisdom, and you
could read it over and over again and always find new things. Xiao are
you secretly a hardcore Christian already and this is just some
elaborate trick?? She literally says stuff that we have never even
suggested but is totally true, she's the best. One of our bishop
counsellors told us the next day at ward council "I knew she would be
baptized as soon as she walked in to church her first day" and me and
Harris just looked at each other like "okay" haha but seriously, she's
an old soul. She totally gets it. She's prayed on her own since last
time we saw her too. She took a lesson on tithing during church in
stride! We love her so much!

Also we made pizza with the ward and brought one of our investigators
with us (she's one of the many who just isn't baptized yet because
she's not legal so she can't get married to the man who she lives and
has children with, it's frustrating). It was so much fun, I doubt I've
laughed harder than I did that night and also now I know how to make
pizza dough.

More members fed us, we're trying really hard to meet Leslie's parents
so her mom isn't so against Mormons, and we had a cool experience on
the bus where this guy started talking to us after a few minutes and
apparently he's totally has been to our church before and has a Book
of Mormon but then went back to Nigeria and hasn't been able to find
our church since. So we got his number right there to give to the
anziani and he was like "yeah give me your address I'll come to church
this Sunday." So cool!

It's not all satisfying and miracles out here though, for example one
of our long-time simps we are worried her daughter can't hear. The
ward has talked about it in ward council but nothing has been done
yet. The daughter makes animal noises, she never speaks. If she gets
much older and hasn't learned how to speak yet, even if she gets a
hearing aid she may never learn how to speak perfectly. We also had a
new convert who had us worried because apparently doctors from Nigeria
told her her father needs surgery on his appendix or he'll die and
this girl can't pay, she can't even pay for her own rent yet (he's
fine for now). And we had to do a drop lesson with a lady from Nigeria
who just talks and talks and absolutely refuses to accept anything we
teach or invite her to do and it was really hard. Anyways, the point
is that NOBODY in the MTC or before the mission tells you that you
might be trying to help a less-active member, only to find out they
can't read, so they can't read the Book of Mormon, and you're having
to decide what on EARTH you can do to help them. Like, do we teach her
to read? What do we do? So you have to make a lot of decisions out
here that nobody teaches you how to make. But we're doing it. And we
do see miracles. Missions are crazy but they teach you so much and
people finding more happiness in their lives because Jesus Christ is a
really touching thing to see.

Bought from the happiest old guy in a little shop on way home

Jill's apartment, opened up with nice weather

People from ward having fun making pizza dough

Caught in a downpour

BOM for investigator Xiao

La Reggia di Veneria

Sis Harris, CJ, and Jill

Italian Mac and Cheese so rich it almost made Jill sick

2016-05-11 Italian Observations

Okay, observations about Italian culture because I know youre all gonna ask:
All the older women 60+ dress hecka classy. ALWAYS in slacks or a
skirt with nylons and church shoes. The men dress up too.
Younger generation dress like normal teenagers, but with different (newer) style
Nobody lives in a house. I've been in one house since I've come here,
and that was 6 weeks ago. EVERYONE lives in an apartment. Even if
there's tons of free space, Italians will build apartments instead of
houses. Seeing an apartment in the middle of a field? It's more common
than rare, you guys. It's so weird.
Every apartment has a balcony and many of them have plants growing on them
The cars are way smaller here
People stop their cars in the legit middle of the street, turn on
their hazards, and then walk into the store for ten minutes
All of the storefronts are big glass windows with a display and a
price displayed for everything, and most streets are lined with
stores, apartments above them, so basically window shopping happens
every second of the day
There are huge super stores here, they're just not as common. More
common is supermarkets that sell almost only food and are about as big
as the food section in Walmart, and even more common are little
bakeries and butchers and stuff
Italians do sound like they're arguing almost always, even though
they're not usually
It's very green here
Guys here stare a LOT more than American guys
The pizza and gelato are really good
People here definitely speak with their hands
They do actually say "mama Mia"
Hardly anybody goes to the gym, but it's very rare to see actually obese people
They do eat a lot of pasta here
They make huge meals for you and if you don't eat all of it they could
get offended but they don't let you dish yourself up so sometimes you
eat so much you think you're going to puke or cry
Torino is really old and really beautiful but also pretty dirty. For
example, there's graffiti EVERYWHERE, and everything looks it's age

We had a crazy good week this week! We had a lesson at the end of our
last p-day with a woman who contacted US, said she knew the church 38
years ago, and basically wants to join our church because of a series
of events that had happened recently (it involves the help from
members!) Not only does this mean we have a new investigator, but she
also told us that the next time we have an appointment, she has two
friends who she wants to bring! If this all goes through, we'll have 3
new investigators soon which is INSANE.

We didn't get to have a lesson with Leslie last week :( we should be
seeing her this week. BUT she came to church AND she brought a friend!
Which is also way cool! The only problem is her friend is Muslim which
is totally fine and great, but we're not allowed to teach Muslims if
they EVER plan on going back to their home country because they could
actually be killed. So we're trying to protect their lives. It's
pretty crazy, the stuff people will do over religion.  Anyways, Leslie
probs won't be baptized soon because her mom still but she knows what
she needs to do and we'll help her get there, the more experiences
with the Spirit that she has.

Also we FINALLY met with a less-active member we've been trying to see
for like, a month. She asked us to help her carry her groceries though
so I don't think she just wanted to hear our message. Anyways, she
said she's still been reading the Book of Mormon but she hasn't been
to church because she's been trying to find work/panhandling if I
understood correctly. Pretty much everyone here is in a desperate
situation, it's hard to watch.

Also one of my favorite couples, joy and Edward from Nigeria, are
stressing us out. Because joy totally gets it. We watched the
restoration video and she just totally gets it, and for the last
several lessons we've had some sort of disagreement with Edward
because he doesn't get it. This week it was that Joseph smith had to
translate the Book of Mormon through the bible because everything has
to go through the bible since only that is the word of God. Stuff like
this has been going on for weeks, it's really hard to feel the Spirit.
He hasn't been able to read the Book of Mormon consistently because he
needs large print to read and it's taking forever to order it because
you can only get those from America in English. Anyways, as we were
leaving joy walked us to her door and she said "don't worry, when I
get documents and I am baptized then I will go to church with you
people." Just her saying that made us realize that SHE knows that WE
ALL know that joy gets it and Edward doesn't. I really feel like he
needs to read the Book of Mormon. The office sent us some sort of
cryptic message with our order about the big print book. Okay. I will
email them this week to figure that out.

Also I got to FaceTime my family! This had more meaning and made me
happier than I can put into words so I'll just say I love love love my
family and I miss them so much. But since missionaries bless their
families back home, I'm sure they will dominate in the triathlon
they're doing together in a few weeks. I miss them but I'm grateful
for the love and support and emails they send me, they are seriously
the best.

Monday we had a zone conference and my trainer gave a dying testimony,
it was really good, and it's always fun to see other missionaries. It
reminds you that you and your companion are not just adrift in a sea
of strangers, but that there's other people out there doing the same
thing as you, and a lot of them.

Yesterday we tried to contact a referral who lived a million miles
away but she wasn't there. So we rang the rest of the apartments on
her citofono (I have no idea what the word is in English) and I
accidentally rang the same one twice, it was so embarrassing, I had to
tell the nice old guy that I messed up and goodnight. We also met with
a member yesterday morning and her mom, who is an Italian member
pioneer. They told us a lot of fun stuff about catholic beliefs like
how Mary was born without sin like Jesus Christ and stuff like that,
we love learning more about the stuff these people believe. When we
invited the daughter (who is about 50) to text an invite to everyone
in her phone (a challenge our president has asked us to give) she was
totally willing and had a fire in her eyes. Usually people are kind of
okay with it but I think the spirit was really talking to her and she
really understood that someone could really come to Christ if she
actually invited everyone in her life to do so. President is having us
really focus on member missionary work because other stuff really
isn't as effective out here.

Today we're going to the Villa Della Regina for p-day, I will send
pics. Also this week is my senior week which means I've been having to
set up appointments with everyone which is horrifying and scary. But I
called a lady I talked to on the bus a couple weeks ago and she was
all like "look, look" and I was like *omg she's gonna kill me* and she
was like "I'm very busy with work and I only have two hours free
during the day" and I was like "oh okay yeah we understand" and she
was like "so let's try to set up a time on Friday around 2-4pm" and I
was like "omg is this happening." It was pretty cool. Anyways, until
next week! Ciao!

In Centro

Side street on Via Roma with all the Guccis and Louis Vuittons

Centro

Italy's best shot at Cheetos

Mmm, Cheetos

Zone with Pres and wife, and Senior Couple

Beautiful street in a paesino

Beautiful street, more so in real life

2016-05-04 Teaching an Atheist

 Leslie is planning to continue with her bap date after a

Spirit-filled, member-present, beautiful lesson. But it's tentative
still. Actually, we just saw her yesterday and apparently she told her
mom that she won't do anything without her moms consent, so now we are
in limbo again. We need to meet with her parents to show them were not
evil.

We got a couple new investigators this week!! Yea! One of them is an
investigator's sister. Her name is Joy and her sister - the new
investigator - is named Blessing. They're from Nigeria. Joy is
pregnant!! And I was there when she broke the news to us!

The other new investigator is a girl named Xiao we'd never met before,
she's from China but has lived in Italy for about 9 years and speaks
almost perfect English. Somehow her guy friend was friends with an old
Italian lady in our ward (still don't know how that really worked out)
so she got invited to church a couple weeks ago and the anziani got
her number for us and so we called her and set up an appointment.
We met in Piazza Vittorio Veneto. It was cloudy and kind of chilly
that day, Friday or something. So we were really excited to teach
her...that she has a God! That she has a Savior! Because where she
comes from, people aren't Buddhist or Muslim or anything, they're not
even atheist. They just don't think about religion. So we were excited
to share the good news, we say. But when we sat down and started
teaching her, it started to feel really intellectual, like she just
wanted to know what Christians believe because she's living in Italy.
That's fine, it's just kind of a letdown to explain your faith from an
intellectual standpoint because there's so much more than just logic.
So we had so so much to explain. Take a second to think about how you
would describe the individual members of the Godhead and make it feel
in any way believable. It didn't seem believable! There's a great man
in the sky who is perfect and who is your father and He loves you! No.
But we started at ground zero and it was taking a lot of time to
explain stuff! But I felt like it was really important to say a
prayer, because we NEEDED the good feeling the Spirit brings if she
was going to have any faith. So after we had established who God was
and how we can talk to Him (took about 30 min), we prayed. I didn't
hear what sister Harris said for most of the time during the prayer
(sorry Harris) because I was saying my own prayer, begging God to let
Xiao feel the Spirit haha. After we said the prayer, it just felt nice
to sit there for a couple seconds and not say anything. With no
prompting whatsoever, having no background knowledge of God or prayer
until 30 minutes ago, she said "I feel very good."
Dang🙏🏼prayer works I guess
So we explained the whole Godhead, just introducing Jesus Christ. We
weren't going to talk about him until later because His role is too
big to explain in an hour on top of God and the Holy Ghost haha. But
she kept asking about him, so we explained briefly His identity and
why she always sees Him on the cross when she goes to Catholic
Churches. Again, it's a little unbelievable that there's a man who
lived 2000 years ago who was the Son of God and paid for our sins. But
after we were done explaining and answering all of her many questions,
she thought for a second. Then she told us, "He is a very good man. He
must be a very good man."
I'm serious the Spirit was so strong during this lesson. We felt so
peaceful and calm and happy and me and Harris started to tear up at
one point or another. At the end of the long lesson, Xiao told us
"it's a beautiful day." Guys hearing that was a million times better
than if someone told me I just won the lottery. It was an UGLY day
outside, it was cold and cloudy.
I wish I had recorded the lesson so I could send it home to you all so
you could feel the Spirit too. But I know that God lives and He loves
us, and He wants our happiness so badly that He sends the Spirit
whenever we hear the truth, because He wants us to come close to Him,
the perfect all powerful guy who lives in the sky. And I know that
Jesus Christ is a really, really good man, and Im so grateful for Him.

Also, we had transfers so we have a couple new missionaries including
a greenie that I met in the MTC because our departure date got hecka
messed up!
And we cooked an amazing ragu
and we had a lot of appointments fall through which was really
frustrating because we run all over this huge city and at the end of
the day, we've taught a fraction of the people we were going to.
We got to go to a kinda sketchy building full of immigrants to get my
permesso stuff so I can live here legally and we talked to an couple
of young parent Indians.
Matthew Haines sent me a package of yummy yummy military food that is
safely hidden in the back of our pantry for a special occasion.
We had a nice appointment with an older lady member who's husband
passed away and she reminded me so much of my grandma, I just wanted
to hug her so bad. She has a way cool life story, she's seen a lot of
things and she knew Torino when it was younger. She fed us pudding .
And we visited with another young couple and they took us out to
gelato afterwardss the members spoil us, absolutely spoil us.
We had another member appointment where the wife is a member and the
husband is not. It was a frustratingly short lesson because Italians
talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about
nothing and it feels rude to say "WOW OKay so can we start with a
prayer then?" But afterwards we ran into this member again and she
said that this was the only lesson her husbands ever stayed for so
that's cool.
And finally during ward council, one of the older, long-time members
came and took us out of the meeting on the pretense of something
important and then he just took us into another meeting where they had
food and fed us pizza and tiramisu. He said, "I know how those
meetings go, they just talk and talk." And we were like "haha....yep"

Jill's Lifeblood

They made Ragu.  They are in Italy after all.

Stupinigi, Hunting Castle for Savoy Familiy.
Note the Elk on top of the building.

Jill in front of Stupinig

Jill and other Sorella's

Looks like Downton Abbey to me

Furniture is incredible

Bath tub

Ceiling Detail

Original Elk that was on top of castle