SONO QUI!!!

CIAO A TUTTI!!!!!

This is Sorella Soh, live from.... TORINO!!!! Yep, Torino (Turin) is my first city! And before you even ask, yes, they had the winter olympics here a few years ago and the stadium is by our apartment and YES I saw the box containing the infamous "shroud of turin" today!!!! It's great!

It's been two weeks since my last p-day and I can't even begin to tell you all what has happened in the meantime. The MTC is fine, great, blah blah blah but now I'M IN ITALY! As we were flying from Frankfurt to Milan, we flew over the Alps and I couldn't help but think of how crazy it is that I'm here and that I even made it to this point. I mean, I'm really in Italy again! It's strange, but it's amazing. I've been waiting a long time for this day and now it's finally here!

I was happy to hear that Sorella Teichert had sent you a little note. How sneaky! She didn't even tell me! Of course, she did sneak a bunch of pictures she had taken of us on her camera into my suitcase with little notes written on the back. I love that girl!!!

Anz Hatch, Anz Moh and I all made it to Milan on time and the mission president, his wife, and the assistants to the president came and picked us up. We went straight to the mission office where we were debriefed on things we need to do to be legal in the country and how to take care of bikes and cell phones and stuff. During this time we were all interviewed by the president. President Wolfgramm is great! He and his wife are so nice, and just awesome in general. Then after that we went out with the other missionaries to the Duomo in Milan where we did street contacting. Basically that consists of striking up a conversation with a stranger. Really. It's that terrifying! But I talked to a couple of people and even gave away a Book of Mormon. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to stopping people on the street to talk to them about Jesus, but I suppose it'll come. Anyway, we got some food and a gelato before heading back to the mission home to have dinner. I was SO tired! We hadn't slept much on the plane, and we landed in Italy in the morning so we had to stay up the whole day. I almost fell asleep at the dinner table, but luckily I held it together. The new missionaries stayed the night at a hotel by the mission home that first night, so I was by myself. It was okay though because I basically just slept! Then the next morning we went to the church in Milan and had some meetings and then I met my trainer - Sorella Walton! She's from Boise and has been in Italy for about 7 months. She's great! She's been really patient with me and has been showing me the ropes. Anyway, after we had lunch that day Sor Walton took me back to Torino and showed me our apartment and took me grocery shopping. I'm her first trainee! I'm trying my hardest to remember everything she does and says - we'll be together for 12 weeks while she trains me and then she'll likely get transferred somewhere else and then I'll be in charge! We're the only sister missionaries in all of Torino! So I have 12 weeks to figure this city and this missionary thing out. The goal of my training is to prepare me enough that I could be a trainer at the end of the 12 weeks, and knowing me and knowing President Wolfgramm, I wouldn't put it past him to make me a trainer in 12 weeks. He'd be crazy, but we'll see how prepared I am at the end of all of this.

So! The work is going great here! Just a few weeks ago they baptized a whole family! Giuseppe is his name, and his wife, son (19) and daughter (12) were all baptized. They are great! We had FHE with them on monday night and ate dinner with them - Giuseppe made pizza! I feel like I have big shoes to fill because the sorella that was here before me, sorella alexander, was just great. She actually just went home so I'm really taking her place! They also had two baptisms lined up for last Sunday for two Italian women - Rosa and Isabella. They are best friends and have a small ironing business that they just opened together just down the street from our house. Unfortunately they had to cancel the baptism because there has been some MAJOR rainfall here lately and they were afraid that the streets would be unsafe to get to the other chapel across town that has a baptismal font. So they won't be baptised until at least the 16th (maybe the 27th), but they are so great and we met with them yesterday and they are both really confident in getting baptized and wanting to follow Jesus Christ. SO COOL! Whoever said the work wasn't going forward in Italy is a big fat liar and you can tell them I said that! So great.

Torino is a biking city for the sisters. Yep. I have a bike. Unfortunately, it has rained EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. That I've been here so far except today. So you know what that means! Sorella Soh gets to ride her bike in a foreign city in a skirt in the rain in the cold at night. CALLED TO SERVE, baby!!!! It seems so cliche to be "that" missionary, but here I am! I can't help but laugh as I think about how bizzare I must look and how, mom, if you knew what I was doing you would just make that face and say "you're nuts". I know! I am! But there's no other place I could possibly be than drenched in Sunday clothes on a bike in Torino! Luckily it's been kinda chilly out so when I ride my bike I don't get too sweaty. We went to a market today where I bought some cheapy (probably fake) leather gloves that will hopefully keep my hands protected while I ride.

To add to the cliche missionary picture, I've been doing what we call "casa in casa" which just means that we go door to door trying to find people to talk to us about the church. Mostly people don't open the door, or pretend like they're not home. Most doors have peepholes, but on the inside they have little covers for the peepholes and we can hear and sometimes see when the covers get scooted aside as people look through to see who we are. Sor Walton took a picture of me by the first door I "knocked" (in reality we just ring the bell) where I actually talked to someone. They weren't interested and didn't open the door. Yeah! And I wouldn't necessarily say we've had the door "slammed" in our faces, but we've had a few closed pretty firmly as we've stood there. We did have a peephole cover slammed on us, if you can imagine that, though. Fun times! Everyone lives in apartment, so basically we go to the little telephone thing by the door and buzz different people until someone lets us in. Then we take the elevator to the top floor and ring every door before we go down to the next level and do the same thing until we get to the bottom floor. We haven't found anyone yet who wants us to come back and give them a lesson, but like Opa always tells me "everyone's got to have the chance to hear our message, whether or not they want to hear it". But, we're praying for people to teach and even fasted last Sunday to find people. I had the thought in the MTC last week that even though building a temple in Rome is totally awesome, we shouldn't be content to only have ONE temple in all of Italy! Are you kidding me?! We need to create a demand! I'm trying hard not to be scared talking to people, even though it's hard for me a lot of the time to understand what people are saying. It'll just take time I guess!

Well, I guess I better go. I love you all! The church is true! God speed the right!

Love,

Sorella Soh