Crepi il lupo!: Week 2 in Italy!

Ciao cara familgia!

Wow. Okay! I've made it through two weeks in Italy! The biggest blessing this week is that it hasn't rained! Huzzah! It's been cold - around 10°C lately (whatever that means in American) but just at the beginning of this week it's been around 2°C. BUT! It's okay because biking keeps us warm! I'm starting to find my way around Torino. I still just follow Sor. Walton around on the bike, but I have a better idea of where she's taking us now! I'll figure it all out eventually I guess.

Well, people are probably wondering how I'm liking being a missionary, so I'll answer - it's hard work! I feel pretty cliché, actually. We really do ride around on bikes with helmets in skirts and talk to strangers and we really do go door to door asking people if we can talk to them about Jesus and the Church and people really do close the door in our faces and sometimes get mad at us and think we're dumb. I don't know if I was really expecting that, but that's really what we do! I'm starting to get the hang of it. It's really hard for me to just talk to strangers, especially in Italian, but Sor Walton is a CHAMP. She's so good at it and so I just try and follow her lead. I'm glad she's my trainer! I really want to just do the work the Lord's way, and so I just pray for the courage to be able to do what I know the Lord wants me to do, even if I don't like it! (like talking to strangers in Italian!) But that's exactly what I want to do. There's no way you can grow if you don't put yourself outside your comfort zone. I've always known that, and now it's time for me to practice what I preach (and I mean that literally and figuratively)!!!

We finally had the chance to go over to some of the members' houses, and let me just say I LOVE THEM!!! Members are so great because 1) they already like us 2) they don't stand us up on appointments and 3) they feed us and give us treats! I love members!!! There is a family in our ward that just got baptized a few weeks before I got to Torino. We usually go over on Monday nights and have FHE with them. And they feed us. It's funny because sometimes they also speak to us in English and I can hardly understand them. But they are great and want to do what's right. The dad's name is Giuseppe (maybe I talked about them last week?) and Dad, I think you'd really like him. He's just a funny guy and luckily I've been able to sneak in a few jokes with my limited conversational skills. Anyway, they feed us dinner before FHE and it's so good. I've been eating a TON. I just want to eat and eat all the time - I feel like a teenager! But I'm hoping it's because we're biking all the time and that eventually by body will get used to all the changes I've made - I can't afford to eat this much all the time, and I mean that very literally!

So a funny story, the other day we met a man and his two sons in the stairwell of his apartment complex. The sons were aged 11 and 5 and were getting super bored waiting for their dad to finish talking to Sor Walton. To give my companion some more time talking with this man, I pulled out a pass-along card and made a paper airplane out of it and started playing with the boys a bit. Then the younger boy came up to me and wanted me to make a plane for him, so I did. The first thing he said to me was, in italian, "What language is she speaking??" referring to Sor Walton. Haha. So I told him "Italian. But she has an english accent, no?" It was just funny because he really couldn't understand what she was saying. I told Sor Walton about it after and she just laughed. I don't talk much in lessons, which is partially due to the fact that I'm just trying to keep up in terms of conversation, but whenever I do talk to someone, they always say "you speak Italian really well!" It helps SO much to have taken Italian before, and I feel like my Italian accent is pretty good, so that's nice. I feel like people can pretty much understand most, if not all, of what I'm saying. Poor Sor Walton, haha.

We spend a lot of time trying to find people to teach. All of the people we've talked to lately don't want to hear what we have to say. We've been working on trying to come up with new approaches and ways to start up conversations with people, so if any of you returned missionaries out there have any good ideas, hook me up! You can write me a snail mail at the address:

Sorella Katie Soh

Corso Agnelli, 87

10134 Torino

Italia

[Note from Katie's mom: this address is ONLY for letters, packages must go via the mission home, the address is on the sidebar.]

...and if you want to write me just to write me I'm okay with that, too :)

Oh, so I saw the mountains for the first time the other day. We can't see them from our house, but we were down a little bit out of the main part of the city and I could see them. It was pretty cool. It felt kinda like Utah.

Anyway, I hope this email is sufficiently long enough for you this week! I love you all and can TESTIFY that your prayers are keeping me going. Thank you so much!

LOVE LOVE LOVE,

Sorella Soh

I'm attaching some pictures from my camera!

me and Sor Teichert