Wow! P-day AGAIN! I feel like it just keeps sneaking up on me. Yikes! Shout out this week to Megan Adkins who sent me a letter that I got on Thursday! I know this is a cliché missionary thing (and an unabashed plug for more letters), but I LOVE GETTING LETTERS. I read them as fast as I can when I get them and then read them over and over and over throughout the week. All of them. (Even the card you sent, Sorella Walton's mom!!!) There's something about a person's handwriting - when I see it it's like they're really there talking to me, helping to pick me up when I've had a hard day or we've gotten shut down by a bazillion people on the street or whatever. So thanks for the letters. I love them.
So one of my favorite things to do when we meet with people is to show them our family picture from our Christmas card - and they love it too! And which person in our family is the most commented on? Wouldn'tcha know - it's Alex! They always look at it and say "questo è tuo fratello? Lui è bello!" which translates to "this is your brother? He is handsome!" Haha. They also comment a lot on how Michelle and I look so much alike and, interestingly enough, how much Dad and Alex look alike. And of course, Mom, you don't have to feel left out - you are the mozzarella in the midst of all the chocolate, after all.
(Note from Katie's mom: here's the picture!)
Dad, I caught a glimpse of the letter that Giuseppe sent you! It was written on their computer. I'm pretty sure he spelled your name wrong, but that's really all I know. He told me that he had written to you. He knows a few words and phrases in English, but a lot of that is due to the fact that he knows a lot of songs in English. He told me, though, that he wrote you the letter in Italian and then used an internet translator thing to translate it into English, so that's where the weird grammar and stuff comes in. Anyway, if you want I can translate something for you, or you can just use the internet like he did. I'm sure that'll be fine. I told him that you and mom are planning to come pick me up from my mission and we'll probably come back to Torino and he is really excited to get to meet you!
I'm attaching pictures (finally) of me and my new companion! The first one is of me and Sorella Bunker with President and Sister Wolfgramm on the first day we met each other. The second is of just me and Sor B. The third is a picture I took of The Miracle Flow Chart, which I talked about in my email two weeks ago. I added in accompanying scriptures, too, so it makes the MFC even more legit.
I heard that Whitney Houston died! Don't worry, Whitney. I will always love you.
More bad news...my jeans don't fit anymore. !!! I should probably be embarrassed to admit that, but they don't fit because my legs don't fit in them anymore, and yours wouldn't either if you biked 9384753453408 miles every day for three months!!! My calves, quads and glutes are solid. And also too large for my pants. Shame.
With the cold weather and the snow, we've had to get more creative with our finding and contacting work. (Luckily the cold weather is supposed to only last through tomorrow and then the snow will be able to melt and we can get back on our bikes!) So! I've taken some GIANT leaps out of my comfort zone and decided to go through our area book, phone and ward roster and just call up everyone I don't know. So yes, that does mean that I've been calling complete strangers - and talking to them in Italian on the phone!!! (mom, you know how much I hate calling people on the phone!) But yeah! I just decided that my calling as a missionary, especially as a sister missionary, gives me license to do things that typically are not socially acceptable. (Actually, I think that was written in my call letter as a description of what a missionary is...) But yeah, I've been calling tons of strangers! And actually, we ended up getting two appointments out of it - one with an old woman who isn't really a member of the church anymore... but her name is Carmela and she showed us pictures of the sisters that taught her and her husband like 20 years ago [shout out to a Lana Robertson neé Hansen from Idaho/Utah (or anyone who knows her!) who served in Torino and got married in like 1992, she was one of the wedding announcements we saw]. It was just really cool/weird to be sitting in the living room in this apartment with this old woman and know that there were sisters sitting in the same room with the same woman 20 years ago. The work just keeps going forward, and missionaries just keep coming and coming and the work that I do is just a perpetuation of what every missionary in Torino has done before me, and a foundation for every missionary that will come after me.
The other lesson we got from these phone calls was with a really really great woman named Eliana. She joined the church when she was 13, living in Brasil. She was the only one in her family to join the church. She even wanted to serve a mission. But then she went on vacation to Italy when she was 18 and met a guy and fell in love and got married, had two kids and kinda stopped going to church. Anyway, we went over last night and she told us that her dad, who had joined the church a few years after she did, just died in January and her 17 year old daughter is on a bad life path right now. She also told us that she went back to Brasil last month or something and passed the old church she used to go to right after she got baptized and really felt like she wanted to come back to church when she got back to Italy. So this all happened, and then she got home and I called her and asked if we could come over. Remember how the Lord's timing is perfect? Yeah. She told us that she took the fact that we had called her as a sign because she had already been wanting to come back to church and then randomly we called her up. And I say randomly, but let's be real, it wasn't random at all. Was it Elder Scott that said that there's no such thing as coincidences - only divine rendezvous? Yeah. Actually, let's analyze this on the Miracle Flow Chart.................MIRACLE!!!!!!!
Well, folks, that's all I've got time for this week! I love you! Love you love you love you! Oh, and happy late Valentine's Day! Even more love! Yes! The Gospel is true! Live it and see! Mettete Dio alla prova / put God to the test! He loves you! I love you! Man there are a lot of exclamation points in this paragraph!
LOVE FROM TORINO,
Sorella Soh
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