First and foremost - shout out of the week goes to...(drumroll please)...PAPA WALTON!!! Thanks for the letter! Also thanks to Mamma Walton and Auntie Kim for your letters, too! I should beg for mail more often because when we checked the mail yesterday (we hadn't checked it on Monday because we were in Cuneo...but more about that later), I had 7 letters waiting for me! SEVEN!!!! It was the best day of my life!!! (well, kind of...you know...) But yeah! Oh man I could hardly wait to open all of them and don't you worry, I'll be reading them over and over all week (I've already read the letters from Mom and Pop Walton about 4 times...). And of course, mom and dad, I got both of your letters! And you each sent two! Ahhh! Best day EVER!!! I got that picture book of the fam, mom, and I LOVE IT!!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!! I can't WAIT to show it to EVERYONE!!! Ahhh! So excited. So excited. Oh, and mom, I about DIED laughing when I read your little quote from Michelle: "We haven't heard from the goldfish in a while..." Oh man. Sor Bunker was praying before bed when I read that and she had to stop and say "when I'm done you better tell me what's so funny". Keeping pets is against mission rules, but that doesn't mean we haven't considered putting our bidet to use and using it as a fish tank. (The jury's still out on that one...but heaven knows we don't have any other use for a bidet. Weird!)ù
Mom, I'm so excited about your BoM FB group! I like the attitude of saying "hey, I could do that!" and I'm glad that people seem to be interested in reading a little bit of the BoM online every day. Yeah, internet! (cue the song from Napoleon Dynamite where Kip sings "I love technology / but not as much as you, you see / but I still love technology"). Also pumped to hear that Brianna Wilson is home from her mission! I mean, not in the sense that I'm glad she's not a missionary anymore, but glad to hear that we were in the field at the same time, at least for a little bit! She is cool.
DAD. A SIX STRING UKE. AHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I'm dying! I AM SO EXCITED FOR IT. Ahhh!!!! SO excited!!! How many ukes does that put us at? Two for me and three for you? I am so excited. It sounds like an AWESOME uke. So excited, in fact, that before coming to the internet point to email today, I asked my companion if we could stop by this guitar store we always walk by that has some ukuleles in the window. It's usually closed for lunch at the time we walk by, but we went early and the guy in the store let me play one of the ukuleles for a few minutes! It was so great! And I'm glad you were able to just trade for it! How cool is that?! Ahh! So cool.
Well, things here in Torino are picking up now that it's starting to warm up! The snow is almost completely melted and we're back on our bikes, finally! Woo! No more waiting for the bus! Yeah! It also means that more people are out and about during the day, so there are actually people to talk to out on the streets and in the parks and stuff.
This week has been the week of miracles! (Boy am I glad I have my Miracle Flow Chart to confirm these experiences!) First of all, last week Friday we didn't have any appointments for the afternoon, so we went and did some casa (door-to-door tracting) in a new neighborhood. We walked around a bit until we found a palazzo (stairwell) we wanted to buzz into. Basically that consisted of me saying "I feel like we should do that palazzo", walking over to it and ringing the intercom (citofono) until we find someone who will let us in. Well, I picked a palazzo, and the FIRST person we buzzed let us in with no hassle! AND THEN we went up and rang this same person's doorbell and he talked to us! He wasn't super interested in our message, but we were still able to teach him and leave him with a prayer. That never happens! The first palazzo, first citofono, first door? MIRACLE.
Then, the next day, Saturday, well, let me just cut and paste what I wrote about it in my email to the president this week:
"All our Saturday afternoon appointments fell through last week, so we decided that since the weather was pretty nice we'd hit the town and do some strada in an area we hadn't been to before. There weren't a ton of people out, and we hadn't been able to contact many people. Finally I said to my companion "okay, we've GOT to talk to somebody. Let's talk to that woman with the scarf" and indicated to a woman walking towards us. I stopped her, complimented her on her scarf (which I really did actually like) and told her we were missionaries. She didn't seem very interested and started walking away, so I said "conosce qualcuno in questa zona che ha bisogno di un messagio della felicità? / do you know anyone in this area who needs a message about happiness?" and that caught her attention. She said that everyone needs some felicità (happiness), and we ended up being able to talk to her and teach her. It was such a great miracle!"
She wouldn't give us her number, but I really think this this woman will come to church someday. Totally felt the Spirit. She is so awesome.
And then last night! Holy quack! Our appointments all fell through (again...sigh) so we were walking around doing some contacting on the street (strada) and also some casa. Anyway, right as we were walking by a pharmacy, I saw the second counselor in our ward's RS presidency walk out the door. She lives pretty far from where we were, so it was completely unexpected. I said "ciao, sorella!" and she told us that her dad lives right near that area and that she usually goes to visit him once a week or so. If it wasn't cool enough to see someone we knew on the street she was like "yeah, I'm going to go see my dad, wanna come?" and of course we jumped at the chance! Anyway, we met her dad, who is not a member, and had a great time! They fed us dinner and her dad, Salvatore, showed us all kinds of cool, old pictures of his family and cool old money/bank notes that he has a collection of. He told us he was atheist, but you'da never believed it when he said "amen" at the end of the prayers we said with him and the way he got so excited when we talked about his family. He showed us around his house and showed us all kinds of cool things he has and there was no denying he felt the Spirit! He was really glad we came over, I could tell. It was pretty awesome. Miracles, miracles everywhere!
Ack! I'm totally out of time today and I didn't even get to talk about the exchange we had Monday and Tuesday! Really quickly, on Monday afternoon we went to Cuneo, which is a small town outside of Torino and did a companionship exchange with the sorelle there. I traded trainees with Sorella Willey, so my companion for the day was Sorella Forbes, who is from Draper (also president of the hip-hop club at BYU. Legit). We taught some really great people there and had a good time learning new approaches to talking to people about the gospel! It's good to be able to learn from each other, even if that does mean we're a little bit behind in the work here in Torino for this week because we did a blitz again, which means that both companionships were in the same city instead of us just trading companions.
Anyway, tanto TANTO amore for all of you dear people reading my blog! I love you all and pray for you! The gospel is true! Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Sorella Soh
p.s. the pictures are of me and Sor B with our first gelato and then there's one of me at my study desk trying to get us appointments. I have the area book, ward list, map of Torino and a bazillion other things on my desk...welcome to my life
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