O hai!
I know I say this every week, but holy guacamole how did it get to be Wednesday again already??? Geez loo-wheeze!
Well, another week has gone by in Torino and luckily it's been a nice, warm one! I think it'll only be a few more weeks now before it starts getting REALLY hot and awful here. We'll see! Which reminds me, guess who is coming to Torino in a few weeks? If you guessed Mitt Romney, you're wrong because the Harlem Globetrotters are coming! They are actually trotting the globe all the way over to Torino! We've seen a couple of posters advertising the event and every time I see them I can't help but remember the one time Dad took Alex and me to go see them in Alabama all those years ago. The Harlem Globetrotters! In Italy! Cool!
I have no shout outs this week because I have no one to shout out to. No letters (except Mom and Dad, and Nana, so I hear) and no emails. Which probably means that one o' yous should probably write to me. Especially since the work here has gotten pretty hard lately and so I especially need your letters right now! So. WRITE ME. LOVE ME. Kgreatthanks.
Mom, I don't know if your package made it through customs, but I should find out on Monday when we go to our zone training in Alessandria. We are also having a zone conference in Milano, probably week 6 of this transfer (which would be the week following Easter), so if anyone is planning on sending anything for me to the mission office, you've got until then!
Thanks for writing me this week Mom and Dad! Mom, I was super impressed by the convert baptisms in your ward! I hope you make it to some of the baptisms - it makes a huge difference when there are members that come to support the new members and missionaries - it may be their mission, but it's not their field! They'll be going home eventually and changing cities, but the real full-time missionaries are the members who are full-time members of the ward. I'm really happy for the ward, the missionaries and most of all the new converts in the ward! The people you described that had just gotten baptized are the kind of people we desperately pray to find. We're still looking, but it's always nice to hear that they still exist and that missionaries are finding them. It's been a bit rough lately for us because we had lots of lessons this week with people we hadn't met with before - including an Italian family that we found doing casa (door-to-door contacting) - but none of them were interested in having us come over or meet them again. But like I said, we're still looking! Elder Caussé said that the Church did a study or something and that it takes a missionary knocking on 1000 doors to get one baptism. I think I'm on door 300 or so, so I've still got a long ways to go!
Dad, I think I'm going to have to watch some Hawaii 5-0 episodes with you when I get home so that you can show me all the cool places that you recognize. And them maybe we might all have to go to Hawaii again so that you can show them to me in real life, or at least where they used to be. I'm willing to wait, though, because right now I'd rather show you around Italy next year :)
Remember before I left on my mission how Hurricane Irene blew through the east coast and everybody was talking about it on Facebook? Well, I think the person who put that they were singing "Come on Irene" as their status should know that it's ruined my life. Because guess who has an investigator named Irene? Oh right. That would be us. And any time I call her and wish she picks up the phone I say "come on, Irene!" and that dang song gets stuck in my head. And it's not even the right name! But Eileen, Irene...they're just too close. Dangit.
This past week we went and saw a couple member families. Mostly it was because I went up to all the women in the ward who I had never talked to because they intimidated me and introduced myself and told them we wanted to come over and see them. Yes, it was scary to do that. But you know what, they were all so great! And they seemed really happy to have us come over, especially since some of them live pretty far out and so it took a while for us to get to them. On Sunday we ate lunch with a family in our ward that has 5 kids, which is a TON of kids for Italy. Their two oldest kids are girls, aged 13 and 11. They were giving their dad a hard time because I told them about how I worked at Disney and they've never been even though all their other friends have traveled and gone to EuroDisney and stuff. I told them that if they could make it over, I'd take them to Disney. The 11 year old sat next to me at lunch. When she told me how old she was, I said "hey! I have a sister who is 11!" and then put my arm around the back of her chair to show her that I already liked her. Later on, they wanted us to play a matching/memory game with them, and the 11 year old pulled her chair over right close next to mine, knelt on it to make her taller in the chair and put her arm around my neck. It made me miss Michelle so much. Anyway, I was reminded of a few things this week: 1) I love Italians. 2) I love members. 3) I love families. And most of all, I LOVE ITALIAN MEMBER FAMILIES!!! Basically all I want to do with my life right now is find Italian families and turn them into Italian MEMBER families. Yep. It's decided.
Well I'm out of time this week, but don't worry, next week will be here before we know it! The world is full of miracles and we see them every single day. I know that on the days when the work is tough that I've got all of you behind me, cheering us on. Thank you. I can't tell you how much that means to me and to us as a companionship. Avanti, andiam!!!
Amore, vita e tante belle cose,
Sorella Soh
No comments:
Post a Comment