Cheese. Formaggio. Queso. K-Soh. Me.

O hai!

It's been a week already?? Yikie schnike! This has been the most insane past week! First off we had interviews with President and then we had our scambio blitz (exchange) with the Genova Sorelle and then we had Stanley's baptism! Yeah! Crazy! Shout outs this week (remember how I used to always do those?) go to the FAMIGLIA WALTON who sent me li hing gummy bears ALL THE WAY FROM HAWAII!!!!! (via Idaho) I got the envelope at interviews and I was kinda confused as to why I would be getting a little package from them, but when I opened it and then read the letter I almost died of excitement!!!!! I still haven't eaten them yet, but that's mostly because I feel like I need a really special reason to open and savor them. Ling hi gummy bears. Best day of my LIFE. (also, I really don't know if you spell it "ling hi" or "li hing" because now that I think about it, I really have no idea. Ergo why I just used both. Mleh.) In any case, a HUGE GIANT HUG AND THANK YOU to mama and papa Walton!

Other notes - mom or Liesl, could you send me Grandma Buskirk's mailing address? I was thinking about her yesterday and wanted to send her a postcard. Also, mom, I haven't asked about being able to pick me up from my mission, mostly because I don't really know who to ask...but in any case, sisters can choose to do 11 or 12 transfers because 18 months doesn't equate to an even number of transfers. Basically we choose to do 3 fewer weeks or 3 more weeks. I'm 99.9% sure I'll be doing 12 transfers, which means that instead of being done with my mission in February, my mission will end in March. March 17th or something. Just f.y.i.

And is Squeaky done with 6th grade?!?!?! AHHHHH!!!! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!?!?! And aren't you all going to Disney soon? Or now? Well, have fun, and if you can find it in your hearts to go to the Poly and tell Sefa and Mapuhi and Aunty Kaui that I'm on a mission (like I asked the LAST time you went to Disney while I was on my mission), I would appreciate it. Or maybe if you could at least get me the mailing address for the Poly and I can just try and get in contact with them that way. You'd think I'd just be able to remember the address, seeing as how I worked there, but alas, tis not so.

Well, the two big things this week were our scambio and the baptism! I would attach the pictures I took, but I lost my cord! Dangit. But don't get too excited, I didn't take any pictures in Genova... Sorry! Repenting, repenting...

The scambio was really good. I was companions with Sorella Baker, from Minnesota! (Don't be jealous, Sor Williams! We didn't have anything to do with it!) I love her. We had a good scambio and we teach really well together. I just love her guts! And also the rest of her. Genova is famous for pesto and for foccacia, but we only ate foccacia there. It's a type of bread. Kinda like pizza dough, but not because it's so much better. I ate so much foccacia. It was SO GOOD. I don't even know how to describe it. It was like eating the most delicious bread that just melted in my mouth. It was incredible. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Sigh. 

But the baptism! STANLEY IS BAPTIZED!!! He was SOOOO excited! He kept saying "it's MY day. MY DAY" and I couldn't help but just smile. He was so excited. The problem, though, is that Anziano Robinson (of the senior couple) baptized him, but Anz R is about a foot and change shorter than Stanley, who is a big, tall, African guy. So they get in the font, Anz R says the baptismal prayer, goes to dunk Stanley in the water, Stanley goes down, and then Anz R goes down! He slipped on the floor of the font (which is more like a pool because we don't have a real font) and so he got all wet! Very Mosiah 18:14. But then the next day in church he bore his testimony and was so excited. He was talking all about how he just can't wait to start his new life, how he feels like "a new creature in Christ", how he's changing and wants to be better, and just how happy he is. Sor Jones translated for him and we both were just grinning from ear to ear after everything he said. It was so great. One of my favorite things he said about his baptism: "At first I was afraid and the next thing I asked myself was 'what am I doing in this big bowl of water?'" It was so great! And then we met with him again on Monday and he said "my meeting you guys changed everything" and I just wanted to die, I was so happy. I LOVE STANLEY! HE IS AWESOME!!!

I'm sorry about the pictures - I'll try and figure something out for next week. Speaking of next week, transfers are a week from tomorrow!!! We really have NO idea what is going to happen, so it makes things much more exciting. But we'll find out before I send my next email, so don't you all worry.

Well, out of time! Love you all a ton! Be nice to your missionaries and give them lots of referrals! ;)

TANTO AMORE,
Sorella Soh

Happy (almost) Mother's Day!

Buongiorno a tutti!


The internet point we're using today is called "The Green Turtle".
It's right next to the marina that all the big cruise ships use as
their port. That big cruise ship that just sank off the coast of Italy
a few months ago? Yeah, that same crusie ship company uses the port
here in Savona! It's only slightly bizarre to see a massive cruise
ship just chillin in the harbor as we bike past the marina to go to
our appointments. Just a little bit.


I got your letters, mom and dad! The first letters came last
Wednesday, AFTER I had sent my email. Tuesday was a national holiday,
so that's probably why the mail was slow. The second round of letters
came in this week. I got dad's on Monday and mom's on Tuesday, so
basically it takes the same amount of time to get to Savona as it did
to get to Torino. Also, say thanks to Alex for his letter - I really
appreciated it. And dad, I REALLY hope you didn't let Squeaky talk you
into buying that giant gummy bear. It sounds disgusting. But if you do
get one, be sure to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while
you eat it. I always wanted to pick giant gummy bears off of trees and
bite into them while enjoying the breeze by a chocolate river with
Augustus Gloop.


I'm glad to hear that you had a good time at the concert in Atlanta
and at the Hunters' house! I have fond memories of being at their
house and the Christmas tree farm! So much fun. And if anyone is silly
enough to let me in at Johns Hopkins to go to school there, it'd be
awesome to have the Buskirks nearby! Well, just as long as they're
okay that I'm a Braves fan first, Orioles fan second. Or third. Or
not.


SQUEAKY IS LEARNING THE HARP?!?! That is the craziest idea!!! Who
plays the harp??? How on earth did the stars align in such a way that
she could even take lessons!? That is so awesome!!!! Just be sure to
tell her that she has to actually practice and be good at it, because
otherwise it's not even cool to say you play the harp. You have to be
good at it, too.


Thanks for forwarding Sor Walton's email to me. It sounds like the
work is going CRAZY in Pordenone! She is great. I miss her a lot. She
only has one more transfer left after this! Ahh!


Giuseppe and Riccardo came to Savona on Sunday to find me! They came
all the way from Torino on the train. They got a little lost getting
from the train station to the church so I only got to talk to them for
a few minutes, which is kind of a bummer because it's like a 2.5 hour
train ride!! They seem to be doing pretty well, though, and they told
me they like the sister that replaced me there.


Well, I guess it's better late than never to say this, but we have a
baptismal date! His name is Stanley and he's from Nigeria. We met with
him for the first time about two weeks ago and he is getting baptized
on the 19th. He is so great! We teach him in English and have an
appointment with him tonight. He's a really spiritual person and asks
a ton of questions, which is great! We taught him the law of tithing
on Monday and read the scripture from Malachi that says "Will a man
rob God? And yet ye have robbed me. Ye ask 'in what have we robbed
thee?' In tithes and offerings" and he said "wait. I've never paid
tithing in my life. Are you telling me that my whole life I've been
robbing God???" We told him, of course, that only members of the
church are allowed to pay tithing, but when we asked him if he would
pay tithing after his baptism he said "of course I'll pay tithing, you
can't rob God!" Haha.


The weeks are flying by here in Savona. The weather has been kinda
gross lately, but that means it hasn't been super hot, so I guess
that's okay. It's a lot more humid here than in Torino, though, so my
hair is kinda going nuts and my clothes take forever to dry (no one in
Italy has a dryer so we have to line dry everything). I finally had
enough today, though, and bought a hair dryer. I didn't really want to
because I know for a fact that there are at least three hair dryers in
Torino, but when I asked the zone leaders to bring one for us when
they came down here to do exchanges, they forgot. Dangit.


I've had about 20394820394720398 thoughts running through my head
non-stop the past few days. I have so much to think about I don't
think my brain will ever catch up! But rest assured that the work here
in Savona is just blazing forward - so much so that I don't know if
we'll be able to even do it all! It's amazing to see the potential of
this area and this branch. I love Savona!


Well, I've already been thinking about things to tell you all on
Sunday and hope that you've been doing the same! I'll talk to you
soon!


LOVE and AMORE (which are the same thing, kind of),
Sorella Soh


p.s. sorry no pictures this week - I was too busy! Also, I hardly ever
have my camera...

Savona-na-na

Hellllooooo everyone!!!

Today I can officially say hello from SAVONA!!! The Internet point we're using today is a little sketchy, but it works! I can't believe I've been here for almost two weeks now! I feel like I just got here, geez! Oh, and speaking of which, I'll try to only be just a little bit hurt that in those two weeks I haven't gotten ANY letters from anyone. Yesterday was a holiday, though, so I'll try and cut you all some slack...for now. The next time I'll get mail from Milan (that was sent to the mission office) will be the 17th of May. OH! But before that, GUESS WHAT DAY THE 13th IS??? Yeah!!!! Mother's Day!!!! Sor Jones wants to use Skype, but I feel like that will just be super confusing. However, if you all can set everything up and email me about it before next Wednesday, I think it could work. 

So a cool new advancement in technology that our mission has decided to venture into...we now have texting!!! We have finally entered into the 2000-teens and can text from our phone! Before we could only receive texts. The problem, of course, is that we have a little number pad keyboard so to text you have to press 2 three times to type "c" and all that. It's like a step backward and a step forward at the same time. Which made me think of my poor little neglected phone - have you turned it off yet? It has been 8 months...

Savona is so great. Except I don't know what it is about me, but I feel like the one lasting memory of my mission will be that I was always riding my bike in the rain! It doesn't ever seem to rain when we're taking the train all day, but boy does it pour when we're having to be out on our bikes! Sheesh. Yesterday was one of those days, but luckily the sun is out today. Savona is so great. The members are really great and really willing to help us with the work here - going to lessons and stuff. And they're so funny - they always want to give us food. On Sunday we ate with our ward mission leader and his family, and before we left they were like "do you want some fruit to take home??" and then gave us a grocery bag with some fruit in it. And then, the wife was like "Oh, onions! Do you want some onions???" and held up two onions. I was like "um, onions? I think we're okay" haha. It was so funny to me, but so normal to them. It's so Italian!!! One of the things that I love the most about Savona and the members here is that there really actually aren't that many members that live in Savona, but they live in the little suburb-cities around it. Basically we have to go up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere to find where these people live and it is SO beautiful. The views are amazing. It is SO ITALIAN. Like, it's exactly what you think of when you think of a little Italian town in the woods.

I gave a talk in church on Sunday about blessings. It was really short and I would've taken a picture of what I wrote so that I could send it to you, but it was in Italian. Maybe another time...

Before my time runs out, let me explain the pictures:

1. Me and Sor B with the Gallarato family my last night in Torino! I'm wearing the Swarovski necklace they gave me as a going away present...

2. Me and Sor J in front of a church we saw in Genova last week

3.Me and Sor J in front of a fountain thing we saw in Genova last week

4. Me in front of some crazy monument to Vittorio Emmanuele III in Genova

5. Me and Sor McFadden (who is in Genova with Sor Baker) in front of the same crazy monument

6. Sor J and the view from the home of one of the members here who live in Rialto

7. What I looked like yesterday afternoon when we came home after biking in the rain. Rain jacket courtesy of the member we had eaten lunch with yesterday...I know what you're thinking: I look so cute, how could anyone resist saying no to hearing our message? Yeah. Agreed.

Well! That's all the time I've got today, folks! Lots and lots and lots of love from SAVONA (and really from Savona this time)!!!!

Love,

Sorella Soh

M-m-m-my Savona! (April 25th, 2012)

AHHHHH HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!!! I would say "hello from Savona!", but at the present moment I am in Genova!!! Genova (Genoa, in English) is only a 45 min or so train ride away from Savona, so we decided to come here to spend our pday with the sorelle here. Pictures next week :)

First of all, I LOVE SAVONA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE IT love it love it!!! It is such a beautiful city - right on the sea. It is absolutely incredible! It is a pretty small city, and most of the members live in little towns around Savona, which means we spend a LOT of time on the bus and on the train going back and forth to appointments. We have bikes, but we don't use them nearly as much as we did in Torino. That's probably a good thing, though, because it means my apetite has gone down so hopefully now I won't feel like a fatty mcfatfat all the time.

I'm feeling a little bit lost today because I didn't write down any notes this week of things I needed to email home about...so you're all just going to have to bear with me today. I apologize in advance.

 So! Savona! I love it! And I love Sorella Jones! She and her companion from last transfer (Sor Burgoyne, who I had an exchange with in Torino last transfer and just went home) were the first sisters in the city in 30 years. THIRTY!!! They basically had to start from square zero when they got here because there were no progressing investigators or anything from the Elders that were here before. Most of our time is spent visiting less-active members, which always blows my mind because in Torino we had tons of people who didn't ever come to church and didn't want to/couldn't ever see us, but here they actually let us stop by. Just yesterday we went to visit a woman who hasn't been to church since she got married 10 years ago (to a non member) and it was the most crazy miracle. She lives pretty far away - about a 30 min train ride from our house - and we got pretty confused on which train to take, so we ended up missing our train, then taking another train and then missing the stop and having to take a bus to get to her house. Yeah, we were pretty late. But we went and had a message about prayer that we wanted to share. We read the story from President Monson about the 5 dollars he left in his pocket (from Conference in November) and then all of a sudden she just opened up and told us about why she stopped coming to church and how she's over it and has been thinking about coming back and how she's always had a testimony and how she's basically just been waiting for 10 years for someone to come find her. Yeah. Remember how there haven't been sisters in this city for 30 years? Welcome to my life. Oh! AND THEN later on yesterday night we get a phone call from this guy and we have no idea who it is, so Sor J asks him how he knows the missionaries. Come to find out, he's a member of the church, on our ward list (less/inactive) and HE called US and wants to meet with us and start coming back to church. WHAT??? Yeah. Savona - the NEW city of miracles!!!

There is a senior couple here in Savona that are in charge of the Young Adult Center, the Robinsons, and I think I mentioned something about them last week. They don't speak Italian (which I can only imagine is THE most frustrating thing), and so we translate for them. I've never had to translate before, but man is it hard!!! It requires good listening, no thinking, and quick speaking. Too bad I'm a thinker by nature, so that trips me up a little bit. But with all the translating I'm going to have to do this transfer, I'll hopefully be semi-kinda-okay at it by the end. There is so much work to do here in Savona! We don't even have enough time to see all the people that we want to see - it's so crazy! It feels like a completely different mission than Torino. I did get a call on Saturday from the Torino sorelle, though, asking me where the spare keys to the apartment are...yeah, they locked themselves out, haha. I don't know how they got back in, but I will say that I didn't have the spare keys! I left them on the shelf by the door before I left.

I don't know what else to say, but I'll keep typing this sentence so that I feel like I'm not wasting my internet time...

Oh, Dad, you'd be so proud of me, the first thing I did when I got here (pretty much) was fix up my bike. Sorelle Jones and Burgoyne had to buy new bikes, so they're fine, but the first time I rode my new bike I felt like I had to be careful about not kneeing myself in the forehead - it is not a very big bike! So I basically just raised the seat about 4 inches and adjusted the handlebars to make it work, and then we went to the gas station on Monday to put air in the tires. Remember how I'm the tallest sister in the mission? Whoever has my bike next will for sure have to readjust everything to fit them (let's hope it's not my friend Sor Bishop who inherits my bike next).

Well, I feel like this is a super short email, but I'm out of time! Just know that I'm LOVING Savona and all is well! You are in my prayers and I love you all so much (especially my braintwin! pee ess thanks for the email!)!!!!

Lots and lots and lots of love from Savona (via Genova), Sorella Soh