Senior Companion Week!!

Hello hello hello!!!

Hi. I'm sick, so as you hear my voice in the words of my email today, kick it down a few octaves and weaken it because I sound pretty pathetic. It's not too horrible, but I have a little cough and my throat hurts some and I have a little bit of a headache. Pretty much I'm just sick enough for it to be annoying. Good thing it's week 5 of the transfer, because that means it's Slla Heupel's turn to be senior companion! She's not thrilled about it...but neither was Slla Bunker and she turned out alright...even if she was ready to strangle me at one point during the week. 

Shout out this week to Grammy and Papa Soh, who sent me a letter this week! At least someone in my extended family writes to me!!! It was happily received :)

I forgot to tell you last week about two pdays ago when we went to the Duomo - we each shelled out 4 euro to go down to the old baptistry that is now underground. I don't know how long ago it was found/excavated. It has a baptismal font in it. And what's that you ask? Is it a baptismal font in which they did baptism by immersion? Why yes, yes it is. It was pretty cool. You can see some of the tiles on the floor of the font, and there is a hydrolic system that they used to use to fill the font with water. The info plaque said that there were four "faucets" where water came out to fill the font that represent the four rivers in the garden of Eden. Cool, right?

It terms of my ever-changing appearance, I cut my hair again last week! It's not anything super special, but say that you to Sister Howard for giving me an easy haircut before the mission so that I can now just cut straight across to get rid of the dead ends. Also, I've had two people this past week tell me that I've lost weight. It wasn't "have you lost weight?", but rather "you have lost weight." Oh so very Italian. But it's true. Since being in Milano I have lost weight. Overall, however, I've gained weight as a missionary. Guess that just makes me an official missionary, right? :)

Speaking of weight and Italians, we had lunch with an Italian member couple on Sunday. Oh. Mamma. Mia. Itwassogood. We had roasted bell peppers and FRESH buffalo mozzarella as an antipasto (appetizer? is that how you said that in English?), pasta with a napoletano sauce (aka Napoli-style, because this couple is from Napoli) which was made from scratch...as in the husband took tomatoes and made the sauce from scratch, then we had these meat roll things and then we had another kind of roasted bell peppers with olives and capers and then we had grapes and a fruit called fichi d'India, which I've never seen in the US before. It was delicious. I'll try and duplicate some of those things when I get home. But I'll only make you Italian food if you have written to me while I've been in Italy. Ha.

Well I guess you're all waiting to hear about Giovanna's Baptism! So I'll tell you about it. It didn't happen. She didn't get baptized. Not because she's not worthy - she didn't even have the interview - I guess she just isn't ready yet. So that was a bummer. We spent the last few days of last week feeling pretty crummy. Actually, it was probably the worst I've felt on my mission. Here's the short version: She had her interview scheduled for 5pm last Wednesday, we were in the car with the guy who was gonna do the interview and got stuck in traffic and were late, she got mad because she had made a ton of arrangements to be a the church for the interview, and when we weren't there after having waited for a long time, she left. There's more to the story, but that doesn't really matter. In the end, she just wasn't ready to be baptized. She still wants to, I think, but since we already had to reschedule once already, I don't know if she will. We're still meeting with her and all that, so the story isn't over, but we've just had to regroup and now we're trying to figure out what we need to do to help her continue progressing in her faith. I had made brownies last week and so we gave her some with an "I'm sorry" card as a peace offering. So that's where she's at.

About Flavia, who also had a baptismal date, she is still doing good. She doesn't have a date anymore because she has been bouncing back and forth between Milano and Napoli (which is where she's from) for the past several weeks, and currently she is in Napoli. She gets back to Milano on the 3rd, though, so we'll be able to make a new plan with her after that. She is incredible and asks us awesome, profound questions about what she reads in the BoM. She's so great. I can't wait for her to get back! 

Transfers are next week, but unless President really feels strongly about changing us up, we'll be staying together her in Milano. You're right, mom, that as a training companionship we do two transfers together. However, at the end of this second transfer I'm about 98% sure I'll be transferred because I will have been in Milano 4 transfers, which is usually the max in one city.

Is there such thing as an opposite shout out? Maybe a wall of shame? Because I would like to put Slla Walton, Slla Baker and Slla Williams on said wall. And since they all speak Italian, I'll spare the English speakers and write to them in Italian - Biblical Italian: Ora ecco, disse la povera sorella ancora in missione: Vergognatevi tutte!!! Non potete dire che mi scriverete e poi non farlo, sì, non potete dire a quel giorno "mi pentirò, scriverò a mia sorella". Poiché ecco, questo giorno è il giorno in cui dovete compiere le vostre buone opere e mantenere le vostre promesse a prescindere dalle difficoltà. VERGOGNA. Pentitevi, pentitevi per poter stare senza biasimo dinanzi a me al giorno quando finisco la missione. Amen.

Anyway, I guess if you're super curious you can google translate that. As for now, I'm out of time! I always feel like I haven't conveyed any worthwhile information in these emails. I even made a list this week! Just keep reading the Book of Mormon. It'll bless you life more than you can imagine.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Con tanto amore,

Sorella SOH

p.s. sorry no pictures this week (not that I have any). This computer's CPU is hiding from me so I can't upload any pictures.

p.p.s. Thanks, dad, for the picture you drew of an example jalapeno in your letter this week, even if it wasn't to scale or in color. It really gave me a better idea of what they look like..

Italian cats really do say "miao"

Aloooooooooooooooooooooohaaa!!!

Buongiorno a tutti! Well it's another pday here in Milano and it's raining! It also rained last pday when all the sorelle got together to go to the Duomo...we were all a little soggy. However, I did buy a little rain jacket, so that should really come in handy. I don't know why it's taken me so long to buy one...

Updates here: I am no longer serving in the Milano 2nd Ward. I am now serving in the Milano Cimiano Ward. What does that mean? It just means that they changed the name of our ward at Stake Conference on Sunday when they divided the Milano Stake into Milano East and Milano West. Milano 1 changed to Milano Lampugnano and Milano 3 changed to Milano Naviglio. Basically the new name just corresponds with the closest major public transportation stop to the church building. Giovanna, who is getting baptized on Saturday if everything works out, told us that the renaming of the wards was her favorite thing about the Conference because the new names are much less confusing...Haha. And I'm just realizing that this paragraph is probably only worth reading by people who are familiar with Milano...aka ex-missionari. Oh well!

I feel like my life here in Milano is so hectic! And also a little stressful. We spend all day dashing around the city trying to make appointments and hardly have any time to stop and catch our breaths. We've been meeting all kinds of different people and this week we've really been focusing on trying to get people to become new investigators. A lot of times we teach people and give them the BoM and then they can't/don't want to meet with us again. That's been a little bit hard. Maybe if I was a better missionary our lives wouldn't be so stressful! Geez. We're working on it! I'M working on it!

Yesterday was crazy. We had a scambio with the Milano Naviglio sorelle, Slla Forbes and Slla Mancuso (p.s. did you know that Slla F's parents are DVC members??? She and I get along very well). This was my first scambio that wasn't a blitz - we really just switched companions and I didn't see Slla Heupel for 24 hours! Anyway, I was with Slla Mancuso, from upstate NY. She came to our zone and we got to work here in the Milano Cimiano zone! (p.p.s. someone in the internet point who is sitting on the other side of the barrier in the line of computers just sneezed like three times and I am 99.999% sure he didn't cover his mouth, and if he did cover his mouth, I am 99.999% sure he sneezed into his hand. I don't want to breathe. At least the door to the internet point is open.) Anyway, yesterday morning I got a call from Anz Herrington, who is now an assistant to the president, and he said "hey, we don't have a musical number for our training meeting today in Milano 1. What are you and your ukulele doing at about 3pm?" Well, me and my ukulele we going to be at an appointment at that hour, so I told Anz H that we could make it at 1pm. So I went with my scambio companion all the way to Milano Lampugnano and, at an awkwardly placed time in the training meeting, played the mission hymn. Some of the Anziani there had already seen the video of me playing the mission hymn at the sister conference because President apparently played it at his meeting with all the zone leaders. But anyway, I played it and everyone liked it, of course. There may be an upcoming petition to replace the normal version of the mission hymn with the Sorella Soh ukulele version... I talked to one of the office elders and he said, mom, that he would email you the video. I don't know what could get better than that for you, because the song is in Italian - singing, ukulele, Italian - all in one!

Our scambio went really well, though, and I learned a lot from Slla Mancuso. She is really great. I think Slla Heupel really learned a lot from Slla Forbes, too, which isn't surprising because Slla F is a way better trainer/missionary than me. And actually, I was the scambio companion of Slla Forbes in her first transfer in Cuneo! Oh, scambio.

We've been taking Giovanna and her two younger sons to the home of a member every week for FHE. This week we went to the home of an older couple whose children are all grown and live in Peru. Their house isn't very big, but it doesn't need to be. The wife kept apologizing because "la nostra casa è piccola / our house is small", but it didn't even matter. One of my favorite things about doing FHE with different members every week is that Giovanna has been sharing her testimony of prayer and meeting the sisters and the Book of Mormon with each family every time we go. As she was sharing her testimony about prayer, she said "la mia casa è piccola, come la vostra, ma c'è tanto spazio per pregare / my house is small, like yours, but there's lots of room to pray". I was reading in Mosiah this morning about how the Lamanites wouldn't let the people of Alma pray. This is what it says:

"10 And it came to pass that so great were their afflictions that they began to cry mightily to God.

 11 And Amulon commanded them that they should stop their cries; and he put guards over them to watch them, that whosoever should be found calling upon God should be put to death.

12 And Alma and his people did not raise their voices to the Lord their God, but did pour out their hearts to him; and he did know the thoughts of their hearts."

There are absolutely, positively NO LIMITATIONS to prayer. Even if there isn't room to stand, you can kneel. Even if you can't open your mouth, you can open your heart.

Anyway, outta time again! I'll try to improve this week in trying to write down beforehand what I want to say so that my emails are a little bit more structured...I think I need that in my life right now. Sheesh. Alrighty, well, I love you all! Be good! Pray for the missionaries in YOUR ward!

LOVE,

Sorella SOH

Meerah Kulls

Ciao. 

Guess what? I'm attaching pictures. Get excited.

1) me and Slla Heupel with Pres and Sis Wolfgramm

2) All the sorelle at the sister conference!!! My favorite part is that (almost) everyone is holding a fan (Slla Wolfgramm gave them to us!) except for Slla Silva. She is holding the Book of Mormon. Hahahahaha I love her so much!!!!!!

[Note from Nicole - this pic didn't come through.  I'll ask her to send it again.]

3) Me and Slla Arume!!! It's a geeky picture, but I like it and it blurs the height disparity between us...

4) Me and Slla H and Flavia!!!!

5) Me and Slla Baker before she went home!

6) Slla Forbes, me and Slla Nilson eating some delicious gelato from Lato-G

7) Slla Mancuso, Slla Heupel and Slla Lloyd and their delicious gelato from Lato-G

Well it's already the 12th of September!!! Yikes! Don't know how it got here so fast! It's also the first day of school for the kids in Italy, so happy first day of school! 

They've been doing some cleaning or something in the Milano 1 meeting house for the past few weeks, so it's been closed and some of the members there have been coming to our ward instead. Last Sunday I met an American woman who is in the Milano 1 ward. She didn't tell me her name, but she said that she knows me! All she said was that she was a college roommate of Morag! So, Morag, I've met your friend!

I'm just gonna cut and paste what I wrote to President today:

"Remember the miracle story about the woman I saw on the metro and wanted to talk to but couldn't but then I chased her down after we got off the train? Her name is Hilda. Well, the miracle continues. First of all, when I called to confirm our second appointment with her, she told me she didn't want the Book of Mormon we had given her, but said we could still meet with her. Other people she knows had given her some incorrect information about the church, so she didn't want to continue. After explaining the Restoration and our purpose, though, she was back on board. But then our third appointment she couldn't make because she had to work. The day after, we got a squillo [when someone calls, lets the phone ring once and then hangs up so that you can call them back and then they don't have to pay for the call] from her. I called back and she answered and immediately said "aspetta, ti passo" ["hold on, I'm passing the phone"] and I heard a male voice on the other line telling me that his wife is this Hilda's cousin. And then he said "my wife and I were eating lunch with Hilda, and she pulled this Book of Mormon out of her bag..." I immediately thought "oh no, he's gonna chew us out for talking to his relative and how Mormons are crazy and all that" as often happens. Well, you can imagine my surprise when he said "I've never heard of this book, do you have one in Italian? I'm interested in reading it." I didn't know what to say! So I said "um, yeah we have it in Italian! When can we meet??" On Sunday night we met with him and his wife in the church, taught the Restoration, invited them to baptism, and then said a kneeling prayer at the end. It was awesome!!! Miracles miracles miracles!!!!"

Super cool, right??? First of all, Hilda is a miracle, and then people she knows start calling US to meet with US and read the BoM. Sooooooo awesome!!!!!!!

Oh, we had a zone meeting yesterday and we were told that we need to be more careful about our emails home getting posted on blogs that the whole world can read. Apparently President has gotten several phone calls in the last few weeks from members here, parents at home and the Area Presidency because some missionaries have been writing some not really good things home about other people, including their companions. So mom, if there's ever anything in my emails that probably I shouldn't have included, please cut it out of my email before posting in on my blog. I apologize if that has ever been the case :(

With that said, let's just talk about my companion...she's so great! She has never taken any Italian before and is still trying to understand most of what people say, but if I've said it once, I've said it a million times - the gift of tongues IS SO REAL!!! Pretty much yeah. It's awesome.

Today the sisters from Varese are coming down to Milano, so we're going to do our pday with FOUR companionships of sisters - that's EIGHT sorelle! We are going to eat lunch at Fratelli la Bufala, which is a pizza place that they have also in the States, I think (don't worry, it's Italian!) and then we're going to go to the Duomo and Baptistry because we didn't go two weeks ago because we ended up window shopping instead... Oh, and Giovanna's baptism has been rescheduled for the 22nd because of Stake Conference this weekend. We are super excited for her, she's incredible and has the biggest testimony ever and is so awesome and I love her. This week she even went out and bought us a mosquito killer/repellant thing that you plug into the wall and it kills all the mosquitos in the room. She is so great. I love her so much! 

Dad, I'm glad to hear that you have more jalapenos growing, but how are the tomatoes doing? Haven't heard about them in a while. I'm also glad Squeaky had fun at the Beehive sleepover, even though I have no idea who anyone in the ward is, but that's probably because they don't have any idea who I am. Slla Heupel got a cool envelope full of letters from the YW in her home ward yesterday, so that was cool. They didn't send her any peanut butter or goldfish or M&Ms or pens or socks, though, so my mom wins! Because she is the best. Sorry.

Well, time's up! I love you all tantissimo! Be glad that there are pictures this time! :)

AMOOOORE,

Sorella SOH

September?!

Hi. It's September. I'm freakin out.

Well well well, what's new in Milano 2, you ask? First of all, it's been raining! It's been raining off and on since Thursday or so. That pretty much destroyed our plans for Saturday evening because you can't go find people in the park if the rain forces all the people to not be in the park. It did mean, though, that Sunday was a huge miracle day because we taught 7 lessons! The rain has really cooled off the city, though, so tender mercy. Also, I don't know how the stars aligned like this, but Sunday we went to teach a new convert and she was skyping with the former Slla Baker and Slla Williams!!! That was weird. I mean, it was cool to see them, but any time I do something out of the ordinary that is fun, I feel like I'm breaking some kind of mission rule...

Anyway, the work is going great. We're finding all kinds of new investigators to teach, and this past week we've given away BoMs in Sinhala (the language of Sri Lanka) and Bulgarian. That was cool. We managed to find what we thought was Moroni 10:4-5 in both of them and it was so awesome to hear these people read from the Book of Mormon in their own language...also because if I didn't already know what those verses said I would've had no idea what they were saying. Flooding the earth!!!!!! Boo-yah!!!

We've had to move Giovanna's baptism from the 15th to the 22nd. Not because of anything she did, but because they're having Stake Conference on the 16th and there's a big RS activity on the 15th. Dangit. She wasn't really happy about having to move it, and neither was I because when we set her date we had no idea that Stake Conf was that weekend! No one tells us anything!!! Anyway, the 22nd will probably be better anyway because it's a big day in church history. It also happens to be the birthday of Tiffane Russell and Emily Krueger...my freakish memory has always just kept that in my head. And speaking of Emily - I mean Hermana Krueger - I can't believe she's at the MTC!!! Who knew that the lil' ol' Fort Bragg Ward would've produced THREE sister missionaries!!! If I remember correctly, Emily took French in high school... Well, at least it's still a Romance language!

I can't believe you iPhone'd my song and turned it into an mp3, mom! You are such a groupie! But at least you know people with connections... ;) And I can speak Italian to you all when I get home all you want. I could even start writing my emails in Italian! Ce la potrei fare!  The office Elders used the mission iPad to record me singing the mission hymn last week, so you'll have to check the mission blog to see if it's there. If not, just email the mission and bug them to email it to you.

I feel like I haven't planned this email very well. Before, I used to write down during the week what I wanted to email home about so that when we finally got to pday I would know what to write, but lately I've found that I haven't been keeping up with that. It's so weird, I feel like my mission now is completely different from how it was even just a few transfers ago. It's hard for me to remember, sometimes, how hard it was for me at the beginning while I was still transitioning out of normal life and into missionary life. Now it feels pretty normal, and the things that were hard for me then don't really seem all that important to me now. I feel like that's probably normal for all missionaries, but for me the change has been so gradual that I didn't really notice it until recently. Sometimes, randomly, a song or movie quote or something will pop into my head - out of nowhere - and I have to stop and think about how I know it and what triggered it. It's really weird! Like, "ohhh yeah, I have that CD!". I guess that's why missions are such turning points in peoples' lives - because it's like a big repentance machine and you come out of it with a changed heart. Some things just aren't important anymore. They will probably gain importance again when I have to jump back into the world of normal living, but right now there are so many things I just don't even think about. I don't describe myself by what I'm studying in school or what I want to be when I grow up or who my favorite bands are or what I like and don't like. I'm a missionary. I talk to people about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. That's it. And all that's important is that I give everyone I talk to the chance to hear about how a fourteen year-old boy saw God and Jesus Christ and what that means for every human being that has ever lived. Those people sometimes ask about those other things (particularly if I left any boys back in the States...why they always ask me that, I have no idea...and usually it's NOT creepy old guys that ask me, but members!) but I don't even want to answer, sometimes. Usually I don't. I just say "I don't remember", even when they ask me what my first name is. Right now it's just not important. Looking back to when I first got to Italy, I wondered if I would ever get to this point as a missionary, and I didn't think I would. But that's what happens when you try not just go through your mission, but have your mission go through you.

It's pumpkin time. Thanks to everyone who has watched and commented and liked my version of Pua Olena! I love you all very much!! Don't forget to read your scriptures!!!! (what a cheesy missionary thing to say....geez)

AMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!

Sorella Soh :)