Missionaria alla milanese

Bon-jurr!!!

Wednesday again? Yikies! Last week the Bergamo sorelle (Slla McNamara and Slla Harward) came down and had pday with us. We went to the Teatro alla Scala which is the famous opera house here in Milano. IT WAS AWESOME!!! First of all, the guy at the box office let us in for free! We went up the stairs to the little museum thing that had a bunch of paintings and stuff of famous composers and opera singers, and then we got to go into one of the audience boxes and see the theater. Unfortunately, the lights were all out so we didn't get to see everything in detail...BUT! It was dark because they were doing a dress rehearsal for the opera "Nabucco" so we got to watch part of it!!!! It was so so awesome!!! It wasn't with the orchestra, just with the piano, but we heard some of the singers - a soprano, a tenor, a bass, and a mezzo soprano. It was really cool. Slla Harward was a vocal performance major at Utah State and so it was even cooler for her to be there.

Oh, and mom, two weeks ago I bought new boots. They were on sale for 40€ and they've turned out to be probably the best purchase I've made all winter because they're super warm and also waterproof! They're not super attractive, but such is my life. Sigh.

I'm happy to hear that the fam is reading in Alma 50ish right now because I just read that chapter today! I guess I'll finish before you guys, but that just means that I'll get to read the end of the BoM with you all again. Hopefully that will help start to make up for all those times I've read 1 Nephi 1 and never gotten to Moroni 10...

So scambio this week! I went to Bergamo! I really liked it. Bergamo is really beautiful, and really clean! It's an interesting contrast to Milano, and the two cities are less than an hour apart on the train. Slla Harward is really good friends with my friend Mary Kremer who studied abroad in Siena with me, so that was cool. Slla Lyman and Slla McNamara stayed here in Milano and they set a baptismal date with Mishell (aka Michelle), the 9 year old girl we are teaching. February 24th after church! That brings our total baptismal dates up to 3! We're super excited to have so many people who want to get baptized. We've also had a lot of referrals from members of less-actives that they'd like us to go see. The best part is that these people are really in situations where they want and need our support and so that has been really neat for us as well. Ideally the ward takes care of teaching new converts and less-actives, not the missionaries, but it's definitely nice to feel needed.

Our awesome investigator, Jennifer, is doing really great. I almost feel bad that we have to wait until the 16th so she can get baptized - she's ready right now! I feel so blessed to be able to go over and teach her because she knows everything is true. I feel like we don't really do anything! I just feel really good when we have lessons with her and I know it's because the Spirit is there. We just all feel really good, really comfortable when we're in our lessons.

Um. It's week 5 of the transfer! It also means that Slla Lyman is senior companion for the week!! I know she's not particularly excited about it, but none of my trainees have ever been excited about it, so she's in good company. She's doing great though and hopefully she'll make it to the end of the week without wanting to strangle me! We did have kind of a weird experience yesterday, nothing to freak out about, but extra prayers of protection and safety would really be appreciated.

I hope everyone is enjoying the weather! Here it's been pretty much just foggy and cold every day. The other day it rained and rained and then snowed and then rained again. Luckily our heaters work really well in the apartment, so we're safe from that! I've just been extra glad to have these new waterproof boots! One day of walking around with soggy boots and socks was enough for me!

Well, it's that time again. Keep reading your scriptures and look for the miracles in your lives! I asked Slla McNamara last week what things she felt like she has learned on her mission and she said "Miracles. Before my mission I kinda glossed over them and was like 'yeah, whatever', but they are real!!! They are so real!" So! Look for 'em! I love you all very much! Have a fantastic week!

AMORE,

Sorella SOH

The Fourth String

Buoooooongiorno!!!

Yikes. I can't believe it's Wednesday again already, even though a ton of stuff happened this past week! First of all, shout out again to Slla Baker...75 lessons in one week...last week we had 6. Yeah. That bites. We were talking to one of the YSAs here and she has a friend who is serving in Mexico. Apparently this friend had 30 baptisms in one month...and their goal was 50. She told me that and I almost passed out. I was like "how many lessons a week do you have to teach to be able to baptize 30 people???" Seventy-five lessons a week? That's like more than 10 lessons a day!! Oh my gosh.

Well, like I said, it's been an exciting week! We had specialized training on Friday and all got new bank cards! So now I have a brand new Bank of America card...oooOOOooo. The Lynches are the senior couple in the office and they've been traveling all around the mission to do these trainings. They were also the ones who drove us down to Siena and witnessed first-hand all that went down in our apartment! I talked to Slla Lynch a little bit and she said she was talking to Slla Capece earlier that week at their training and Slla Capece told her "I miss Sorella Soh!". Well I miss the Capeces! The training wasn't anything particularly special, but the most exciting part for Slla Lyman and I was the special musical number we performed! Yes!!! A violin/ukulele duet!!! Yep.You read that right. Violin and ukulele. That's right, folks, the Fourth String Sorelle performed their spectacular rendition of the Italy Milan Mission Hymn!!! I had joked with President about doing a violin/ukulele thing because Slla Lyman is a STELLAR violin player and studies it at BYU and stuff. Well, last week in his email to me he said "if you and Slla Lyman come up with something for the training on Friday, let me know!" so then I started to take it seriously. So Thursday for our language study/lunch, we spent an hour and a half or so writing a violin part to the mission hymn. I wasn't sure if it would work at first, but we decided to try anyway. As I had been thinking about how we could make it work, I kind of came up with a little tune in my head that would sound cool with the mission hymn, and then when we acutally got the violin out, Slla Lyman is a boss and could just play whatever I hummed out. The end result was AWESOME!!! Seriously, it sounded so cool. Everyone was pretty much blown away when we performed it at the training (don't worry, they filmed it and I'm working on getting a copy). The sound probably wasn't that great because the violin is pretty loud, but we got a standing ovation at the end. It was really fun. Slla Lyman told me it was the first time she's ever written anything on the violin - I'm glad I was there to write it with her! It's super awesome.

Other exciting news, we set a baptismal date on Sunday night! So the sisters here before us (Slla Forbes and Slla Mancuso) met a guy named Atilio and taught him the Restoration. Then he was out of town for a few months working and then moved and all kinds of crazy things so they didn't ever see him again. Anyway, long story short, we got in touch with him again and on Sunday night went with a member to his house and talked to him about the Book of Mormon. He said that he hadn't really read it, but really liked the story about Joseph Smith and Christ in the Americas and stuff. We always invite to baptism our first lesson with someone, so Slla Lyman asked him if he will get baptized when he knows that what we teach is true. He said yes without any hesitation, and I was kinda surprised. I also thought that if he accepted so easily that we should go ahead and try to set a date with him. Since it is Slla Lyman's job to invite people to baptism because she is the trainee, I whispered to her "Date! The 23rd!". Unfortunately, as I was saying that, Atilio had gone off talking about prophets or something and so I carefully tried to wrangle the conversation back to baptism. Once I got it set up, I handed it over to Slla Lyman and immediately she said "terremo una ceremonia battesimale il 23 febbraio. Si preparerà per farsi battezzare quel giorno? / we will be having a baptismal ceremony the 23rd of February. Will you prepare to be baptized on that day?" And he responded "Sì. Dove? / Yes. Where?". Haha. I wasn't sure if he really understood what he had just agreed to, so I kinda followed up with things like "well, you need to read and pray and come to church if you WANT TO BE BAPTIZED ON THE 23rd" and he was like, "yeah, yeah, I understand". And then we set up to see him twice a week - we have an appointment with him tonight! But he seems to understand that we want him to get baptized and he wants to do it, so we've just got to make sure we help him get ready! 

Today the Sorelle serving in Bergamo (Slle McNamara and Harward) are coming to do pday with us, and then I'll be going back to Bergamo with Slla Harward to do a scambio (exchange) with her. Slla Harward was companions with Slla Lyman in the MTC. Neither she nor Slla McNamara have served in Milano, so we're going to go out and take a little tour of Milano with them - the Duomo, the creepy bone church, etc. I'm also excited to scambio in Bergamo! I've never been, but I've heard it's really beautiful. They also seem to have a lot of work there, so it's going to be a really good scambio, I'm sure of it!

Oh, mom! I got your Christmas package! THANK YOU! YOU ARE THE BEST!!! Slla Lyman also appreciated the Reese's trees you sent. As I stuffed mini kitkits into my mouth I kept saying "my mom is the best!" and she seemed to pick up on that trend because as she unwrapped a Reese's tree, she said "man. Your mom is the best." and savored every last bit of that chocolatey peanut butter goodness! So mom, it's been said in the mouth of two witnesses that the word shall be established, and Slla Lyman and I both have declared that you're the best! Thank you! We've had lots of fun sorting out jelly beans...Slla Lyman told me "I feel like I've just learned so much about you" as I told her all about my jelly bean preferences. And don't worry, I also shared some of the treats with the Elders in the ward, Anz Sciarretta and Anz Bedzold (sp?)...it's a hard life being an Assistant to the President...but they were also very grateful. "Those were the best jelly beans I've ever had!" Anz S told me (he only eats orange jelly beans). 

Well, we're off to go do our grocery shopping for the week! Oh, and another thing, shout outs of awesomeness to my second cousins who just got called to the Peru Lima and China Hong Kong missions!!! Yeah! That's three of those Hafen cousins with mission calls! Word.

Keep reading your scriptures! I finished Alma 37 today! Be a GEM!

Love,

Sorella SOH

Time keeps on slippin'

Guten Tag!!!

That's German. 

Anyway, happy Wednesday! I feel like the weeks are just flying by...which maybe isn't a good thing! The assistants to the President are in our ward and I had to call them last night for something - they're out and about this week doing trainings - and Anz Sciarretta told me that Slla Nilson gave her "dying" testimony yesterday aka it was her last mission gathering so she got to bear her testimony in front of the zone. AHHHHH!!!! That means I'm next!!!! At least I have another six weeks or so to prepare. Whew.

Additional shout outs this week to the future Slla Lopez and Slla Baker who emailed me this week. Also, shout out to MAMMINA WALTON!!! I got your letter on Thursday...the day after I sent YOU a letter. You're such a babe. And you look so thin! Thanks for the Christmas card...tell Laura I wish her good luck on finding "the perfect male specimen" haha.

Well, remember how I thought all of my Milano memories would be about how dang hot it was? I feel like I'm getting the opposite now because it is getting cold! The weather has been really gross and yesterday it rained and rained and rained. Unfortunately these cheap-o boots I bought are not waterproof...last night I felt like I was walking around with an Icee slushie in my shoes. My socks were completely soaked! We are going to a little mall place thing today, though, so hopefully we can sort that out...hopefully.

How's your Book of Mormon reading going? I just finished Alma 25 today in Italian. I'm still on track to finish before the end of my mission!

Speaking of the end of my mission, I had a dream last night about how I was supposed to give my homecoming talk in church but I didn't have anything prepared (obviously, because I still have a transfer and a half left in my mission), but luckily Lauren Hafen was giving her farewell talk that day and everybody loved it. It was a weird dream. 

Well our awesome investigator, Jennifer (who I wrote about last week), is doing great! And guess what? She's getting baptized on the 16th of February!!! We went with her last Saturday to a baptism in one of the other Milano wards and she was totally down. She said "Sono pronta / I'm ready". She's already almost finished 1 Nephi and totally understands everything we teach and it is so awesome. She is the best! 

That hour on Sunday right after church is probably the most hectic hour of my week. We run around trying to talk to everyone and set up appointments and thank people and whatever, and it's really exhausting!This Sunday I was talking to someone and then Anz Sciarretta said "Hey Sorella Soh!" and waved me over to talk to the woman he had been talking to. He just said "here you go!" and so I introduced myself to this woman and she said, basically, "Hi, my 9 year old daughter wants to get baptized. Can you come over and teach her or something?" and of course I said yes! And guess what the daughter's name is? It's Michelle!!! The mom has been kinda less-active for the past few years but she has a super solid testimony and knows the church is true and she told us yesterday that she really wants to do good and get reactivated and be that example for her kids (she also has a 5 year old son). So basically we have two people that have just fallen out of the sky and into our laps and we couldn't be happier about it. I just love being able to help people and fulfill my calling at the same time...IT'S THE BEST!

So for my daily language study I've been working on translating my patriarchal blessing from English into Italian. I started when I was in Firenze and now I think I've got it translated the best I'm ever going to get it. It has been SO cool to translate because I've really had to think about what each word means. The only bad part is that I can't really have anyone look over it, so I'll never know how good my translation is! Haha, but it's been really neat nonetheless.

Well, my time is up this week! Keep on keeping on! I love you all very much and hope all is well in the U S of A. Go give someone a pass along card! :P

AMOOOORE,

Sorella SOH

Me Lawn Know

BUONGIORNO!!!!

First of all, MAJOR shout out to the future Sorella Lopez!!!! WRITE TO ME!!! I'm so pumped that you're coming to the mission! The Italy Milan Mission is the best in the whole world! Send me all your questions and I promise to write you back (and that's a big promise from me!). You can email me if you want. Also a shout out to Slla Baker - I love getting your emails. You are the light at the end of my tunnel, haha!

Man, Slla Lopez. I'm so pumped for you. I can't even stand it.

So the big news of the mission, in my opinion, is that the number of sister missionaries in our mission will be skyrocketing in the next six months, and a big chunk of them come in when I leave! I told President on Monday that I feel bad for up and leaving the mission when they'll need all the help they can get with training sisters. I told him "you can keep me for 30 days!!!!" and he just laughed. But I'm serious!!! Even though I know he won't keep me, dangit.

Guess what? I went to Como on Monday!!! Our zone leaders are in Como and so we went up there to have a zone training meeting. And no, I did not see George Clooney there. Nor did I see his villa on the lake. Dangit. But we went there and also had interviews with President! I had no idea we were having interviews, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise :)  My impression from President was that Slla Lyman and I will not be companions again next transfer...so we'll see what surprises await me in my last transfer!

Guess where we went yesterday? Corsico!!!! You know that little island north of Sardinia? Yeah, that's not it. That would be Corsica. We went to Corsico. It's a little town outside Milano. Yeah. But it sounds cool, right?

So about the mail drama...sorry if you've gotten any letters returned to you that you had tried to send to me. It it's been opened and then taped shut, rest assured that I've already read the letter and no one wanted to steal anything out of it. Before I left Milano this summer I sent a big box home with a jacket I never used and all of the letters that had been sent to me in Italy (and some others). Apparently that box was opened somewhere along the road and half of the letters were stuffed in a bag and put back in the box and the other half got put back into circulation. I've been getting tons of letters - but they've all already been opened and read by ME. The office has gotten several and the sisters in Savona and Milano at least have gotten a bunch of letters sent to those apartments. I'm so upset about it. The jacket I sent didn't get home either, and I had bought that in Siena when I studied abroad there. It was like 40 euro!!! But I can replace anything EXCEPT my letters. Grr. I'm so upset!!!!!

Sigh. Well, wanna hear a miracle story? This is what I sent to President in my email this week:

"I was supposed to serve in Milano Cimiano. I am supposed to be serving right now in Milano Navigli. At church on Sunday I saw a face I recognized, and it turns out she lives in the Milano Navigli area, but went to the Milano Cimiano ward. Well, that is she went there up until recently when the bishop of Milano Cimiano told her that she needs to go to the ward in her area. So I greet this sister at the beginning of church and she says "hey, didn't you serve in Milano 2?". It was nice to see a familiar face - for both of us. After church was over, I went to go speak to this sister before she left, and that's when she introduced me to her daughter who is 22 years old. She said, "hey, this is my daughter. She's not baptized yet. Do you want to come over and teach her the lessons?". Of course I said yes and we set up an appointment for the next day. When we showed up and had the first lesson, the daughter told us that she's decided she wants to get baptized! MIRACLE!!! We didn't even do anything, but I KNOW that this member would never had approached me and asked us to come over and teach the lessons if I had just been a stranger. It's only because we knew each other from Milano Cimiano that she would have ever felt comfortable to have us come over!!! INSPIRATION IS SO AWESOME!!!! Thanks for transferring me back to Milano, President!!!"

Yeah! The daughter's name is Jennifer and we are SO PUMPED to teach her!!! She's been coming to church for a while now - she has come every week with her mom since she got here in September, but apparently nobody knew she wasn't a member! We're seeing her again tomorrow and hope to set a date with her. Pray for us!

Well, my time is up! I love you all very much! Keep reading your scriptures! I'm in Alma now!

Loveeeee,

Sorella Soh

Life North of the Arno

Buongiorno a tutti, belli e brutti!!!!

Well, I'm back in Milano! Currently I'm sitting at a tiny little computer space in a sketchy Internet point, but that's just how it goes in Milano. The city isn't really anything like I left it - it's cold! And here I thought all my memories of Milano would be scorching hot summer days... There's actually a really big canal that stretches down our area, and it reminds me a lot of Venice. I didn't even know it existed in Milano! Today is one of the sisters' birthdays and so after we do our grocery shopping we're gonna go up to the Duomo and get lunch together. Man, it's so crazy to be back here.

My first Sunday went pretty well. The ward is HUGE! I mean, by USA standards it's not huge, but dang, when sacrament meeting attendance is about 10x as big as it was in Siena, it feels huge. We had combined RS/EQ meeting the first hour and before the lesson started the bishop let me and the other new Elder in the ward get up and introduce ourselves. Of course I took that as an opportunity to bear my testimony instead of just rambling on about where I've served and how long I've been out and how many times I've trained and all of those other dumb, petty things that no one cares about because they don't matter. Instead I told them about how I'm excited to serve here and how I want to get to know everyone. I had been thinking about what I wanted to say that morning and so told them: "Sono venuta in missione perché volevo servire il Signore, ma sono rimasta in missione perché voglio servire voi / I came on my mission because I wanted to serve the Lord, but I've stayed on my mission because I want to serve YOU". Anyway, I did that and then had to get up and lead the music while Slla Lyman played the piano and then I was asked to say the closing prayer in Sac Mtg. So I guess it went over well! Lots of people came and talked to me after (also because we had come to church early so that I could greet everyone as they walked it) and so I've already started to get to know some of the members. I was complimented on my smile (thank you, Dr. Prewitt and thousands of dollars of orthodontal work!) and also on my Italian accent! It's so funny, no one can guess where I'm from anymore. This YW aged girl came up to me after I said the closing prayer in sac mtg and was like "your accent is SO GOOD!" haha. You might say I have skillz...I would say it's the gift of tongues!

Sorella Lyman and I have gotten along pretty good so far. She was a CP! She worked at Colombia Harbour House, quick food. So we've had fun reminiscing about Disney a bit. And she's from Cary, NC! She even taught me that the name Cary is an acronym for "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees". WHO KNEW??? Well, Slla Lyman, apparently. So, neato skeeto.

Oh, Happy New Year!!! Can you even believe it's 2013!?!? I spent the ENTIRE year of 2012 in Italy as a missionary. How crazy is that!? We didn't do anything, really. We had to be in our apartment by 7pm New Years' Eve and then were supposed to stay in and clean New Years' Day until after lunch. I tried to go to bed at 10:30pm like we're supposed to, but I forgot that we live in the largest city in the mission and sleeping before midnight would be quasi impossible. People were shooting off fireworks from their balconies and noise makers and who knows what all night. It started pretty much as soon as it got dark. It was SO LOUD! It was like being in a war zone or something - non-stop explosions for hours. I didn't ever look at my watch, but I knew when it was midnight because the people in the apartment next to us were making tons of noise and then went out on their balcony and shouted out the countdown to midnight. Which was then of course followed by incessant explosions. Sleep finally overwhelmed me by about 12:30am and I was able to sleep through the remaining explosions. Last year when I was in Torino I guess we lived in a much more peaceful area because it wasn't nearly as bad. I saw a few fireworks but that's it.

I like Milano, but boy was it hard to leave Siena. I may or may not have done a lot of crying...I just love Siena so much! And it was really hard to leave Slla Nilson, too! And the Capeces! We went to the church on Thursday night and some of the members came by to say goodbye. Everyone was like "You just got here! You can't leave!". There were even some suggestions that they chain me to the church and tell President that I couldn't leave, haha. So definitely gonna have to go back to Siena like every year of my life and see everyone! I told Slla Bush "I don't wanna be mean or anything, but I'm gonna be a tough act to follow...I mean, I WAS Joseph in the live nativity..." haha. I think the ward will really like Slla Bush, though. She's fun and has a lot of personality.

Well my time is winding to a close. Also, it's really hard to focus right now because the guy sitting next to me is watching spanish rap videos and his headphone are so loud that I can hear everything. Not pleasant. However, we're off to a new year and another week of missionary work! I'm fairly confident that mail will be coming for me to the Siena apartment until the end of time, but that's okay. It'll just make going to zone conference more fun because there'll be mail waiting for me! I love you all very much! Keep up your BoM reading! I just finished Mosiah 25 today!

Buon Anno!

Love,

Sorella Soh

Happy Santo Stefano! (from 12/26)

(Sorry!  Missed this one, it came the day we left Hawaii and I just forgot!)

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

We had a lovely Christmas here in Siena! We ate Christmas eve dinner with the Capeces and then went back over to their house at about noon on Christmas day. We're allowed to watch a G-rated movie on Christmas day, so our RS president hooked us up with a great musical - SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS!!!!! It was pure bliss. Slla Nilson and I spent the whole movie singing along and saying all of the lines with the movie. We even rewatched the "Sobbin' Women" song with subtitles...did you know that at one point Adam sings "They kept occupied by sewing lots of little old togas for them tots"? I had never been able to understand what he was saying at that point, and so now I feel so enlightened. And then a couple of times yesterday I leaned over and told Slla Nilson: "Nice night for a coon hunt." It was great. Then we mostly just loafed around until it was time to Skype our families. I told the "brown chicken brown cow" joke to Slla N's family. I practiced telling it like every day so that I wouldn't mess it up. It went over pretty well, I guess, because Slla N's fam kept asking me when I'm gonna come over and visit. At least after March...

The Capeces Skyped their daughters on Christmas Eve and on Christmas before it was our turn. I had brought my ukulele, and so the Capeces and Slla Nilson INSISTED that I play my ukulele for their families on Skype. It was kinda weird, but I did it anyway. I played my Hey Soul Sister/I'm Yours mash-up and of course it was a big hit. One of the Capece's daughters said afterward "wow, that was a lot better than I thought it was gonna be" ...which I tried to take as a compliment! 

Fun story, today we took the bus to come do our internet and there was an old man waiting at the bus stop. He saw us and said "Quanto siete belle!!! / How beautiful you two are!!!" and then proceeded to pinch my cheeks. Then he asked if he could kiss me. I said no. But he kept insisting "dai, un bacino! Per l'affetto fraterno! / come on, a kiss! For brotherly affection!". Instead I went for a handshake...and then he just kissed my hand. It could've been worse, I suppose.

I'm feeling pretty scatterbrained right now. Also, I'm not quite sure who my audience is because I just talked to my family on Skype yesterday and feel like I need to fill everyone else in. 

Oh! I forgot the biggest news of all! I'm getting transferred! On Friday! Yep, I'm on the outs. I'm headed back to Milano! Milano Navigli aka Milano 3rd Ward. Before I served in the Milano 2nd ward. And guess who's in my ward? Yep. President Wolfgramm. That means I can get hugs from Slla Wolfgramm every week!! Woo!! The Assistants are also in my ward! My new companion will be Slla Lyman, who is just finishing her first transfer. That also means that I will be her secondary trainer and will have the finish the 12 week training program with her. I'm taking Slla Forbes's spot. So that kinda makes me a trainer for the third time. Kind of. Slla Bush, who is from WI, is coming down here to take my spot in Siena, that lucky duck! 

A big shout out of everyone who sent me Christmas cards! I haven't been able to keep track of everyone who has sent me stuff, so I won't list out everyone, but the cards were all very much appreciated. Also a mondo super huge shout out to the Nilson fam and Grandma Harley who graciously included gifts for me in their packages to Slla N. It was nice to have something to open on Christmas since my mom's package didn't arrive in time!

Well, time has quickly run out. I love you all very much and I thank you for all of your prayers and support. Keep reading your scriptures! I'm now in Mosiah 6 or so (in Italian). Still on track to finish before the end of March! Well, at least I think I am. I don't really exactly know how much time I have left because I refuse to dwell on that. Yikes.

Happy New Year!

Love from Siena (for the last time),

Sorella Soh