This is the beginning of a new year, with lots of new adventures. And for me, a new year that will be entirely spent in Italy. And that is a weird thought! I hope all of you got enough sleep last night... We delightfully went to bed here at 10 pm! However, we were awoken at 23:55 to the sound of bombs echoing between the myriad of apartment buildings; lots of grown men and women screaming, and the shriek cries of little children. If I hadn't known it was New Years, I would have thought the end of the world came. Which, I guess if it were to come, being a missionary in Italy wouldn't be the worst place to be. The yelling, bombs, and fireworks continued for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only and hour or half an hour. I have never had such a loud New Year.
This has been quite the odd transfer. We have a little over two weeks left, and this is the first normal pday we have had. For the week of Christmas, they moved our P-Day onto the Tuesday which was actual Christmas, so everything was closed, and last week they moved it again to Tuesday, or New Year. Everything was closed, and it was our deep cleaning day so we were stuck in the apartment all day. So we are excited to finally have a normal pday! We get to go pant shopping! This week is going to be a fun transition. We also start the open house, and all the sisters in the mission will be coming up this week for some training. We've memorized lots of dialog, and hopefully will be prepared for when the tours start. A lot is in the air right now about the open house, but to quote President Pickers, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." So that's where we are at.
We haven't had tons of appointments because of Feste, but we have made some good progress with the people we're teaching. Danielle has started accomplishing the things she needs to be prepared for her baptism in March. (I'm hoping I'll still be in Ostia for that 🤞🏼) And we finally were able to bring a member to Angela's. The member was so loving but was also not afraid to gently break Angela's boxes. She showed Angela that she can overcome anything is she really wants to do it. And they left as good friends. So hopefully we will be able to bring the member again. We have our week completely booked with new appointments! So hopefully we will have some new people to teach. We were going through the area book and calling people to see if they had interest in meeting. We only had like four minutes left before 21:00 but we decided to call one more person. The person I chose had a phone number that wasn't active. And we were pretty bummed about it. But I saw she had someone listed in her household, and they had a different number. So we quickly dialed the number, and Rita answered! More than that, she was so excited and grateful we had called. She was very willing to meet during the week. So that was our tender mercy from using those last miracle minutes before curfew!
Oh! Last but not least! Danielle for New Year's Eve, tried to feed us lamb brain! She had filled the table with food already. Way more than three people could eat. And the bug platter of lamb couldn't even fit on the table. But this platter had the head of the lamb, but right in half. The brain, eyes, nose, tongue, teeth and hair, lip all still intact. (or cut in half, but tomato-tomawto in this case) we. Flipped the head over to try and get a good picture of the brain, but it fell out! So Sorella Harmon used a fork to shovel it back in. However, the brain broke and some chucks fell out around the platter. Sorella Harmon then cleaned the fork and made sure it was Danielle who used it - because she likes the brain anyways. We ate all the food Danielle had laid out on the table, and when we thought she would dish out that abhorred lamb, she went to dessert. However she remembered the lamb and made me eat some. I didn't have to eat the head, so blessings, but it was still hard to put it down when we had seen the brains.
Anyways, one thing I've really learned this week was God will help you do what you can't do, if you first give your all. There were so many times when I didn't think I had the words to speak or understand, but when I would open my mouth, I was helped. I was able to find a way to convey my feelings. He wants to help us do the right things, and when we take that first step into the dark on our own, He helps us take the next.
I love you all and hope you have had a wonderful start to your new year.
Vi voglio bene ❤️❤️
Ciao ciao!
Sorella Thorup
No comments:
Post a Comment