6/26/12

Caro Tutti!

well.. its real hot here. we just ran around rome looking for an internet point for the last hour and we FOUND one! so here goes--

this week was pretty fun. our peruvian investagator, Delby is moving soon so we had a lesson with her outside (so she can connect with nature) by this lake, in the trees and man... to get there we passed a city called Anguilara which we need to visit when we come back to italy, by the way. its gorgeous. anyway.. the lesson was just the funniest thing ever... i hope you all get to meet delby one day cause she is just so funny. i still cant understand her but she tries to speak english with me which is a joke haha but shes great. her daughter is a recent convert so i really hope shell come around soon... 

this week in the rome stake, the youth had an 'olympic' activity and they had all the missionaries helping out so we went into rome (we got to wear SHORTS!!!) and got to help out with all the track races. at the end they had a race for the elders and then a race for the sisters. dont worry fam. i represented you well and won :) Fortza Ladispoli! our ward is bomb. 

we also got to help out with a wedding... in a sense.... that was in the church this week. but it wasnt really a wedding, more just a reception type of thing. the point is that her family is less active and non of his family are members so we got to just serve and help out and talk to people about the gospel and families (we handed out proclamations to the family) and it was just a really good experience and hopefully well get some referrals from that. 

um... a lot of appointments fell through this week (i guess its hot and people like the beach or something....) so we ended up having a lot of 'finding' days. so........ here are some of my finding experiences. 

we were doing casa e casa (house finding) and here they have huge apartment building so there is a thing called a citofono and you buzz peoples houses and try to basically have them let you in. so we were trying to invite people to learn about 'family home evening' or 'serata famigliare' and the first person we talked to buzzed us in. crazy. so we go up to his floor and knock on his door and this guy opens the door, with only his swim suit on, with shaving cream on his upper lip and pretends like he doesnt know who we are and said he didnt buzz us up but we know its him cause it was his exact voice and.... it was just funny. his was just a little insane haha but we just laughed about it all the way down the stairs... 

alright...... second story.

we are walking down the street, talking to people, and i see a woman holding the arms of her little girl who looks like she just fell to the ground and i was going to go help her get up but i realized the girl was actually pooping in a bag, on the street, and her mom was holding her up. so thats anothing thing we dont see in provo. haha nice italia......

and finally.... kept going down the street and we stopped a woman and asked her if she had ever heard of the book of mormon. she looked at sorella bumas tag, looked at us and said 'i'm catholic! anyway... see you in heaven..' and walked off. haha so funny..... 

well... its hot here. and the door in our bedroom (to outside) was broken and wouldnt open so we had the assistants come over and try to fix it. while they were working with it, we went into the other room to study and we just hear shattering glass and we run in there to see our poor elders just looking horrified and bleeding from random places! oh my gosh... it was the saddest, funniest thing i have ever seen. we cleaned them up and cleaned up the glass haha...... anyway..... our door opens now! so...... thats good haha.......

Andreina

allora.. last thing. i am sending a picture of my favorite old lady, Andreina. she is an artist and whenever we go over she shows us what she has been painting. i just love her to death. she is the sweetest woman and knows so much about the scriptures and she LOVES the book of mormon because she knows that the plan of salvation is real and that there is life after this! the sad part is that she probably wont be baptized in this life because she is so old but she wants sorella buma to do her baptism in the temple when she passes on. its very interesting to think that even though she probably wont get baptized in this life, we are preparing her to recieve the gospel in the next life. anyway.. i love her. this picture is also great cause i said 'uno, due, tre.' and on three she would put her head down. haha we did this a couple times.. anyway.. here is Andreina. 

well....... sounds like italy is doing well in the Eurocup. i wouldnt know cause i cant watch it but i can sure HEAR it. from every single house here..... haha we have to plan lessons around their games cause we know no one will see us during those times.... oh well... fortza italia!

shoutout- emilee: josh ledlow, says hi from italy.

that's all from me! VI VOGLIO BENE!

Sorella Sudweeks

New Letter

Allora.....

this week has gone by real fast and real slow. lots of random stuff has happened and i have come to the conclusion that the devil controls the beach, because its keeping all our investagators from coming to church!! 

Giorgia at the spanish steps

um... this week i made a deal with one of my favorite investagators, Giorgia, that if she would not smoke for 2 days in a row, i would sing a song to her, in the middle of the piazza in our town. haha she almost did it once but she's got a long way to go.. man.. i love giorgia. she just is the sweetest, most sarcastic person. she just jokes around with us all the time but whenever we read the scriptures with her she tears up because she knows how true they are.

its starting to get REAL hot here... and its humid so we are just the stickiest people haha. 

we helped Delby move the other day. well... more or less we helped her PACK which is a little bit awful but she really needed help so it was good that we went over there for a few hours. (not to mention we got to wear shorts) oh my goodness... i can't wait for you all to meet Delby. she is just the funniest woman ever. she is so crazy haha. but you can really tell she wants to do what is right. shes so awesome.

a couple nights ago we went over to giorgias house for a lesson and she had the Euro Cup on, Italy and Ireland. and....... lets just say we couldnt stay very long cause she was not going to focus on a lesson while that was on, plus it was REALLY hard for me not to watch it haha. and the worst part was when we got back to our apartment at night we heard pretty much the whole town cheer and cars honk and we just knew italy had scored. it happened again later that night. haha nice........ 

yesterday i taught the advanced english course by myself! it was a lot easier than i thought it would be because all i really have to do is try to get them talking in english. (its the conversational course) so that was good. there is this really cute girl named Caterina who is learning english because shes moving to London. she is 28 and just artsy fartsy. i love it. she wants to meet with us sometime so hopefully we can help her so that shell want to meet with more missionaries in london .well see though..

okay well i dont have much more to say. i found out that anyone can email me though!

laura.sudweeks@myldsmail.net 

i am just supposed to write letters back. but yeah.. email me. looooove emails. :)

allora... ciao famiglia e amici! vi voglio un sacco di bene!!

Sorella Sudweeks

She ate MEAT

ciao famiglia e amici!

okay so last p-day we got to go to see the colosseum which is pretty much my dream.

it was amazing! i couldn't believe it when we walked out of the subway and it was just RIGHT there! crazy. i was freaking out. it was awesome. and we got to go inside and.. yup. so good. 

okay i have the funniest, most tramatizing story of my life. 

so i'm pretty sure i told you about Delby. well Delby is just the funniest peruvian woman that you have ever met. she speaks half spanish half italian so i can't understand i word she says... 

well the other night we went over to her house for dinner. and previous to going over there my companions had told her i was vegetarian. so we get there and she starts dishing up food and told me she had gotten a vegetarian lasagna just for me, which was SO nice of her cause she really didn't have to do that. 

so she got me a big slice of vegetarian lasagna and i thanked her and i took the first bite and i KNEW there was meat in it, but she looked at me and asked if i liked it and i said "si! è buonissimo!" because i didn't want her to feel bad or offend her! so i kept eating it and praying for heavenly father to help me not be sick because i honestly felt like i was going to puke but i also knew heavenly father was helping me through that meal. i didn't eat the whole thing but i ate over half and... well i was sick the next couple days but the point is that i ate it! BE PROUD OF ME! haha.... okay best part--

so Delby (after i had eaten most of the lasagna) took the first bite of hers and (apparently, cause i can't understand her..) started freaking out because she found out there was meat in it and was asking the people around her if i knew there was meat in it and everyone thought i didn't know (because i am the nicest person and kept quietly eating!!!) and they told her they didnt think i knew and she was like "don't tell her! don't tell her!" in her spanish/italian voice and yeah........ it was just so funny...... 

so yeah. that was the story of the first time i ate meat in like 12 years... 

on a more positive note, delby AND giorgia told us that they know the book of mormon is true! and now its just a matter of explaining what that means.. (the church is true, joseph smith was a prophet, etc.) so that's what we're gonna be working on next..

we set a baptismal date for a girl named Elisa. she is so stinkin cute. she is 10 and her mom is less active but has a very strong testimony of the church, which is so sad cause she knows its true but hasn't been to church since she got divorced.. but its good that she is still encouraging her kids to get baptized and come to church. 

i dont think i have told you about Archangelo yet. he is the husband and father of a family of members but he is just very hard-hearted and isn't ready to accept the gospel yet, even though he's heard everything. i really hope that he comes around though because i can just see how much his wife and daughters want him to be baptized so they can be sealed as a family.. 

one of his daughters is 6 and was teaching me italian before a lesson one day and i was teaching her some english. she is so cute. her name is Sara.

another day we went to a beautiful town called Canale Monterano to have lunch with a member and her friend. we talked about the restoration and bore testimony of the book of mormon and gave her a copy. hopefully she accepts our commitment to read the introduction. 

um........ this last weekend was stake conference so we all went into Rome and watched a broadcast (that was for a few European countries) where Elder Nelson and Pres. Eyring spoke about the importance of families and the roles within the families. it was really great and also awesome for our investagators who came to hear. 

so 2 nights ago i had a dream that i was talking to heavenly father and jesus and i dont remember anything that was said but i do remember they were comforting me. when i woke up i didnt know why and was thinking about it while we were running by the beach.. when we got back to the apartment, sorella kelly (the mission presidents wife) called and told me that my grandpa dewey had passed away.

i cried while i was on the phone with her but then i just felt this peace just wash over me and i knew that my grandpa was with his wife now and i was just so grateful for heavenly father for the plan of happiness that we have, and the knowledge that i have to know that even though death is hard, its not the end. 

one of my companions, sorella ivory, shared a book that i want all of you to read! its so good. its called "As a Man Thinketh" 

here are some of my favorite lines from it:

"The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.

...Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself."

okay well i am off on another P-day adventure. 

i hope you all have a good week and remember that heavenly father loves us SO MUCH. we can't even comprehend it. 

vi voglio bene! 

(shoutout) happy birthday emilee!

Sorella Sudweeks

First Post in Italy and PICTURES!

so i'm in ITALY. its been a journey getting here. literally. but i placed a few pass-along cards on the plane rides here. one was to (i swear) Alfred, from batman :)

i cried in the london airport saying bye to all the missionaries in our zone going to Milan. yeah i'm a baby...

so the first thing we did when we got to italy was eat pizza with Pres. Kelly. and then we all drove the the Rome Temple site and got to see the construction that was going on there! its going to be so beautiful! i am so excited to come back and see it completed! then we went to the mission home and had kind of an orientation thing and interviews and dinner. 

at night we all got our assignments for our first city. LADISPOLI. which is right outside of Rome and it is seriously the best city. its like a little italian beach town haha. my first day with my new companions (i have 2) was SO BUSY. we taught like 5 lessons in one night. we have the funniest, best investagators! i'll just tell you about a few though. 

okay first there's Delby. she is the mother of a recent convert and she is taking the lessons now. she is the big peruvian woman who is just such a diva. she speaks SO fast in half spanish half italian so i can't understand her to save my life but man.. she is funny. she makes fun of me sometimes cause i say <Cosa?> all the time. yup. she is SO close to being baptized! i just want to shake her! but her daughter is taking her to salt lake for conference which will be so cool for them! 

then there is Paula. okay Paula is the cutest, nuttiest italian woman. she is in her 40s, never shaves her armpits, calls us at least twice a day and has the sweetest spirit. she has a baptisimal date for june 23rd so we're trying to teach her all the lessons really well, really fast! she has so great faith! its amazing! and you can tell she really wants to understand. we talked about how we will be resurrected the other day and she asked how that could happen if she exploded. um. haha yup. we get crazy questions like that all the time. but i mean.. she really wants to know! 

my favorite is Giorgia. she is about 35 but she acts like she's 25 and we just have such a good time with her. she LOVES the book of mormon and has a big desire to do what's right and she knows she needs to change but she just doesnt think she is ready yet but she is SO READY!!! man i have known her for 4 days and i just love her so stinkin much! yesterday we were were teaching her a lesson and honestly i didn't follow most of what was said. but the spirit was so strong and we were all crying because sorella ivory was testifying so powerfully that it was her time to change and to come to christ. giorgia laughed and said even i was crying and i didnt understand it all and sorella buma said it was cause the spirit speaks to our hearts, not our ears. i was trying really hard to contribute but i didn't know what to say so i was just praying really hard for heavenly father to help me know what to say. basically what i picked up from the lesson was that she wanted to know in a BIG way that this was what she needed to do. i opened the scriptures and came to Alma 32:16-18. i shared it with her and at first she just cried. and then she started laughing. so hard. because it was EXACTLY what she needed to hear. the sciptures literally spoke to her and she knew that those words were meant for her.

funny story-

when we left girogia's house, she gave us a ride home and she had a pack of cigarettes that she was going to smoke right after she dropped us off and we kept telling her not to but yeah.. anyway.. when we went to open the door to go into our apartment sorella ivory pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and just says <whoops..?> oh my gosh, i could not stop laughing. my companion straight up stole our investagators cigs so she couldnt smoke. i could not believe it. it was seriously so funny. yeah. anyway... giorgia found out and went and bought another pack but that was the funniest experience. anyway..

we get to go running by the beach every morning which is amazing and also so hard because its so beautiful and you just want to jump in... if i am still here in the winter (when no one's out), i hear, you can run on the sand which would be amazing. 

also- we did street contacting for the first time the other day and it may very well have been the most frightening experience of my life. but then i talked to this really nice girl and i found out that italians dont actually bite your head off when you stop them on the street so that was good. sometimes they ignore you and turn you down but they definitely dont bite. same with tracking house to house. i'm finding you really just need to use the members for referrals here. members are the best missionaries! 

okay well i love you and i miss you all. 

you can send letters to the ladispoli address i gave you in the last email but send packages (and letters if you want) to the mission office address that is on my blog. its just safer.

(send dove chocolate! per favore... and fruit snacks :)

so the pictures are of my district and an italian sister (in purple) at the mtc our last day, me and my beautiful italian pizza and the rome airport. yeah... :)

vi voglio bene! il vangelo di Gesù Cristo è vero! Dio ci ama!