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!