Letter #24 - 2/26/14

Ciao Famiglia!

Okay so crazy week out here in the boondocks of Italia, I have a new companion! Her name is Sorella Jarvis and she is from Virginia and she is super sweet. So I picked her up in Bologna on Thursday night, I ended up being companions with Sorella Holloways for like a whole day because they missed their train and didn’t get in until later in the night.

Then we got back to our area late that night and have basically been doing finding work ever since, haha - since she got here when there was still a week left in the month it didn’t make sense to pay 80 euro to buy a monthly abbonamento (train pass) so we have been doing strada (street) and casa (tracking) every day until the new month when she can get an abbonamento. It has been really hard and I can say that in 6 months of being a missionary I have not been let in to someone’s house doing casa (knocking on peoples doors) but we were able to teach a few lessons doing strada (talking to people on the street). It has been hard and totally out of my comfort zone since I have been doing train finding for so long, but it is good for me and I am learning things that will help me the rest of my mission.

Also, Mom and dad your dreams came true and this past Sunday - I played the piano in Sacrament meeting, haha - I haven’t played in so long and I miss it. But I haven’t missed playing in front of people, haha - still scary - oh well. Our new convert was officially sustained in church as the Relief Society 2nd Counselor and also our little 8 year old girl in our branch was sustained as the "person who writes the numbers of the hymns we are going to sing on the white board" hahahaha - how cute is that?

So funny, also, shout out to Fratello Valentine if you are reading this. Thank you so much for coming to church with us! haha - I am so glad you were able to find our little branch :) By reading my blog you were able to find out where our branch meets and it was fun to meet you.

This week has been really long and having a new companion is so different than I expected, but we are having a lot of fun together and we are excited to see even more miracles come out of this area.

Stephen B. Allen came and talked to us at our district meeting on Monday and he gave us a really good lesson on being focused missionaries. I learned so much and I know there are so many things I still have to work on, but luckily I still have a year to learn them :)

I love and miss you all so much! Thank you for everything! Have fun in Mexico, get a tan for me. I am getting whiter and whiter every day out here, haha - it is actually quite pathetic.

Love and miss you!

Sorella Alli