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

Letter #23 - 2/19/14

HOLY COW!

Crazy week, but so so good. First of all, our investigator got BAPTIZED!! Everything went well and she is baptized and confirmed and happy and all is well in Italia :) haha, but for real, it was a miracle we were there for her baptism because we had to go to the questura that morning to pick up my permesso and we got there on time and our number was 88....and they were only on #2, haha. It went so so slow and we ended up being there for 3 and a half hours before I got it, haha, it was nuts. We were freaking out because we thought we were going to be late for the baptism. How tragic would that have been? Haha, but we prayed really, really hard, like literally every time the number changed we said a prayer and by some miracle we made it out on time. The church is true people!

And the baptism was so so good, the Spirit was so strong and our Branch President was the one that baptized her and he was crying and she was crying and it was just all so beautiful. I LOVE MY JOB.

Also, transfer news! Sorella Lopez is being transferred to Varese and I am staying here in Montevarchi and getting a new companion! Her name is Sorella Jarvis. I am going to go pick her up tomorrow in Bologna! Sorella Lopez and I are sad to leave each other, we have had a lot of fun together and seen so many miracles but we are excited too :) she is going to do so well in Varese!

Also, guess what? Sprinkles do exist here in Italy! I found them the other day, and I bought them and now I am eating them with everything. It’s great and reminds me of home, haha!

I think that is all for this week, I am so grateful that I get to be an Italy Milan missionary, I love this place and I love the people even more. They are so special. Tell everyone hi for me and that I love and miss them! And tell Mal congrats on the baby! Tell my new little cousin I say “hi” and that I will see her in a year :)

Love you Mom and Dad!

Sorella Alli

Letter #22 - 2/12/14

CIAO!!!

 

First of all, a couple weeks late but I am proud to be a Seahawk! Haha, That is so cool about the Superbowl!  Also, DAD BOUGHT A TRUCK?! Hahaha, it’s about time! Now that he has his truck we don’t have to build "the edition" right? pleaseeeee don’t! hahaha, How is everything back home?! We are still surviving the rainy season over here in Italy and actually we have seen the sun a few times the past couple days so we are super stoked.

This week was really good and we are doing great here in Montevarchi! Last week was Sorella Lopez's year mark so we had a little birthday party for her and I made her blow out a candle and everything! Haha, don’t worry mom, I got the "fake blowing out the candle picture" just like you taught me, hahaha just kidding.  We actually got it first try! Haha. But it was a lot of fun and we ate sebadas, our favorite dessert from Sardena.

This week we set a goal to teach 30 lessons and with the help of Heavenly Father we did it! Literally we saw so many miracles; we met one woman on the train who was super super sweet and wants us to come teach her so we are going to see her on Thursday! She is super, super nice and we already love her. She is from Santa Domingo too, ironically enough, hahah. We have met so many nice people who were willing to listen to us and we were so happy we reach our goal. And now we are exhausted.

Everything is going well with our investigator with a baptismal date so we should be having a baptism here really soon! She is really excited and is basically already a member of the branch, everyone loves her. She is hilarious, haha, she keeps us laughing all the time. Our three new converts are doing really well too! The 16 year old just became the Young Women’s secretary and she loves it. And she loves seminary. And the little 12 year old loves Young Womens too and they are planning a temple trip hopefully this summer. And the mom is working and loves the gospel so much! She always feed us rice from Santa Domingo and is super cute. We love those girls so much. It’s pretty incredible to see how much they have grown in the last few months. They truly have a light about them now. I am so proud of them!

Also, guess what! I got a letter this week from an Elder I have never met before in...Wisconsin! He said he met a couple at the BYU fireside after the big BYU Football game and they talked to him about missionaries and their daughter serving a mission in Italy...and he decided he was going to write me a letter! Haha.  He didn’t have my address or anything and just had an address to one of the Italy Missions his friend was in and decided to try and see if it was mine - turns out it he guessed right. He was really nice and just talked about how proud you guys were of missionaries and that I making a difference out here that I can’t even see. It was a really sweet letter and it made me miss you guys so much! He said you were so nice to him! And he said you haven’t emailed him yet like you said you would, haha. So you should probably get on that ;) haha but yeah! it was super nice of him and totally made my day to hear about how awesome my Mom and Dad are :)

Also! I got your packages! Thank you SO much! I loved them! We sat on the bathroom floor and opened them all and...may have eaten one of the bags of Doritos and chocolates bars right then and there, haha! It was so funny! But we loved it all! THANK YOU SO MUCH! You guys are the best :) Well I think that is all for this week! I hope everything is good back home! love and miss you all so much! talk to you soon!

Sorella Alli

Letter #21 - 2/5/14

Ciao Famiglia!

How are you all?! So this week was good! It actually went by super-fast! So first of all, last Wednesday for pday we went to San Gimignano and it is literally the prettiest city I have been to in Italy so far. I LOVED IT; It was so beautiful! The view was amazing and we had so much fun. We went with the Sorelle from Firenze again, and there was like no one there which made it even more fun, haha. It was like we had it all to ourselves. We froze our butts off though – but it was so worth it. There was a well in one part of the city and we all made a wish and threw in a coin, haha – It was really fun.

Then today we went to Lucca! It was really cute and we had some really good pizza and definitely the best gelato I have had so far in Italy. It was incredible. I would go back just to have the gelato again, haha!  We climbed to the top of this tower that had trees on the top of it just because we thought it looked cool and it had an incredible view. We always climb the towers. It is our new rule no matter where we go because it is always so cool, haha!

This week was good! We have been trying really hard to teach on the trains and we have seen a lot of miracles. We met one woman on the train last night who was so sweet and cried and everything while we were talking to her. She was super sweet and hopefully we will see her sometime next week too!

Also, our investigator with a baptismal date is doing so good! We are so proud of her. She is 17 and from Nigeria and we absolutely love her. She got up and bore her testimony in sacrament meeting on Sunday and it was so cool to see. She absolutely loves the Gospel and she is so strong. We love her!

Transfers are in two weeks and we have no idea what is going to happen but we are seeing a lot of miracles in our area right now and we are so grateful. Heavenly Father is definitely taking care of us out here in Montevarchi!

Thanks for everything you do for me! I love and miss you all so much but I know I am exactly where I need to be right now.

Love you and talk to you next week! :)

Sorella Alli :)

Letter #20 - 1/29/14

Dear Mom and Dad,

 

GUESS WHAT? I am wearing pants right now!! hahaha Oh how I have missed them. Today we are going hiking in a little pizino outside of Florence so we got to wear pants. Don’t worry mom, I'll take lots of pictures :) haha.

 

So this week was really really hard but like I said a few weeks ago, it’s the hardest days that precede the miracles and that is exactly what happened. We are teaching this 17 year old girl that is friends with one of our new converts and she is super amazing. I already love her so much. And our 12 year old new convert brought her mom to church again this week and she brought her little 2 year old sister and she is so adorable, all the members of the branch are already obsessed with her, haha.  We did a musical number because it was Branch Conference and she decided she wanted to be a part of it too so she went to the front of the room and stood in front of us and kind of danced a little and then when the song was over she said "sediti tutti!" which means everyone sit down, haha. It was so funny. But probably one of the most amazing moments so far on my mission happened on Sunday when our three new converts went up in front of everyone in Branch Conference and bore their testimonies for the first time ever. It was so powerful and they all have grown so much in the past three months. I was like a proud mamma watching them all up there bearing their testimonies. It was so so so cool.

 

Oh and last Wednesday for pday we went to Siena! We climbed the bell tower and it was so fun. Literally one of the most beautiful views ever. We were all the way at the top, right under the bell and we could see all of Siena and then the rolling hills of Tuscany. It was beautiful. Oh and by the way, a bird pooped on me, haha.  It was right before we went to go climb the tower and Sorella Lopez, Sorella Forbes and I were all standing there and out of nowhere a bird pooped on my arm. Don’t worry, no one else got hit but ME, hahaha. It was hilarious. And we went inside the duomo in Siena and it was really pretty too! Siena was just absolutely beautiful. We had a blast.

 

This week has been full of ups and downs but even on our hardest days we can see how blessed we are to be here in this area at this time. This is Heavenly Father's work and he is always supporting us. I love being a missionary, with all my heart. Don’t get me wrong, it is the hardest thing I have ever done in ways that I didn’t even expect, but it is also the most rewarding.

 

I love the Italian people so much and no matter what we go through it is always worth it for them. Heavenly Father loves them so much and so do we. I love it. Thank you for everything you do for me and for all your prayers! I can feel them for sure. Have an amazing week and I will talk to you next week!

 

Love you la mia famiglia!

 

Sorella Alli

Letter #19 - 1/22/14

Hi Mom and Dad!

 

Okay so this week was pretty good, we have seen so many miracles! Our three new converts are doing SO goood. They are literally the best. The 12 year old actually brought her mom to church this week so we are going to start teaching her now! She is super, super cute and we are really excited. Also, I met my grandma this week!! Haha. Well my mission grandma -  Sorella Lopez's trainer (Sorella Forbes) is living in Siena for the next couple months so I got to meet her on Monday when we were in Siena for District Meeting! She is super awesome and we are spending pday with her today in Siena, haha.  We are going to climb the tower! It should be really fun.

 

Also this week, we met a super awesome guy on the train. We were on our way home from Arezzo which is about a 35 minute train ride and there was like no one on the train. So we sat down and I saw a guy sitting in the row behind us and so it was like "okay, I’m going to go talk to him" so I get up and start walking towards him....and realize he is listening to headphones. And me being my awkward self, I decided the best thing to do would be to keep walking past him, haha. So it walked past him, went a couple rows down...then turned around and walked back to Sorella Lopez and sat down. I looked at her and was like " so...have you ever taught someone listening to headphones?" and she said yeah a couple times and so I was like alright, then I can do it too.. So I got back up and walked over and sat by him and we started talking, haha. It turns out he is super, super legit and was really nice and Sorella Lopez came over and we taught him about the Book of Mormon! We had him read a couple paragraphs from the introduction and he looked up at us from reading and asked us where he could get one of these books. We were like...we can help you with that, haha.  So it turns out he is going on vacation to Spain for a couple weeks, but then once he gets back he wants to meet up and get a  Book of Mormon. MIRACLE! For real. So lucky my awkwardness didn’t scare him away and hopefully I will get better at talking to people over the next year, haha.

 

Also we had to go to Empoli this week for a class for my permesso. I had to watch this 3 hour long video about laws in Italy. It was super exciting, I sat next to a nun. We have to go back again this Friday and them I am done with my training, haha. If anyone ever goes on a trip to Italy, I don’t recommend going to Empoli. There is literally nothing there, haha. But we rewarded ourselves with kebab afterwards so it was all okay.

 

Well I think that is all for this week! I hope everything is going well back home! Thank you for your emails and pictures every week, I love them so much! Thanks for everything you do for me, I love you so much!

 

Talk to you soon!

 

Sorella Alli

Letter #18 - 1/15/14

CIAO!


Okay so this week was pretty good! We have seen so many miracles already and we are really excited for this transfer, we know there is something more we have to do here in Montevarchi. We have had some really, really incredible lessons the past couple days. Last night we taught one of our members (who fed us the best meal I've had so far in Italy by the way) and the Spirit was so strong. We switched the scripture we wanted to share with her right before the lesson started and it turned out to be the exact scripture she needed. We handed her the Book of Mormon to read for us and before she even read it she started crying and said "I know this scripture". It was such a cool experience. I love being a missionary!!!


Anyways, this transfer our district leader decided that we are going to have a Harry Potter themed transfer. I KNOW. So there are 4 copia in our district and so each companionship is one of the different houses in Harry Potter. My companion and I are Ravenclaw (we protested because clearly we are Gryffindor material but that one was already taken and we didn't want to be hufflepuff, haha). So our DL decided I am Sorella Luna Lovegood for this transfer and my companion is Sorella Cho Chang hahahahahahaha, seriously the funniest thing ever. We have a point system for how many lessons you get and things like that and are having a House Cup. It is really really funny. Basically a dream come true, haha. Oh and I emailed Bonnie all about it, haha she would love it. Tell Mackenzie for me too! haha she would appreciate it.


But we are doing good out here, we are happy and are excited! The three who were baptized last month are doing so well and we love them so much. The little 12 year old wrote me the cutest note the other day and it is hanging on my wall now.


Italian is hard but I think I am getting slightly better so that is a good sign, haha. We are trying to do more language study this transfer. Also, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe last week in Florence and it was so fun! but we didnt take any pictures . . . I know, I am so sorry! haha, but we will take more today :) Promise!


I think that is all for this week, I love and miss you all so much but I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now! Have a great week and I will talk to you soon :) love you!


Sorella Alli