well i am another year older. woop! can you believe that i almost forgot it was my birthday? ME! but i remembered, don't you worry. and i celebrated to the best of my obedient missionary ability. but moooore on that in a flash.
welcome to a week in the life of sorella wightman ...
giovedì
-we did "scambi" (splits/exchanges. smed and i separated and made the ward missionaries be our companions for the day) with "the wardies" as i so tenderly refer to them as. i went with gaia. i have a world's largest friend crush on this girl here. she is everything that is indie and cool and fun and stylish in this world. gaia turned in her mission papers with her sister 5 weeks ago and we are all dying to know where they are going. well ... everyone else is dying but i am content as a clam because i know with "conoscenza perfetta" (perfect knowledge ... i am teaching you so much italian today!) that she is going to temple square and her sister is gong to la missione italiana di milano. no doubts. i will confirm it all in about 2 weeks when that stinking thing arrives. anyway, gaia and i went to teach an old investigator named maria. she told us right when we walked in that she isn't getting baptized. haha! funny enough, that was only the first of another 3 times that that happened to us this week!! but tutto bene. we taught anyway and invited her to be baptized anyway. no invite no progress that is what i always say ... starting today. haha! so that was cool and fun and gaia saved the day when she pulled up google maps on her iphone when we got lost and then i missed my iphone for a minute ... until hers started ringing and being a loud, annoying thing. oh the world...
venerdì
-i found the woman that i want to be when i grow old. her name is marcella and she is a gem. she graduated with a masters in art. when we came over she was drawing the vegetables that she had bought the day before. she then proceeded to be so italian and recited exactly what she planned to do with all of those vegetables and gave us the full recipes and an invite to eat them with her and then learn how to make it for ourselves and "i nostri cari in america." she too told us that she never is getting baptized but then interrupted the lesson she she could grab a notebook and take notes about what we were saying because she knew they were true. nobody has every taken notes while i am talking before. there should be some kind of mission reward for such an accomplishment. a cookie or something ... i'll talk to prez. also she has the best house ever. with a million books in a library and a beauty and the beast type bookshelf. HEAVEN!
sabato
-was so cold. so cold in fact that the wind mustve frozen my brain cells because i can't remember anything else besides being crazy cold that day.
proof of the cold ... sorry you only get one picture ... my camera card is full so i bought another (yada yada yada) it doesn't work.
domenica
-we went to bari for stake conference. the bishop's wife spoke and brought the house DOWN. i love love loved her talk so much. she talked about a mighty change of heart and used my fav scripture as of late alma 5:26. i almost clapped when she was done. also president kelly came to the conference and shared a really nice story about changing your attitude about challenges. he invited everyone to look at obstacles as opportunities. love that guy.
lunedì
-i was SO sick! old age mustve caught up with me because i woke up and felt like death. but i went about doing my thang and sorella kelly called to sing "tanti auguri" to me. i thanked her and she commanded that i stay in bed all day. i half obeyed. we stayed in in the morning and made our area book a piece of art. (seriously i wish i could show you how beautiful it is. courtney would be SO proud of my organization skills). then i said i could handle being sick in bed anymore so we went out and searched and searched for the prepared people. they must've been inside celebrating my birthday because we couldn't find them. however we did end up getting a free panzerotto and gelato so it was a good birthday!
martedì
-i was still sick but figured out that more people want to listen to you when you are sick because they feel bad for you. they invite you in more and offer you warm things. so ... worth it!
-we had a lesson with valentine and he is just still being my funny valentine (good one). he was explaining why he missed stake conference. the power went out in his apartment building so his alarm didn't go off. he said that was the maddest he has ever been. (i didn't tell him of course that stake conference for some is considered a sunday off the clock ...). he said he had to go on a walk to calm down then he decided to call his brother that he will be living with in london in march. his brother couldn't talk because the missionaries were over. long story short: valentine gave us his brothers name and number to give to the missionaries in london and now he is progressing towards baptism! valentine wants to be the one to baptize his brother! he said that that was just what he needed to pull him out of his bad mood. there truly is no greater joy than witnessing the atonement change peoples lives and valentine is seeing it right now. OOOOH i love him!! he ended the lesson with a prayer to bless sorella taylor (he misses her SO much), smed and i, with "a man who will respect us and see our gifts to heal". haha! good guy.
today
-we are going to bari for the mission tour of anziano richards! woo! also i am healed magically. so never fear.
in other news ...
miracle happened!! ever since i got here i have wanted so badly to teach this beautiful, talented, intelligent, and struggling lady that comes to english course. she has had some really hard trials and has been brought to her knees. she is HUNGRY to know the truth!! so i have been practically begging her to let us come over for about 6 months. well this week she let us! and she is progressing beautifully. she is a gem and i firmly believe that we are here in taranto to help her. pray pray pray for her!! she is my taranto miracle waiting to happen.
all of my love (and a little extra love for valentine's day),
sorella wightman
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