spring has arrived in sicilia! i am getting quite the head start on my summer tan. in fact if i was ben pugh, i would be borderline african right now. man, i am going to miss this april heat ... sorry to rub it in. i hear you guys are still frozen. i saw a woman today bundled up as if she was headed for the alaskan tundra ... and i was sweating in my short sleeve shirt and barely there skirt (obvs mish appropriate, but you get what i am saying). italian culture fact: you aren't allowed to exit the house without a coat, scarf, or tights between the months of october and may, even if it is 70 degrees outside. my companion included. for example on the way here, i didn't bring a sweater or anything (again ... it is at LEAST 65 degrees out) and sorella mistura thinks i am straight up nuts. tu non hai freddo??!!
another week has come and flown by. time is really moving these days. i feel like i just got here yesterday when actually we get transfer calls next week!! crazy cray. the week may fly but still i learned so much. isn't that the greatest thing about missions? every week you learn something. or every day. or every few minutes. depends on how learny i am feeling.
lesson number one: the lord respects righteous desires.
-- thursday we set a goal to give away a book of morning before coming in for lunch. we were determined like never before. man did we search and search for someone who was up for a good read and some eternal salvation. didn't find anyone. all morning long we talked and talked and knocked and search and preached. nothing. then for about 45 minutes we talked to this really cool muslim about the
lesson number two: heavenly father has a plan for us -- daily, weekly, and eternally.
-- we had a free morning (the nice way of saying i-have-never-been-stood-up-as-many-times-as-we-were-stood-up-this-past-week) so we went out to find carmello to check up on his reading. his phone was always busy so we went right to him. however, we realized that we only wrote down his street name not the number. so we figured we would knock on all of the doors on this street and hopefully find him. didn't work. so we started just asking around. hey do you know carmello? (sidenote: carmello is like the name john ... everyone is named john, especially if you are over the age of 60, which literally everyone in ragusa is.) no luck. until we stopped by this crack in the wall/bookstore. italy is great because everyone knows everyone on their street. and not only that but there are always people out and watching. ask anyone on the street where so-and-so is and they could tell you where they went, how long ago, what they were wearing and how long they are usually out. the men at this bookstore were these kind of guys. we chatted for a while but they didn't know carmello. but they were dying to know who we were ... they had never seen us before and that doesn't happen often to them. one of the men said, you girls seem to really have things figured out, will you go visit my daughter? i want her to be like you two. haha!
lesson number three: it might be better to start your fast on sunday morning and not saturday afternoon.
-- sonia, our little el salvadorian angel, had us over to her place to chat about our potential as children of god. she also wanted us to meet her son, miguel. he is nine. and like tv. a lot. after the lesson she tried to get miguel to go on a walk with us to get a gelato. we had already started our fast and i have yet figured out the way to explain fasting to a brand new investigator. haha! miguel, however, needed to stay in and wait for his cartoon to start. we have never been so supportive of cartoons in our lives! haha! "yeah you'd better stay in and watch that ... we will get gelato next time."
lesson number four: chat with courtney and mom on email while your are trying to write this email because then you run out of time.
guys. i know that christ lives. i know that his atonement began in the garden and ended with his resurrection. i know that its power is real for each person who will apply it. in the strength of the lord, nothing is impossible, even change. i know that this is his church, he is the head. and i am humbled and honored to be his servant.
all of my love to you,
sorella wightman
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