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5.01.2013

guess what ...

guys ... summer has hit. and whhhhhoooooaaaa is it hot in sicily! i thought taranto was hot! boy was i mistaken, and it is only MAY!! but hey, i love me some sicilian sun.

so transfers are happening today ... we will get to that in a flash..

giovedì
- is a distant memory. BUT i do remember this ...
- at zone conference the assistants invited all of the missionaries to invite all of our investigators to be baptized. so we have just been inviting our lives away. and thursday we set a date with this precious little woman named esmeralda. honestly, we weren't really sure if she was all that interested but we went into the appointment with the most faith that has ever been had. when we got there she was all excited to show us something she did. she went into her bedroom and brought back the restoration pamphlet that we had left. she showed us how she answered all of the question that were written in the back (yeah i didn't know/realize/notice that there are questions there either ...) and then went ahead to reteach us the restoration. that there is one of the best feelings ever when a) someone has understood how exciting it is that the gospel has been restored b) is filled with joy because of it and c) wants everyone to know! success, my friends, success.

venderdì
- we had one of the most powerful lessons with iolanda and she accepted her baptismal date. rewind to last friday when we planned to invite her. "which day" we wondered then we both felt really good about may 3rd. so may 3rd it was. she accepted the date then wanted to know how we decided. we told her that we hardly decide anything. but told her that we both just felt good about it after asking heavenly father. she said ... cool because that is my birthday.
- i found this great quote from t monson: "to make decisions wisely, courage is needed. the courage to say no and the courage to say yes. i plead with you to make a determination right now, not to deviate from the path with will lead to our goal: eternal life with our father in heaven." and i have been using that baby everyday since. YES!!
- we also participated in the relief society activity. it was an alice in wonderland theme (so yes i was so in love) and the purpose was to invite the sisters to prepare for the temple (so yes i was in even more love). we were all supposed to be alice, deciding which path to take. they had all these different rooms set up that stood as different choices that we could make. the presidency asked us to had the best room of them all--la stanza di battesimo (the baptism room) where we taught the gospel of jesus christ. they had us dress in white temple dresses and i got really temple sick (meaning home sick but for the temple, not home). gooooood times.

sabato
- was a day full of bidoni. but it happens.
- it was also transfer call day. usually i get transfer calls during lunch time, and never later than 7. we went all day wondering and wondering and no call came. finally at 10 pm sorella kelly called to tell us that i will be staying in ragusa to train one sister!! yay!! and sorella mistura is going to pescara (near rome) to open the city to sister service!! WAY COOL!!! in fact they have opened 5 or 6 cities to sisters this transfer .. .one of which is napoli ... battipaglia ... and i want IN! the closer i get to salerno (where my gramps and grams served 22 years ago) the better!! some sisters are opening cities and training 2 greenies! crazy cray. so transfers were a big surprise for us all. in fact, almost every missionary in sicily will be training! haha! i am so impressed with these younger missionaries that got here 2 or 3 transfers ago and they are training. so cool. heavenly father trusts us so much!!

domenica
- was dedicated to visiting members and saying goodbye and taking pictures and eating. not bad.
- we got home in the evening to start getting sorella mistura's stuff together. she threw some laundry in the washer and we learned that our washer is broken ... sad day miss paige. especially sad since sorella mistura hasn't done laundry in what seems to be 3 or 4 weeks. how? i don't know. but we now are pros at washing by hand. in fact, i think that my clothes are cleaner than ever before.

lunedì
- word got out that the sorelles washer is broken and we were suddenly swarmed with people who wanted to help. brother chines (saint) showed up at our door and told us to pack up all of the laundry, sheets, towels, errthang, and give them to him because his wife was at home waiting to do it all for us. then another family in the ward that owns a dry cleaners called and said they were waiting for us to bring the bedding to them. so basically the ward took over.
- we needed to buy sorella mistura's train ticket so we went with the anziani to the station which apparently closed last century (or so it appeared) so we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. one of the anziani's investigators called during this whole thing and during small talk, sensed that we were stressin. we told him the sitch and he said that he would take care of it. haha! anziano baggely said "you know what i love about italians, they make our problems their problems." SO true. if someone else is struggling, whether they are your best friend or a complete stranger, also they struggle until the problem is solved. i want to be like that. i want to be italian.

martedì
- we had some lessons. we cleaned the house. we packed a lunch. and we were bombarded with food from the members. one sweet little lady in the ward, sorella rollo, wanted to pack us a lunch to take to the ward picnic that they are having today (which we sadly have to miss due to silly transfers) but instead made arancini (fried rice balls filled with ragu...DElish) and delivered them to us at church while we were teaching corso dinglese. then another woman in the ward, that is like my bestie, anna frasca (she is the kind of person that i can't just say her first name. i ALWAYS refer to her by her full given name. anna frasca.) brought us some tiramisù and these delicious chocolate and ricotta (2 of gods greatest creations) cookies. yep. life is good as a sicilian sorella.
- d&c32:41-43

sta mattina
- we cleaned some more and packed some more and the gela anziani picked us up and took us straight to the train station where sorella mistura caught her 10 hour train ride to rome. she was nervous and maybe a little sad to leave the prettiest little island of miracles called sicily but she is excited too!! now i am stuffed in a tiny internet point filled with 10 other sicily missionaries ... all of which are like me, waiting for our greenies to arrive tomorrow night at 10. life is sooo good!!

wish me luck and pray for my baby girl (fyi: i wont know who she is until she gets off the train and finds me)! but i am so grateful to be a missionary for la missione italiana di roma during the HASTENING!!

all of my love,
sorella wightman

ps - my new camera card works! but i just barely got it yesterday so i have only taken this photo...

me with mistura at the train station.

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