another week has scurried on by.

ciao cari miei!

another week has scurried on by and here we are again. it was a gooooooooooood week, minus the fact that sorella jackson has picked up the coughing, sneezing, runny nose with a headache trend that is going around. poor thing. but she is on the mend ... i hope. we've got things to do this very special week!

so monday i got a haircut by sorella garcia. her three daughters had searched the internet all day long looking for the cut and style that would match me best. let's just say i had to just go with a trim. haha! man i love that family. we also taught baldo everything he needs to know. at the end of the lesson his daughter said "if you don't get an answer after really truly doing all of this then i am leaving the church because there is no way you won't!" haha! it is true! we have given him all we have. ALL! and there has been some serious progress, minus the fact that he decided to not come to all of church yesterday. but i called him and told him i missed him and i know it got to him. haha! so only time will tell what baldo's spiritual fate is. here is to hoping he is really doing it all!!

OH some big things happened to me this week:

1) someone is naming their baby after me.
2) someone offered me their son to marry.

details:
remember vincenza? we are teaching her english and the gospel and she loves the life out of us. we came over for our lesson last week and she told us that she had a miscarrage. i have never seen anyone so content and accepting of such a thing. she said she knows that she will have another baby and when she does she is naming it paige. honor times a million, right. haha!

remember emilia? ....uh no. good i was testing you. i am not teaching anyone with the name emilia, but the sorelle in pescara are and i got the privilege to meet her during exchanges this week. she is 19, has a 3 year old daughter, and lives with her member mom and non-member brothers and a dad that is disturbingly similar to baldo, but in an argentinian kind of way. emilia was baptized last transfer and we came to do the after-baptism lesson: the gospel of jesus christ. we chatted and felt the spirit and testified. i concluded with my testimony and in the car ride on the way back to the train station, emilia's mom told me that the spirit testified to her while i was bearing testimony that i am the "one" for her non-member son. what does one say to that sort of thing? especially when her daughter said that she had the same sensation. well i don't know what one would say but i said "oh." sorella mckenna said she'd give them my info just in case. haha!

fun fact: if you want to boggle an italian, tell them to say "33,000 people think that thursday is their 13th birthday" they will never be able to do it. and they will hate it. th...that is a toughie for my mediterranean loves.

man this email is outta control. welcome to my life right now.

anyway.

wednesday we had district meeting. our district leader decided to teach us about the abrahamic covenant and we district meeting-ed all morning and even into our lunch time. that is good stuff.

thursday we taught our most-likely-to-be-in-the-mafia investigator, roberta. we had a really cool experience together with her and the spirit. poor thing has lost all hope in a better world. and she tells us all about why we should be sad like her. we listen, because i think that is usually the secret to helping people feel loved. but after a while i just couldn't let her be so negative. so i waited for a break and took the dive, bearing her my testimony that though i am fully aware of the darkness that our world contains, i know that christ brings light, that we can reflect that light, and with that knowledge we can do more than hope but KNOW that this time is a time of testing, meant for preparing, guarantees trials, but created for us to find a joy that will be completed in the hereafter. sorella jackson second that, adding her sweet testimony of the book of mormon being the center of that hope and light. and roberta just sat there with a smile. and almost, just almost, she had a flicker of the light spark inside of her. and with that we prayed and left. there cannot exist a better feeling than that! my heart aches just thinking about the day when i am no longer authorized to do that as the lord's missionary.

we had to scurry off to pescara, a 3 hour bus ride from the eternal city, and we arrived a little later than planned. so here we are, a dark pescara night, stuck in the middle of what seemed to be a not very secretive drug deal and other nighttime activities that missionaries shouldn't be involved in. good think sorella jackson had to go to the bathroom so we got out of there and found a little corner of heaven, american heaven. it was a bakery called "white bakery". it paid homage to american diners in the 50s, selling waffles, muffins, cheesecake, red velvet cake, betty crocker cake mixes, canned pumpkin, marshmellow fluff, and was playing elvis as loud of ever. haha! we were in literal heaven. jackson hit the john and we caught the bus just in time. 

our train ride view of the ocean out of a dirty window.

white bakery.

this weird transition hit while in pescara. we meet a lot of people in a day. almost all of these people ask 1) where we are from 2) how long we have been in italy 3) why we would ever leave america to come to italy ... which is where the gospel talk begins. it is fabulous. by now, it is a habit. i have had that same conversation about 29 times a day for the last 18 months. but starting in pescara and following me back to rome was the evil change to question 2. now they are asking ... when are you going back to america? evil.

during the scambio we:
- went tracting at italian dorms. quite the experience.
- invited the most prepared man to be baptized in 2 weeks, in the first lesson. he accepted. and he is almost as perfect as his baby puppy that i couldn't help but covet the whole time we were there.
- ate pescara's traditional dish : arrosticini. lamb kebab type thing. delish.
- saw a shirt that looked like an i heart ny shirt but instead it said i heart yn (you not). haha! either maybe i am getting stupider on my misison but i giggled at that all day. those itlalians are so creative with their american t shirts. it has been my number 1 source of entertainment my whole mission. 

arrosticini.

when i returned from pescara, sorella jackson was as sick as a dog. and she has pretty much been sleeping ever since, besides for a half of a planning session (for a fun evening: try planning for your week with a companion hopped up on night time cold medicine) and church and now. poor thing! and also, i have never been so lonely in my life. while she has been sleeping i have been doing every missionary thing i can do from the indoors, studying, and having my own mini-christmas party with the hidden christmas music i discovered on my ipod. for you seinfeld people: imagine the party elaine throws when she is eating that antique cake then gets caught on camera, like dancing around and laughing and having the time of her life alone. that is what it has been like. me, dancing around, making calls, studying the scriptures, singing christmas music, writing in the area book ... all alone. sad sad day miss paige.

and that is all.

un bacione a tutti,
sorella wightman