Gesù & Gelato: Home for Christmas

Christmas in Italy round 2! Yes, I'm home this Christmas. Over the last 4 months, the beautiful little city of Sassari on the teeny island of Sardinia, has become my home. The people I'm surrounded by, the members of the branch here, I love them with my whole heart!! Sitting in sacrament on Christmas Eve singing hymns together brought me to tears because, looking around at all of the people I have come to know and love, there's no place I'd rather be- especially at this time of year.

Getting to skype with the family was incredible! Still doesn't feel totally real or like that happened at all....but I'm living with it! So good to see everyone and do some catching up. Unfortunately I didn't get to see Chase (my brother serving in Korea) but he totally made up for it by... sending me a package!!!!!!!! WOAH I got a package from Korea. We were making lunch the Thursday before Christmas when the postal came to our citofono. Thank you Chase!!! (yup, the chocolate is good in Korea too...although I think there was some rice in that Cronky bar? not surpised.)

Christmas package from Chase

We spent Christmas Eve with the Tavernari family. They really are the best. And I'm not just saying that because they gave us Dr. Pepper and Reese's. (they had to order them online). Don't take those beautiful american things for granted! We also drank dr. pepper with the meal......the one they gifted me is still in the fridge. Saving it for a rainy day.

On Christmas day we had pranzo with la famiglia Jaccod! It was beautiful being with their family on Christmas, they live in very humble circumstances but were so sweet and gave us their all. It was a classic Italian pranzo, 5 course meal hahah I love it. We had some delicious tortellini! And the Christmas tradition for dessert is Pandoro or Panettone. They're like these really dry cakes that come in a giant plastic bag, you dump powdered sugar in the bag and shake it up! The Panettone cakes have like fruit and nuts inside the cake. Moving on....

We also had a little meal as a district and all brought different food to eat together since the Olbia anziani didn't have any appointments for Christmas (their branch is tinyyyyy). It was so much fun, and Gift came too! This year President Pickerd allowed all the missionaries to watch the movie Ephraim's Rescue, it's SUPER good!! Would recommend.

The day after Christmas is a holiday here, San Stefano (I think?). So we 'celebrated' that with la famiglia Murgia ah they are the best cooks. Also they have 5 kids which is extremely rare in this country but also super fun for us missonaries! Another multi course meal it was amazing. Lasagna, turkey, potatoes, shrimp, tiramisu, pandoro. Mamma mia. The hardest thing about meal appointments here is that the pasta is usually the first course but it's so good it's hard not to eat tons of it! Not a bad problem to have.... :)

As far as what we've been up to the past couple weeks in terms of work work, well let's put it this way: no one has time for a message about Christ during the holidays. Which, seccondo me, is slightly ironic. But sempre avanti!

Oh wait first, speaking of irony, we heard a knock at our door during personal study the other day. We opened the door to see 2 Jehovah's witnesses.....uhhhhhh awkward? Plot twist? Role reversal? Too funny.

Someone we have been trying to work with recently: Julieth! She's a less-active member that lives here in Sassari, she owns a salon called Gold Fingers. She's from Africa, has lived in Italy for 20+ years (speaks perfect Italian because her husband is Italian), and has been through the temple. We decided to stop by her salon and visit with her- it was great!! We shared the video "A Shower of Heavenly Blessings" and talked about how Heavenly Father has blessings He is waiting to give us but we have to allow Him and live in a way that He can do so. She totally opened up to us and by the end of it we were all crying, it was beautiful :) She just really wants a calling and wants to serve so we are hoping to help out some with that so she can come to church and meet Gift!

On Saturday night we were invited to cena with the Marras family! Turns out they invited several members and 5 non members, co-workers of Margherita. We got to teach the entire Restoration, introduce the Book of Mormon, give each person a copy, and invited them to read. It was amazing and without a doubt the most powerful lesson we've had this transfer. It was beautiful bearing testimony to these people of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the happiness and added knowledge it truly brings. One of the girls, Gabry, we have become really really close with. Every time we see her or have to say bye to her, she hugs us for like 10 minutes it's so beautiful and pure happiness and AH I just love her and I love Margherita (Marras) for helping us out so much in this work. It was great having she and the other members bear testimony too!!

Another super big push we have had as a companionship this month: lessons. At the beginning of the month we had correlation and Jonathan challenged us to 20 lessons per companionship with nonmembers/less active members. We have been working so hard for that and I'm proud to report that, after 2 lessons yesterday, we made it to 20!!!!!!!! Ending 2017 by reaching a goal :)

Funny english course moment of the week: the students trying to say the words "milk" and "aisle"....... I should've taken a video.

I had my first legit Italian calzone this week- wow. Yes, it was life changing. It looked like half a pizza on the plate, but when I cut it open it was full of fresh ricotta and salsiccia. Che buono. There's this one pizzeria here in Sassari that's suprisingly good, probably because the guy is from Napoli hahaha. It's called Gemma del Vesuvio. But anyway, we found out that fra 2 settimane, he's moving back to Napoli- for good. So yeah, we will be eating a lot of pizza in the next 2 weeks (apologizing in advance to my gluten intolerant comp..) Also speaking of pizza, this week Sorella Zapata asked me if it was true: do americans actually have a pizza that has pineapple on it? Yes, it's true. She said that is "apostasy" and "ruining something sacred" hahahahaha.

We got together with Kiri and Antonella (Jaccod) at the church this week for MORE clothes sorting, mamma mia the basketball team racked up so many. We have been trying to think of where we could donate them to ensure they went to people in need, as I mentioned in a previous email. Well, Kiri had the idea to bring all the women and childrens clothing to the camp where Gift lives! So she called Gift to see if it was okay and to get the phone number of the camp director. Gift told Kiri not to call the camp director because she would take all the clothes, sort through them, take all the good things for herself, and give the leftovers (if any) to those that live in the camp. We decided to bring all the clothes right outside the camp and have Gift and all of her friends/all the women she knows in the camp come outside and take what they want!

clothes sorting

Everyone at the camp picking out clothes

That being said, Saturday morning was one of those mission experiences I will NEVER forget. Sorella Zapata and I helped Kiri and Kendra (Kiri's friend) load up their cars with all the clothes (barely fit) and then the 4 of us went to Gift's camp (camps in Italy are usually like a big apartment building or an old hotel or something along those lines). When we got there, we unloaded all the boxes and bags and called Gift to come down and bring everyone she knows! What happened next is something that I won't be able to accurately describe or put into words no matter how hard I try. As Gift and about 15-20 other women rounded the corner towards the mountain of donations, it was like Christmas morning. We stood a little ways off, in awe of the scene unfolding in front of us. I have never seen people so happy, so grateful, for clothes in my life. While they sifted through the clothes, we stood talking about where to take the clothes that would be left over. Only to realize, 15 minutes later, there was not a single item of clothing left over. Lots of hugs and "thank you"s later, we returned to the cars, finally able to release the tears we'd been trying so hard to fight back. Like I said, I can't put it into words, but that was one humbling experience I'll remember for the rest of my life. Wow.

I wanted to go ahead and tell yall Gift's story. The mission compiles the stories of all of the convert baptisms and this is what we sent in regarding Gift:

Gift was a member referral! One day the anziani decided to go to a bus stop they rarely went to. While waiting for the bus, a man recognized their nametags and said, "Hey! That's my church!" His name is Kinsley, he was baptized in Africa when he was 8 years old. He was surprised to find out that there was a church building and a branch in Sassari!! Kinsley came every week and brought his girlfriend, Gift! She was eager to meet with us and learn more about Jesus Christ and His gospel. We started teaching her the lessons and she began to progress. Gift developed a real testimony and demonstrated her faith in so many ways. She brought friends to church and even started paying her tithing before she was baptized! After several months, Gift knew she was ready to commit herself to follow Jesus Christ. The day of her baptism she was really excited and happy and during her testimony she said that she is "grateful to the Lord for this day". She is a bright light and a beautiful example to us and everyone she meets.

We celebrated New Year's Eve at the church, a big branch dinner! We watched fireworks from our balcony there were tons! But it was nothing like Caserta last year, I just remember last year we couldn't sleep til like 5 am because there were so many fireworks our building was literally shaking from the impact haha. Italians don't take holidays lightly! And then our phone rang at 1:30 am....... it was Gift❤❤❤❤ calling to wish us happy New Year. Gosh, I just really love her.

Yall. I can't explain to you how happy and how much joy I am experiencing on a daily basis. It shouldn't be fair but I wouldn't have it any other way!! I am so thankful to be a small part of this great work. I hit a milestone yesterday, giving my first talk in chuch in Italian.....I'm honestly suprised I could talk for 10+ minutes straight in Italian!! (like can I even do that in english...?) It was great. I talked about goals, and missionary work of course. But there's a scripture in 3 Nephi 27, verse 27 that says: "what manner of men ought ye to be? Yea, even as I am". So when you are making your resolutions for this new year, setting goals, think about things that can help you with the ultimate goal: becoming like our Savior, Jesus Christ. Because of Him, we are here and we get to see another year, it's going to be the best yet! I am so thankful for all of you and I hope you have a great new year's day! (If you actually made it to the end of this email I'm super impressed, auguri).

Vi voglio tanto bene!!

XOXO