Gesù & Gelato: Let it snow?

Let it snow!!

Snow in Statte? Yep, that happened on Tuesday! It was a lot of fun just walking around in it, but I definitely couldn't do that every day. Also just really funny because Italians don't go out/do anything when it rains....so you can only imagine what they're like when it snows.

"Can we come visit you?"

"No. It's snowing"

"You don't have to leave your house though..........".....

I think we are having March showers instead of April showers because it's been raining almost nonstop since Sorella Geertsen got here!

Another highlight of this week: we had someone come to english course!! That's really a miracle because no one came to english course at all last transfer. But we went to the market and walked around with our english course sign and got 1 person to come! Hey, it's progress.

This email is a little shorter considering the amount of you that responded "Yes!" last week hahahahaaha. no hard feelings pero.

And now I'm going to be completely honest in saying that this week was a rough one. We got cancelled on more times than I can count and none of our investigators came to church, partially due to the fact that they didn't have rides. And rock bottom was when we went to visit Antonella and she opened the door and hurriedly said "I don't have time today or tomorrow, only Tuesday and Wednesdays. I have work." I responded "does that mean you can't come to church on Sunday?" "Si"

"Ci dispiace molto". That really displeases us. "Me too, I have to go now."

*insert Sorella Geertsen and I walking away and crying* That's the mission for ya, folks!! It's a roller coaster, some days are up and some are not so up, but moments like this are outnumbered by and give me a greater appreciation for the moments of complete joy.

We met with Anna a couple times this week, she was going through some hard family things and Bishop Loberto even went over to her house to help and visit with them! He's great. But he told her the same thing we've been trying to emphasize the past 7+ weeks.....come to church!!!!! So she recommitted, we rescheduled her baptism for April 21st and she promised us to come to church.

(now's the part where you refer to a few paragraphs ago when I said "none of our investigators came to church".)

Enjoying hot chocolate on a cold day

Giuseppe didn't read the Book of Mormon this week, so that one was really hard to swallow, too. So we read with him :) One night we stopped by the panificio to show them the mormon message "The Hope of God's Light" Giuseppe wasn't there but we showed it to Elvira and Enrico, they loved it. The whole time we were watching it I was thinking, this video is so perfect for Giuseppe (if you haven't seen it, go watch it). And once it ended, Elvira said "You guys MUST show this video to Giuseppe, this is exactly what he needs" yessss, she's basically the 3rd member of our companionship.

Anyways, we wanted to officially teach the Word of Wisdom to Giuseppe (we've read D&C 89 before and talked all about it) so we had a really solid lesson planned out and we walked in to lay it down for him, but then I turned to Sorella Geertsen and for some reason it just didn't feel right. So we read a couple chapter in the Book of Mormon, confused about why we couldn't continue with the lesson we had so carefully prepared. But the Lord really does have a plan for every single thing and following spiritual promptings led to.....Saturday night. The Word of Wisdom lesson was amazing. Giuseppe completely opened up to us about his addiction (he smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day) and Elvira talked to just about the reality of it. He's been smoking since he was like 10 years old. It was just so raw, so real and then we decided it was time to show "The Hope of God's Light" mamma mia it couldn't have been more perfect. By the end Giuseppe said, I think I want to do one of those fasts. We told him that we would fast for him too, we could do it together and then he just started crying. This big sicilian man, crying because he was just so overcome with the spirit. Naturally Sorella Geertsen and I were in tears too-- it was so beautiful. So hopefully this week we can organize ourselves for the fast, and for Giuseppe to have the desire to quit smoking. Oh my I've never prayed harder in my life.

In other news, we had tacos twice this week. They were deece. Don't take mexican food for granted, I miss that stuff.

Taco time

Ward conference was yesterday and the bishopric got rearranged! Kind of funny because the same thing happened at ward conference in Sassari! So we have a new bishop now, Bishop Castaldo.

We did some street contacting in Massafra this week and had some fun successes! We got to show the "Grazie a Lui" video to a lady named Tina and it was weird but cool, talking with her there was something different. I was looking into her eyes and saying with my own "You know this is true!!" After we were done talking she said "I don't really know why I'm giving you my phone number but yeah here it is!" And she saved ours in her phone!

Carmella is doing well, we met up with her and read the first two chapters of The Book of Mormon together and extended her the sfida! I told her we'd call during the week to see how it's going and she said "well, you have agency so you can do what you want" hahahhah I love her :)

Last night Sorella Geertsen made some brownies (mamma mia her brownies are incredible............) and we felt like we should take some to Sara, a less active member here! She is so cute and we usually visit her Sunday nights. Well last night we surprised her with these brownies to the which she said "O-M-G" (in english hahah we were dying) yep, they were really good. And we showed her the music video for the song "One by One" by Paul Cardall and Elder Bednar, we were all in tears by the end of it. It was beautiful reminder that Jesus Christ atoned for each of us, individually, one by one. I am so thankful for my Savior!

I read a quote in the institute manual this week that I love: "Some people are like rocks thrown into a sea of problems. They are drowned by them. Be a cork. When submerged in a problem, fight to be free to bob up to serve again with happiness." This week I invite y'all to BE A CORK! Don't let the hard times get ya down, I'll be trying to do the same :)

Buona settimana a tutti! Love yall!

XOXO