Gesù & Gelato: Venezuela?

Ciao a tutti! Wow so many things to write about and so little time, so bear with me!!

I guess I'll start with our investigator, Rita! She's in her 20s. The sorelle that got blown out left us with her, we met her very briefly but she works out of town and is there all the time. Apparently she was very close to baptism but her parents are against the church. This week we've seen the blessing of being able to use facebook messenger, because she never answers her phone or responds to text messages but we have had several good conversations with her on messenger! She is reading the Book of Mormon and has read all the way to Jacob by herself!!!! Unbelievable. We keep asking when we can meet up, so hopefully it will be soon!

Siracusa, Sicily

Ravioli with sugo nero (squid ink)

Miracle day: Tuesday. We spent our whole morning street contacting in Ortigia without much success and then got terribly lost on the way back home (love being white washed) and were getting home for lunch so late. There was no one on the streets (Italians take pranzo very seriously and the whole city shuts down for a few hours) but we heard someone yelling behind us. We didn't think much of it until we heard distinctly "Sorelle!!" We turned around to find a cute couple from Arizona on vacation, he served here like 15 years ago or something. They invited us to crash their dinner reservation in Ortigia so of course we were down. Such a miracle in a city where we barely know anyone! And the fact that if we wouldn't have been late coming home we never would've met them! That night we went back to Ortigia (not our original plans) for more street contacting before dinner. Within a span of 5 minutes I kid you not, we met two really great new contacts! The first was Sandra who said she will be at english course on Tuesday (tomorrow!), we exchanged numbers, she was so excited to meet us and gave us huge hugs, we were so happy and surprised we didn't know what to do with ourselves! And while we were continuing to celebrate and still find, we met Carolina a cute mom from Venezuela! She called us on Friday to set up a pranzo appointment for this coming Saturday! We are so excited to meet with her again and teach her more. :) It was beautiful meeting these 2 women that night. It's as if Heavenly Father was rewarding our efforts from that morning but we appreciated it so much more after not having tons of success! Dinner with the americans was a blast to say the least, we learned a lot about the area, the members, and had ravioli with sugo nero (the sauce is black because it's made with squid ink sacks! SO good), and gelato + brioche for dessert. Basically what I'm trying to say is that this week I gained a testimony that Heavenly Father is aware of each of us individually. I know that He loves us and cares about us!

The streets of Siracusa

Along with lots of street contacting we also switched it up a little during the week with some casa in casa (house to house!). We saw a huge house to house miracle last night, Patrizia. We got into this HUGE building with 4 separate staircases (like 4 sections to the apartment building) we knocked all of A, B, C, and D. We got to the last door of D and it was a nursing home type thing whoops. Well the girl working was named Patrizia and she told us she couldn't lose any time, she had to work. We told her the video we are showing is only 3 minutes! So she said "dai". YES. The spirit was so strong afterwards that she agreed to exchange phone numbers and meet again!!!!! Oh my the second she closed the door we were hugging and silently yelling and cheering. Come ho detto prima, Heavenly Father is aware of us and sometimes just decides to rain down little miracles :)

In other news.. I tried Granita this week. It changed my life.

If you don't know what granita is..... mi dispiace tanto.

Another highlight of Siracusa: english course! The english course here is going to be so much fun, I just love doing english group. I tried really extra hard to learn everyone names right off the bat so hopefully I remember them all tomorrow! We also have some super en gamba members that support english group which is really cool.

After english group on Thursday we had a little FHE with some of the GANS (Giovani Adulti Non Sposati) or YSA as we say in english. That was so much fun, this ward is unbelievable and we've got a great work to start with them too. One of the members, Martina (Amanda's sister from the milan mission.....woah small world.) was trying to help me, she had white washed a couple times in her mission so she's helping us learn names and who belongs to who, etc. etc. but it seems like there are lots of part active or part member families in the ward which we are really excited to start working with and just really getting to know everyone.

Okay I'll stop boring you but just one more little miracle we saw last night while doing finding.... we met another lady from Venezuela, Maria!!!!!! We got to exchange numbers with her too! Lots of potentials in the making and so much to be excited about and thankful for here in Siracusa. Funny moment was when she was telling us about how her brother had been murdered and his body burned back in Venezuela and Sorella Hope (not really understanding anything, bless her heart) said "Forte!" meaning "cool!" hahahaha luckily she didn't say it too loudly. Mamma mia I love being a missionary and I love this work.

I want yall to know that I am truly loving my mission. I was reading a talk by Elder Bednar and he said, "Sometimes we try to run so fast that we may forget where we are going and why we are running." This week I learned that in the slower times, or when we stop to remember our purpose, the Lord will bless us and we will better recognize His hand in every moment of our lives. So che la chiesa e vera e vi vogliamo tantissimo bene.