Salvatore, Nuns, Colosseum

Helllloooooooo (Seinfeld)

so many good things this week!

1. quote from smed "if i was God i would probly kill all my children

out of frustration" "oh wait, he DID do that before."

2. New missionaries- Sorella Openshaw from Orem and Anziano Wright

from Massachusetts who says "freak" is a bad word there. oops. ha.

he's an awkward child.

3. I TALKED TO NUNS ON THE BUS!

I gave one a restoration pamphlet and she read it then and there. I

was so excited! I've been wanting to for weeks and weeks to ask them

if we should call them "suora" or "sorella" and why there are so many

different colors of nun clothes (p.s. she said either name, and that

it depended on the "community" you come from)

4. Prince asked us this week about fasting, and if he could pay

someone to fast for him. No Prince. We decided to postpone his

baptismal date indefinitely because of questions like that.

5. SALVATORE'S BAPTISM. was the greatest thing ever!

I'm gonna add a voice recording i did the night of that i did with

smed's recorder, it's kind of obnoxious, but i thought it would be

fun. but for those who dont get it:

We sang I feel my Savior's love. Me and Sobe did alto part. lovely.

Anziano Fenn baptized him. Several of our investigators came: Michele,

Galvino, Dario. Galvino kept asking questions about their clothes and

the water because for some reason the idea of getting wet was strange

to him. He thought the clothes were made of rubber so you wouldnt get

wet. No Galvino, you have to go under, just like Jesus.

When Anz. Fenn started the prayer he choked up half a second, it was

so sweet. And then when Salvatore came up he paused for a second with

his eyes closed as if the heavens were opening to him in his mind, and

then turned and smiled so big and hugged Fenn. I lost it. Me and Smed

were crying so hard and we hugged for a long time, all the while

Galvino saying "Christian, why are you crying? You're crying!" "SHUT

UP OLD MAN!" ok, i didnt say that, but he was interrupting the moment.

7. Got yelled at for the first time by a lady because we were ringing

the citofonos on peoples houses and asking them if they wanted to hear

a message about Jesus or eternal families or peace and joy.... She

"spoke for her whole building" that nobody wanted us there. "We're not

of your religion!" "That's exactly why we're here to teach." Oh cranky

pants old ladies.

8. Pday today- we're emailing a little later cuz we hit up Centro Roma

today. Colosseum, Piazza Venezia, and saw a huge church where a saints

ARM is. love that.

The Colosseum.

THOUGHT:

We taught plan of salvation twice yesterday, to Galvino and then to

Michele and Dario. They were all very accepting. And it was extra

sweet cuz Galvino brought a pic of his deceased wife Angela and we

said "Galvino! You're gonna see her again!"

But in all this teaching some truths stood out really strong to me:

God loves us so dang much, and he doesn't want to condemn to fire and

brimstone, and He won't, that's why there's 3 kingdoms. He gives us so

many chances to turn to Him and accept Christ.

I read today in DandC 101: "for in this world your joy is not full,

but in me your joy is full." as I was doing a study about how we

receive the most joy and peace and love from Christ.

Loves and snuggles,

Sorella Cajin Rain

Mawiage, Bap.s, And 1D

Answers:

• University types to teach? Do those exist? No. Most youngish men aren't interested, at least not in our message, or are pervs. Limited families. We mostly get older peeps, at least right now.
• Primary- about 10ish kids. all adorable. especially my friend Junior Cadena who is short and plump and comes to english class.
• We make our own lunch most of the time- yesterday we made breaded chicken, spinach and green beans. "it's pretty scumpscious" (bobby) Other favorites are red sauce pasta sometimes with hamburger, gnocchi with pesto, pannini with salami, corn flakes, and an occasional trip to mcky d's. mcdonald's is THE PLACE to hang out here, all the high school kids think they're really cool when they chill there. haha. so basically: carbs. yes i am getting fat. and PROUD OF IT.
• last week we made some pasta called "pipe" = pipes. but when you hold them a certain way they look like the Nasgul hoods. here's a pic.

The Nasgul hood pasta. 

As for this week:

PDAY: we just shopped last pday. i bought a couple cute wintery hats, and then the weather got warm again. drat.

I learned how to say wedgie, well kind of, they dont have a real word. these italians are missin out. they say "ti tiro su il mutandone" = i'll pull up your big undies!

Prince: We taught him chastity this week with Alma's advice to Corianton. He said he had been praying for God to help him find a wife, and that there was a lady he had been praying about. Then Sor. Smed. got a phone call from mish pres's wife about transfers so she got up and walked a few steps away, during which time Prince told me that he thought  was the answer to his prayers. Oh dang.

Smed. gave him the smackdown that he couldnt marry me. He had it all planned out: he would move back to Nigeria in a little while, I would go home to America, then move to Nigeria and he would build a church on his land back home and I could be a missionary in it. Uhhhhhhhhhhh.

He came to church on sunday, though. yay! :S

Salvatore: is getting baptized this saturday! we've invited the whole world practically! he's really excited and so are we. he's also had a really wretched week, family problems, a cousin died... but he knows satan is trying to distract him and is so determined to be baptized. way to punch satan in the face!

Transfers: me and smed are staying together for one more. Sor. Winward is going to Sardegna, hopefully to baptized all her extended family that lives there! Embree is going to Bari.

Kiddies: we visited the kiddies (Elen and Eva) and played some funny games with them and discovered their love for ONE DIRECTION! for picture telephone i wrote "harry from one direction asks elen to marry him" and she hugged me a hundred times cuz he's her favorite one. hilary told me they have a new album. how is it manny?

Spiritual Thought:

I've been a little all over this week. I feel like I'm messing up right and left, with things i had no idea could possibly be wrong, and getting all kinds of crazy mixed messages. "aaaaarrgggh!" meh. and i just want to chop off some scalps like the warrior of captain moroni does to Zarahemna (i read that part today). but moroni realizes they're all scared and tries to be fair by giving them a chance to change. and what i took from that is even though im feeling a little bombarded and attacked by wild, bloodthirsties, i need to keep calm and be fair, too. a little bit of a stretch, but whatever works. just know im learning LOTS. from the scrips and from life.

LOVE YOU ALL.

VI VOGLIO TANTISSIMISSIMISSIMO BENE.

- Sorella Caj

Piñatas, Mussels, And Kooky Old Guys Are The Best

Its been getting colder and colder here, and im forced to wear tights, partly cuz it means i dont have to shave my legs as much.

OBAMA eh? we had a lady text us this morning so we could find out. was it close? we heard the O-man had a lot of scary ads with freaky children and an ugly lady talking about uncomfortable things.

HALLOWEEN PDAY: lasagna, joseph smith long version vid, pin-the-tie-on-the-missionary, ping pong, brownies and icecreams, pellet gun, too hard pinata that we couldnt break with the stick so we played soccer with it until i kicked it so hard at sorella sobeck that it exploded.

Which one is the piñata? 

Destroyed.

FIORELLA: Melchiore's (member) mom. we started visiting her every week cuz she's a shut in. their house is disgusting. while sorella smed chatted with her i frantically searched for a broom to sweep up all the trash under her bed. i filled up 2 bags of trash from her room and from the kitchen floor. smed told me she didnt touch a SINGLE THING in the bathroom when she had to go pee cuz it was so yucky. she was quite proud of herself. we plan to do a little job every time we go.

PRINCE: we taught him word of the wisdom last week and he said he's already been trying to quit for 3 weeks. whaaaattt??? and even avoiding the street by the tabaccheria where he would buy his cigs. he said he was willing to give up those friends that work at the store for a little while until he was strong enough to resist temptation. he didnt make it to church though so we have to push his bapt back a week.

FIRST BIBLE BASH: I enjoyed it. Not cause I was bashing, but because the Lord blessed me to be completely calm the whole time while the other mishkinaries with me were getting a little riled. It was some punk hipster kid who was fighting about the Book of Mormon and coming up with all these questions and we repeatedly told him READ AND SEE, man! We had to go, he was making us late for an appointment. I asked to say one more thing, and I bore my testimony of the BoM and how it has helped me get to know Jesus better and how he can help me in my life. Yay for scriptures!

2 KOOKY OLD GUYS: that we met on the bus 2 weeks ago came to church. they're best friends and both widowers and their names are Nannino and Galvino. They were so cute and i sat in between them on the front row in sacrament meeting. Galvino tried to sing along with the hymns. He mostly just hit one note the whole time but i was so proud of him. The meeting was incredible and the Spirit was so strong during the testimonies, and several people talked about the Book of Mormon (One member compared his testimony of it to a million atomic bombs....... italians.) and afterward Nannino was like "i want one of those!" so i scurried and grabbed them both one and made a plan to see them this week.

MUSSELS: i ate them. at patrizia prato's house. they're SCRUMDIDLYUMPTIOUS! and i was losin' it i was so excited and horrified to see the pile of black shells in my bowl. they look like little aliens in their spaceships. kinda scary. patrizia reminds me of miss tigglywinkle. she's little and cute and has a little voice just like her! like a little hedgehog woman.

Mmmm.....mussels.

SOBECK: I partially am to blame for the large cut and bump on Sor. Sobeck's (I call her sorella sobe) forehead when she ran into a window when we were kicking a soccer ball in the multipurpose room at church. Its gnarly. But nevertheless a guy on the bus still called her Sorella Sexy because he claimed he couldn't read good.... thats an old one.

THOUGHT: the list of workings of the spirit in PMG. I'm obsessed with it and gave a little thought at Patrizia's about specific times I've felt the Spirit working in some of those ways listed. Skim it and see if anyone of those look familiar, and I think you'll be surprised how many times those things have happened and you didn't realize. I love the Spirit, he is our friend and loves us, and helps us connect to God and heaven.

HEBREWS 13:24 "They of Italy Salute you"

-Sorella Caj