Sorella Hawkey and her mission president, Brother and Sister Acerson.
Friday, December 26, 2008
December 24, 2008
Buone Feste, tutti!
Tomorrow's Christmas!!! I'm so excited! We'll be spending all day at the Gianelli's house in the country, playing games, playing soccer, eating lots of delicious food. We also get to sleep in tomorrow, which will be wonderful!Tonight we're going over to the Manucci family's house for a big American Christmas Eve dinner. We're making a big turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, an American style salad (complete with ranch dressing, which they have never tried before!), pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and brownies. Italians LOVE brownies! I think Oscar is coming with us. He's an 18 year old recent convert, originally from Brazil. He's an awesome kid! He loves spending time with the missionaries, and usually goes with us wherever we go on PDay. He's also the reason we started playing basketball or soccer on Saturdays. He wants so much to do the right thing, but sometimes he falls back into old addictions. And his parents are very against the church, and they are horrible to him about it. They tell him that he must be gay since he's not out breaking the law of chastity. And they wanted him to stop going to church, so they bought him $1000 worth of cocaine. There have been a lot of ups and downs with him lately, but the last week he's been great! Oscar's amazing, and I hope he can come with us tonight.Last week for PDay, we went to 2 of the Cinque Terre- Riomaggiore and Manarola. They are beautiful! We're getting pictures printed today to send you.Last night was our branch Christmas party, and it turned out great! Not a ton of people showed up, but it was good. We were supposed to have zone conference Monday, so we planned the party for Tuesday night. Sunday night we got a call saying they had to change zone conference to Tuesday, so it was a little crazy! Last zone conference we didn't even get home from Florence until 7:30 or 8, and the party was supposed to start at 7, so we had to hurry and figure something out. And everyone that was supposed to bring food ended up calling us saying that they couldn't come anymore. It ended up going really well, though! The elders even had a couple investigators there.Zone conference yesterday was so good! The Acerson's are amazing! They gave us great lessons, and we had a catered lunch to celebrate Christmas. We also had a talent show, which was hilarious! One district did a skit where the sisters acted like elders, and the elders acted like sisters, and they acted out Christmas Eve, phone calls home, and Christmas morning. It was hilarious! The Acerson's gave us fun little gifts, too.This last week has been a little slow. Everyone seems to be really busy around the holidays, so we only had a couple of appointments, but our investigators are doing well. We still can't get ahold of Jennifer, but we know she's busy, so hopefully we can get ahold of her soon.These past couple weeks I've been thinking a lot about our Savior. I'm so grateful for the Christmas season, and the opportunity it provides for us to remember Him and the sacrifice He made for us. It definitely is different celebrating Christmas as a missionary. The APs included a couple quotes in our mission newsletter about the Atonement, which I love and wanted to share with you all.Andrew Skinner said, "Our finite mortal minds cannot grasp the tremendous load borne by the Savior in Gethsemane. But we begin to comprehend what this means in practical terms by remembering that this earth along has had some 60 to 70 billion people live upon it during its temporal history (not counting those spirits yet to come). Multiply the sins, sorrows, heartaches, and injustices of these 60 to 70 billion souls by the millions of earths that the Savior has created and redeemed, and we may begin to view the term infinite atonement in a different light."The Atonement truly is incomprehensible to us, but we need to always remember how truly personal our relationship is with our Savior. He suffered for each one of us personally. He has felt your pain, your sorrow, your heartaches. He knows exactly how you feel, because He has experienced it.CS Lewis said, "God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as if you had been the only man or woman in the world."Christ suffered and died for all of us, but He would have done it if it was just for you. The Atonement is so real and so powerful. It is so personal. He truly knows you and loves you.I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and remember the true reason that we celebrate.
Vi voglio bene!Sorella Hawkey
Tomorrow's Christmas!!! I'm so excited! We'll be spending all day at the Gianelli's house in the country, playing games, playing soccer, eating lots of delicious food. We also get to sleep in tomorrow, which will be wonderful!Tonight we're going over to the Manucci family's house for a big American Christmas Eve dinner. We're making a big turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, an American style salad (complete with ranch dressing, which they have never tried before!), pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and brownies. Italians LOVE brownies! I think Oscar is coming with us. He's an 18 year old recent convert, originally from Brazil. He's an awesome kid! He loves spending time with the missionaries, and usually goes with us wherever we go on PDay. He's also the reason we started playing basketball or soccer on Saturdays. He wants so much to do the right thing, but sometimes he falls back into old addictions. And his parents are very against the church, and they are horrible to him about it. They tell him that he must be gay since he's not out breaking the law of chastity. And they wanted him to stop going to church, so they bought him $1000 worth of cocaine. There have been a lot of ups and downs with him lately, but the last week he's been great! Oscar's amazing, and I hope he can come with us tonight.Last week for PDay, we went to 2 of the Cinque Terre- Riomaggiore and Manarola. They are beautiful! We're getting pictures printed today to send you.Last night was our branch Christmas party, and it turned out great! Not a ton of people showed up, but it was good. We were supposed to have zone conference Monday, so we planned the party for Tuesday night. Sunday night we got a call saying they had to change zone conference to Tuesday, so it was a little crazy! Last zone conference we didn't even get home from Florence until 7:30 or 8, and the party was supposed to start at 7, so we had to hurry and figure something out. And everyone that was supposed to bring food ended up calling us saying that they couldn't come anymore. It ended up going really well, though! The elders even had a couple investigators there.Zone conference yesterday was so good! The Acerson's are amazing! They gave us great lessons, and we had a catered lunch to celebrate Christmas. We also had a talent show, which was hilarious! One district did a skit where the sisters acted like elders, and the elders acted like sisters, and they acted out Christmas Eve, phone calls home, and Christmas morning. It was hilarious! The Acerson's gave us fun little gifts, too.This last week has been a little slow. Everyone seems to be really busy around the holidays, so we only had a couple of appointments, but our investigators are doing well. We still can't get ahold of Jennifer, but we know she's busy, so hopefully we can get ahold of her soon.These past couple weeks I've been thinking a lot about our Savior. I'm so grateful for the Christmas season, and the opportunity it provides for us to remember Him and the sacrifice He made for us. It definitely is different celebrating Christmas as a missionary. The APs included a couple quotes in our mission newsletter about the Atonement, which I love and wanted to share with you all.Andrew Skinner said, "Our finite mortal minds cannot grasp the tremendous load borne by the Savior in Gethsemane. But we begin to comprehend what this means in practical terms by remembering that this earth along has had some 60 to 70 billion people live upon it during its temporal history (not counting those spirits yet to come). Multiply the sins, sorrows, heartaches, and injustices of these 60 to 70 billion souls by the millions of earths that the Savior has created and redeemed, and we may begin to view the term infinite atonement in a different light."The Atonement truly is incomprehensible to us, but we need to always remember how truly personal our relationship is with our Savior. He suffered for each one of us personally. He has felt your pain, your sorrow, your heartaches. He knows exactly how you feel, because He has experienced it.CS Lewis said, "God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as if you had been the only man or woman in the world."Christ suffered and died for all of us, but He would have done it if it was just for you. The Atonement is so real and so powerful. It is so personal. He truly knows you and loves you.I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and remember the true reason that we celebrate.
Vi voglio bene!Sorella Hawkey
December 17, 2008
Hi everyone-
How are you all doing? Bryce, be careful around fire, please! Mom, did you ever have the chance to get a DVD of Priesthood session of this past conference? I want to see all the elders sing! Also, do you print my letters? There are some things I don't write in my journal, because I know I'll write to you guys, so I just want to make sure they're being kept somehow. Thanks! Also, no one has yet answered my question about giving away a Book of Mormon. Do you guys even read my letters???This week is transfer week, and our whole district is staying the same. Transfers are tomorrow. They're on Thursdays every six weeks. We get the call Monday morning during DDM, our district meetings. We're excited that everyone is staying here. All 6 of us got invited over for Christmas with the Gianelli family. I don't know exactly where their house in the country is, but I'll let you know when I find out. We're really excited!Christmas Eve we're all going over to the Manucci family's house. They're the ones who picked us up from the train station our first night here. They're a great family! Every year they have the missionaries over for Christmas Eve, and they have us make a list of what we want to eat (something American), and they go shopping and we all cook it together. It will be fun! I think the Margheritti's will be there, too.Last Sunday we had lunch at the Antognetti's. She's an awesome older sister in the ward, and the grandma of the crazy sisters. It was fun. All 6 of us missionaries were invited and a lot of family was there, too. The whole family lives in the same building, with different apartments for the different families. It's really cool. The crazy sisters have a huge music room. It's sound proof, and they have tons of instruments and recording equipment. They took us up there and played a couple songs for us, and they're really good! They play a lot around here. One of the crazy sisters also informed us that she prays to cats, because they're more approachable. She's hilarious. They're both very free spirited and fun!Also this Sunday, the whole sacrament meeting was done by the youth. There are only a few youth here, so instead of one speaking every week, they do a youth program once a year. The youth here are amazing! All of them are great speakers and are such great examples to their friends. The young women did a musical number and asked me and my companion to sing with them. They wanted one of the verses to be a duet with my companion and I, which was interesting. Neither of us are singers. But the branch loved it. At least that's what they said, so that's what we choose to believe. The elders made fun of us, though.So I don't know exactly what Italians think about American food, but all of the brands of frozen pizzas here have an "American style" pizza. It always includes every somewhat American food they can think of, all in one pizza. They usually have hot dogs, corn, chunks of meat (not even sausage or anything, just fat chunks of meat), and lots of other gross stuff. I don't think any of them have actually been to America.Have I mentioned how beautiful La Spezia is? I love it here! The Alps run just outside of the city, and are gorgeous! Also, part of the branch is in Tuscany. We visited some members on Friday, and got to go to Tuscany! Today we're going to Via dell'Amore. Last week was raining way too hard, and we didn't end up going. But today is actually a little bit sunny! We were talking to the elders about going to Cinque Terre, and I asked them if they wanted to go on the walk of love with us, and it totally ended up sounding like I was flirting with them! They all just stared at me for awhile, until I explained that I was inviting them with us for a missionary appropriate activity. Things always manage to come out wrong!There's an older man in the branch who is amazing! His name is Brother Carli. He was the branch president for years and years. His wife passed away a few years ago, but he comes to every single activity by himself. He's not very talkative, and seems a little rough around the edges, but he's so sweet! Anyways, they have candies here called Kisses, which are way better than American kisses, by the way! And everyone greets each other here by kissing each other's cheeks, but the men can't kiss the sister missionaries, so every week Fratello Carli brings us a candy kiss. It's really sweet!Last Saturday we met with Joanna again. She's wonderful! Her family is great, too. Carla, the step-daughter, met with us this time. She's 16 and so adorable! She read from the Book of Mormon last week and kept telling us we need to come back more often to talk to her. We talked about the Restoration, and she loved it! She kept saying things like "that's so cool!" She's really cute. Joanna still hasn't recognized an answer to her prayers about whether or not the Church is true, but she's still trying, which is good. She recognizes that it may take time.We haven't been able to get ahold of Jennifer since our first appointment last week. We're really worried about her. She seemed to be doing so great, but now she won't answer our calls. Some extra prayers for her would be wonderful!We have been meeting a lot with inactive members of the branch. They're great! Especially Judy. She loves us! She's having such a hard time right now, and I just wish she could see that living the Gospel will help her.The work is going great and I'm loving it! We have zone conference next week, so we get to go to Florence again, which I'm excited about.
Thanks for all your love and support.Vi voglio bene!Sorella Hawkey
How are you all doing? Bryce, be careful around fire, please! Mom, did you ever have the chance to get a DVD of Priesthood session of this past conference? I want to see all the elders sing! Also, do you print my letters? There are some things I don't write in my journal, because I know I'll write to you guys, so I just want to make sure they're being kept somehow. Thanks! Also, no one has yet answered my question about giving away a Book of Mormon. Do you guys even read my letters???This week is transfer week, and our whole district is staying the same. Transfers are tomorrow. They're on Thursdays every six weeks. We get the call Monday morning during DDM, our district meetings. We're excited that everyone is staying here. All 6 of us got invited over for Christmas with the Gianelli family. I don't know exactly where their house in the country is, but I'll let you know when I find out. We're really excited!Christmas Eve we're all going over to the Manucci family's house. They're the ones who picked us up from the train station our first night here. They're a great family! Every year they have the missionaries over for Christmas Eve, and they have us make a list of what we want to eat (something American), and they go shopping and we all cook it together. It will be fun! I think the Margheritti's will be there, too.Last Sunday we had lunch at the Antognetti's. She's an awesome older sister in the ward, and the grandma of the crazy sisters. It was fun. All 6 of us missionaries were invited and a lot of family was there, too. The whole family lives in the same building, with different apartments for the different families. It's really cool. The crazy sisters have a huge music room. It's sound proof, and they have tons of instruments and recording equipment. They took us up there and played a couple songs for us, and they're really good! They play a lot around here. One of the crazy sisters also informed us that she prays to cats, because they're more approachable. She's hilarious. They're both very free spirited and fun!Also this Sunday, the whole sacrament meeting was done by the youth. There are only a few youth here, so instead of one speaking every week, they do a youth program once a year. The youth here are amazing! All of them are great speakers and are such great examples to their friends. The young women did a musical number and asked me and my companion to sing with them. They wanted one of the verses to be a duet with my companion and I, which was interesting. Neither of us are singers. But the branch loved it. At least that's what they said, so that's what we choose to believe. The elders made fun of us, though.So I don't know exactly what Italians think about American food, but all of the brands of frozen pizzas here have an "American style" pizza. It always includes every somewhat American food they can think of, all in one pizza. They usually have hot dogs, corn, chunks of meat (not even sausage or anything, just fat chunks of meat), and lots of other gross stuff. I don't think any of them have actually been to America.Have I mentioned how beautiful La Spezia is? I love it here! The Alps run just outside of the city, and are gorgeous! Also, part of the branch is in Tuscany. We visited some members on Friday, and got to go to Tuscany! Today we're going to Via dell'Amore. Last week was raining way too hard, and we didn't end up going. But today is actually a little bit sunny! We were talking to the elders about going to Cinque Terre, and I asked them if they wanted to go on the walk of love with us, and it totally ended up sounding like I was flirting with them! They all just stared at me for awhile, until I explained that I was inviting them with us for a missionary appropriate activity. Things always manage to come out wrong!There's an older man in the branch who is amazing! His name is Brother Carli. He was the branch president for years and years. His wife passed away a few years ago, but he comes to every single activity by himself. He's not very talkative, and seems a little rough around the edges, but he's so sweet! Anyways, they have candies here called Kisses, which are way better than American kisses, by the way! And everyone greets each other here by kissing each other's cheeks, but the men can't kiss the sister missionaries, so every week Fratello Carli brings us a candy kiss. It's really sweet!Last Saturday we met with Joanna again. She's wonderful! Her family is great, too. Carla, the step-daughter, met with us this time. She's 16 and so adorable! She read from the Book of Mormon last week and kept telling us we need to come back more often to talk to her. We talked about the Restoration, and she loved it! She kept saying things like "that's so cool!" She's really cute. Joanna still hasn't recognized an answer to her prayers about whether or not the Church is true, but she's still trying, which is good. She recognizes that it may take time.We haven't been able to get ahold of Jennifer since our first appointment last week. We're really worried about her. She seemed to be doing so great, but now she won't answer our calls. Some extra prayers for her would be wonderful!We have been meeting a lot with inactive members of the branch. They're great! Especially Judy. She loves us! She's having such a hard time right now, and I just wish she could see that living the Gospel will help her.The work is going great and I'm loving it! We have zone conference next week, so we get to go to Florence again, which I'm excited about.
Thanks for all your love and support.Vi voglio bene!Sorella Hawkey
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
December 10, 2008
Hi everyone!
How are you all doing? Things are great here in Italia. Everything's all decorated for Christmas. We live right by Centro (downtown) so there are tons of lights everywhere! I love it! Also, I found out I live really close to a castle! We were looking for one of our contacts the other day, and we turned a corner, and all the sudden there was a huge castle in front of us! There's a museum there, so I think we're going to try to go some P-day.
So I was thinking about when I come back after my mission. I know you had talked about coming for the Temple dedication, but I have a proposal. When I come back for the Temple, I will probably just be staying in the Rome area doing Temple stuff. So what if I just went when the Temple is dedicated, and the family comes back a different time? I think it would be more fun to have a more relaxed trip and be able to visit the cities other than Rome and meet the people I worked with. Let me know what you think.
This week has been great! We had 2 meal appointments with members of the branch. (That reminds me, are you guys going to do the Book of Mormon challenge I asked you about last week?) Anyways, one was with the Margheritti family, who reminds me so much of mom and dad. You would love them! Sister Margheritti is super bubbly and loving. She always gives us free stuff at her store when we go there, and she always knows all the branch gossip. Yesterday we went visiting teaching with her, and she took us out to lunch after at a delicious focacceria! President Margheritti has a sense of humor a lot like dad's. He's really funny and loves to tease me. They have a 17 year old daughter, who Bryce would think is super cute. And Gizmo would love their puppy!
The other appointment was with the Gianelli family, who is also amazing! They have 3 kids, 2 girls ages 16 and 8, and a 14 year old boy. They are tons of fun! The 16 year old girl is going to start helping us teach english class. They invited us over for Christmas to their house in the country. I'm so excited! At lunch, the 14 year old boy spilled the bottle of olive oil all over my skirt. It came out, so it was no problem, but he was so worried! I've seen him a couple times since then at the church, and he has apologized about 100 times. He's a cute kid.
I got "fired" as the branch pianist. The guy who's normally the pianist came back from out of town, and guess what? He's completely blind! He knows all of the hymns by heart, including the introduction and how many verses each hymn has. He's so cool!
Last week we once again had a bunch of appointments fall through one night. So we decided to do house in this one area and ended up getting some amazing contacts! We were on a street that goes up a hill, and an older lady walked by and we said hi to her. She stopped walking and asked if she knew us. Then she saw our name tags, and recognized us as missionaries. She said that her son is taking the lessons from the elders. We talked to her for a while, and helped her walk home. She had a really hard time walking up the hill, and we found out later from the elders that she has collapsed a couple times walking home, and she was really worried about how she was going to make it home that night. She kept telling us that we were angels sent from Jesus, and we're all she'll talk about with the elders. It's so amazing how the Lord's hand is always in our lives. We had no real reason to be in that area at that time, but Heavenly Father knows His children. He knew that this woman needed someone to help her walk home, and we were blessed enough to be there. There have been so many little miracles like that, when one thing doesn't work out, but Heavenly Father gets us exactly where we need to be to see the people that need us.
We had an appointment with Joanna this week, but a friend was in town and she forgot to call us to reschedule. So we showed up to her house, and she wasn't home, but her 16 year old step-daughter was. She invited us in and asked us a tons of questions and was super interested in the Restoration and Joseph Smith! She asked if she can start coming when we teach Joanna, and asked if we can start coming by more often. It was a great experience!
Monday morning we met with Jennifer, who is also incredible! I don't remember if I told you about her last week, but she took the lessons 2 years ago but didn't feel ready to commit. She recognized that if she was going to join the church, it was a lifelong commitment, and she didn't feel ready at the time. But she has a friend who comes to english class, so she got our number and called us out of the blue! When we met with her Monday, she said that she feels ready this time and wants to pursue this. She said that she wants to have an eternal family someday and raise her kids in the church. We showed her the baptismal font, and she stared at it for a long time, and said, "I need to read the Book of Mormon again and pray before I do this, but I think this is right." It was such an amazing experience! And Kyle, I feel like it happened at least in part because of when you prayed that I would be able to find a golden investigator. So thank you!
I love you all so much! Thanks for all the love, support and prayers. They mean a lot to me. So do the letters and packages! :)
Vi voglio bene! Buone Feste!
Sorella Hawkey
How are you all doing? Things are great here in Italia. Everything's all decorated for Christmas. We live right by Centro (downtown) so there are tons of lights everywhere! I love it! Also, I found out I live really close to a castle! We were looking for one of our contacts the other day, and we turned a corner, and all the sudden there was a huge castle in front of us! There's a museum there, so I think we're going to try to go some P-day.
So I was thinking about when I come back after my mission. I know you had talked about coming for the Temple dedication, but I have a proposal. When I come back for the Temple, I will probably just be staying in the Rome area doing Temple stuff. So what if I just went when the Temple is dedicated, and the family comes back a different time? I think it would be more fun to have a more relaxed trip and be able to visit the cities other than Rome and meet the people I worked with. Let me know what you think.
This week has been great! We had 2 meal appointments with members of the branch. (That reminds me, are you guys going to do the Book of Mormon challenge I asked you about last week?) Anyways, one was with the Margheritti family, who reminds me so much of mom and dad. You would love them! Sister Margheritti is super bubbly and loving. She always gives us free stuff at her store when we go there, and she always knows all the branch gossip. Yesterday we went visiting teaching with her, and she took us out to lunch after at a delicious focacceria! President Margheritti has a sense of humor a lot like dad's. He's really funny and loves to tease me. They have a 17 year old daughter, who Bryce would think is super cute. And Gizmo would love their puppy!
The other appointment was with the Gianelli family, who is also amazing! They have 3 kids, 2 girls ages 16 and 8, and a 14 year old boy. They are tons of fun! The 16 year old girl is going to start helping us teach english class. They invited us over for Christmas to their house in the country. I'm so excited! At lunch, the 14 year old boy spilled the bottle of olive oil all over my skirt. It came out, so it was no problem, but he was so worried! I've seen him a couple times since then at the church, and he has apologized about 100 times. He's a cute kid.
I got "fired" as the branch pianist. The guy who's normally the pianist came back from out of town, and guess what? He's completely blind! He knows all of the hymns by heart, including the introduction and how many verses each hymn has. He's so cool!
Last week we once again had a bunch of appointments fall through one night. So we decided to do house in this one area and ended up getting some amazing contacts! We were on a street that goes up a hill, and an older lady walked by and we said hi to her. She stopped walking and asked if she knew us. Then she saw our name tags, and recognized us as missionaries. She said that her son is taking the lessons from the elders. We talked to her for a while, and helped her walk home. She had a really hard time walking up the hill, and we found out later from the elders that she has collapsed a couple times walking home, and she was really worried about how she was going to make it home that night. She kept telling us that we were angels sent from Jesus, and we're all she'll talk about with the elders. It's so amazing how the Lord's hand is always in our lives. We had no real reason to be in that area at that time, but Heavenly Father knows His children. He knew that this woman needed someone to help her walk home, and we were blessed enough to be there. There have been so many little miracles like that, when one thing doesn't work out, but Heavenly Father gets us exactly where we need to be to see the people that need us.
We had an appointment with Joanna this week, but a friend was in town and she forgot to call us to reschedule. So we showed up to her house, and she wasn't home, but her 16 year old step-daughter was. She invited us in and asked us a tons of questions and was super interested in the Restoration and Joseph Smith! She asked if she can start coming when we teach Joanna, and asked if we can start coming by more often. It was a great experience!
Monday morning we met with Jennifer, who is also incredible! I don't remember if I told you about her last week, but she took the lessons 2 years ago but didn't feel ready to commit. She recognized that if she was going to join the church, it was a lifelong commitment, and she didn't feel ready at the time. But she has a friend who comes to english class, so she got our number and called us out of the blue! When we met with her Monday, she said that she feels ready this time and wants to pursue this. She said that she wants to have an eternal family someday and raise her kids in the church. We showed her the baptismal font, and she stared at it for a long time, and said, "I need to read the Book of Mormon again and pray before I do this, but I think this is right." It was such an amazing experience! And Kyle, I feel like it happened at least in part because of when you prayed that I would be able to find a golden investigator. So thank you!
I love you all so much! Thanks for all the love, support and prayers. They mean a lot to me. So do the letters and packages! :)
Vi voglio bene! Buone Feste!
Sorella Hawkey
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
December 3, 2008
Hello!
How are you all doing? How was Thanksgiving? Ours was really good! We ate dinner as a district at the church. The elders cooked, and it actually turned out pretty well. Except that they bought chicken, thinking it was turkey. We informed them that it was in fact chicken, and they had no idea! We were in charge of dessert. We made apple cobbler, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and pumpkin pie from scratch. And when I say from scratch, I mean we had to cut up pieces of pumpkin and boil it, then put it into a blender. It was a fun adventure! And our oven doesn't have a temperature guage on it, you just have to kind of guess and hope it doesn't burn.Today for pday we are just running around town trying to get stuff done. We went shopping this morning and bought some warm clothes, which I'm really excited about! It's getting cold here! We also printed pictures, which I'll send you today. After this we're grocery shopping, and then hanging out at home to get some rest. Grocery shopping here is so fun! At the store we go to, they have these little things that look kind of like remote controls, but they scan all the items. You scan everything as you go throughout the store, and then when you're done, you just take the machine up to the cash register and pay. It's super fast and really fun to scan stuff!When Kyle did baptisms the other day, did he do grandpa White's name? Also, my trainer is in the conference ensign on page 6, which you should look at! It's pretty cool!The work here continues to go well! The branch is awesome. We're starting a family home evening at the church every Wednesday night for investigators and families to come to. We're going to have a lesson and treats and play games. It will be really fun and a lot of investigators have expressed interest in coming. We're also planning a Christmas party! Our branch is doing a challenge in the month of December, and I would like to challenge my family to do it also. It is to give a Book of Mormon to someone this month. We came up with 5 steps to do. First, come up with an objective, or why you want to give away a Book of Mormon. Then prayerfully brainstorm who you would like to give it to. Then prayerfully select one person, and come up with a specific plan on how you would like to give it to them. Like if you want to invite them over for dinner with the missionaries, family home evening, or whatever. Then give it to them! The missionaries are going around to all the active families in the branch (which is about 8) and giving them a copy of the Book of Mormon and The Nativity DVD to give out. So I would like to challenge you to do that also.Last week we went to visit with Judy, a less active member in our branch. We visited her a couple weeks ago, and she's wonderful! She went on a mission, but then married a non member and stopped going to church. She came last week, though! And she told us that after we came last time, she has been praying and reading the Book of Mormon again. She's so great and I'm so happy for her!We also met an "investigator" family, who are more like friends of the missionaries than actually investigators, but they are awesome! They're from Napoli, and I have never seen a more animated, loud family in my life! It's like the family on My Big Fat Greek Wedding times 10, and it's only 5 people creating that much chaos! They are so wonderful! The people from Napoli are very welcoming and friendly, and they kept offering us food and drinks, and things to take home with us. I love them!Saturday night was a crazy night. It was pouring down rain! And when it rains here, it really rains! The streets turn into rivers and the wind gets blowing so hard that your umbrella doesn't even work that well, because rain is coming at you from all directions. So we were trying to find this house, but the map was way wrong! It had the street we were trying to find on a completely wrong section of town, but we didn't know that, so we were wandering through this neighborhood trying to find the house. And then my companion's umbrella broke. All the wires were pointing in different directions. We were both trying to fit under mine, but ended up getting drenched. Then we got lost again, and ended up wandering through this muddy road. It was so much fun, though! It really is true that the more I forget myself and get lost in the work, the happier I am. It could have been such a miserable experience for both of us, but instead we chose to laugh about it and enjoy it. We made some nice warm hot chocolate when we got home that night. By the way, the hot chocolate in Italy is amazing!The other day we were doing house, and 2 little old ladies were watching us at the citofono (the intercom type thing at the front of each palazzo). They kept poking their heads out the window, and were obviously wondering what we were doing. As soon as we would look in their direction, they would duck behind the window, and slowly poke their heads back up again. They watched us for a good 20 minutes before we were done. It was really funny.Also doing house in the same area, I saw a cocker spaniel with a mullet! It was gross. He had long ears, which were cute, but then the top of his head was spiky and it seriously looked like a mullet. Never cut Gizmo's hair like that!We met with Joanna yesterday. She's still progressing and doing great! Sister Margheritti, the branch president's wife came with us. She's a convert herself, and I think it really helped Joanna to hear her conversion story. It was a really great experience! Joanna is amazing! We're meeting with her again this weekend. She still hasn't received an answer, but she keeps trying and hasn't given up. The Margheritti family is also amazing. We're going over to their house for dinner on Friday, and I'm excited. They have one daughter, who's 17 and super cute, and a cute puppy! I don't remember if I already told you this, but they don't have a car, because instead they save up money to be able to go to the temple once a year. Such an amazing sacrifice. The temple in Rome will be such a blessing to them.We got a call from this girl the other day, who wants to meet with us! She called us from out of the blue. She has a friend who comes to english class and got our number from them. It was so cool to actually have someone call us for a change! Then we were looking through the area book that night, and found out that this same girl took the lessons 2 years ago, but wasn't ready at the time. But now she's the one calling us, so we're really excited to meet with her!Another cool story. We were on our way to an appointment, and when we got there, the investigator was confused about what time the appointment was. We thought it was in the morning, but she thought it was in the afternoon, so she asked if we could come back that afternoon. We were on the bus back home, and we met a wonderful lady! We talked to her for a little while and she asked if we could talk more later. She gave us her number, and we're meeting with her this week. It's so amazing how the Lord puts us exactly where we need to be!I love you all so much! I hope you're all doing well. You're always in my prayers and hope you feel my love for you. I know I feel your love for me and your prayers.
Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawkey
How are you all doing? How was Thanksgiving? Ours was really good! We ate dinner as a district at the church. The elders cooked, and it actually turned out pretty well. Except that they bought chicken, thinking it was turkey. We informed them that it was in fact chicken, and they had no idea! We were in charge of dessert. We made apple cobbler, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and pumpkin pie from scratch. And when I say from scratch, I mean we had to cut up pieces of pumpkin and boil it, then put it into a blender. It was a fun adventure! And our oven doesn't have a temperature guage on it, you just have to kind of guess and hope it doesn't burn.Today for pday we are just running around town trying to get stuff done. We went shopping this morning and bought some warm clothes, which I'm really excited about! It's getting cold here! We also printed pictures, which I'll send you today. After this we're grocery shopping, and then hanging out at home to get some rest. Grocery shopping here is so fun! At the store we go to, they have these little things that look kind of like remote controls, but they scan all the items. You scan everything as you go throughout the store, and then when you're done, you just take the machine up to the cash register and pay. It's super fast and really fun to scan stuff!When Kyle did baptisms the other day, did he do grandpa White's name? Also, my trainer is in the conference ensign on page 6, which you should look at! It's pretty cool!The work here continues to go well! The branch is awesome. We're starting a family home evening at the church every Wednesday night for investigators and families to come to. We're going to have a lesson and treats and play games. It will be really fun and a lot of investigators have expressed interest in coming. We're also planning a Christmas party! Our branch is doing a challenge in the month of December, and I would like to challenge my family to do it also. It is to give a Book of Mormon to someone this month. We came up with 5 steps to do. First, come up with an objective, or why you want to give away a Book of Mormon. Then prayerfully brainstorm who you would like to give it to. Then prayerfully select one person, and come up with a specific plan on how you would like to give it to them. Like if you want to invite them over for dinner with the missionaries, family home evening, or whatever. Then give it to them! The missionaries are going around to all the active families in the branch (which is about 8) and giving them a copy of the Book of Mormon and The Nativity DVD to give out. So I would like to challenge you to do that also.Last week we went to visit with Judy, a less active member in our branch. We visited her a couple weeks ago, and she's wonderful! She went on a mission, but then married a non member and stopped going to church. She came last week, though! And she told us that after we came last time, she has been praying and reading the Book of Mormon again. She's so great and I'm so happy for her!We also met an "investigator" family, who are more like friends of the missionaries than actually investigators, but they are awesome! They're from Napoli, and I have never seen a more animated, loud family in my life! It's like the family on My Big Fat Greek Wedding times 10, and it's only 5 people creating that much chaos! They are so wonderful! The people from Napoli are very welcoming and friendly, and they kept offering us food and drinks, and things to take home with us. I love them!Saturday night was a crazy night. It was pouring down rain! And when it rains here, it really rains! The streets turn into rivers and the wind gets blowing so hard that your umbrella doesn't even work that well, because rain is coming at you from all directions. So we were trying to find this house, but the map was way wrong! It had the street we were trying to find on a completely wrong section of town, but we didn't know that, so we were wandering through this neighborhood trying to find the house. And then my companion's umbrella broke. All the wires were pointing in different directions. We were both trying to fit under mine, but ended up getting drenched. Then we got lost again, and ended up wandering through this muddy road. It was so much fun, though! It really is true that the more I forget myself and get lost in the work, the happier I am. It could have been such a miserable experience for both of us, but instead we chose to laugh about it and enjoy it. We made some nice warm hot chocolate when we got home that night. By the way, the hot chocolate in Italy is amazing!The other day we were doing house, and 2 little old ladies were watching us at the citofono (the intercom type thing at the front of each palazzo). They kept poking their heads out the window, and were obviously wondering what we were doing. As soon as we would look in their direction, they would duck behind the window, and slowly poke their heads back up again. They watched us for a good 20 minutes before we were done. It was really funny.Also doing house in the same area, I saw a cocker spaniel with a mullet! It was gross. He had long ears, which were cute, but then the top of his head was spiky and it seriously looked like a mullet. Never cut Gizmo's hair like that!We met with Joanna yesterday. She's still progressing and doing great! Sister Margheritti, the branch president's wife came with us. She's a convert herself, and I think it really helped Joanna to hear her conversion story. It was a really great experience! Joanna is amazing! We're meeting with her again this weekend. She still hasn't received an answer, but she keeps trying and hasn't given up. The Margheritti family is also amazing. We're going over to their house for dinner on Friday, and I'm excited. They have one daughter, who's 17 and super cute, and a cute puppy! I don't remember if I already told you this, but they don't have a car, because instead they save up money to be able to go to the temple once a year. Such an amazing sacrifice. The temple in Rome will be such a blessing to them.We got a call from this girl the other day, who wants to meet with us! She called us from out of the blue. She has a friend who comes to english class and got our number from them. It was so cool to actually have someone call us for a change! Then we were looking through the area book that night, and found out that this same girl took the lessons 2 years ago, but wasn't ready at the time. But now she's the one calling us, so we're really excited to meet with her!Another cool story. We were on our way to an appointment, and when we got there, the investigator was confused about what time the appointment was. We thought it was in the morning, but she thought it was in the afternoon, so she asked if we could come back that afternoon. We were on the bus back home, and we met a wonderful lady! We talked to her for a little while and she asked if we could talk more later. She gave us her number, and we're meeting with her this week. It's so amazing how the Lord puts us exactly where we need to be!I love you all so much! I hope you're all doing well. You're always in my prayers and hope you feel my love for you. I know I feel your love for me and your prayers.
Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawkey
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