January 14, 2009

Ciao tutti!
This week has been great! We got 3 new investigators!!! And had great appointments with our less active members! And it's been warm and sunny and things are great here in La Spezia.
Wednesday for PDay, we went to Carrara, which is a town just outside of La Spezia that has a big marble mine. The elders wanted to find marble chess sets, so they drug us along with them. They ended up not finding anything, but Sister Jones and I had a lot of fun shopping!
Wednesday night at our branch family home evening, the elders found a mouse in the church. They know that I HATE rodents and bugs and things, so they always try to scare me. One of them caught the mouse in a cup, and kept chasing me around the church with it. After a while, I didn't believe that he actually had a mouse in the cup, so I stopped running and went over. He lifted his hand off the cup, and the mouse jumped out at me. It was so scary! The elders all thought it was hilarious, and Oscar video recorded the whole thing on his phone and shows everyone me freaking out.
Thursday night we were doing some passbacks of people we've met who didn't have time to talk when we met them. There is one family who we met briefly doing house, but they went out of town for the holidays, and we hadn't been able to find them home for about a month. Thursday we went to drop by, and they immediately let us in. We taught them a mini first lesson, and the wife asked if we could come back when the husband is home to teach more! We're going back this Saturday!
Friday, we had an appointment with a lady that the sisters that were here before us found. She wanted to learn english, but works when we hold our english class, so we said we can come teach her. We went there for the first time Friday, and asked if we could share a spiritual thought. We ended up teaching the whole first lesson, and both her and her sister asked for copies of the Book of Mormon! One of the sisters came to church on Sunday, and is coming tonight to the branch family home evening. They are from Brazil, and are named Presciella and Elisabeth. They're great!
We also had an appointment Friday night with a family of 7 that the other sisters had taught a couple times. We waited to go there until the old sister sent a letter that we could take to them. The old sisters said that they were pretty hard core Catholic. So we get there, and just "happen" to arrive right as they are starting the rosary prayer! We sat and listened for about 30 minutes, and then they went off on how the Catholic church is the only true church, and how they respect our beliefs, but we're wrong. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.
We met a contact before Christmas named Rita. She's 53 and single and met with the elders 6 years ago. She is so sweet! We have been trying to find her at home since then, but we've never been able to get ahold of her. Sunday night we were talking about her trying to figure out how to find her. My companion and I both looked at each other, and at the same time, said "She's in the hospital." We called her, and she answered this time, and sure enough, she was in the hospital. We went to visit her, and she was SO happy! She had surgery on Wednesday, and none of her family had come to see her. She had been sitting all alone in the hospital room since Wednesday morning. We taught her about blessings, and she asked if the elders could come give her one. Monday we all went and she got a blessing, and she loved it! She lights up every time we go visit her. She is so wonderful! We're excited to be working with her.
Anyways, those are the highlights of my week. This is such a great experience to be an instrument in the hands of my Heavenly Father to share this wonderful gospel with His children here in Italy.
I love you all so much and hope you know you're in my thoughts and prayers.
Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawkey