Sorella Hawkey standing on the temple grounds of the future Rome, Italy Temple!
Friday, December 26, 2008
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
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
November 26, 2008
Ciao!
How are you all doing? It sounds like you're all good. Keep the letters coming. They mean a lot! Happy Thanksgiving! I've changed my mind and decided that you all can in fact have fun without me, as long as you all realize the hole left by my absence. We are having a Thanksgiving lunch as a district. The elders are cooking, so it could be interesting. But I hope you all have a great time!!!First of all, I've received lots of questions from people, so I'll try to answer them all. For Pday, we can travel in our zone, which is pretty big, so there's tons of cool things to see. Pisa is too far, but we drive through there to get to Florence, so I've seen the tower very briefly. We didn't go to Cinque Terre last week. We were waiting for the elders, who took forever, and missed the train. So this week we're going with or without them. Last week we went to the naval museum, though, which was cool. Dad would love it!The train ride from Rome to La Spezia was just a normal train ride. A family in the branch picked us up and took us to our apartment. There were several missionaries coming up north from Rome, but Sister Jones and I went the farthest. We buy groceries weekly. Things are about the same price as in America. You can get really good pizza for 2 euro. We go every Monday after our district devotional. I love the pizza margherita, and nutella pizza for dessert!Other answers to questions: it's kinda cold here. It's about 9 or 10 degrees every day, celsius, and I have no idea what that is in farenheit. The markets are really cute and have fresh fish that they catch every morning and lots of fresh fruits and veggies. The bread and pasta is amazing! Liguria, the region La Spezia is in, is known for focaccia, which is incredible! The city is overall very clean and nice. I had a little trouble with jet lag, but not too bad. The people are so friendly! And everyone says this is one of the least friendly regions in Italy, so I can only imagine what people other places are like. Most of them have little desire to hear our message, but right after rejecting us, they invite us in and ask if we want food or anything. We go to the park a lot to talk to people, and everyone loves to talk to us! By the end of the conversation, we know their whole life story. The people are wonderful!The portion sizes for food are huge!!! We've eaten at a members homes, and before you even finish 3 bites, they've loaded your plate with more. They also have usually at least 2 courses, each of which is a huge meal in and of itself. We definitely do not go hungry here. Most people get around on busses or walking. Everyone greets each other by kissing each other's cheeks. Everyone has cell phones. We use euro here, but I don't know what the exchange rate is. I think that's all the questions I've receive. Sorry if I missed any!This week has been great! I don't remember if I told you this already, but we go to Tai Chi every week. A nonmember uses the church building to teach a class, so the branch president asked if a set of missionaries would come every time. So we go every Tuesday night, and sometimes have investigators there. It's really fun! I'm pretty sure the instructor thinks I'm retarded, though. He speaks really fast and uses a bunch of words I don't know. He comes around and gives everyone individual feedback, and I just give him a blank stare, because I have no idea what he's telling me. Poor guy!I absolutely love La Spezia! The more I get to know the city, the more I love it! You would all love it too! I can't wait to bring you back someday. Dad, you would love the naval base and the cargo ships. I can also picture you liking the bus system here, and within 30 minutes figuring out where every bus goes and where all the stops are. You would also love the pizza margherita! We get some every Monday, and I want to take you to the little pizza shop we go to someday. They love missionaries! Mom, you would love how quaint the city is. You would also love the focaccia, which is amazing, and the little pastry shop by our house, which is also amazing! Kyle, you would love how the old people dress. All the old men wear nice slacks, a button up shirt, and a little hat and a trench coat. All the little old ladies always wear skirts and a nice blouse and pumps. They're really fashionable old people here! I love it! Most of the ladies dress cuter than me! (which I guess isn't too hard in sister missionary clothes) You would also love that I've only seen 2 obese people here. And you can talk about people right in front of them and they have no idea, cuz they don't speak english. It's kinda fun! Bryce, you would love the elevators here. And by that, I mean you would hate them, but I always think of you when I use them! They're kinda scary, so you would probably have a heart attack in them. The elevator shaft is a little cage, and you have to manually open the doors. They're really ghetto. You would also love this one corner in town. It's right in downtown, and there's an outhouse just chillin on the corner. It's a nicer one that has a flushing toilet, but still...It's a toilet on the corner like it's no big deal. It's kinda funny. Gizmo and Bella, you would love that everyone has dogs here. Everyone takes their dogs with them everywhere. You would make lots of friends here. Most of them have little doggy rain coats, too, for when it rains.The work is going well. Geni decided that she prayed and got an answer to stay Catholic. But she said she would still let us visit sometimes. We've had tons of appointments cancel on us, so we've been doing lots of finding work. Last night doing house, someone yelled at us, and said "I'm communist! I don't want to hear about religion!" It was funny! We've met some awesome people, though. We met a guy named Clement at Sandra's store. He came in and immediately asked us who we were. We ended up giving him a first lesson, and he kept saying that he really really wants a Book of Mormon. He's from Nigeria, and speaks english, and unfortunately we only had an Italian one with us, but the elders are meeting with him tonight. He's so cool!Joanna is doing great! She wasn't able to come to church last week, but she loves meeting with us and does all her reading. She loved the Plan of Salvation so much! She was so excited about it! She said she hasn't gotten an answer to her prayers yet, though, but she's still praying. We would love extra prayers for her to get an answer, if you want to!Last week we went to visit an older lady in the branch named Sister Nardi. She's pretty much the cutest lady ever! She lives in San Terenzo, which is gorgeous! Look up pictures online. Her mom was there, who is 99 years old. I don't think she's completely there. During our lesson, she kept yelling out things like "I'm 99 years old!" "Did you know I'm 99 years old?" "I'm 99 years old, and I've never been sick in my life." It was really funny.I love you all so much and hope you know you're in my prayers.
Love,Sorella Hawkey
How are you all doing? It sounds like you're all good. Keep the letters coming. They mean a lot! Happy Thanksgiving! I've changed my mind and decided that you all can in fact have fun without me, as long as you all realize the hole left by my absence. We are having a Thanksgiving lunch as a district. The elders are cooking, so it could be interesting. But I hope you all have a great time!!!First of all, I've received lots of questions from people, so I'll try to answer them all. For Pday, we can travel in our zone, which is pretty big, so there's tons of cool things to see. Pisa is too far, but we drive through there to get to Florence, so I've seen the tower very briefly. We didn't go to Cinque Terre last week. We were waiting for the elders, who took forever, and missed the train. So this week we're going with or without them. Last week we went to the naval museum, though, which was cool. Dad would love it!The train ride from Rome to La Spezia was just a normal train ride. A family in the branch picked us up and took us to our apartment. There were several missionaries coming up north from Rome, but Sister Jones and I went the farthest. We buy groceries weekly. Things are about the same price as in America. You can get really good pizza for 2 euro. We go every Monday after our district devotional. I love the pizza margherita, and nutella pizza for dessert!Other answers to questions: it's kinda cold here. It's about 9 or 10 degrees every day, celsius, and I have no idea what that is in farenheit. The markets are really cute and have fresh fish that they catch every morning and lots of fresh fruits and veggies. The bread and pasta is amazing! Liguria, the region La Spezia is in, is known for focaccia, which is incredible! The city is overall very clean and nice. I had a little trouble with jet lag, but not too bad. The people are so friendly! And everyone says this is one of the least friendly regions in Italy, so I can only imagine what people other places are like. Most of them have little desire to hear our message, but right after rejecting us, they invite us in and ask if we want food or anything. We go to the park a lot to talk to people, and everyone loves to talk to us! By the end of the conversation, we know their whole life story. The people are wonderful!The portion sizes for food are huge!!! We've eaten at a members homes, and before you even finish 3 bites, they've loaded your plate with more. They also have usually at least 2 courses, each of which is a huge meal in and of itself. We definitely do not go hungry here. Most people get around on busses or walking. Everyone greets each other by kissing each other's cheeks. Everyone has cell phones. We use euro here, but I don't know what the exchange rate is. I think that's all the questions I've receive. Sorry if I missed any!This week has been great! I don't remember if I told you this already, but we go to Tai Chi every week. A nonmember uses the church building to teach a class, so the branch president asked if a set of missionaries would come every time. So we go every Tuesday night, and sometimes have investigators there. It's really fun! I'm pretty sure the instructor thinks I'm retarded, though. He speaks really fast and uses a bunch of words I don't know. He comes around and gives everyone individual feedback, and I just give him a blank stare, because I have no idea what he's telling me. Poor guy!I absolutely love La Spezia! The more I get to know the city, the more I love it! You would all love it too! I can't wait to bring you back someday. Dad, you would love the naval base and the cargo ships. I can also picture you liking the bus system here, and within 30 minutes figuring out where every bus goes and where all the stops are. You would also love the pizza margherita! We get some every Monday, and I want to take you to the little pizza shop we go to someday. They love missionaries! Mom, you would love how quaint the city is. You would also love the focaccia, which is amazing, and the little pastry shop by our house, which is also amazing! Kyle, you would love how the old people dress. All the old men wear nice slacks, a button up shirt, and a little hat and a trench coat. All the little old ladies always wear skirts and a nice blouse and pumps. They're really fashionable old people here! I love it! Most of the ladies dress cuter than me! (which I guess isn't too hard in sister missionary clothes) You would also love that I've only seen 2 obese people here. And you can talk about people right in front of them and they have no idea, cuz they don't speak english. It's kinda fun! Bryce, you would love the elevators here. And by that, I mean you would hate them, but I always think of you when I use them! They're kinda scary, so you would probably have a heart attack in them. The elevator shaft is a little cage, and you have to manually open the doors. They're really ghetto. You would also love this one corner in town. It's right in downtown, and there's an outhouse just chillin on the corner. It's a nicer one that has a flushing toilet, but still...It's a toilet on the corner like it's no big deal. It's kinda funny. Gizmo and Bella, you would love that everyone has dogs here. Everyone takes their dogs with them everywhere. You would make lots of friends here. Most of them have little doggy rain coats, too, for when it rains.The work is going well. Geni decided that she prayed and got an answer to stay Catholic. But she said she would still let us visit sometimes. We've had tons of appointments cancel on us, so we've been doing lots of finding work. Last night doing house, someone yelled at us, and said "I'm communist! I don't want to hear about religion!" It was funny! We've met some awesome people, though. We met a guy named Clement at Sandra's store. He came in and immediately asked us who we were. We ended up giving him a first lesson, and he kept saying that he really really wants a Book of Mormon. He's from Nigeria, and speaks english, and unfortunately we only had an Italian one with us, but the elders are meeting with him tonight. He's so cool!Joanna is doing great! She wasn't able to come to church last week, but she loves meeting with us and does all her reading. She loved the Plan of Salvation so much! She was so excited about it! She said she hasn't gotten an answer to her prayers yet, though, but she's still praying. We would love extra prayers for her to get an answer, if you want to!Last week we went to visit an older lady in the branch named Sister Nardi. She's pretty much the cutest lady ever! She lives in San Terenzo, which is gorgeous! Look up pictures online. Her mom was there, who is 99 years old. I don't think she's completely there. During our lesson, she kept yelling out things like "I'm 99 years old!" "Did you know I'm 99 years old?" "I'm 99 years old, and I've never been sick in my life." It was really funny.I love you all so much and hope you know you're in my prayers.
Love,Sorella Hawkey
Thursday, November 20, 2008
November 20, 2008
Hi,
So I just wrote a really long email, and it got lost, so I'll try again, but this will probably be shorter because I'm almost out of time. Sorry! This week we have pday on Thursday because we had zone conference yesterday, with Elders Robert C. Oaks and Gerald Causse. They are in the area presidency and are touring our mission right now. It was really good!Mom, how was your birthday? How was yours, Gizmo? How's Rosie handling Obama being president?We had our first Sunday in the branch last week. Everyone is wonderful! We have about 50 active members who are great! Last week was the primary program. There are 5 kids in the primary, and all of them speak better than me! Oh well!We teach english class on Thursday nights. Sister Jones and I teach the beginners class and have about 15 students who are awesome! We also go to tai chi every week, and play basketball every week. A bunch of nonmembers do both of those activities at the church building, and the branch president asked the missionaries to go to talk to them. It's pretty fun!I only have a few minutes left, so I'll just share one quick experience. Friday night we had tons of appointments scheduled, and every single one of them fell through. It was super frustrating, because we had so many people we wanted to teach. All of our back up plans didn't go through either. So we were standing there trying to figure out what to do, and all of the sudden my companion said that we needed to go to this certain part of town and do house. So we get up there, and no one wants to talk to us! It was kinda frustrating, because it was cold, and we were going on 6 hours of working hard with absolutely no success. We had one house left on the street before it was time to go home. We knocked on the door, and a wonderful woman named Joanna answered. She had a little boy with her, and we shared a message about the family and gave her the Proclamation. Before we had the chance to ask if we could come back, she asked us! We came back the next day and taught her a lesson, and she again asked us if we could come back, before we had the chance. It was awesome!I'm out of time, but I love you all. I'll write more next week that hopefully doesn't get lost.
Sorella Hawkey
So I just wrote a really long email, and it got lost, so I'll try again, but this will probably be shorter because I'm almost out of time. Sorry! This week we have pday on Thursday because we had zone conference yesterday, with Elders Robert C. Oaks and Gerald Causse. They are in the area presidency and are touring our mission right now. It was really good!Mom, how was your birthday? How was yours, Gizmo? How's Rosie handling Obama being president?We had our first Sunday in the branch last week. Everyone is wonderful! We have about 50 active members who are great! Last week was the primary program. There are 5 kids in the primary, and all of them speak better than me! Oh well!We teach english class on Thursday nights. Sister Jones and I teach the beginners class and have about 15 students who are awesome! We also go to tai chi every week, and play basketball every week. A bunch of nonmembers do both of those activities at the church building, and the branch president asked the missionaries to go to talk to them. It's pretty fun!I only have a few minutes left, so I'll just share one quick experience. Friday night we had tons of appointments scheduled, and every single one of them fell through. It was super frustrating, because we had so many people we wanted to teach. All of our back up plans didn't go through either. So we were standing there trying to figure out what to do, and all of the sudden my companion said that we needed to go to this certain part of town and do house. So we get up there, and no one wants to talk to us! It was kinda frustrating, because it was cold, and we were going on 6 hours of working hard with absolutely no success. We had one house left on the street before it was time to go home. We knocked on the door, and a wonderful woman named Joanna answered. She had a little boy with her, and we shared a message about the family and gave her the Proclamation. Before we had the chance to ask if we could come back, she asked us! We came back the next day and taught her a lesson, and she again asked us if we could come back, before we had the chance. It was awesome!I'm out of time, but I love you all. I'll write more next week that hopefully doesn't get lost.
Sorella Hawkey
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