Choosing Faith In Italia

My dearest family,

I am trying so hard not to cry as I read all of these emails that I just received from you all.  My companion would freak out 🙂 Since I told her that I never cry.  That’s changing fast.

Where to begin?! (the keyboards are different and I’m having trouble getting used to them. anyways.)  We got on the plane and I talked on the phone. It was so good to hear your voices!!! Sorry this email will be long but I type fast and I want to tell you everything.

Our flight to from Dallas to London was somewhat delayed and so we missed our flight to Milan.  Being the insomniac that I am, I didn’t sleep at all on the plane.  So I was crazy and loopy and being really weird but it was fun.  We were in the London airport for 8 hours, so we landed in Italy around 10:30 at night.  Our MTC group was awesome and positive about the whole thing.  We had so many missionary opportunities it was bellissimo! I got to hear so many life stories it made me happy.  In English, too 🙂  I met a woman from Germany and we gave her a Book of Mormon.  I told her my brother would be serving a mission in Germany and she was happy to hear there were missionaries everywhere.  She gave the Book of Mormon back though and wasn’t interested 🙁 But, we planted a seed!

When I got off the flight and walked out of the airport and saw the Wolfgramms (my mission president). I don’t know what happened, I started balling.  Like I haven’t cried so hard in I don’t know how long. I just clung to Sorella Carlock.  They were happy tears! I kept saying, I’m finally here, I’m finally here, I’ve been waiting for so long.  Yes, I was being Emma dramatic but who doesn’t love some Emma drama? It makes their life more interesting 🙂 Then I went and hugged Sorella Wolfgramm and cried some more.

My trainer is Sorella Acerson.  And guess what? Funny story – I was her peer mentor! haha.  We never met but as soon as they said her name I recognized it and then I just knew she would be my trainer.  And she was.  This is her third transfer, and she trained last transfer.  So basically she’s amazing and speaks Italian really well and is a great teacher.  Here’s the thing.  We’re in Verona.  Yes, the city of love.  No, I haven’t been to Juliet’s wall yet but one of these P-days I will. Comunque. We’re opening a coppia (companionship).  So we both are new here, and we started without anyone to teach. We get to find everyone ourselves!  We keep getting lost since we’re both directionally challenged.  There are 6 missionaries in our ward, and 4 in the other ward.  So Verona’s kind of a big deal.  We’re not sure why yet, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out 🙂  It’s hard figuring out everything because I’m really fresh and my companion has never been to this city, but it’s an adventure.

I am with Sorella Gross again in my apartment and her companion is Sorella Clawson.  I love them!  We ask Sorella Clawson questions all the time because she’s the only one who has been in Verona.  And she’s only been out 3 months too.  Adventures.

I’m gonna be completely honest, I am experiencing what we call culture shock.  Big time.  It’s so so so so so humid.  Air conditioning doesn’t really exist, and I have never sweat so much in my entire life.  Their milk is different and everyone smokes and everything’s in Italian.  People kiss your face all the time. (the baci) So many things.  But I’m sleeping more because I’m so exhausted.

We tract all the time.  Street contacting mostly.  It’s pretty weird for me.  We just go up to random people and say  “God loves you and we are His children.” It’s so random but la vita of a missionary!

I can speak ok Italian, and understand some of it.  I have trouble understanding the old people because their voices shake.  And they talk way fast.  And we talk to a lot of old people.  I keep asking Slla Acerson if the people we are talking to are sane because a lot of them seem crazy to me.  No, they’re not crazy.  They’re perfectly sane, she says.  They’re just Italian 🙂

ok, story time.

First day out tracting.  We pass by some women gardening and we offer to help.  They say no because it’s their job, but the woman that they were working for let us in.  She was really old and all of a sudden I’m going into this old lady’s house and she’s kissing me on the cheeks and she’s offering us water. I couldn’t understand anything but my lovely comp did. Then, lo and behold, guess who’s sitting at her kitchen table? Two older women teaching her a Bible lesson.  Jehovah’s witnesses to be specific.  They start asking us a bunch of questions that I couldn’t understand but Sorella Acerson handled it well.  The old woman who let us in said we could come back another time though.  I laughed so hard. First time we go into someone’s house and the other missionaries in the city want to argue with us. The next day we stop by and we thought she wasn’t there but her neighbor Fran gave us water (she offered us tea first, we said no of course). And then the old woman came out and started yelling at us telling us how terrible we are because we’re Mormons, and we’re worse than the Jehovah’s witnesses!  Yeah that was sad.  But Fran was nice and told us her whole life story.  I’d tell it to you but quite honestly I could barely understand a word of it, except that her husband died from smoking.

Another woman we taught a lesson to at a piazza by our apartment kept interrupting us and telling us to speak English to her and asking about American singers we’d never heard of. I thought it was pretty funny.

We had zone conference on Monday and that was really really good.  And after that we went out tracting again.  We met a man who started pulling out all of his philosophers on us, telling us that God was terrible because of all the suffering in the world.  It was so sad, he wouldn’t listen to anything and wouldn’t have an open heart at all.  I attempted to say in my broken Italian that I’ve actually read those philosophers before (he kept bringing up Nietzche – and let me just say, duh, if you’re reading Nietzche all the time you’re gonna be depressed) but that the Book of Mormon brings me the peace and helps me understand why bad things happen.  He said he’d read the Book of Mormon before.  It was sad, and I know that arguing doesn’t do anything, so we left. But my heart goes out to him and I hope he can be happier.

Then that night we met our first investigator!  He’s from Ghana, and has such a big heart.  We told him about the Book of Mormon, and he got so excited.  How can I get this book in English? He kept repeating over and over again. We arranged to meet with him again, and now we’re teaching him in English.  He wants to change his life and he kept saying that he wants Jesus. He said yes to baptism, and we told him we need to prepare for it now.  Miracle.

We also found a family to teach!  We just met them yesterday but they invited us back and we got 2 referrals from it. Major miracle.  They’re from Ghana too.  My companion and I were joking that maybe we should have been called to Ghana instead 🙂 We’re praying to meet some Italian people to teach.

Doing finding work all day is pretty hard.  We’re still waiting for one more bike, so right now we’re walking everywhere.  Our companionship motto is “Choose faith.”  These days are tough. But we have to have so much faith because we need Heavenly Father’s help in so many ways. That’s my thought for you – always choose faith.  Life is so much better that way!  We’ll be happier, and see the brighter things in life.  It doesn’t do anything to sit there and talk about how hard your situation is if you don’t have faith and try to do something about it.  We could sit around complaining that we don’t have anyone to teach, but we get up, and go find them 🙂 Choose faith!

I love you all! Sorry this is so long.  I miss you and I pray for you and please pray for me! Pray for me to adjust to this culture 🙂 Grazie mille.

Verona is beautiful.  I just look out my window and see all these old buildings with vines and balconies and flowers.

Vi voglio bene,

Sorella Strong