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Jul 20, 2011

aother week in Ragusa


Well, still here with the heat and the hills.
I am including a picture so you can know how picturesque Ragusa is.

Though you cant see how hilly it is.


Romeo continues to be amazing and our very favorite person in the world. He is such an example. He was telling us how he needs a job so that he can send money back home to his family and because he doesn't like just sitting at home because he feels useless. We said, "maybe we will ask who is building the new church" and he said, "if it was for the church of God I would work for free" he is the most amazing person I have ever met. When we talked about tithing he said, "10% is not too much for God." He get its. We are sad because his friend Ali got shipped to Agrigento, two hours away, and we miss him. We also really hope that doesn't happen to Romeo too.


Yesterday we had an interesting lesson in the rec room of the psychiatric ward. We were teaching these two way awesome guys who were listening intently and asking good questions, while around us was a lady making statements about Babylon and asking questions. Other people kept coming and going past our table, sitting down for a little and asking for pamphlets (which I was handing out like candy, reassuring them they were free, as Slla Lewis continued on with the lesson). Then this lady comes out of nowhere and starts telling me all about how much she loves Jesus and asking me to read her passages from the Bible and telling me how great I am because I love Jesus as much as she does she was really great, her attitude was contagious, very upbeat and cheerful, we still dont know if she was visiting or a patient herself.
It was a marvelous experience.


We taught this other guy who said "Hm, so you baptize in this church? I will think about it and let you know" Then he got up and left, who knows if we will ever hear from him again.


I bought a coat today because they are all on sale, I will tell you this much, when Slla Lewis saw it she said,
"Its like Cruella DeVil meets Juno"
and let you use your imaginations. It will probably go with
that purse you found at grandma's house.
We also bought shirts with phrases in Sicilian on them.


Aurora and Salvatore came to church!!
We were super excited for them and everyone in the ward was super excited.


We also went to a soccer game that was our ward against Siracusa and we killed them (we only could stay for the first half, but we were far ahead). Some of the highlights were Joseph, our wise African friend, who is super tall and skinny and was wearing a jersey that said, "Francesco" and all the women in the crowd going,
"wait, did we just score" Yes. "...WOO!"

And our ward mission leader stretching adamantly before the game started. And the sunset that looked super cool (see picture).

We also had a fun lesson where we asked to meet one of our friends in church and then he brought three people with him and it was a party. But they could only stay for 10 minutes and then they had to leave. But they didn't tell us that, so we started a movie and five minutes later they all got up and left. Nothing surprises me anymore.


Everyone is dying in the heat and most everyone has moved to the beach, but things are still going really well and we are teaching wonderful, wonderful people from all over the world.


Saturday we are going to the Anziani's baptism in Gela...if we find a ride. We are supposed to be in charge of the musical number, so hopefully we get a ride. There are only 6 members in Gela and most of them cant go, so it is going to be a very small ceremony. And Tuesday we are going all the way to
Palermo for Zone Conference, so we will be doing a bit of travelling these next few days which is always fun.


To answer your question mom,
In what way WASN'T Christ an example of service?
I love how often he was headed somewhere and someone would say "you need to come over here and heal this person" and he would leave whatever he was doing and go to them. He never said, "Hold on, I am on my way to teach and heal other people, I really can't". He was always doing good things and he even took time out of his good deed doing to help people.
I think sometimes we get so caught up in the good things we need to do that we forget that we are always blessed for helping others and that the other things will fall into place.



One of the Sorelle in
Bari told a story about how she told the Anziani she couldn't help them with a lesson because she had to make lunch for her kids and get some things ready before she had to go to work, but at the last minute she changed her mind and told them she would come. Afterwards she said she still had time to do everything she needed and she had a testimony of putting God, and his children, first,
even before other good things like family.


Also, his service was great because he did all he could to help people help themselves. When he fed the 5,000 he took what a little boy had and blessed it and then they were able to feed everyone...together. No one wants to just be handed charity (okay, maybe sometimes we do) we want to contribute to our own self-reliance. When we serve we need to work with the person we are serving, side-by-side.
That is also how we strengthen relationships.


I love you all buckets and buckets!!

Sorella Laws

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