Ciao!

Well, it has been a really crazy week,

but we just got back from
CLIMBING A VOLCANO!!


So that is awesome.
More on that momentarily.

And Slla Stebar and I celebrated our One Year Anniversary
(okay, she was celebrating her one year on a mission and I pointed out that I met her her first day and so now it is officially
a holiday for the both of us!)

Okay, this week is crazy because at one point we had
THREE baptismal dates,
but then we discovered a few problems with some of the commandments and we are going to have to move some things around.


But my/our motto for the transfer
(partially because Slla Stebar caught me saying in my sleep) i
"Non ci sono problemi" There are no problems!
No matter what happens.
Or however you would eloquently translate that


The past two weeks Slla S has pointed out several times that my English is become Italianified. Like that last sentence. I'm struggling. But it is okay. Back to me talking in my sleep, I was explaining to someone that they could come to Relief Society
"even if you are not a member of the Society."


Add to that, we have received a record number of "bidonnes" that is people who stand us up this week, because people just kept cancelling. One would cancel, we would set up another appointment and that person would cancel too! Over and over. We even double booked ourselves once on accident, but no worries, they both cancelled!!


And then, conference, the one thing you think you can count on, but what happens? We get to the church and it starts raining and we think, "Well that was lucky!" except for the fact that we were watching by sallelite and it kept cutting out! We thought "it'll come back for the prophet, it'll come back for the prophet!" Wrong.


Romeo laughed as I waved my arms about willing it to work, as if I was holding an antaena and when it cut out us and the three African men we were with sang hymns in the bad Italian that we speak until it would come on again, only to hear the crowd laugh at some wonderful Pres. Monson joke that we had missed. Awful. But we just downloaded them onto the mp3 player, along with all of Sunday afternoon session, because that was playing at 10pm and we missed it.



Conference was great though, wasn't it?? Pres. Utchdorf's talk to the Relief Society was SO wonderful and lovely and heart warming.
God loves us. Punto. Period.


The other bad news was that WE BROKE THE CHURCH. Okay, not really, but I went to close the garage door that is our church entryway and it slammed really hard and the next day we couldn't open it. Problem. But once again bishop saved us and got it fixed.
He has saved us a lot lately.



Mom! When you sent me that email about the man we met who didn't think he could change that he was too far gone, I couldn't remember who you were talking about, but then one night we were sitting in the park making phone calls and I scrolled through all the names and stopped on one and said, "johnny, be our miracle" because his phone is ALWAYS off. But he answered! And we went and saw him the next day! In his house with his girlfriend and it was really awesome.
Step by step we will help him change his life.


Like the photos?

Guess who hasnt cut her hair

since the mtc...yeah,

out of sheer laziness.



We wore normal clothes because it was a "hike"


but it was easier than our walk from Romeo's to the church,

which we trekked with him to get to conference.


And of course as we were hiking the volcano

many a Mordor reference was made.

This mission is full of nerds.

Everyone but me had lots of lava dust in their shoes,

mine were squeeky clean.
And my old comp Slla Lecates is in Catania!
Reunion.


After Conference we were on our way out when

Emily starting harassing us

(she started it, promise, haha).


You can see that Slla Stebar was the victim of beauty parlor.

This is why they don't let missionaries babysit.

Especially not the bishop's kids.


And this is a picture of us eating, guess what,


smurf-infused-rice-crispie-treats...

on top of a volcano (okay, not really the top).


Love you all, bye!!!

Sorella Laws

Rain drops are falls here too...

Well, Thursday was one of the most uneventful transfer days I have had in this mission. I got on the train with Slla Lewis at 8 in the morning and went to Siracusa, rode the train for two hours, and then arrived at the station, said goodbye, and got on a train with Slla Stebar, and came back to Ragusa.

No dramatic early morning trains/busses from Rome to Sicily or the Puglia or anything exciting. It was just like scambi. And now Slla Stebar is here and we already know each other and we are slowly and surely getting Ragusa all organized. She called a bunch of people we have had on our "to call" list for ages and she set up a bunch of appointments.
She is magic.

Right after I emailed last week we set another baptismal date with Romeo. We were telling him how Corrado was going to be baptized the 21st and he said, I am getting baptized before that! And we were like, oh, okay. Bishop would like that they get baptized the same day if possible because the font is hard to fill up, so we will see if we can get a compromise going. Romeo might have to wait.




Corrado is amazing and still wants to see us every day. He brings Salvina and Aurelio with him and the way all their schedules line up we can usually only see them for 30 minutes, but it works out pretty well. It is just taking a little bit to get through everything, with the short time period and everyone's comments. But they are all so happy to meet with us! Corrado and Salvina have told us probably 100 times
now how good they feel in the church and how much they
love coming to church and reading
and how they feel like new people.
It is incredible.

Sunday was a never ending ward lunch. But it was SO fun. We drove up with Fllo Guastella (the younger) and Slla Magrograssi who is always hilarious and her ADORABLE baby. I took this picture of the two of them, but Slla M was making this awful face and forced me to delete it and called me a terrorist.


We went to Slla Rollo's house out in the countryside

and picked fruit and almonds and ran around.

It was very fun.

I love all the kids here (and the adults)

they are just so fun!
Remind me when I get home
to do some impressions for you.

And then Slla Stebar got to meet Raposelli, who tried to get us to sing hymns in different key changes which did not work for me. But he is very excited to have someone who sings alto in Ragusa.


Slla Palermo is still in the hospital, she is so sweet when we come visit.

It has been raining and a bit cold but usually it clears up for a least part of the day. The other day we got caught in a huge storm and had to take shelter in a caffe and of course
our friend Pablo was there to be like,
"you can't be out in the rain, you'll catch a cold!"

Yesterday we taught English Course and there are three guys that come that are just so hilarious. One of them has a British accent and was telling us about his adventure in Japan and another one was telling us why he never shouuld have studied Japanese and how the first day when they taught the alphabet he ran away.
We are always very amused listening to them.

Life is great,

everyone is wonderful, and most of the most wonderful ones
never have time to see us,
which makes us sad, but we go on ahead.

LOVE YOU ALL,

Sorella Laws



Extra pictures:

Pictured here is the whistle man, who walks around and whistles.


And us picking figs!


My favorite of all fruits.



Bus driver smoking = classic Italy.


Me and Destiny


Me and Romeo.


Best drink ever!



I forgot to mention a fun new recipe we came up with...So they dont have rice crispies here in ragusa and they dont have marshmallows, but they DO HAVE...coca puffs and SMURF (i Puffi) marshmallow'like candies.
The result of the two combined?
MAGIC. very sugary magic.





In these pictures you can see the results of some games


that were invented


and Slla Stebar supervising the whole thing.


ADORABLE baby Ivan.


And the wheel chair I always sit in when we visit Slla Palermo, yes, it is very entertaining. I will be like, hold on, I didn't hear that, let me roll closer to you.


Some pictures of what I look like when I wake up,


for your viewing pleasure.





And a picture of the grey hair I found. No, not grey, silver.




In these pictures you can see

that we are serving in South America

just like everyone else.