Time Flies

Okay, since I've written last

it has been another exciting week,

all starting with our Prepday adventure to

 THE FIRST MCDONALDS IN ITALY.

Okay, that actually just happened by chance
because we were hungry.

 But it was momentous nonetheless when we realized where we were.

Then we went, like we planned to the prison of st. paul and peter.

Well, I was imagining we would go down into some tavern like place and walk around and see some old cells.

Boy was I wrong!! It was so much more,

like the glowing walls that talked to us, 

 I dont know how to explain it, we were all like,

 what just happened?

 And an audio visual enhanced tour of the cells with videos

and a voice recording that made us feel like we were on

 the Haunted Mansion ride.

 SO hilarious.

We got to see Kevin again! Last night he met us at the Carrefour again and was like, "so what's the deal with your church" so we told him!

Also I have to say my Arab roots continue to shine through
we were teaching Achmed



and I told him and he was like, "I thought so! I was just thinking that to myself." and the other day we got off the trenino and a group of Afghanis got off with us and one just walks up and asks, "where are you from?" ha, it makes me feel like I've got real culture to me.

We got to celebrate Befana because Stefano
came and gave us giant stockings



( they were crammed full of candy, it was ridiculous)
the holiday makes no sense,



 but the family we visited with on Sunday
they got scooters for the Befana,
so sounds worth celebrating to me.

Stefano came to church and asks, "Is it okay to wear jeans to church?" and all three of us at once are like, "I mean, you can, but don't" and he goes, "I'm wearing jeans right now."

He came to church in a pinstrip denim suit! I was like, "who are you??" and his vintage Valentino 70s tie. I insisted we take a picture. About his tie I was like, "what is that?" and he goes, "it's a tie." Oh, Uncle Stefano...

So we call it dying around here when a missionary is about to go home and Slla Camp is watching for me to go through the five steps, I'm not sure which I am on now, but as soon as I get depressed I will be close to acceptance. And this one punk RM member came up on Sunday and made this sniffing noise and I was like, "um, yes?" and he goes, "you stink like death." oh mission jokes. If I wasnt a missionary I would've punched him.

Slla Camp DID punch Stefano when she thought he was ordering a cappucino, that was funny. "I don't know, reflexes I guess..."

I'm trying really hard to focus but it's hard to not feel a little bit of limbo-ness these days, my days are numbered and it actually does feel like dying.

 There is this desire to sort of wrap everything up even though the fantastic thing about missionary work is that there is no ending point in the work. You just keep going and then leave and let someone else take over.

We met this guy on the metro coming back from visiting a member at the hospital and he was looking at me so I started talking to him, next thing I know he is telling us all about his troubles at home, how his wife is cheating on him and said he started looking at me because of my coat and asked if it was some designer and I was like, ha, no, chinese store. Anyway, he was saying how he just feels empty and we told him we know how to help with that and taught him the first lesson in the basement of termini station.

He also kept telling me I was beautiful, not so much in a hitting on way (okay, at least not completley in that way), just in this matter-of-fact way that makes me think, what am I going to do when strangers aren't calling me beautiful and acquaintances calling me talented all the time?
I am so vain, ha.

Our magical lunch in the countryside

with the American-Italian family that just moved in.

They are so fun!

Oh man he made us laugh so much

and they took us home in the misison van that they had borrowed

and they just made having five kids

under the age of nine look so easy. ha.

We made fresh squeezed orange juice with fresh picked oranges...

it was kind of sour, needed some sugar.

Have I mentioned I adore children?

I have no idea what happened to me.

They are just so precious.

Also I totally look like a mom in my clothes

that I found when we cleaned out our death closet.

Slla Camp kept referring to me as Mamma Laws

with all the kids around me, oh dear.

So I sent a bunch of pictures and
all the stories are kind of mixed up

 but I hope it makes sense.

 Life is good...

I was sick with stomach things and Stefano
 brought me a fruit basket...
with oranges and nuts.
 Christmas never ends here!
 Slla Camp was on the phone with him
  and in my head I thought,
 don't tell him I am sick! But it was too late.

 

I was only a little sick, don't worry about it,
I think I just ate too many oranges
 in a small concentrated amount of time,

I am just holding on for a little bit more
and then I'll be healthy again for the rest of my life :)

Enjoy the pictures!!

 You can make up some stories of your own from them.

There is nothing quite like being in Rome,

we are coming back from the hospital,

 "Wait, where are we exactly--oh,

there's the Colosseum,

 there is a metro stop by there."

k, loooooooooooooooooooove you,

 loads and loads and buckets

and enough to fill

all the Catholic churches here.

Sorella Laws

one more thing,

Fllo Perego pointed out to us that the Rome Temple
is the first temple to be built in New Testament lands.
Thats cool to think about.



And a few more pictures:








So Slla Stebar and I love each other of course

 

 

 but then the Anziani had to go and mock us.

 

 

 

And then there was the dog

that looked like Laika.

And a drawing Slla Stebar did of me as a gangsta.

BUON ANNO

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Well, we built up a lot of hype with the new year, telling Sllla Camp there
were going to be explosions everywhere and things falling off of buildings, but in the end we really didnt see that much

..And we slept through midnight itself.

But we did pop poppers at one point and ate our special recipe apple and bell pepper pizza. Which scandalized one of the members the next day because you are supposed to eat lentils on new years so..bad luck for us all year, or something like that. There was a huge ward party we missed because we had to be home at 6.

This week was not the most exciting.
Friday we went and got Maria Teresa from the train station because she had a bunch of luggage, so we went there and Greta who just looooves me, held my hand the whole way back and we were skipping down the road while my companions had to lug a heavy suitcase with a dresser in it, heh. heh. Monday we cleaned allllllllll day. And luckily we had Brothers Bloom to serenade it because it seemed to always have the perfect song for the moment whether it was suspensefully trying to poor liquid into a small opening or dramatically facing the refridgerator or dancing in our newly cleaned front room, we were always covered.

And I found some adorable new (to
me) clothes in the death closest, so it was Christmas all over again.
Italy is great because Christmas lasts until Jan 6 which is another holiday
so even yesterday we were singing Christmas songs with Alinna and her adorablechildren (see photos) she has one of the strongest testimonies of anyone Iknow.

We also went by and said farewell to Maria who is leaving for Peru and
won't be back until Feburary. I don't even know how to begin to describe that ambeiance of that place. With Her Mexican sidekick who is taking over shop while he is gone and the flirty Italian man in the doorway who owns the Thai massage palour down the street.

We had a delicious meal with the Magnanti's. On Sunday he shared in his
talk the activity we had done with them to make a list for the new year of
things to improve, things to stop doing, and things to keep doing. That was kind of nice. No one came to church on Sunday...there were 19 people besides us, all people who had some role to play, teaching or giving a talk.
After church we went to visit the awesome African man we had set up an
appointment with but he never showed up. We had asked ex-Anziano Scotchi to come with us and we ended up just waiting on the street for ages while Brother Scotchi told me how awful it is not being a missionary and I was like, "thank you."

Having two companions is still so weird, I am not used to using everyone's
names all the time. But we found out that because there are three of us we can go in cars with people of the opposite gender and all of that so we now plan on having Stefano chaufer us everywhere.

We are about to embark in on the of the greatest preparation days ever
because we are going with two of the most energetic Anziani ever and going to the prison were Paul was kept! We just got to make sure they don't shut the doors on us ;)

And I still just love all mormon.org

videos so much because isn't life just wonderfully grand when we are doing
something we love? And even when it's hard we can find the peace and joy in what we know and in the people we love. And EVERY phase of live is wonderful no matter where we are. I also just got an email from my old roommate Alyssa reminding me how awesome we were that semester, performing Shakespeare outside on our porch for the masses and generally making people's lives more entertaining. I am just so in love with life, it's a fantastic gift we have. Do you realize God has a perfect plan for all of us, and that it is just that...a plan. He's got it all figured out, and He'll help us a lot, if we let him.

Love, love, love you all.

Sempre.

Sorella Laws

Post Christmas

Well after we talked to you on Christmas eve we went to Vescovo's house and it was just as magical as we hoped.

And one of the many Christmas miracles was that

we did not have to eat fish!!!

Thank goodness he married a French woman!

So there was a giant turkey

and one of
his sons was wearing a vest and poofy shirt

so my and Slla Camp's dreams of a muppet Christmas Carol really did come true! minus the muppets...but there was a dog there too, it was really cute and like a miniature version of our old dog Laika.

So we gather 'round the table all of us and we are eating and laughing and
enjoying every moment

and then we sing Christmas hymns altogether and I was called upon to say the Christmas Prayer...again. So I am the official Christmas prayer sayer for the year and that's why I feel like it warrants capitalization. It was honestly the most Christmasy feeling Christmas ever...probably just because of the giant turkey, but it was great.

Sunday we woke up

and opened presents,

I was convinced Stefano

had gotten us some glass scultpture of the Colosseum or something,

but it ended up being a box of Christmas sweets and orange soda...It was a nice thought. Then we bitterly (just kidding) watched Slla Stebar open her presents and got ready to go.

We went to church and the night before bishop has asked two of us to give
talks and I had just given one and no one else really wanted to so I was like, we can do a musical number! But I didnt really take into account that a musical number would just replace the intermediate hymn and not actually the talking time so it gets to be time for church and we havent actually prepared anything because we had gone straight to bed and the anziani weren't there so we couldn't even tell them and the usual piano player was gone so it ended up Slla Camp on the piano and Slla Stebarand I (no musical training) singing Come, Come All Ye
Faithful. It was a hit. Old ladies were crying and young people were impressed and Alma filmed it to send to all the other Phillipinis that were gone for Christmas, we couldnt have asked for more. The main chorister was gone too and I cannot explain how much joy I got out of conducting a joyous chorus of Italians (and South Americans and French) singing GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIA. It. was. the. best.

And everyone gave us chocolate!

Actually, too much chocolate,

it's not sogreat anymore, haha.

Christmas plans fell through so we slept some (much needed)

and then I made sausage and scrambled eggs

for our American Breakfast.
Yesterday we got to teach a part member family. The
parents were baptized 3 years ago and the teenage daughter wasn't ever all that interested in changing her life. Well, back last transfer I was reading a little blurb about her that said she likes anime and wants to be an animator and I thought, Slla Stebar needs to come here. Well, she did and so we went over there with our "secret weapon" and it worked! They hit it off and now they want us to come back again as soon as possible and keep talking with her and showing her that you can be a member of the church and still be cool too.

Last night we found a really nice African man on the metro. He was helping some Chinese tourist find their way and after they got off I went and sat by him and asked him a little about himself and then if he had ever heard of the church and he said, "would you like to discuss it with me?" and I said, "Yes, I would." And he said, "Every morning we must wake
up and praise God for all he has done for us." I definitely agreed with that and then taught him about the Book of Mormon, he wants a copy of it and said to come by Saturday or Sunday. He works at an Embassy and is here with his wife and two kids!

We are still having lots of fun and seeing miracles always.
We have been talking to everyone about the new year and how each of us needs to decide now the things we will always do and the things we will never do. It started in study one day when I read a talk to the Young Women, I decided to make a list, and then my companions and now we are sharing the idea with members and some investigators because every new convert knows that when they get baptized they are commiting some very important things and as members there are things we need
to remember that we have already agreed too and also other things that will make us better people, for me, since I am going back into the "real world" soon I decided I willevery day read and pray, not spend too much time on Facebook, etc. etc. Not downloading music illegally. Those little things that we let slide, but really aren't doing us any good even if they aren't inherently evil. The idea is to make all that I have learned these past months something that sticks.

I think 2012 will be a good one, what about you?

Sorella

Laws