The famine before the feast??

LETTER 10 ~

Hello all!

This week was a little slow as far as the work goes.. we lost one investigator, Anca, and weren't able to meet with the other two the whole week! It's a little disappointing, but we know that we're working hard so we'll be blessed! And because we didn't really have any lessons, we did a ton of  'finding,' including my first door-to-door experience! 

And we saw tons of little miracles this week.

One night we got a text message referral from the mission office, someone who via the mormon.org website had submitted their name and number to the missionaries. We were out finding less-actives, but we called the number to see if we could swing by. The number was inactive (not in use anymore). So all we had was the address- 27 Via G Scalia-, but no map and no idea where the street was. There was nothing we could do. We prayed to know where to go just do some street contacting, and felt like we should go get on the metro.

On the way into the metro station we passed the anziani (boy missionaries) from our district (which very rarely happens!). They were off rushing to an appointment but we borrowed their map from them. "Great!" we said, "we can find that referral!" We opened up the map and realized that there was no way to look up streets and we were looking at a map of the entire city of Rome. In vain for a few minutes we tried to find it on bus lists, or just looking for it. Then, looking at the map, I prayed to be able to find that street. Then the little miracle- My eyes went right to it- a small street by the next metro stop. Out of all the streets in the entire city- I was blessed to find it!

We got to the address- and no one by that name was on the citofono. (list of names of people who live there with buttons to call them so they will open the door). We called everyone at that address, but no one knew the name or had any interest in us. We stayed on that street for the rest of the night, got a few numbers from people (well these guys who also tried to give us fruit). 

I don't know why we were supposed to be there that night, but I know we were! And it's little miracles like that that let us know that Heavenly Father is still looking out for us, even if it's a slow week!

And we met a lot of people this week, doing all our finding, that hopefully we will be able to meet with this week! And also our investigators! We have faith that it's the famine before the feast!

Going less-active finding in centro!

From the top of a 10-story palazzo in centro.We knocked on every door and like 5 people actually opened the door to tell us no!  Yay. Door to door is not very effective here, that's for sure.

Graffiti means drawings in Italian, I think. 
It's no surprise to me that graffiti is an Italian word because it is just everywhere here. 
Here is some awesome graffiti I saw on the bus the other day. So much talent!

Now for some funny stories. We taught a lesson to a less-active member named Festus from Nigeria in a McDonald's at Termini station. I think this will be the first and last time that I teach someone at a McDonald's!

Bread and cheese and cow shaped Milka cookies outside of Termini Station in centro.

On Thursday in English class we decided to play a game with our English class at the end of the class. Sorella Clyde and I teach the beginner level. It's a mixed group, everywhere from cute old people to 20 year olds to a dad and his 2 young boys. We decided to teach them the game Simon Says. After explaining it about 3 times- including 1 explanation from one from one of those young boys who had learned it in school- we started the game. It became very obvious that only a few of them had grasped the idea of Simon Says. The complexities of that childhood diversion just completely eluded most of the class. Adrian, a 30ish year old guy, went up to be Simon. He started giving commands "Turn left!" "Touch your nose!" "Sit down!"- all without saying Simon Says- so no one was doing them.  Gradually we realized that he didn't know you had to say Simon Says. He became visibly more and more anxious, confused, upset, as he faced a group of people just staring at him without doing any of the actions. He started panting, wringing his hands, his voice cracking as he was calling out "Turn around!" "Jump!" and we all just stared at him. One student who had understood the game from the beginning was literally crying from laughter. 

Sorella Cazamafir - The windy picture at the top was taken outside of her apartment.  She converted years ago in ROMANIA and moved to Italy some time ago, worked as a badante (like a live-in nurse/caretaker for elderly) but her client just died, so she's going back to Romania to live with her nonmember son for a while.  She is sooo sweet and we had to wait outside with her for a long time today (long story).  Sorella Clyde ws FREEZING and Sorella Casamfir took off her scarf and vest and put them on Sorella Clyde, leaving herself with only a thin jacket!! She says missionaries are like her children.  Such a strong testimony.  Love her!

Sorella Carazamfir

At Sorella Carazamfir's house and in her adorable 1940s kitchen!!

All around it's been a great week, though a slow week, and we are looking forward to an even better one!

Love,

Sorella Frandsen

ps  In answer to my mom's question of what we do on P-Day: On pday we wake up at 6:30 like every day, we do a half hour of exercise, an hour of time to get ready/eat breakfast, an hour of personal study, an hour of companion study. Then we go get groceries, either at a nearby grocery store, InCoop, that's a little pricier or we walk up this big hill to EuroSpin, which is less expensive. Depends on how we feel about time/money.

our local grocery store InCoop is all decked out for NATALE

Groceries: we usually get fruits and veggies: spinaci, pomodoro, mele, anane, peperoncini, carote, whole wheat pasta, mozzarella (it's to DIE for here, America doesn't have anything like it), whole wheat bread, boxed unrefridgerated milk, and some sort of treat: hazelnut wafers or pan di stelle or cioccolato. We get back around 11 and have a snack lunch.

Then we take a bus to the metro to our internet point where we do internet for an hour to an hour and a half, then we go do something awesome til 6 when it's back to work!

We have a laundry machine so we can do laundry whenever!

At Eataly last Pday... how do I describe Eataly...

It's like a Ikea-sized super trendy organic adorable overpriced but so lovable grocery store.
Yep that's how I can best describe it. It's divided into huge sections- artisan bread section, flavored olive oil section, all-organic produce section- and also has little mini restaurants built in, like 8 of them.
Mini fancy panini place, mini organic trendy sorbet gelato place, mini adorable trendy modern restaurant place. It's overwhelming!! But we had a blast and splurged on some foccacia and of course gelato.

Eataly also had a moving sidewalk escalator to make it easier for your cart! It was like 4 huge floors big!