You only see this in Italy.
(Week 18 Caserta)
I would like to start this email by sharing a couple funny things that
only happen in the Italy mission...
1. My favorite moment ever!!! An English course student walks into
church, finds me and hands me a potted olive tree. 
I have a
confused look on my face and ask him why and he simply says "it's a
gift, Buon Natale"! I set it on the ground in front of me and Sorella
Robertson and I turn to eachother and DIE!!! A woman from the ward
says she will plant it with her olive trees and put "Sorella Nelson"
on it in remembrance of me.
2. We are making pranzo one lovely day and look out our window to see
our neighbor pulling a bucket on a rope up and down the side of the
building. We then realized that his son was down below putting
groceries into the bucket and then the father would pull the
bucket up.
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| The right way to do groceries. |
3. During the Ward Christmas party bishop opened up the time to anyone
who wanted to sing or say something as entertainment. One sweet woman
who I adore immediately gets up to recite a Poem she had written in
Napoletano, she was later accompanied by other sisters in Silent Night
until a brother gets up and says "SOLO!" He then proceeds to take the
mic from the women to sing Silent Night himself. 
4. Under the Christmas tree of a sister in the ward, there are at
LEAST 12 Penetone cakes! They are super dry and tasteless cakes that
are somehow ridiculously popular here.
We have had a lot of success this week. We have three awesome
investigators right now.
GianFranco is about 49 and has been kinda an eternal investigator. He
is an English course student. He took lessons a long time ago from
Anziani and he actually had quit smoking for 4 months. When I first
arrived I thought he was a member because he comes to church almost
every Sunday. We have started teaching him and he loves the gospel. He
already knows so much and we want to help him quit smoking again! We
invited him to be baptized and are helping him progress towards that.
Silvanna is in her 50s. She was basically a member in southern Italy,
Taranto, with a calling and everything when she was younger. Like
GianFranco, she knows so much about the church from past lessons and
already comes to church most Sunday's. She has been hard to get ahold
of this week because one of her four cats is super sick but we hope
next week we can see her more.
Lucia is 32 and is literally Golden! She has been an English course
student for two months and showed interest in our spiritual thoughts
so we set up an appointment and etc etc etc. She is super awesome and
spent a whole morning with us at the American military base for the
baptism of a little girl there. Lucia was a trooper and was so awesome
even though the entire ceremony was done in English. I really can't
wait to see Lucia keep progressing!
I am so lucky to be here in Italy with these wonderful people.
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| On the American base with Daniel and Lucia |
A
couple highlights from the week...
It was Vinni's, an eternal investigator, anniversary party and I
completely forgot about it. Once I realized we had missed it, I felt
like throwing up I felt so bad, so I immediately called her to
apologize. We set up an appointment for the next day and I just felt
like crying as she showed me pictures of the event. I again apologized
and told her that I truly wanted to be there and she just looked at me
and said us bringing her the word of God is more important. She then
gave me one of the special party favors that we had helped her make. I
literally just wanted to cry, I couldn't believe how kind this woman
was!
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| Wedding favor from Vini. |
We have a couple area books from Anziani years and years ago that we
have been looking through. I probably called over 50 numbers until we
had three or four people who said we could come by. We went to visit a
woman named Geatana who is soooooo fantastic!!! We went to her
adorable shop where her 9 year old daughter was helping her. She told
us that back when the Anziani tried teaching her she always loved
their messages because it brought her hope and she said she has missed
it.
Sorella Messina, the sweetest old woman in the ward who is the only
member in her family. I adore this woman soooo much even though it's
hard for us to understand each other because of the dialect. Whenever
I look into her little eyes I just see these little stars and ah I
just love her! After the Christmas party, I was talking to her as she
sat stroking my hair. She pulled out a massive chocolate Ferrero
Rocher and told me Buon Natale. Once again I was near tears. Here is
this woman who's home life is rough, does not have much, she probably
can't remember my last name but here she is wishing ME a merry
Christmas and turning outwards to someone who has only been to her
home three times in the past 4+ months. As a read the story called
"dinner with the Dombroskis" in the ensign I thought of this sweet
sweet woman. Haha I'm tearing up just writing about this woman! She is
great 
I could go on and on about the people here. Some days are super rough
or long and no one can see us, but then at the end of the day I see
all the sweet things people did or the funny experiences throughout
the day. Maybe it's a homeless man and a toothless smile or ward
members with a sweet phone call, but I'm so grateful for this
Christmas time of the year and the wonderful message of Jesus Christ!
Im so grateful our Heavenly Father gave us this priceless gift and for
the hope he brings to all of us!
Buon Natale a tutti!!!!!
I love each one of you and hope you have a
very Merry Christmas!
VVB
Sorella Carrie Nelson
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Us with our adorable little Christmas tree.
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| Some of my favorites! Rory (member) Cristina, and Silvanna (investigator) |
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Pizza!!!
Pictures from this weeks Christmas Napoli Zone Conference. |
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