Week 37

(Week 7 Bari)

Pasqua is in arrival!!!! This Sunday was Palm Sunday. A tradition is
to give palm leaves to someone in order to make "peace". All over Bari
on corners of streets there were little stands to buy your palm
leaves. There must have been many quarrels... 

It was another super fast, great week here in Bari Poggio Franco.
Transfers were Thursday and it was super sad to see Sorella Taylor go.
We saw lots of miracles and learned a lot together. She will be
awesome in Messina though. I'm glad we are both young in the mission
so we will hopefully see each other again. :)


Goodbye Sorella Taylor!!!


Hello Sorella Jones!!!

Sorella Jones!!! She's
great! Her fire/desire to do missionary work is still high so I'm
excited for this transfer. She tells me that before she "dies" she
wants to soap box preach and teach repentance to an entire bus so this
will be great. She is 100% obedient while still cracking jokes
throughout the ENTIRE day! She is from Elkridge, close to Payson Utah,
speaks Italian soooo well, and has 8 siblings! She loves the Barbie
movies as much as I do and loves eating delicious Italian food as much
as I do. More importantly, we are both very focused on our work and
becoming better missionaries together. 

The start of the week was filled with some goodbyes for Sorella
Taylor. It was great, running all over Bari seeing people. The dear
Tonti family fed us pranzo the day before she left. Members here are
incredible and I'm super grateful to have good relationships between
the missionaries and members. 
The wonderful Tonti family!!

Great experiences from this week:
We were traveling on a bus one day and I sat down and started talking
to a woman named Maria. We eventually exchanged numbers and set an
appointment for the next day. We went to her house and she has
literally the nicest Italian apartment I have ever seen. It is massive
and she lives there alone. She has everything decorated perfectly and
all her random trinkets have a special place. We all sat down on her
leopard print couches and started to talk about religion. She hates
the saints, and thinks it is wrong that they don't marry and she
talked about how she is just looking for peace. We had an awesome
prayer with her at the end. We had taught her how to pray and she
wanted to try. After each step she would look up and ask is what came
next, it was awesome! 

Angelina... Tried over and over to get me to drink her chocolate
liquor drink... I've never had someone pull the "just once won't hurt"
thing with me. We ate weird fried artichokes and drank orange Fanta
instead :) 

Sorella Magno is one of my favorite sisters in the ward. She is the
cutest little old woman with the sweetest just mellow voice. We passed
by her house one afternoon and caught her on her way out to do spessa
(grocery shopping). We went with her and helped with her bags and
everything! It was so fun! Alla fine we got to share a message and she
gave us a referral for a family!!!! Blessings for obedience again! 

Sunday night we saw the Lagattolla family, Angelo and his wife. What
an awesome couple! They are both inactive but they have the biggest
testimonies. We shared the new Easter video and just talked a lot
about how blessed we are for the knowledge that Christ LIVES!!! 

During gospel principles class Sunday we talked about the Atonement of
Christ. We discussed how grazie a lui we can overcome not only
physical death, but also spiritual death. Sorella Jones and I were
later talking about all around us we see statues of Jesus on the
cross. So many people are focused on a dead, sacrificed Savior and a
statue representing that is what they worship. How wonderful is it
that we know He suffered for all of us so that we can try again, but
He also lives so that all of us can live again. He now has a body that
is perfect. Jesus Christ lives and guides this church today. He is
Risen!!!

Happy Easter weekend everyone!!! 

VVB!
Sorella Nelson 

Ponderize scripture: Matthew 28:7

The rule is you can pick any fruit as long as it is hanging over the road.

HE IS RISEN!!!

Matera again!! this is probably my favorite city in the entire world.

In love with Italy!!

Language study with member Fabrizia.

Pancake breakfast.

Week 36

(Week 6 Bari)

Gelato with Sorella Taylor

When we study the language Italian!  Sorella Taylor got popcorn!

Outside our church building.

I will miss my dearest Sorella Taylor!!

After English course with some of the young single adults.

Transfer calls!!!! I will be staying in Bari Poggio Franco and "killing" again! Sorella Jones will finish her mission here in Bari. Sorella Hamilton had actually served with her before and I've heard really great things about her so I'm excited! I'm really sad to see Sorella Taylor go. We have been working so well together and it has been so fun serving with a young companion. I'm glad to stay in Bari though. We have some really really great stuff happening in our area and the ward and area grows on me everyday! 

Our investigators are doing well, some were hard to see this week but
we were able to pick up four new ones from bus finding and English
Course. Hashtag Blessings for Obedience.

Miracles on miracles: 

One day we took off visiting members in a little city outside of Bari.
We ended up getting lost so we were asking people for directions. We
asked a girl and she takes one look at us and says, "My mom is a
Mormon!" Like what!?!? This family had recently moved from Peru to
Italy. Huge miracle that we found this woman while just asking for
directions! 

Another morning we ran past a members house to take them brownies as a
thank you. They weren't home so we rang one of the intercoms and a
woman popped her head over the balcony to see what we wanted. We asked
if we could leave our card and brownies at their door and she said she
would take them and give them to the family later. Her name was
Antonella and was super sweet so we left them with her. Sunday morning
at church the member family told us that Antonella and her little son
had eaten a couple brownies and want the recipe! We now get to go back
with the member! 

Priscilla is a 26 year old student from English course. We called her
up one night to see if she would like to meet with us. We met her in
the church one night and she was literally soooo adorable! She told us
all about how she loves the way we pray and how she doesn't believe in
the saints because they are paid for what they do. She is so awesome
and we're praying and hoping things go really well with her! 

Typical bus ride:
We hop on the bus and split. I go towards the front and Sorella Taylor
takes the back. We open up conversations with a nice ol "Buon
Giorno/Sera". We try bringing up a gospel conversation after. Without
fail, every bus ride has some of the strangest people on it. This week
we had a crazy runner man in neon green spandex, a man holding a tower
of books trying to sell them to us all, always nuns, but my favorite
this week was on our way to church there was a man all in robes with a
hood. He looked like a wizard, but he had a wooden sign around his
neck that said something along the lines of "I am the son of the
prophet ... I am protected by law." Strange classic Italy. 

Haircut story: We called our less active friend Angelo to see if we could
meet with him and then if afterwards he would trim our hair. He worked
as a hairdresser so we knew we could trust him. We were waiting
outside his house and then he took us to his salon. They asked us who
wanted to go first so I stood up and before I knew it with two clips
they had cut my hair. They washed my hair and started to blow it dry.
Then the man asked me how I wanted my hair, he asked me if I wanted it
curly and I said sure or just natural. So he starts taking little
pieces and clipping them up in all sorts of little places until he had
pinned up my entire head. I look over and Sorella Taylor is having
her's blown out nice and straight and smooth while I am still sitting in
a chair with my hair like that. After awhile they come to take all
the clips out and my hair looks like I stepped out of the 80's. 












We were
DYING!!! I could not stop laughing and we had to hurry and leave
because everyone was wondering if I didn't like it. The best part was
that Angelo was reading his book of Mormon and sharing his testimony
through the whole experience. 

I really, really love the mission so much. We had a lot of sad lessons
this week with people yelling, not accepting our message and just
making us feel sad inside, BUT Heavenly Father never fails to put a
miracle or a funny experience in our day to make us smile and laugh.
All the small miracles really make me realize how much of a role
Heavenly Father has in His work. It amazes me that He works through
imperfect instruments like young 20 year olds, but His work is perfect
and changes lives. 

I can't believe I'm almost halfway finished with my
mission. There is soooo much more to do! I love you all and pray for
you everyday! 

Vi voglio bene! 

Ponderize scripture John 15:5 

Sorella Nelson 

Pday! Went exploring the biggest cave in Italy and played Capture the
Flag while waiting for the train!

My train hat I got from one of the train workers named Vito!  I told him I liked his hat and the next time we saw him he gave me a brand new one!

Sorella Lagattolla with our favorite drink Orzoro!

The Caricola couple.  He is my absolute favorite!  They are holding a picture of the Rome Temple that Sorella Taylor's friend made.

During a lesson a woman gave us these Catholic charms, bracelet and pocket hankie...

The fish market!