Divertimento e duro lavoro - Un perfetto equilibrio due settimane

Sooooo recently I realised... that I have passed my official 6 month mark!!!! Quindiiiiiiiiii So a little less than this time next year I'll probably have already stepped off the plane!!! Isn't that just the weirdest thing!!! Time is flying so so so quickly!!!! Normal life seems so weird hahahah I'm probably gonna feel so weird not knocking on random doors and speaking about Jesus!! .... Don't worry though... I'm not getting 'trunky,' as the Americans say.... I miss you all a TON of course!!!!!!!!! But I love it here too and I know that right here, right now - is where the Lord wants me to be!!!! 
 
I BOUGHT SOME BOOTS.... when I say some, I mean 2 pairs....... it has been raining A LOT here.... we have also had a ton of hail... AND ON Wednesday... IT SNOWED!!! Isn't that crazy!!! Also ... it has been snowing in England!!! Some of our English course students showed me pictures of Birmingham and it looked like it had snowed! haha! Who knows! But yeah.... I have had to throw some of my shoes... water damage.... or just because they are worn out... or because they stink hahaha oops! 
 
Sooooooooooo let me tell you all about my week! :)
 
Lunedi -- Me and Sorella H went to the 'mall' and bought matching skirts.. They're super cute and they're like a mustard colour.... but don't worry.. I won't wear them with my mustard cardigan! haha! .....Then.. we did some Casa 2 Casa!!!!!

Companionship Skirts

SO... 2 people told us to come back... so we are super excited about that!!! :) Then we went to Centro (centre) and did leaflet finding..... we GAVE A BOOK OF MORMON OUT!!! It was Sorella Hamilton's 1st time!! She was so excited and she was SO shocked and surprised!! She kept saying 'He just took that??' 'Did you see that?' hahaha so cute! That was kinda that day done! hahaha
 
Martedi -- IT WAS Sorella HAMILTON'S BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!! I wanted to get balloons and stuff, but we didn't have time and surprises are hard when you are with your comp 24/7! BUT I used post-it notes and drew balloons on them and left a message on the bathroom door for her haha!! Then I made her pancakes for breakfast with Maple Syrup!!!!!! :D

Birthday Pancakes for Sorella Hamilton

THEN! Me and Lolanda organised for her to come and surprise Sorella Hamilton at 7:30am with a cake!!!! I HAVE IT RECORDED !!! It is SUPER CUTE!!!!! Then we had DDM......... it was good! :) :) THEN we had an appointment with Sorella Campo (Lolanda's Mom) ... she's ONE OF MY FAVE MEMBERS!!!!!! We spoke about how we can help new converts and she shared her conversion story!!! The Spirit was so strong in that lesson!! :):) Then we had English course!! It went well - then at the end, after the Spiritual Thought.... the Anziani announced that it was Sorella Hamilton's birthday and gave her a gift (a fire extinguisher.. with a can of tuna and cake sprinkles sellotaped to the sides.. don't ask ha!) THEN Salvo and Gabe (English students who speak perfect English!) ... SNUCK BEHIND HER AND surprised HER WITH THE LUSHEST cake!!!!!!! and we all sang happy Birthday!!!!! She cried ... it was so cute and she was really happy!!!!! :):)

Mercoledi -- Today was one of my fave days of this week! :) We went to find a referral!! Her name is Silvano.. she was referred to us by her less active brother! She was really happy to see us, but it wasn't a good time, so we are seeing her this week! :) ... Then we did some more inspirational street finding (I think I explained that last week) IT WAS AWESOME!!!! Like... nobody is ever out on the street... the place is DEAD, so we just do door to door!!! BUT so many people were SO nice and friendly and welcoming!!!!!! We have a good bunch of return appointments, so a ton of really promising potentials!!! :):) Then we received a cancellation with a member... so we ended up doing more casa in casa!!! We are experts now haha! We went to some apartments near the chapel! A family LET US IN!!! They know the missionaries 'cus they used to attend English course!!!! THEY WERE SO NICE!!! We spoke with them a little about the restoration! :) It was awesome! Then they said we can come back whenever.... she warned us that she is Catholic BUT STILL! there is a lot of potential there! :)... Then we went to see a guy called Massimo who works at a shop.... we set up to see him later today to teach English and then a gospel lesson! :) HE GREETED US 'hello boys!!' (he speaks little English). We corrected him and he was like 'oh.. girls' hahahah - it was hil! He is super funny and I'm excited to start teaching him! :) OH on this day I also had my 1st Sicillian gelato with brioche! IT WAS SO GOOD. the ice-cream here really is way better!!!!! You HAVE to come!!!!! Then we found a guy while doing casa in casa who wanted to let us in, but he was alone, so we passed him on to the anziani to see! :)

Sicilian Gelato with Brioche

Giovedi -- MOREEEEEEEEEE finding!!! but it's okay 'cus we make it fun! 5 people let us speak to them!!! and told us when would be better to come back!!!!!! We are SUPER excited about them!!!! :) We then went to see a less active, her husband is active and he is AWESOME!! We are gonna get him to come to a lesson with Rosemary this week! :) :):) Then we had English course and me and Hamilton did the spiritual thought! We did the 'God is the same yesterday today and forever.. God of miracles' scripture with the paper visual!! Where you ask someone to cut a whole in the A4 paper, so they can put it around their body... then we do it and show them how! Visual spiritual thoughts are the best :)
 
Venerdi -- We went to follow up on the people in Ibla (IBLA IS LUSH you should google it!!.. It is EXACTLY HOW I IMAGINED Italy to be!!! ) But the people were not in.. :( BUT we did a bit of finding around there and a lady came to her balcony.. she was ill, but was really excited to see us and told us to come back next week in the morning!!! :):) I feel really good about her!! :):) Then we saw Rosemary!!! We did the Restoration lesson with her... she had a LOT of questions about Priesthood! She has a LOT of faith. Oh! .. also.. I had custard for breakfast with bananas this day! ha :) It as SO GOOD! I am so thankful for treats sent from home...even the simple pleasures!!! Then... the ward threw an activity ... 'PIZZA PARTY' hahaha ... only in Italy!!!! It was great though! All the members brought pizza and it was just one huge pizza feast! :) Then it rained a ton and my umbrella broke.. hahaha! Then we saw a man and he was speaking to us in a Sicilian dialect so we had 0 idea what he was saying, but it was something along the lines of 'We are already saved, we don't need religion' so that was super fun.. hahaha :D
 
Sabado -- We went to see a less active called Rita! :) Buuuuuuut she was doing her friend's hair and told us to come back on Thursday! soooooooooooo I guess we shall do just that! ha :) Then we went through the area book to do more finding!!! and called them to organise appointments! We got 2 that responded really well to us, so we are super excited! Then we went out with Sorella Campo to do some less active and member visits!! I LOVE SLLA CAMPO ahhhhhh!!!! The visits went really well!!! :) Theeeeeeeeeeen... we did 'FLUSH' I think I told you about that..... where we go through all the ex-simps in the phone... or just names that nobody knows... and call them and invite them to see us again!!! One guy called 'Goodluck' told us he is in Milan and that he sees the missionaries there, so that's aweeeeeeesome! Then a few others told us to call back later... and one lady called Mariasa set an appointment with us! :)Oh, also!!! This day we wanted a good lunch to fast on!!! Sooooo we had potatoes and stuff, but it didn't fill us up..... so we went to make crepes...... aaaaaaand realised we didn't have milk, soooo we kinda just made our own with cream and water... it worked haha! :)
 
Domenica -- We had church!! We taught gospel principles! It went really well! :) Then had pranzo with the family Micozzi! :) It was so good! :) Then at the end when we said goodbye, Fratello Macozzi wanted us to hi 5 him... so I did,.. then he was like 'NO no sister.. piu FORTE' so I did a better hi 5 then he yelled 'AHHHHH' hahahahahahah I hope it didn't hurt him..... I think he was joking.. I'm not sure, but yeah! hahaha Then we did weekly planning!
 
SOOO... that was that week!! :)
 
However, WEEK 2 of the fortnight HAS BEEN ONE OF THE BEST SO FAR!! FOR THE WORK....AND FOR FUN!
 
I'll try to fit in as much as possible!!! BUT THERE WAS JUST SO MUCH!! haha
 
So... Like I said earlier - Lunedì we did shopping and I GOT BOOOTSSSSSSSS !!! :)
 
Martedì - There is an old couple who live 2 floors above us and BEFORE DDM we had a lesson with them. IT was so cool! They're members... they have been serving missions for a total of 7 years!! They're amazing!!!
 
Mercoledì - THIS WAS MY FAVE DAY! We had 1 lesson with Rosemary.. about the Plan of Salvation. She agreed with everything, but still thinks its okay to go to the Catholic church (if she's too tired to walk to our church).  We then had 3 lessons with less actives! (4 lessons in 1 day is the best I have ever had in the mission so far!) We also gave 2 Books of Mormon out within the space of 1 min of each other and if that wasn't good enough, we THEN had an African guy approach and ask us about the Book of Mormon (before we could even approach him). He asked for one in French! We have called him and have organised to take it to him today. WE ARE SO EXCITED! He seems super genuine and sweet and we wanna teach him!!!!
 
Giovedì - We went to see Rosemary again to see how she is doing and to share the faith scripture..... She had a tear in her eye and loved it! and then on the way home we found this stray dog that followed us EVERYWHERE.... then we went home to get pranzo..... And he was waiting for us (I've sent a pic of him), then we had a call from Fratello M inviting us to his house to do a spiritual thought, so we went ... then after the dog was still waiting for us!! This dog literally followed us everywhere hahahaha so we fed him cornflakes... yomo (you only mission once - Sorella Hamilton) haahahh!

Jeffrey The Stray Dog who followed us all day

BUT then we realised something really cool..... this guy has never spoken to us... (Fratello M) and we found out he speaks fluent FRENCH.... So we thought of MOSE.... the guy we met on Mercoledì... And then we thought.. Fratello M must have been inspired... like I dunno, but it's super exciting. I'M so excited to see what happens with Mosè! :)
Then after English course we went to a burger bar with the Anziani and the zone leaders 'cus they were here for exchanges with our Anziani !!! SO that was cooooooool.
 
Venerdì - OKay, so this is one of my fave stories of the week!! SO we were invited to Vescovo (Bishop's) home for dinner and to obv share a message... he has a lil daughter and a baby son - SO CUTE!!! We went to wash our hands in the bathroom and couldn't find a towel to dry our hands on and the lil girl (mARTA) came with us, so we just stood there blowing our hands, then she tells us to use the towel near the bidet (the butt wash thing) and we were like nooooo ... and she was like "si si", so we went and pretended to use it 'cus she was demanding; then she ran out and we told her parents what she said 'cus I was dying with laughter hahahaha and she was like 'ho bugiato' (I lied) hahahahhahaha IT WAS SO FUNNY!!! She's like 4 and then she did the dinner prayer and it was the cutest thing!!! ahhhhh!!!! :):)
 
We have knocked a ton more doors and have added more numbers and names to our list of potentials that we need to follow up on! I'm a firm believer of casa in casa... that's how my grandparents were introduced to the Gospel. We did some following up this week too for some streets that said 'come back'. One man invited us in... but he was alone, so we just did an introduction to the Book of Mormon on his door step!!! 
 
Then the weekend wasn't very exciting... We had a ton of meetings with the stake etc... and it was Ward Conference! OH.. but a lady from English course came to church with her husband... It was a tiny bit awks 'cus it was all about missionary work.... So we explained that Sacrament Meeting isn't usually like this.. and after we went and taught the Restoration to them!! They seemed to enjoy it though, especially the lady (Mariesa) :):)
 
THEN today it snowedd!!!! again! Isn't that crazy! :) This afternoon we are going down to Catania for Zone Conference tomorrow!!! 
 
Life is great!!!!! I'm gonna share some quotes for the week that made me laugh!! 
 
Sorella Hamilton and I were talking about goals and stuff we can do better in weekly planning.. one thing we brought up was getting out of bed asap when the alarm goes off.... and Sorella Hamilton said 'Yeah, but we are always conscious at the time' hahah it was real funny the way she said it!
 

We're working hard and setting some great goals

Then we shared our goals with each other...and Sorella Hamilton's was 'Mine is... to sit up, when I wake up' hahahahahahhaha ... she the funniest!
 
Then we went to the guy Massimo in his shop to set an appointment and he greeted us this time by saying 'hello babies' hahahahha that was hil
 
THE NEWS ABOUT THE ROME TEMPLE IS AMAZING!!!!! hashtagthepowerofthefast (there's not a hashtag on this comp,,) Things with Rosemary are going good... She is so faithful, but it's just hard to help her to understand sometimes!! We don't have a baptismal date yet. We are starting over with her, but this week in weekly planning we decided to extend the baptismal invite to her the next time we see her and explain the importance of it.
 
I LOVE YOU ALL MISSIONS.. no I mean MILLIONS. millions of missions .. I don't know. hahah! BUT I LOVE YOU SO SO SO SO MUCH!!! I know that this church is TRUE. It's so true and I am so so lucky to be able to share it with the people here in Sicily!!!!! :) Thank you for your testimonies!!! Thank you for your love and prayers!!!
 
Have a great week 
 
Sorella Robertson xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx