Week 10 - Battipaglia, 2/16/15

(In response to mom's questions.....)

For my birthday....we had district meeting so the anziani got me a present and then we had ice cream sundays! :) then sorella argyle put 20 reasons she loves me around the house on sticky notes so that was super cool. and we got pizza that night :) it was a good birthday. I could feel heavenly father holding me together so that i didn't miss you guys too much though. that was a big blessing. 

Okay so they do have valentines day except they also have this thing called Carnivale, which is like a happier version of Halloween. Pretty much for the last like 2 weeks and this week too, little kids will come to the center of the city dressed up as princes and princesses, super-heros, and such and then you can buy bags of confetti and silly string and they spray it everywhere and throw it everywhere so the ground is littered with confetti and silly string and then they have special cookies and stuff for Carnivale and ya. Its super cool to see! haha but ya that's been the biggest things that's been going on. Also if you were ever looking to feel comfortable displaying public affection, Italy would be the place to come. haha Valentines day/this weekend we saw a lot of people very comfortably displaying their physical feelings toward each other... haha it was funny. 

(I mentioned we had a lesson on happiness at church and Hailey was sharing her thoughts about happiness.....)

I totally agree with you. I think part of finding happiness in this life is figuring out what brings you joy and finding the Savior in it. Like idk if that makes sense but seeing the beauty in reading harry potter... or in dancing.. or in being at the beach.. or going to the gym and feeling good.. or listening to music and feeling infinite at a concert or whatever it is. I think that Heavnley Father created this world for us to enjoy it and that being happy in it is something that we have to strive for but it is a worthy and beautiful goal and one the Lord will help you with. 

So nothing super crazy happened this week. We got canceled on alot... which was a super big bummer. But one really fun thing we did was we went to this brother and sister less actives who are super old and super sweet and she taught us how to make zeppele which are kind of like doughnuts! but italian style. It was so so fun and we taught her a gospel principles lesson while the dough rose! it was also really funny because the lights went out during the baking process so we finished them by candle light... haha it was an adventure. 

Then you know the woman i told you about who watched joy to the world and who we gave a book of mormon to? well we went to say hello to her and she just started talking to us like we were good friends and then told us that she had been reading the book and that she liked it and she would keep reading and write down questions and that we needed to come back to answer them. she said its important to look for the truth and so thats why im reading it. AHH. how awesome is that!! we are super hoping that she continues to read and lets us come give her an actual lesson one day. We really like her. 

Well those are what happneed this week. 

LOVE YOUR GUTS. 

:) 

Learning to make zeppele!!! (italian donuts)

Week 9 - Battipaglia, 2/9/15

Heres the haps for the week: 

1. We spent 2.5 hours getting lost and taking the wrong buses in salerno to try and find the ex-simp only to miss our appointment with her. So we were discouraged.. to say the least.. but we went down to the pier to do some finding and met this couple who were interested in our message about living prophets and want to meet with us again. Sometimes you get lost for a reason.. :) 

2. Sorella Argyle and I made a goal this week to be better about setting fixed appointments. The people love to say oh ya well get in touch.. or hear from you later.. then we never hear from them.. so this week we worked really hard to do that. Anddd.. it worked! We had alot more appointments! Some people didn't show up to them but the theory behind them is still applicable. It was great. Also we set a super high goal for the amount of less actives we wanted to see and because of this we saw 5 less actives! This was awesome. Our area has alot of less actives because a branch was shut down. So its really great to get to see some of them and we have a few we see every week that we are hoping will start wanting to come back to church. 

3. One of our female investigators came to church! This was AMAZING because this last month or so she just hasn't been able to make it and we really wanted her there! AHH. it was AWESOME to see her walk through those doors. 

4. Its been raining for 3 weeks straight. :O and today it snowed... in Battipaglia.. literally snow. This has been.. an adventure because people already don't really want to stop and talk to us let alone stop and talk to us in the pouring rain.. also one of our members who is crazy is convinced that the rain is the foreshawding of the 2nd coming... so watch out. 

5. You will laugh at this but i think my pre mish self and my mish life have officially collided because i had a dream that one of the general authorities got turned into a zombie and i had to save him. lol

ALSO......Tomorrow i turn 20! What???? This is nuts. 

ALSO......(for those of you who are Friday Night Lights fans)...........
I translated clear eyes full hearts can't loose into italian for you. 
occhii chiari, cuori pieni, no puoi perdere. :) 
phonetically you say it like:
occhee kearee.. quoree peeaanee, non puoee perderay

Week 8 - Battipaglia, 2/2/2015

Well this week was a week of adventure. Awesome things of the week are:

1. We went to Rome for Capi (leader) conference because Sorella Argyle is the Sister Training Leader for the Napoli Zone (yes... she is amazing) and so she had training so I got hang out with Sorella Reber from the MTC because her companion is the sister trainng leader for Rome! 

2. We went to visit this woman who owns a bakery in Battipaglia who since we've got here we wanted to be friends with. So for christmas we gave her a copy of Joy to the World which is like a 30 minute DVD of the nativity with the Mo Tab singing in the backround. So then we didn't really think to much of it but we felt like we should visit her the other day and so we came in to say hi and she and her husband were the only ones in the store and so we started taking and she was like "Oh ya we watched that video you gave us, it was beautiful thank you!" and we were like... Wait you actually watched it?!... haha so then we got talking about the church more and ended up talking about the BOM and the family and they were super interested so we gave them a copy of the BOM and a Proclamation to the family. and thennnnn they gave us the most DELICIOUS dessert i have eaten here in Italy and maybe ever in my life for FREE! We fed them spiritually and they fed us physically and it was fantastic:)

3. Sooo.. we got locked out of our apartment...

We had come home for the day and were grabbing our trash to take downstairs for the garbage man the next day. So our door locks automatically when you close it and usually i have my keys in my pocket.  So we leave and come back and i realize that i do not have my keys and neither does Sorella Argyle... So after the initial panic set in and we said alot of prayers and kicked and wiggled our door as much as possible we realized we were stuck. So then we left to go get assitance from this family we know and so we asked for a screwdriver and tried to take the lock off.. this didn't work. Meanwhile this sweet mom of this family started talking to another one of the neighbors and they're trying to calll our land lord who is out of town. So nothings working so we call the anziani who come over and are trying to jimmy the door open with pamphlets and credit cards and thats not working so then they go upstairs and ask the man who lives above us if they can scale down from his balcony on to ours and hes like... no. (he was being responsible... he told us later haha) but then he comes to help us and then the fire department shows up because the mom downstairs had called the son of our land lord who apprently is part of the fire department. So he comes and the FD spends probably 5-7 minutes trying to open our door with this special paper and there like banging our door till it is like almost breaking and then finally we made it in... AND THEN they leave and we go to check our keys in the door and realize that the lock on the outside is BROKEN. so we are now locked from the inside out of our house because the door locks automatically when you close it. hahaha so we spent the next day locked inside of our house until this hero member from our branch came and replaced our lock

4. We taught our lady investigator the plan of salvation and she said she wanted to believe that families could be together forewever and she could see that we knew/believed it 100%. We promised her that she had the ability to know for herself. This is a beautiful thing about being a missionary and have a testimony of this gospel. You have the power to promise people that they can gain a testimony for themselves of eternal truths and peace bringing principles that this gospel has to offer. 

5. Spiritual Food for Thought:

1 nephi 21:16 

1 nephi 22:25 

Over and over again in the scriptures this week I read about how important we are to the lord. Vs. 16 says we are engraved in his hands. Through the atonement we became a part of him, our stories, our joys, our pains are written on his hands. I love vs. 25 because it just says that he numbers his sheep. I mean you think of things that are important enough to you that you've numbered and kept track of and you are one of those for the lord. He always knows where you are and when you are missing he notices to. He always wants to find you again and bring you back to his pasture. I love this image of finding pasture too because when you think of a pasture you just think tranquil and sunny and prefectly green grass and everything is just peaceful and safe and that's what the Savior's fold/arms has to offer you and thats where he wants you to be. Its just soo comforting and amazing. Love YOu all

Sorella Kennedy :)  

Lots of rain in Battipaglia!

Sister Argyle and I hiding from the rain....she is awesome!!

UMMM.....Ya!  There is some decent food here!

What can i say......sometimes we just get tired.......or locked out;)

We could not have the sign for the church so dirty........

Week 7 - Battipaglia, 1/26/2015

Well we saw some small but pretty cool miracles this week here in Battipaglia. 

1. We were following up on our english course students challenge to answer the questions of the soul while reading the Book of Mormon and we asked who had read the chapter we assigned after and this little kid in our class who is 11 years old shoots his hand up and says, "i did....and proceeds to summarize the beginning of the book of mormon with 

Lehi and his sons." :))))) Then after Anziano (Elder) Trejo went up to him and was like so do you like the Book of Mormon and he was like ya I read a page every day... (this was not the assignment) then Anz. was like well do your parents know that you read it? and he was like ya. and Anz was like well what do they think about it (because most people here do not want their

kids reading the Book of Mormon) and he was like "oh my parents are okay with it we read it together"....(WHAT??). and anz. is like trying not to die of excitement and he's like Oh well what do your paretns think about it? and he was like oh they like it alot to. AHHHH!!! How cool is that?? A whole family is just reading the book of mormon together! So cool! 

2. One of our less actives that we visit is AWESOME. She's just super funny and always makes us laugh. This week she really did make us laugh and maybe cry a little to because as we were talking to her we told her "we want you to read the book of mormon and come to church because we love you" (side note: in italian there are different ways to express love, ti vogliamo bene is like love like for a friend. Amore is romantic love.) okay so we were like la vogliamo bene and then she was like, you americans don't understand that phrase, you don't love me and i don't love you. If you left tomorrow I wouldn't be sad, and went on about this for about 10 minutes. and im sitting there like... are my translation skills really faulty or did something go completly amiss here... haha but then she ended up giving us chocolate and asking us to come back and telling us that the president and our branch mission leader annoy her when they ask her to do things but then she asked us to come back and talk about the book or mormon. SOO. she does love us... even though she won't say it. 

3. I had the most AMAZING hot chocolate ever!! it was litterally like liquid chocolate. wow. that was a miracle of deliciousness. 

4. We ran to the train station at 5:40 in the morning because we had to catch a train to Napoli to help with transfers. So this was just an experience Sorella Argyle and I will never forget of running to the station with our coats on, in skirts, in the dark to the train in battipaglia. We got on and were sweating... haha. it was awesome. kind of ;)

5. We taught the restoration over a bar counter at a restaurant. haha. We were stuck in a town for pranzo so we went to this bar, restaurant to have some pasta and were just casually eating and like you know not even really saying much and then we get up to leave and this woman who is working there is like who are you.. and so we tell her and then we walk over to the bar and she tells us you've caused a bit of chaos here, people keep asking us who you are. so then we like taught a brief restoration lesson over the counter of this bar and gave her a mormon.org card. haha its interesting that people noticed us just by our tags and just our presence. That was awesome. 

6. We had 3 less actives come to church!!! Just of their own free will! We had been working with them in other ways like the Book of Mormon, but then they just showed up to church!! AHHH. One of them was the woman who told us she didn't love us... haha. :) We were seriously so blown away and so grateful to the Lord for helping them come to church. 

Thats it for this week!

Ti Vogliamo Bene :)

Sorella Kennedy