Pictures from Rimini!

(I won't put what Sorella wrote here...)

Four years of Oly Grads!

Rimini ward mission leader and his wife: My Italian Parents!

The end of the first transfer... will I go or will I stay?

Yes folks, I did it, I survived the first full transfer in Italy. What can I say I learned?

more gospel principles learned from a bike

1) always shake your helmet out before you jam it on your too large head...

okay homies, that is just good sense. a spider crawled out two seconds before I put it on my head. I killed it with my hand. I am a monster now-nothing phases me. I guess the spider could be Satan. Kill him too.

2) drive like a local or die like a tourist....

We are in the world, but not of the world. Crazy insane problems are thrown at us every single day and unfortunately we have to know how to say no these days to the temptations of porn, drugs, sex, and other nasty things. However, we have the tools necessary to make it a heck of a lot easier to say no and therefore not die like a tourist.....

3) Twist ties are not enough to secure your basket to your bike forever.

Just as i use twist ties to secure my basket to my bike (still think it was a good idea) sure enough, it got stolen, dang! Well it was superficial and basically said "look, i am free!". Such is life. When we read our scriptures superficially or pray redundantly we are just asking for something dumb to happen. Take time for the things that matter and your baskets wont get stolen!

What life as Sorella Alley looks like (a pictorial essay)

Bea-u-ti-ful

 

I may adopt one of these!

You know you reached complete Sister missionary status when...

Hello world, another week down and I am fast approaching my 1 month in Italy mark. I can hardly believe it. Mission time is strange. One second flies by and the next four days take 10 years to pass but then you look back and it has seemed like yesterday. Molto stranno.  

 

Well the week has been a busy one. We taught 27 lessons last week and are leading the mission! The Lord truly does take pity on us two greenies and basically puts investigators in our laps. Not really, we work hard but we are very blessed. The highlight of the week for me was finding this blind man who turned out to be hilarious! We offered to take him for a walk and he was absolutely thrilled by the prospect. He linked his arm through mine and then fumblly felt around for my shoulder. When it was a good foot higher than he expect (yup, you can imagine where he was initailly feeling...awkward bosom swipe....) He was shocked and explained, "You are much to tall to be a normal female, you must be a model!" Oh bless you blind man, bless you.

Sorella Alley's Email address

Sorella Alley can officially recieve your emails! Her email address is:

calley@myldsmail.net

Preparation Day is on Wednesday and she usually emails first thing in the morning (roughly 3:00 am
our time) so if you want to hear from you, make sure you email before you hit the sack Tuesday night!

The anonymous, but oh so cute, poster to this blog.

I can officially come home now...

Hi family and friends! 

    I can come home anytime now, why you may ask? Because I had my first baptism! YES!!!!!! Claudia, 24 years old, has been investigating for about 3 years and she has run from baptism twice. Her parents are extremely contra (against) and threatened to kick her out if she was baptize. We met with her and challenged her to be baptized for last friday. Everyday we checked in with her and on wednesday she felt like she would never come back to church. We decided to fast because we KNEW that it was the right time for her we prayed once an hour just for her. We broke our fast thursday morning and exactly 1 hour later she text us saying she wanted to be baptized!!!!!!!! 

 

The baptism took place Saturday night and was beautiful. We had two investigators come and accept baptism dates of their own. Emmilio Zufolini (doesnt get much more italian that that) is the branch mission leader and in the middle of the baptismal meeting asked me to share my testimony. I almost hemoraged i was so nervous. But I got up there, and shared my simple testimony and thanked Claudia for being an example to me. She cried, probably because I just butchered her beautiful language but I will pretend it is because she felt the spirit:) 

First Post from Italy!

Ciao la mia famiglia!

First, flying over the ocean is the weirdest experience. Somewhere over the atlantic I lost 8 hours of my life....I honestly dont know where they went. I tried to figure it out but gave up....i am still confused. The flight went well, i sat next to an italian women who had seen the bom musical but wanted to write an editorial on me in milan!!!! cool, but i had to give her up after finding out where I was to go. I met president, a dear man who I really like! I was the first one through the door to greet him and Sorella Wolgramm gave me the biggest hug. I nearly lost it, it was such a mom hug. I miss those. Jet lag sucks, I legitamately almost fell asleep during dinner and landed in my lasanga. oooopps. but everyone else thought itwas funny....

 

My first area is Rimini, which is a super touristy resort town by San Marino. THink calf of the Italian boot. My trainer is Sorella Acerson, a young lass only 19 years old who has been here for....hold your breath....6 weeks longer than I!!!!!! woo wooo wooo so now there are 2 of us pretending to know how to be missionaries. Her dad was a mission pres in rome for 3 years so she has the language fairly well but is lacking the confidence. she is crazy stressed out and double guesses herself often but i pray for her constantly and I know she can do it! ya for sister acerson!

 

On the train ride down we met a man name Alberto who was super receptive to the message. sorella acerson taught the entire restauration, i tried not to fall asleep and smile, we prayed right ther eon the train and he had tears!!! he was definitely elect but he is out of our area so some elders from ancona will benefit. he was golden. well we jumped right into work and taught 5 lessons our first day!!! AMAZING, yes until they tell you they arent going to read the BOM or come to church. boooo. this is the sitch here, almost no one has a job, and people are fine being homeless and having zero money. the italians here simply exist. i was super overwhelmed immadetaeily because i have no idea how to help them. The language is absolutely terrifying. I thought I would get the jist of it but nope, nada, ziltch. I catch a few words each sentence and for the most part am completely lost. please pray for me and the language because it is incredilby frustrating.

 

the ward is great and i am going to love the italian culture of loudness and laughter (but come on homies, you need a job!). I will send pictures soon!

 

sorella alley