Ostia Week 6

Adventures in Italy

This week has been wonderful! On Monday we went to the bone church. It was cool, but creepy. Defiantly worth the experience. We had extra time so we stopped by the Colesseum. It was raining so there were not as many people out. That was nice. We tried to visit a less active who came to church on Sunday. First we got on the wrong bus, then the bus that we wanted never came.

Tuesday after DDM I had my second scambio. This time I stayed in Ostia and Sorella Bray left. My companion for the day was Sorella Fuller. We had a good time. We went to visit a simpatizzanti named Victoria. We ended up being an hour early so we sat outside and role played our lesson. Half an hour later she walks up so we started our lesson early. This was actually a really good thing because the anziani needed us to start corso. We didn't want to wait for the bus so we walked to the metro station, and we beat the bus! As we got up to the platform the metro pulled in! It was perfect! After corso we had a lesson with Giuliana and Leonardo. We read Alma 32 with them and talked about faith. It was a great lesson!

Trevi Fountain

On Wednesday we were supposed to have a private English lesson but that fell through so we ended up putting up posters for corso around town. I discovered that Italians are very stubborn, especially when it comes to food. We had a meal appointment and had arranged to end our scambio in time for the appointment, but she changed the time last minute. Then the metro was running late. There was also some confusion about the meeting spot. When we finally met up, there was no way we would make it back on time, so we tried calling to reschedule, but she said she would wait for us.

Afterwards we had to go directly to our lesson with Laura. That was a fantastic lesson. It was defiantly a break through lesson. She is shy, and she finally really opened up to us.

Thursday we went to visit the less active that we had tried to see on Monday. This time we  had better directions and realized that we could just walk. That was really nice. She is from South America. She had not been to church since before she came to Italy, but she decided to find it and go. She wants to take the lessons. Then she invited us to stay for pranzo. She made a four course meal for us! It was all delicious!

We had a private English lesson with Elena. She had just been proposed to the night before so she was a little distracted. We always do a spiritual thought at the end of every English lesson. The one we had decided to do was on how God has a plan for each one of us, and we can turn to Him when we need help or guidance in our lives. It was perfect for her. The Spirit was so strong. It went really well.

We went and heart attacked Laura and Clara. We left them brownies and a Book of Mormon.

Saturday was an Italian holiday. Anziano Kennedy is half Italian and has lived in Italy most of his life, so we asked him about the holiday. He doesn't know if there is a reason for the holiday, it is just an excuse for everyone to go the the beach. This means cleaning day for all of the missionaries. We also had a lesson with Giuliana and Leonardo. Lessons with them are really progressing.

We were on our way to get some gelato when we met a very nice family. The dad is from England, and the daughter is currently learning English so we told them about corso. Then the father also asked what a missionary was. It was an awesome experience. I really hope that they decide  to come to corso.

Prayer

All of our lessons this week talked about prayer. Why is it important to pray? Prayer is a two way conversation with God. You don't just pray and get an immediate answer to your pray. It takes time, pondering and listening.

One thing that a lot of Italians believe is that God is like a genie in a lamp. You pray to Him, tell him what you want, and then He gives it to you. God is our loving Heavenly Father and he wants to hear from you. Imagine you have a friend that lives far away. You still love them and want to communicate with them. That is how God feels. He wants us to communicate with him regularly. There is a quote by Ian S. Ardern that I really like. He says "let us be as quick to kneel as we are to text."*

We have a divine being who loves us and wants to hear from us. He has all the answers we could ever need. When we pray and ask Him, He will always respond. It may take time and practice to know how He responds, but He does always respond. Prayer is important for each one of us. We receive so many blessing when we pray. God loves us and want to hear from us. He wants us to sincerely pray and talk to Him.

This week I would like you to try praying twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. If you already do this, I would like you to think of and apply ways that you can improve the quality of your prayers.

Letter dated August 17, 2105.
*quote from Elder Ian S. Ardern's conference talk in 2011, A Time to Prepare.

Trevi Fountain

Convento dei Cappuccini

Ostia Week 2: More Photos from P-Day

Sorella Pinnegar at the Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain

Trevi Fountain

Lungomare in Ostia, Rome

Lungomare in Ostia, Rome

Ostia Week 2

A week of wonders

Sorella Pinnegar in front of the Pantheon!

Monday was a lot of fun. We met up with some other sorelle and went to see the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. When we got off the metro in proprio Rome we were right next to the Spanish Steps! It is so cool how you can just run into famous historical sights without trying!

The Pantheon

The Pantheon dome

Sorella Pinnegar and the Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain

I had my first real Italian gelato! It was so good!! When we got back from Ostia we meet with a member and did family home evening with her. She was very nice and it was a lot of fun. At the end she mentioned a few people that she thought we should visit. One of them is a less active member who lived right around the corner from her house. She showed us where it was and we went over immediately. We rang the citofono (it is a little placard with there name and a bell) and were invited up. The girl we were looking for was not home but another less active member and his girlfriend were there. They let us share a message and both seemed very interested. They invited us to come back and offered to feed us next time. When we walked out of the palazzo ( similar to an apartment or condo) we realized they lived right next to the lungomare (a road or promenade that runs along the seashore) so we walked home next to the ocean!

Gelato!

On our way home we have asked to a few people on the street and two of them were interested in learning more! What a great way to end the day!

Tuesday we had a lesson with Laura. She is amazing!! She is very interested and intelligent. We had a great lesson with her! It takes about two hours to get to her house. We told the anziani that we would not be back in time for corso (English class).

When we finally got back to Ostia we went in search of cocoa to make brownies with. The missionaries and the members here don't have the best relationship with each other and we are going to change that! We decided that we are going to make brownies and give them to the members. We finally found cocoa so we went home and made our first batch of brownies.

Wednesday was zone conference, so we had to travel to Rome. We figured out how to get there all on our own! The first thing our mission president does in zone conference is he has all of the new missionaries bear their testimony. So I go to bear my testimony. Thankfully Sorella Bray told me about it at the beginning of the week, so it wasn't a surprise. The mission president talked about what it means to be a representative of Jesus Christ and how important faith is in missionary work. The zone leaders, the sister training leaders and the assistants to the president all gave us destramenti (training/instruction).  The theme of the conference was going back to the basics. They all talked about the basics of missionary work. The sister training leaders did their destramento on faith. They passed out brownies without sugar in them and compared sugar to faith. Without sugar it is still a brownie, it just isn't a good brownie. Without faith it is still missionary work, it just isn't good missionary work.

I think that this can be applied to most anything. Without faith, life is not as good as it could be. Faith guides us, it prompts us to act. Without faith we lack the motivation to try. Faith pushes us forward and helps us to grow. The more faith we have the better our lives are. The way we grow our faith is by acting. Acting on the promptings we receive. The thing about faith is when we don't act on it not only do we not grow, our faith shrinks. The more we act on it the easier it is to act on and the more it grows.

This week will you all try to act on your faith and give it the opportunity to grow and help you live your life to the fullest you can?

Thursday we had a lesson in the morning with a less active member. She was very attentive and told us that we could come back anytime. She said to just stop by and she would let us in. She is from Kenya and spoke English. It was the first lesson I have fully understood. While doing our daily studies we got a call from one of our investigators. We had a lesson planned with her at four in the church. She was a half an hour early! We booked it to the church to meet her. Our lesson went well.

After the lesson we had corso. Our corso is very small. One of our goals for the transfer is to grow it.
Friday we had another lesson with Laura. We got to the metro station and wait for an hour and a half and the metro never came. In Italy the metro will go on strikes for a few hours to a day. We decided to go deliver brownies. We were able to get a plate delivered and then the ward mission leader called. He had talked the wrong metro and asked us to meet him in the middle for our weekly meeting. We had to wait another hour before a metro finally came. We met him in front of Saint Paul's Basilica.

Saturday we spent all morning visiting members and passing out brownies. It was really nice to meet to get to meet everyone. We were originally were going to pass them out all day but decided that we needed to see Laura. We went and saw her in the evening. Her mother prepared us jello! Laura and her mother are so wonderful!

Sunday we had ward pranzo after church. Four hours of Italian was a little hard on my head. I am getting better at being able to understand what is going on. I had my first gesso this evening. Gesso is where you do a chalk drawing on a dark sheet and hand out biliotini (pass along cards) it took me a little while to get comfortable with doing it. Anziano Kennedy walked me through it and taught me what to say. In the end I past out more billiotini than anyone else.

Letter dated July 20, 2015.
*Many of the hyperlinks in this post go to wikipedia.org. It turns out that I (Ryann) am not very familiar with the places Victoria is visiting, so I included the links for quick access to some background info just in case you need it, too.