Ostia Week 1

Gelato is our motto

Our plane arrived on time and we all had our luggage! We are the first group to be that lucky. We also were the fist group to arrive on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, so we got an extra day before meeting our trainers. The first thing we did is go and see the temple. It is looking beautiful! Afterwards we went to the villa to have a "light lunch." In Italy a light lunch is a panini the size of a medium pizza! Then the AP's (assistants to the president) took us on the metro to see the Colosseum and the senate building. It was a fantastic! They are right in the center of downtown Rome! When we got off the metro headed back to the villa we were supposedly running late so we had to speed walk back. The villa is the mission home. It was built by Mussolini for his daughter about a hundred years ago! It is beautiful! We all walked down and had kabobs for dinner. Kabobs are a little like shawarma in a tortilla.when we got back one of the sorelle played her violin for us. It was beautiful! We were finally allowed to go to sleep at about eight.

Wednesday we went to the church to meet all the mission office staff. We set up our iPads and received some training. For lunch we had pasta and chicken, it was amazing. We walked back to the villa around three and could do whatever we wanted until dinner. Dinner was salad and lasagna. We also had olives and mozzarella di buffila (mozzarella made from buffalo milk). For dessert we had pistachio gelato. It was fantastic!! After dinner we talked about our motto and our theme. Our motto is...gelato is our motto. Our theme is a little more serious, it is be the best you can be. Then it was time for the golden envelopes. I was the second to open mine. It tells you where you are going and who your trainer is. I am in Ostia and my trainer is Sorella Bray!

Sorella Bray picked me up at the villa around eight which meant that I didn't go to the train station at five like most everyone else. That was very nice. We went to the church to meet up with the Ostia anziani and started our journey to Ostia. Sorelle Anderson (the violinist) and her trainer came with us because they were not leaving until Friday. It is an hour and a half metro ride to Ostia from Rome. When we got to Ostia we dropped of our stuff and then the anziani showed us around. We are blow-ins which means that we are both new to the area. We stopped and had a cone of fries with sauce on it for lunch. Then we said good by to everyone and went back to the house and unpacked. We had English class at six and left early because we didn't know how long it would take us to get to the church. We taught the beginners course and the anziani taught the advanced. Afterwards the anziani wanted pizza so we got some for dinner and headed back home. The pizza is definitely better. Sorelle Bray and I got two and we each had half of one. One had eggplant on it and the other had egg whites and bacon. They were both pretty good, Sorelle Bray says they were okay. I guess Rome is known for having the worst pizza in Italy.

We had weekly planing Friday morning so we scoured all the notes that were left for us and the Area Book. I decorated my first planer!! For pranzo we had leftover pizza and then we had a meeting with the ward mission leader. He is pretty neat. He just got back from serving his mission in London, which is really nice because he speaks English. After the meeting the anziani wanted pizza again. We all went and tried another pizzeria. I was told it is better than the other one. I guess I have not been in Italia long enough, because I couldn't tell the difference. This time we only got one pizza to split because we were not very hungry. It was a mushroom pizza, very good.

On Saturday we had to do my promesso stuff in the morning. The anziani helped us with that. Anziani Kennedy has done it twice so he knew what to do. That was very nice because both Sorella Bray and I had no idea what to do or where to go. A promesso is my permit to stay in the country. It has to be started eight days after you arrive in the country or they can kick you out. After we got the promesso stuff done it was time for pranzo and study. Then we went to a lesson with the anziani. It was a young woman and her mom is a member. They were passing her to us so they were in charge of that lesson and we will be teaching her all the other lessons. I didn't understand very much but I was told it went very well. She has come to church the past for weeks and she came yesterday. After the lesson we went home and did a lot of cleaning.

Sunday was very nice. I didn't understand a thing, but that is okay. Sorelle Bray and I were asked to introduce ourselves and bear a short testimony in sacrament meeting, I went first.

Letter dated July 13, 2015.