My Life is Postcard!

Wow I am definitely in Italy! Florence is absolutely beautiful! It is the Italy I imagined, but that is probably because it is such a tourist town. I saw the Duomo and this famous bridge and one of the David statues.... my goodness I cant believe I live here!

The other crazy thing is that me and my MTC companion Sorella Watson have been reunited! I am in an apartment of 4 sisters. The Florence area is divided into 2 areas and I am in Florence 2 but we live with the Florence 1 sisters which means we have to travel about 20 to 30 minutes to get to our area every day, but I am used to that because that is how long it took to get to some appointments when I was in Pescara.

Today was sister Watson's birthday and so we just came from breakfast. There is some American food restaurant (it blows buffalo bills away!) and we all went as a zone for sister Watson, yum.

So it has been a kind of short week since I just got in Thursday evening, It was a 4 hour train ride from Rome, but it was a beautiful ride! We have our work cut out for us here, but I know that there is great potential. We will be doing some finding work for a while so keep praying for us to find those the lord has prepared, and I will do the same.

My companion is really nice and she speaks really well in Italian. Her father was a mission president here when she was 3 and her brothers served their missions in Milan so she has some Italian background.

Yesterday we traveled to a city called Arezzo to meet with a member and some inactives. It is about an hour and 45 minute train ride and kind of expensive so we are only allowed to go there once every 2 to 3 weeks. It is kind of sad because the member we were with yesterday wants so badly for the church to grow there and for there to be a branch in her area again. I guess there was one there a long time ago but it got taken away. I don't really know the situation. While we were there waiting at a bus stop I almost got a surprise from a pigeon sitting on the roof of the building, seriously it was within an inch! and Pigeons seemed to be the theme of the day because later on we saw an old lady in the park surrounded by like 30 pigeons feeding them cut up spaghetti. ha ha she had a mound of spaghetti that she was just tossing up into the air like confetti. and then to top it off back home at the apartment we have pigeons living on our balcony that just laid an egg. (sick!) I guess they used to sweep the nest off the balcony but one of the sisters got attached to them and an elder said he would eat a pigeon egg if they laid one so they've kept them around. I guess they laid an egg the transfer before I got here too and that elder was true to his word and ate a hardboiled pigeon egg. This time I guess we are waiting to see it hatch. Gross!

This Sunday was branch conference. We have branches not wards here and so all the branches from the surrounding areas came and I got to see all the missionaries I will see at zone conference in a week. Since everyone was combined I haven't really met which branch members belong to my branch, but I am excited to meet them next Sunday. It is nice because the church is like 2 minutes from our apartment. That is always a plus. It was a really good conference and it is so awesome to hear talks from President and Sister Acerson in Italian. President served in Italy when he was a missionary so he speaks Italian, but I know sister Acerson doesn't so it is really awesome that she is brave enough to get up in front of all those Italians and speak. I am feeling better about my Italian everyday and i know it is a blessing from the Lord! I don't know if I am getting better or if I am just getting more confident and less worried about making mistakes, either way I am sure grateful for the gift of tongues.

Well I dont have much more time, but I love you all and I am so grateful for your prayers and your letters and just for everything you do. Be safe and happy!