Fish are friends NOT food!

Hello All! It is another hot and beautiful day here in Florence and it is already week 4 of this transfer! Crazy how fast time goes by!

So let's see... the events of this week.... Me and my companion had an awesome lesson with a member family in our ward. They have a cute little boy and so we wanted to do a lesson that could involve him and keep his interest so we decided to make the armor of god. We raided the cardboard only dumpster out side our apartment and bought some aluminum foil and made a pretty cool looking sword, shield, breast plate, helmet and loin clothe the only thing we didn't know how to make were the shoes to shod the feet. We found some old boots with a broken zipper left behind by some missionaries and I tried to make them look less girly by cutting them up a bit, but... yeah they were pretty ugly. The little boy wouldn't even touch them. :) but it was a cute lesson anyway. They feed us some really good food and delicious chocolate cake/pie stuff. It was so good!

Friday we took a member of our ward (sister covington) with us to visit Yvonne. We had an awesome lesson with her and she promised us she would study from the Book of Mormon this week. I have such high hopes for her! She really is great.

We had a ward activity Saturday evening. It was a cultural dinner and because there is such a variety of ethnicity in the ward we all brought dishes native to our land. Me and sister Favero made deviled eggs and cupcakes and the elders brought chili. There was some brazilian food and some Mexican food as well and of course some pasta dishes to represent the Italians. It was really good.

We didn't have as many tourists this sunday (thank goodness!), but we did have a visitor from the district high counsel so I ended up not having to give my talk.... however I have to give a different talk this week to make up for it. I feel like I am back in the MTC where I have to prepare a talk on a different subject every week just in case I get called on to share. But actually I am grateful I have some advanced notice because my companion said back in her old city she was once asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting while the congregation was singing the opening hymn. That would be a little nerve racking. Even though there were not as many tourists, there still were quite a few and so they had a translator for sacrament meeting again. And then after Sunday school the young womens leader asked me to come and translate for a girl in her class. That was fun. The young womens teacher is also American (she married an Italian) and there was only one other girl in there so it was 3 Americans and an Italian. It was pretty laid back so I didn't feel too much pressure and It went pretty well.

Monday was a great day. Not only did I glimpse my first sighting of a women with the armpits of a man, and a guy with the craziest comb over in the world but we found a new investigator! It was so great. We have been praying hard to find someone and we decided to go to the park and do some surveys. Basically we just walk up to people and ask them basic questions about their beliefs. Well before we even got into the park we both spotted a girl sitting on a bench outside the park and felt we should start with her. She is from Peru, but has been in Italy for 3 years or so. We taught her a first lesson and she agreed to meet us again on Friday so we can bring her a Book of Mormon in Spanish! It was so cool! We also talked to some other way cool and nice people in the park and I really felt like the Lord was blessing us. After park we did some house but after an hour or so of that we decided that we would head back to the park to finish out the night. We decided just to hop on the next bus that passed and get off at the first park we saw, how ever we ended up on some crazy bus that took us like way up into the mountain area, oops. We had to ride it to the end of the line and back, but it was such a beautiful ride, and it reminded me of the beautiful canyons in Utah. Even though it didn't take us where we were hoping to go I felt so grateful to my father in heaven for the time he spent in creating this beautiful earth for us to enjoy.

Yesterday we were able to do something that almost never happens with sister missionaries, we went on scambi! (splits) I went with sister Watson to an appointment with one of her investigators and My companion went with sister Mackinnon to teach their English class. It was a really great appointment with a women and her daughter. We watched the restoration video and explained the book of Mormon. It was awesome to teach with Sister Watson again. It brought back memories of the MTC and those awful moments at the TRC where we both struggled to get our point across in Italian, and It was truly amazing to see how far we both have come, not only with the language, but with our testimonies as well. The only down side to the appointment was that we were fed Fish pasta. Ewwwe! Both of us dislike fish, but can you blame us, the smell alone is enough to make anyone lose their appetite. Oh well, I know that it is way better then the stuff Dan and Bryan were fed on their missions. She made a point of telling us that it was a real expensive type of fish before we ate it so we felt obligated to clean our plates.

Anyways I think I gave you a long enough explanation of my week, I hope you are all doing well and enjoying life. Keep me posted on your lives! And your summer fun.

I am so grateful for this gospel and for this time in my life I have to be a missionary. I know that this church is true and that the lord is blessing us every single day of our lives if we just look for and acknowledge our blessings.

Vi Voglio Bene!