Here's the newest and latest
from Sarah. She continues to serve in
Lodi--the past few months with Sorella Gillespe and soon with Sorella Yonk.
We Be Fine
2/18/15--Spring is in the aiiiiir! Unfortunately, just literally. We are
still kind of chuggin' through the winter work in terms of work work. But we
are still sticking to our philosophy of love. So as long as we love the people
we meet on the streets and don't think about numbers, we be fiiine.
Karaoke
Party
2/18/15--Friday we had a ward, get this, KARAOKE PARTY. You couldn't pick
a funner and funnier bunch to have a karaoke party with. My goodness. The
quality of singing was fabulous. Slla G and I sang "Let it Go" in
Italiana (da oggi c'e fredo in casa
mia!...or something) and everyone else was singing these Italian pop songs
that are just...great. I had a grand ol' time singing along with all the loud Italians
and South Americans. Swaying back and forth with arms around each other like we
were school boys singing our school anthem or something. It was a riot. And we
also met a ton of potentials! And by a ton, I mean 2! One has next to no
interest, but the other one is this 16 year old friend of one of the Rodriguez
girls. Her name is Elena and she sings for money. She's way good. She's also
really cool. We asked her about her church and stuff (she's orthodox) and she
said, "Yeah, I came to this church once (the ONE week we were sick and couldn't
come. grrr.) and it was way cool. At my church it is just chanting and praying
for four hours. But here you talk and discuss and learn. It's way cool."
We asked her if she wanted to talk more about it sometime and she was like "Yeah!
I'm there!" We tried calling her once and she didn't pick up. We are
really hoping it was a fluke and she wasn't scared off by the invitation to
learn more. But she loved the ward party. She sang Rihanna's "Stay"
and knocked the roof off. She seriously has a killer bar voice.
Primary
2/18/15--Sunday was crazy. No one showed up so we had to teach Primary.
Italian kids are cray cray. Seriously. I don't know how Italian moms do it. We
were in charge of an older class for second hour, but for the first hour
(sacrament meeting is last here), we were in charge of the giant Sharing Time. And
there were so so so many little kids. We were trying to talk about Jesus, but
we ended up just mostly trying to keep kids from smashing guitars (don't ask me
why it was there in the first place) into walls, stabbing themselves with pins
(yes. that's real), jumping into toilets (also real), and slapping the nursery
kids (yup). So it was some good times. Oh. Also someone forgot that I've
already given two talks so guess who's giving ANOTHER missionary talk on Sunday!
Wooo! This sister missionary right here! I was like, uh-yay!
Finding
2/18/15--We didn't have anyone to visit on Monday so it was going to be
all strada all the time. Woo! It was weird weather that day. Grey to sunny to rainy
to sunny to grey... but there were quite a few people at the park that morning.
One of them was an eccentric man sitting on a bench just gazing at the sky. He
had greasy hair with a beanie on, a big puffy coat and a vividly colored soccer
scarf. His legs were crossed and he was tapping his toe to silent music. I thought,
"If Michael were on a mission here, I bet he would approach this guy. He
seems like a Berger Park kind of guy." So I was like, "Hey, do you
speak English?" We proceeded to talk about everything from Papa Francesco,
Amnesty International, the Bible, telepathy, prayer, God... I don't really
remember that much of the actual conversation, but he was really far out chill
and nice. We gave him a pass along card and he said he might come to church
someday. Vediamo. We'll see.
Grandma
Eva
2/18/15--Also on Monday, after getting gelato (after a full day of
tracking you just can't not get gelato...that is a play off of something SG
says all the time. She LUVS milk and literally after eating anything she'll
say, "You just can't not drink milk after that!") we were headed
home. It wasn't too cold but we didn't expect people to want to stop and talk
to us. But this one woman did. Her name is Eva and she is from Peru. She was
soooo sweet. She kept calling us carine and belle and said that we were the
most beautiful nuns she'd ever seen. We explained to her that we weren't nuns,
we were Mormons. She freaked out. OHHH!!! I KNOW SOOOO MANY OF YOU
MORMONS!! Then she tried to set us up in
cheap nun housing... But she also said she wanted to have us come visit her
sometime and teach her more. :) We tried calling her yesterday but her phone was
being weird and she couldn't hear us very well. When she found out who we were
though she was like "oooh care!! ciao! ciao belle! Che carine! Aww come
state!?" And then she was like, "I can't talk now but I'll call you
later." She still hasn't called us and we are hoping that next time she
does her phone will work. Vediamo :) Sweet grandma Eva.
Tainted by
Looks
2/18/15--Tuesday was glorious....The day was so nice 15' C and sunny as
all get out. I have been happy on my mission, but yesterday we were both giddy
at the fact that we didn't have to wear scarves and gloves and button up our
coats. Something about the sun man.... Also it was funny, on our way back to
our apartment at night we stopped this lady who was really nice but she said, "I
think missionaries should be less pretty. So that your message of God isn't
tainted by your looks." We had a good laugh about that. She was nice
though :) We love her.
That is about all for this week. My spirits are reasonably high despite
the lack of visible success.
Number
Theory
2/24/15--Okay, so this week was
pretty...it was alright. Just normal. No crazy miracles, no awful days.
Thursday was the zone conference and it was a little hard because they were
pounding the numbers theory hard. "Why do you think church headquarters
sends us these graphs and charts and numbers if it isn't important? Do you
think numbers aren't important to the president of the church?" hehe...well
no not exactly.... So that was kind of hard to hear for us. We felt slightly
guilty about hating numbers and loving people. We were like, okay. No more
love. Just numbers. But yeah. And then they were like, "If you have enough
faith, you WILL get into houses buzzing apartment buildings. And so Friday,
after a fallen through appointment, we decided to give it a whirl. And I even
had faith. I was like, "Hey. We are doing casa, we have faith, Pres said
we'd get in. And so we did casa. And we asked inspired questions and tried to
love the people and we got shut down and hung up on and this one guy even did
this Italian thing where they mime brushing dirt off their hands and then threw
his arms up and walked away. We were like, whatever. And then we went to the
next house and he came running out with his wife and they were like "Siete stupide! You're stupid! Don't
bother them!! Get out of here!" We were like, geeeez. chill. schialla. calmatevi. And then we went
down the street and started another. He was rude. I don't have Christ-like love
for everyone in Italy. I think that's the only time on my mission so far that I've
been driven out of somewhere. Anyway, we kept going. With faith even. And then
we had to catch our bus and it was really anticlimactic because...well, 'cause
it didn't work. What I don't know is what we did wrong. I am pretty sure we didn't
do anything wrong and so now I'm like, what are these promises at zone
conferences? Do they even mean anything or are they just ploys to get
missionaries out doing casa. wtvr.
God is
Great
2/24/15--Saturday we went to a baptism
in our ward for an 8-year-old boy. It was probably the most beautiful baptism I've
seen. His dad baptized him and his dad has some sort of disease where his
muscles are slowly deteriorating. so it is really hard for him to walk and talk
and eat and everything. But he was the one that baptized his son. And...well,
this is what I wrote in my journal. "His imperfections are very visible,
but as Michael said in his homecoming talk, we are all prodigals. We are all
pretty dang messed up in some way or the other. Except for maybe Mom. But
everyone has a crucible, whether it is mental, emotional, spiritual, physical,
we are all very imperfect. And yet God accepts all of our meager offerings and
even allows us to take part in and perform celestial work. He allows imperfect Sarah
to represent His perfect Son. What even is this? As he struggled to form the
words of the baptismal prayer, tears came to my eyes as I thought of the simple
words of my Ivory Coast brother from a few weeks ago, 'God is great.'"
Aida
3/4/15--We saw Aida and that may've
been the best four hours of my life up to this point. It was amazing...but...mamma
mia....Seriously though, after waiting in line all day I was like, man I hope
this is going to be worth it. Let me just say I would stand in line for three
days to have that experience again. Our seats were up in the galleria in the
second of two rows. I was standing up and hanging on the bar so I could lean
over and see the stage the whole four hours but it was so worth it. And the
other sorelle really loved it too. Like a lot. We were all in awe. I think even
the most pessimistic opera hater would have a hard time not enjoying an opera
at La Scala. And at only 15 euro? Ya kiddin? We had fun people-watching the old
guys with blonde young models in the box seats until the overture started. And
once it did...I honestly started crying a little just because I was feeling melancholy
about last time I saw an opera with Dad and I knew he was with me in spirit in
the opera house :)
Everyone's voices were amazing but
honestly Amneris took the cake by a long shot. Her voice....I just can't even. She
opened her mouth and the huge cavern was just filled with so much noise I thought
the building would pop. Her aria she sings after Radames is sentenced to death
was freaking crazy. She was pitiful and formidable and crazy and you could tell
that she had just lost it. And the last scene. Okay, so the stage had three
layers. The bottom third showed Radames and Aida in the tomb. The top third
showed all the priests in white and the golden god they were singing to. And in
the middle, there was a giant golden stone resting over the entrance into the
tomb below. The priest were singing their Fthà song, Radames and Aida were
dying slowly in their tomb singing about the veil of tears that would be lifted
in the next life, and then about five minutes in, Amneris, who was the only
character with a costume that changed colors, from innocent pink, to passionate
red, and now, she stumbled onto the middle third of the stage decked out in
black with a long black mourning veil over her face. She sings her own goodbye
to Radames as she sits on the golden stone. She sings her final line as she
cuts her wrists and the golden stone becomes covered in her blood. Radames and
Aida bend slowly over each other into death in each other's arms, and Amneris
slumps down on the red stained golden rock in her black dress. All three die as
the white garbed priest sing out their final chant "ti invociam" ("we call upon you/invoke you") and the
curtains dropped. My jaw was just...I couldn't even. I didn't clap for a solid
minute cause I was just so shocked. It was seriously amazing. And the whole
thing was made better by the fact that I could understand a lot of the
subtitles in Italian and that after the better numbers people would call out bravo or brava and it was so Italian :)
Also, on the way home we were talking
to this woman on the metro and she did the blood for Amneris for the last
scene. Apparently she wore metal bracelets and cut these blood filled tubes
with a real knife. That was kind of a cool happenstance.
Transfer
News
3/4/15-- Also Transfer news! Sorella
Gillespie is going to Mestre (just outside of Venezia) to be STL over in the
east and I am staying here with Sorella Yonk who is just six weeks more
experienced than I...so that will be fun. We are both very green.
Veronica
3/4/15--Thursday we had two member
present lessons. The work is actually picking up this week. We have a few
strong potentials. One of them is Veronica. She is probably 43 and from South America
somewhere. She is so sweet and has had contact with the Church in the past but
her husband didn't want anything to do with it. They are going through a
divorce right now and she is turning back to her friends in the church for
support. Which includes us! So we had a good lesson with her last time. We just
shared a spiritual thought and then she came to church and we are going to
hopefully see her sometime this week with my new comp. Transfer week is kind of
crazy, though. We'll see.
A
Second Stomach
3/4/15--Then we went to a member's
house and her fiancé was there so we got to share another spiritual thought
with him. Then they made us dinner and we could stay because non-member. But
the meal turned out to be a miracle for me. Here is why. The first course (you're
probably thinking, oh, I know where this is going. yes. yes you do.) was this
really yummy rice stew stuff. She gave Andrea (her fiancé who is not a scrawny
guy to say the least) 3 scoops then took my bowl and gave me four HUGE
OVERFLOWING scoops. Gives her teenage son Richard one and Sorella G and herself
2. I'm sitting there thinking, "How am I going to eat this?" then SG
leans over to me and whispers "How are you going to eat that?" I said
a prayer and went to town. My strategy was to eat it fast and regret it later. That
was easier said than done because it was so so hot. So then I just ate every
bite praying I would grow a second stomach. And I did. And I still don't get
it. Then she brought out the chicken and potatoes and gave me a piece of
chicken the size of my foot. Again, I prayed, this time to grow a third stomach.
Also, that I would be able to keep all the meat down cause it's still a little
hard in that arena. And I ate it all. With only a few setbacks. First, it
smelled delicious and then it was just chicken. And chicken is bland. Even when
Sorella G was raving that it was the most delicious chicken she'd ever had. I just
don't get why people like it. wtvr. I ate it. Second set back--being a vegetarian,
and never having eaten chicken not in little bite sized pieces battered and
deep fried in a red cup marked "Wendy's chicken nuggets," I had no
idea how to go about eating the chicken with the bones and skin and everything.
Are you supposed to eat skin? Cause that is nasty. I had no idea what I was
doing so I just started tearing off flesh from the bone with my knife and fork
and eating the not disgusting but not delicious chicken. I think, still not
sure, but I think I ended up stuffing a huge piece of fat in my mouth. I didn't
think it would be kosher to spit out food I was given so I prayed again that I could
swallow and I did! Whew. You think dinner is over after those two courses?
THINK AGAIN :D She
brought out potatoes and gave me six half potatoes. For those of you who struggle
with math, that is three potatoes. They were the best potatoes I've ever eaten
but I still don't get why people think I can eat this much. I mean, I guess I've
proven I can but...geez. Look at me. I don't think I look like a line backer. Then
onto dessert. Jello. Yum. Oooooo I'm American and I LOOOOVE Jello. My fav. It
was hard to get all that cow gelatin down and then I was like. Phew. Dinner is
over. Hahaha. Dessert part two. Huge slices of cake. After the cake I didn't
know if I could not throw up. But I made it all the way home, went to sleep. Woke
up with a stomach ache and didn't eat breakfast or lunch that day. I have never
in all my life eaten that much. Not at Thanksgiving, not even at Bombay House. Prayer
is real. I don't know how I did it, and neither does Slla Gillespie. I'm a
living miracle.
Waiting
on the Lord
3/4/15--Sunday was Sorella Gillespie's
last day at church. Lots of pictures, lots of goodbyes. People love her. She
shared her testimony about faith and about what she has learned in Lodi about
waiting on the Lord. And I started crying because, 1) I'm me, 2) I love Sorella
Gillespie and I'm sad she's leaving, and 3) I'm worried that I have six more
weeks of having faith and waiting to do. Which is harder than six more weeks of
faith and results. But we'll see. Maybe some of these potentials will pull
through. ...I'm praying that Sorella Yonk will be chill and that if she isn't,
I will be chill enough and that at least she will be happy here and excited
about the work. I've also been praying for my language that it will be good enough
to keep Lodi up and running.
Much love from beautiful Lodi,
Sorella Sarah
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