Servire il Signore con fedeltà e perseveranza sino alla fine

Hello Everyone!  :D  So, with all the pictures I am sending, here is a story from this week:

Last night, we had to wait at the bus stop for a bell po' di tempo.  As we were waiting, a Russian woman came up to us and asked us if we had a lighter for her cigarette.  I answered, "No, we don’t have lighters for cigarettes perché non fumiamo!  Invece, usiamo il nostro tempo per insegnare un corso d'ingelse gratuito!  :D"  She then proceeded to tell us that she lives in a hotel, was "taken" from her hometown in B..... Russia where these people sent her to Romania and gave her a Romanian passport.  It was incredibly sad, and she began to cry.  I tried to help her, but I just couldn’t think of anything, so I shared my testimony of the happiness of the gospel with her.  She took an opuscolo and said that she loves Gesù, but she said that prayer is only for church and for Sundays.  (She is Orthodox, and probably recites wrote prayers for the most part).  She continued to tell us how sad, hungry, cold, and troubled she was, and she said, "Can you do anything per me?"  I was so sad because I knew we couldn’t do anything else for her.  Then, I felt, literally felt, a wave of the love of Jesus Christ for her pass through me, and I grabbed her hand as I began to cry.  (We were sitting on the bench at the bus stop as she stood in front of us, talking to us all.)  I said, "I am so sorry, I wish there was something I could do.  I am so sorry."  As she was crying, she took my hand up to her face and kissed it.  She then kissed my cheeks and said, "I feel like you are a sister to me, like you are my Sister."  (Also, before this, she threw her cigarette aside, and said she didn't want to smoke anymore.)  I just felt so much love for her, and I did not have any way to help.  

But then, she got more sad and desperate and continually asked us to take her to America with us.  It got to a point where we were getting a bit scared and I was about to call Vescovo (Bishop) to pick us up when our bus came.  I felt so betrayed, so powerless, and so... I can’t even explain the feeling that came over me. The world is so messed up and people like her, with so much potential as a daughter or son of God, suffer as a result.  I hope to make a difference with this someday, and to help ease the suffering of people who have nothing or close to nothing.  We see people like that every day, and this situation turns good people into someone they are not. I don’t think Heavenly Father intended for anyone to live this way.   

Altrimenti, now I have to share a happier story with you all.  Our awesome progressing investigator, Adamo taught the lesson in Principi this past week, and he did so well!  :D  So many of so in the ward are working with him to get him closer and closer to battesimo; including his awesome wife, Emanuela, Fratello Giusti, and many many others.  We did a lesson the other night at his house, using the "Gioisca il Mondo" film (I invite you all to share this film with you friends and famiglia!  :D Si chiama "Joy to the World" in English."  It went really well, and we were able to strike up a conversation about the Gospel existing in the Ancient Americas.  Long story short, we were able to answer a lot of the questions that he has had for quite some time, and we offered to help him out with his lesson plan that day.  It was a really nice experience, and I look forward to seeing Adamo and his family again very soon.  :)

Other than that, I love Pescara, the people in the ward here, and I love talking about the Gospel and talking to so many new people every day.  I know that we will have much success here because the Lord is on our side.  Buona settimana, tutti!  :D

Love,

Sorella Cherrington

Self explanitory.....The Plan of Salvation

Seriously, the three musketeers!!!

More Selfies of us!! 

A building of unknow origin? 

A really cool collection of pocket watches!

Sisters and Elders of the Pescara Ward?  One Member?

SISSA - What Corey's litter brother called her when they were little.

One delicious looking waffle chocolate heaven!!

Experimenting with mirrors!!

Experimenting with pictures and mirrors????

Yummy looking Candy!!

Corey's has a VW at home too!!

Una vita di miracoli in soli 18 mesi!

Sooo, I have sooo many fun stories to share this week!  First of all, we went to Zone conference (for which I had to return right back to Roma 3 days after I left!).  It was really fun and kind of crazy!  So, we arrive in Roma after a 3 hour bus ride, and we decided to go get something to eat at the "Chicken Hut" (lol).  On the way there, we made a new friend named Aziz who invited us to his African musical performance!  So cool!  We got a biglietto from him and everything.  He also gave us free bracelets.  There was also a cool band that we met on the bus on the way to the Roma 2 Sorelle appartment.  I HAD to talk to them because 1- they were speaking English on the bus and 2- they were a total vision from the 70s!  They were soooo cool!  :D  Their band is called "Simeon Soul Charger" and they play "psychedelic" music, according to what one of the band members told me.  I seriously felt like I was in the 70s!  We gave them a biglietto and told them a bit about what we are doing here in Italia for a whole year and a half, and they thought it was really cool!  I hope they check out our sito internet on the biglietto!  :D

Also, I really enjoyed Zone Coneference because the addestramenti were fantastic, I got to hear all about Sorella Foster's 13 turtles that she has at home (SOOOO COOOL!  XD) and I got to conduct the music for the Nativity play that Presidente and Sorella Waddoups put together for us to act out.  It was quite fun :).  We had to rush home from Zone Conference though, because we had and English Course party that night for all of the "graduating" students (we give them a nice certificate of participation after 12 weeks :).  It was SO fun!  :D  We were able to lead the English course students in some funny American games that we knew, and we did Karaoke!  OH!  So, with the karaoke, nobody wanted to sing at first.  It was then that a memory of Sister Omer and I singing YMCA popped into my mind and I just thought, "Yes, that is what we need to do!"  So, I told the other Sorelle "Let's go sing YMCA!"  :D  So, we did, it was a blast and then a bunch of English course students and their friends and members began going up to sing.  It was really great!  I really like making people feel more comfortable by being a bit goofy myself.  :)

Other than that, we are having success with getting to know all of the simpatizzanti of the other Sorelle because the ward is so fantastic, and asks us about all these investigators!  It is unreal how good this ward is!  And yesterday, we did correlation at Fratello Giusti's house, and he told us all about what we should do to contact the comps of the other Sorelle, what we should do to try to serve these people, and etc etc.  Fratello Giusti and Sorella Giusti are the coolest!  They are both musicians (Fratello Giusti is pretty ben noto, from what I hear (Nicola Giusti), have taught workshops for Opera at BYU, and have met a whole bunch of famous people!  Their son writes music too and they say that the EFY album people have asked their son to make 2 songs for the next EFY CD!  How cool!  :D  We love the Giustis soooooo much!  And their dogs!  One dog is kind of...angry...  It lashes out in doggy fury when one tries to pet it...  The dog has no teeth and is tiny, so I feel a bit sorry for it... But it is really funny because it likes it when Fratello Giusti rocks it back and forth.  :)  So funny!  And they have a really cool conversion story.  

Also, we had a baptism this week- the baptism of Gianni D.  He is a fantastic person and he thinks my California-isms are hilarious!  It is funny how everybody here knows about California and they think my California-cultural differences are funny.  :D  Haha, I love it.  The baptism was really beautiful and me, Sorelle Worsham and Kippen did a musical number together!  We sang "I believe in Christ" (Credo in te, Gesù) and it was a beautiful experience.  I even got to sing a verse all by myself!  My favorite thing about it though was that I got really nervous before-hand and was totally expecting myself to mess up and that my voice would do like it did in high school when I sang and got nervous, and would go up way too high and squeaky.  Ma, non era così!  I prayed a BUNCH beforehand and I talked to Sister Worsham.  She told me, "Just replace the nervous thoughts with good thoughts like 'Confident, awesome, Spirit'.  Let me tell you, it worked 100% and I experienced the first time ever where I sang, using my natural voice, and it was so nice! It was literally a miracle.  And afterwards, people were crying and said that they felt the Spirit so much from our song that we all did together.  Such a blessing, this was.

 And, I cannot forget this one!  So, the other day, after we helped this nice lady named Angela to clean her house from the flood damage, we got a call from Carlos, our awesome buddy from our ward who is blind.  He asked us to take him to his friend's tabaccheria from the bus station, so we headed over there and did just that.  Carlos is soooo funny!  And it really took our mind off of the cold to hear his funny stories and jokes.  He also thinks that my California-isms are really funny!  So, we went to the Tabaccheria where we waited with Carlos for his friend to finish work so she could drive us all home.  I then started to look around the shop, and I saw the "Bacci's" di "Perugia", and I just felt that I had to get one for everybody.  I went to purchase the 6 candies and Carlos' friend, Sara, let me buy them for more than 70% off!  It was really nice of her.  :)  I then proceeded to give a "Baccio" candy to each of my companions, one to Carlos, one to Sara and one to this nice lady on the way out.  We had a good laugh from what the fortunes inside said, and Carlos said he was really thankful for the candy.  It is one of my favorite experiences that I have had on my mission.  

Well, that is all I have for now, tutti!  Vi voglio bene, e parliamo di nuovo questa prossima settimana!  

-Sorella Cherrington

When in Italy, you must speak Italian!!

Hello Famiglia Mia!  

I am soooo happy to be writing you all this week!  :D  My last week in Ostia was really fantastic and I got to see some of my favorite people in the world before I left.  I was really sad to leave really good friends like Teresa, Roxana, Alexandra, Fabrizio...  EVERYONE!  I just miss them all.  I am really excited to get pictures of Alexandra's baptism fra poco as well.  

So, a few words on Pescara...

It is so clean!  Uau!  And there are sooo many red heads there...  Who are Italiani.  It is soooo cool!  There are a few different parts of Italy where there are Red heads and I guess Pescara is one of them.  It is a really cool place to be especially because of the ward.  All of the members are sooo fantastic and they just love the missionaries.  There is one huge family- the Boscos.  There are so many Fratello and Sorella Boscos that it blows my mind!  Haha, they are really fantastic.  

And Vescovo Conforte... Oh my holy cow.  He is fantastic!  He was a mission President twice and he is really big on missionary work.  He gave us some really great advice that I will definitely take.  He told us that a general authority came to the Padova mission when he was the President there, and the General authority said, "There is too much English speaking going on in this mission.  You must encourage the missionaries to speak Italian."  Vescovo Conforte said that he followed this advice and the success in their mission increased greatly just from that.  I believe that doing this could work now, and I am going to try it.  I will officially be speaking more Italian these days, because I know it will make people around me feel comfortable as a result.  I really love this language, and I love the culture here.  I just love Italia!  :D

And there are lots of African people there too.  They are really nice, and I enjoy talking to them on the bus.  I really like talking to everyone on the bus!  :D  The busses we take in Pescara are a very distinctive green color on the inside and I call them the "Magic Buses" because I always meet a nice friend on them!  :D  Haha, the other day, I had a fun conversation that went as follows:

Me: Hello!  Sir, I like your hat!  (It was a type of furry top hat)

L'uomo: Grazie

Me: So, where are you coming from tonight?  

Him: A Jehova's Witness meeting

...

Me: Oh!  Well, did you like it?!

Him: Yes I did.  

(He then proceeds to explain the meeting a bit)

Me:So I hear your Bible is a bit different.  How so?

Him: Oh, I can show you; I have my personal Bible right here!

(He pulls out a rather large Testimoni di Geova Bibbia and an info book on why the Bible for his religion is diversa)

Him: Here, read this!  (He opens up a page in his large bible and in the info book).

I read all of what the nice man asked me to read and tried to do a Book of Mormon and JW Bible swap, but he only really wants to give me the Bible...  Oh well, at least I tried!  And I may be getting a JW Bible pretty soon... I'll keep you updated.  :)  The other missionaries on the Bus got a real kick out of this, and I gave the info book that the man gave me to Anziano B.  He also wants the JW Bible just to study for fun.  This is a really funny place, I really like Pescara. And my magic bus!  ;)  

I really love my companions too!  :D  Sorella Worsham is trying really hard to help me and Sister Kippen get to know the city and she has a really kind heart.  I really love her.  And then there is Sorella Kippen who is wayyyy fun and funny and she makes me laugh a lot.  We were in the MTC together, so it was nice to be able to be together again as companions.  I really love Sorella Kippen as well!  

So, with Sorella Kippen, we have been practicing Italian a lot, and her and I sometimes sit in the back of the Magic bus so we can talk to people together.  We have talked to lots of people from Senegal, and they are really fun! :D  They love basketball, calcio, and Michael Jordan!  Hey, so do we! :D  We are having a lot of fun here, spreading our joy and our joyous message.  :)

Also, because there used to be 4 Sorelle here, we have inherited a sacco di lavoro and have been trying to figure out how to continue teaching people who none of us know....  It is actually quite fun.  I really love it.  

Well, tutti, that is all I have this week!  I hope that you are all doing well, and that you all had a great thanksgiving! (It was kind of fun for us because in Ostia, Sorella Kimball and I made an Apple pie and then the Ostia Anziani made one, and THEN an awesome member in Pescara gave us an apple cake (Soooooo good!) for the holiday.  Three apple pies, you guys!  Love you all. :)

Vi voglio bene!  

Sorella Cherrington