Il momento clou della mia settimana sta leggendo le mie figlie blog! BUONA!

Ciao!  :D  

What to say?  This week was fantastic!  :D  It was a little rough, but great all the same.  We were able to do quite a bit of work in Chieti, and we met with Sorella Ricci and Slla Ciccone who are really nice, and they want to help us with the missionary work in Christ so that we can get it going and get the group started up there.  We are really excited from all of the help members are offering us.  Our investigators' progress has been really slow lately, however, because either 1- they are not answering our phone calls or 2- they don’t want to make progress... Oh well, though.  I suppose that gives us room for a brand new start!  Which is really good!  Of course we will still try to help the investigators we have, but I think some of them just need a little more time to ponder.  

AND!  Haha, okay, we had the most hilarious day of our lives the other day because it was just a complete and utter failure...  Okay, so we begin the day planning which ex-investigators without a phone number we want to see, and we found them all on the map.  We then went out into the world to make our plans reality when I suddenly realize that the info that Missionaries wrote in the past was not as specific or accurate as I would have liked it to be.  Soo, we went out to Francavilla, looking for this lady on a street that didn't exist, following the instructions that missionaries from the past wrote, "Get off at the bus stop at the School.  Her house is a five minute walk from the stop above a restaurant."  So, there were 2 restaurants at about a 1 minute walk away and none anywhere else.  It was then that Sorella Kippen said, "Okay, what pace were those missionaries walking?  Because if this is the restaurant, then they must've been some really out of shape missionaries!" We  discovered that her house was nowhere to be found (hey, at least we found the school!) and we laughed it off as we headed back to Pescara. (This is important: on the way to the bus, Sorella Kipper found a surf-board wax!) We get on the bus, and Sister Kippen and I sit apart from each other so as to talk to more people.  THEN, the Testimoni di Geova get on the bus (usually they approach us and give us a really hard time... )  I was scared out of my mind, alone, trying to look in the other direction, when this really skinny, tall man with a beard and glasses says in English, "Hey, Sister, do ya think you could scoot over one seat so I can hang onto my suitcase?"  What?!  English!  I move seats and he responds "good girl."  It was then that this man started a conversation with me, telling me that he lived in Florida for a long time and he learned English there and in Southern California (you could tell because he said "yeah man" every other word!)  And he even met the missionaries in the past!  It was particularly cool because he looked over at the TJs and said, "they probably give you a hard time, huh?  Well, let me at 'em I'll take them!"  This man was easily one of the most charismatic people I have met in my entire life!  It was so fun.  We were only able to leave him with a biglietto though because he was on his way to Paris where he will live there for a few months.  (PS- Charismatic guy was also a doctor in Anthropology and spoke 3 other languages! So cool!)

Then, Sorella Kippen and I go back to Pescara, looking for the 2nd address we had written down.  I was looking at the map and Sorella Kippen was pondering, helping me plan out where to go, while waxing the concrete bench she was sitting on with her surf board wax.  And (we both laughed the rest of the day after this) as I was ready to go, I said in a sarcastic/joking tone of voice, "Hey, Sister Kippen.... You wanna go find this address or do you want to keep waxing that piece of concrete there?"  Neither of us knows why, but it was soooo funny!  We have laughed about it every day since as well!  It's hard to convey all of what happened through e-mail, but it was hilarious.

POI! One of my other favorite experiences this week was yesterday when we were able to meet with Shake and Matt (our friends from Senegal) and share an English lesson with them!  We brought the new Anziani and included them as much as possible so that we could pass our friends off to the Anziani who have close to nobody to teach.  It was a really cool experience because, on the way to the appointment, we met three people who we could potentially teach in the future! I really think that Heavenly Father knew that we would be passing our friends to the Anziani, and He wanted to give us more buddies who we could share the gospel message with in the future!  :D  Communiqué, though this week was a fail in some ways, we were able to laugh through it all, and to learn from our hard experiences.  Lol, I really love being companions with Sorella Kippen!  XD  There is never a dull moment.  I love you all, and I hope that you all have a fantastic week!  :D

Love, 

Sorella Cherrington

The area in Italy where Corey is serving right now.

Looks like Nutella, hazelnuts, ice cream and some fruit.  YUM!

Train Station in Chieti, Italy

A Church?  

Admission acceptance line up left?  Hmmmm.   

To the Fallen of the Air Monument on the beach.  

Cool surfboard sign

Another cool surfboard sign 

Francavilla

They found Nemo! He wasn't in Australia, he's in Francavilla, Italy!  Of course!   

Beach in Frankavilla

Beach in Frankavilla

Berardenelli Linens Store ahead!  

Montesilvano

Goodbye!  

Montesilvano Mountains in background

Double Double Savings Sale!!  

Use your imagination on this one!!

To the fallen of the air.  The propeller is pictured above.  This is on a beach in Francavilla

School they found when trying to locate someone.  I hope they were able to have some fun and ride the camel!!!

Siamo stati benedetti con più suore e gli anziani!

Questa settimana è stata pieno di lavoro e miracoli!  :D  We got the new sisters, Sorella Pace from Roma 3, and Sorella Margheriti, a really sweet greenie from Spezia (I think that's how you spell it) near Pisa in the North.  The Vescovo here knows her family already too, so that was cool that she already had that connection.  I really like having the new sisters and elders here!  There are 8 of us now, and we are ready to do this!  We have so much work to do, and we were assigned different parts of the Zona to work in (We have CHIETI, and the cities south of the river, and the other Sorelle have everything North of the River (Same division with the Anziani as well, and the Anziani we served with last transfer are assigned to Chieti with us, so that should be fun :).  

I really love Chieti, and Vescovo (he is SO cool!) told us that, depending on the work we do, and if we see success this transfer, he will ask to put missionaries in Chieti and start a small group there, like how w are doing in Ascoli!  It is really awesome, because I feel like President Waddoups is like the general and Vescovo Conforte is President Waddoups' trusty Captain.  We have a strategy, and we are starting brand new work, and I am sooo excited because we have a sack of finding to do!  :D  

Me and Sister Kippen saw several miracles with that this week.  First of all, after we went by Sorella G's parents, we were able to do some bus finding on the way home.  Annd... 

1- We ran into a contact I made when I was with Sorella Jackson a couple weeks back and he gave us his number and said he wants to talk with us!  (We are hoping to introduce him to the Anziani of Chieti!)

2- I started out on the bus next to Sorella Kippen, told her "Hey, I'm going to go over here to try to talk to someone" Went to a new seat, couldn't find anyone, and I looked over at this man in funny yellow pants and a very particular black hat.  I had a feeling to go talk to him, so I went back with Sorella Kippen, told her, "I know this is awkward, but I gotta talk to that guy!" Talked to him, he tried to tell us we are not Christian, but then I explained to him that we are Christians!  He asked me if I had a Bible, I pulled it out (lesson learned-always carry a Bible!), he read it for a while, and was a bit duro, but we were able to get his phone number, and we will be taking a member to his house as soon as we can so we can give him answers to all  the questions he was asking!  :D

3- We invited these two nice girls to English course, and they started asking us questions about the Church, and we ended up teaching the Restoration on the bus for the 2nd time in that night!  It was sooo cool. :)

Guys, it is so cool though because, when this all happened, I kept getting feelings as to what I should do next.  It feels like I just had some "Liquid Luck", like from Harry Potter!  ;)  I am realizing my talents in the mission and that finding is my specialty.  

ALSO!  We had this really cool pranzo yesterday at Eva's house (one of our Simps) and we were able to teach them the Restoration, and her husband finally sat in on the lesson!  He is usually really adamant about leaving when we get there, but he stayed this time!  :D  Not to mention, it was SO fun and funny!  Our friend, Antonio,. wore his grandma's (Eva) dress to serve us all at first, and he wore it for the rest of Pranzo!  The entire Pranzo was hilarious, and we joked for a while that I am Abruzzese, and that I speak the Abruzzi dialetto.  Antonio then quizzed me to see if I was true Abruzzese, and asked me, "What is the one word in Abruzzese that just explains everything, including indifference, contentment, etc."  Obviously I failed because I am not, indeed, Abruzzese, and he told us the word: "frigate" (idk if I spelled it right).  Lol, he told us, however, "Dont use that in a talk or anything though!"  Lol, it was cool to learn some Abruzzese words!

Also!  I gave a talk in church yesterday!  I really enjoyed it because I got to talk about missionary work (the whole sacrament meeting was centered on lavoro missionario), and I felt like it went so smootghly because of the suggerimenti dello Spirito Santo!  Che forte!  Uau, you guys, it was sooo cool!  Annnnd, one of my favorite quotes that I used from Preach my gospel, from a Prophet who said, "Lavoro missionario is simply love in action" (più o meno, that is the quote :).  I will remember that quote for the rest of my mission and the rest of my life because I want to always put my love for all of God's children into action, offering those I meet to either reject this glad message or accept it.  Life lesson learned: don't be afraid to share "the reason for the happiness that is in you" as the scripture say.  (1 Peter 3:15?)

So, just one more cool experience, then I have to go for this week.  :)

Last night, as we were returning home on the bus, I got to sit next to this nice lady and her daughter (they were from Nigeria :)  we talked for a bit, and they told me that they are shoe vendors by the station in Pescara.  The little girl, Daniella had a piece of cardboard that she was playing with, and I asked her if I could draw on it for her.  She said, "Sì!", asked me to draw sharks, the sea, rainbows, a sun, and many other fun things.  :)  I left them with a biglietto of the temple, and the little girl said, "Uau, is that a castle?!"  I said, "That is a temple!"  It was just a really fun experience for me.  :)  Love you, guys!  Have an awesome week!  :D

Vi voglio benissimo!  :D, 

Sorella Corey Cherrington

Oh, a servire nella vigna del Signore ..... le parole non possono dire i sentimenti

Hello, everyone!  :D  I have soooo many miracles to share this week!  So...

First off, we have been seeing so much success with our investigators and we even were able to set a baptismal date with a really solid family that has been taking the lessons for quite some time! The husband is 100% certain of this decision, but the wife is a bit apprehensive because she does not want to send double messages to her children who are taking Catechism and are getting ready for 1st communion. We promised her, however, that if she keeps the commitments we left, she will reel ready for her baptismal date, and she will have grown a testimony of her own!  We have to do lots of follow up with them, but we are really excited!  :D

We also did a scambio this week, and it went really well!  :D  It’s just that, that day takes the cake for the "most cancelled appointments in one day" day for my entire mission!  Literally everything went... well, not according to plan.  Everyone was telling us "Call me an hour before, and we'll see!"  Ends up that these people could not, indeed meet, so I ended up doing strada all the day long, first with Sorella Jackson and then with Sorella Vincent.  It was okay though because I love doing strada!  :D  It is one of my favorite forms of finding ever!  Lol, the other missionaries here think I'm a bit off because I love finding and that is not normal apparently!  Haha, it is actually one of my favorite things to do on the mission.  

So, after our most cancelled day ever, Sorella Kippen and I had an AMAZING day that just went right.  I LOVE those days.  We first went to our appointment with Luisa ....  PAUSE I have to tell you the story of how we found her!  So, at the beginning of the transfer, I had a feeling to go see her because she was written down on the former Sorelle's white board.  I asked the one Sorella who had been there for a bit, "Where does she live, we should go see her!"  This Sorella said, "Oh, my past comp said she lives too far away; probably a couple hours, so we should probably put her on the bottom of the list.  My mind said, "Okay, probably" but the Spirit was telling me, "Nope, you have to see her at least once this transfer."  The Spirit was right.

When I went exploring in the Area book that day last week, I found an old Schieda for Luisa and her husband, who was an ex-simp with three inactive sisters who live in the same area.  WOW!  I KNEW at that point that I had to call them and set an appointment.  And again, the feeling was right.  We went to their house and talked to them for a while, and it ends up that Luisa really wants to get back to church, WITH her 3 sisters  in law, and she wants very much for her husband to be baptized!  We taught him the Restoration, and he agreed to take the lessons from us!  :D  They are one of our favorite families that we have ever met! Especially because they have awesome kids too who love us!  :D   They are also from the Dominican Republic, and Luisa reminds me soooooo much of one of my bff's back home, Jenesis D.  :)  WOW!  They are great!  And, they don't even live that far away!  Only about 30 min by train and they have offered to pick us up from the station!  That is really not bad at all!  We hope to see them at least once a week in the coming transfer!  :D

THEN is when we went over to the family D's house (the fam di cui ho parlato al'inizio :)  Where the famiglia Favilli came with us and we had such a great lesson together.  WOW!  :D  Mass.  said he knows for a fact that the church is true, and there is no other possible option for him because he knows.  The Favillis were such a big help too! And, without them, we could not have done it.  Wow, the Lord is blessing us sooo much! 

Other than that, we were able to do a really cool service project today for Sorella G's brother who needed some help cleaning the leaves around his house (Haha, Dad you know I've had a bit of experience with that!  I made sure his porch was California-suburb clean, like Ripon, you know!  ;D  I loved it sooo much!)  Sorella G made this really awesome pranzo for us too, and we got to see the Mellone famiglia again, and it was all sooooo much fun!  

Well, I wish I could write more, but I am out of time for this week!  Love you, guys!

Vi voglio bene,

Sorella Cherrington

Felice Anno Nuovo! L'opera ispirata deve andare avanti!

Hey, Ma!  I totally agree!  I would feel sooo much better every week if we got to Skype.  Because I think the more distracting thing about it all was that, after, I was thinking about how I wouldn't get to Skype you all for a bel po' di tempo...  BUT I am really grateful that we get to talk again soon!  And that the next call I make will split the next part of my mission in halves (if that makes sense... lol)  Because I get to talk to you guys in 5 months, and in 5 more months, I AM HOME FREE BABY!  XD  Lol, I am excited to see you guys!  :D  And thank you, Andy, for your awesome Facebook status note!  (Mom told me about it! ;D) And that is so awesome that you guys had such a great Christmas! :D  I had a really good Christmas too; I think I told you guys all about it already though.  We got to go to the Giusti's house, and eat pranzo with them.  There, we sat at the "Kids table" ;) with Naomi and Mckayla Mellone!  (Mikayla is leaving for her missioin to the SLC Temple Square Mission in the next couple of weeks.)  It was soooo much fun!  We love the Giustis and their family and the Mellones so much!  

Also, we got to watch 2 movies for Christmas, Princess and the Frog and Cativissimo Me 2 (Despicable Me 2). It was lots of fun to be able to watch our movies for Christmas!  And it was really cool because we got to watch Princess and the Frog on the projector at the church!  It was really nice.  Annnd the day before Christmas, we got to go over to the Colella's house with the Anziani.  We got to share a bunch of cool Girls-camp-type games with Sara and her family, and everybody had a blast!  We loved it so much!  And it was kind of funny because me and Lorenzo just couldn't get the cup passing game down, so we had to give up mid-game and just pass the cups in a non-elaborate manner.  Haha...  Also, Sara's uncle, who is not a member had fun being with us all and even stayed for the spiritual thought!  Fratello Colella said it was a miracle that he stayed for it!!  And, at the end, the Uncle accepted a Book of Mormon, said he liked what we read, and that he would try to read very soon!  We are so excited for him!  He is a really nice guy.

Also, this week, we saw a day of Miracles.  Sinceramente, every day on the mission, there are many miracles that occur, but this day was just one of those days that just went right.  It was so directed by the Spirit that we knew just what to do and when to do it.  The story of this day starts like this:

The day before, I did a sack-load of Area Book finding because we had no appointments because all of our usual Simpatizzanti can’t see us until January, or after the 6th of January...  Well, I was doing this area book stuff, and I found literally a stack of papers of people who are still interested in the Gospel, but the missionaries had not been able to go out and see them for years in some cases.  Well, I found and called a bunch of potential people, and I felt so guided by the Holy Ghost.  I had no desire to do anything else in this time, but find these people in the area book.  It came to a point when I grew tired of calling and researching, when I had decided to stop for the night (it was around 8 or 8.30).  But then, I had a feeling that I needed to keep going.  I followed that feeling and continued in the area book.  I then pulled out a Schieda for a lady who the Sorelle found probably 3 or 4 years ago.  They had stopped teaching her because it was hard to set up appointments with her and the lady lives half time in a house in the mountains.  Otherwise, she seemed very interested, so I called then and there.  The lady answered the phone, and we talked for a little, when she said, "Why don't you guys come over tomorrow?" ...  :O ...  Could this be?!  YES!  Wow!  What a miracle! The next day, we went to her house with Sara Colella and we talked about the Gospel, mainly the Restoration.  The lady told us that she had tried to read the book of Mormon in the past, but lacked a teacher; someone to help her understand better.  WOW!! That would be us!  We then invited her to take the lessons, and she agreed!  Heavenly Father really directs His missionaries to those who are ready for the gospel!  

Then, after seeing our lovely new friend, we went with the awesome Sara Colella to go see Fllo. G's mom, E...  She is so delightful!  :D  And she wants to accept the Gospel and to learn more.  We are very excited to go through the lessons with her as well! Her only hold back is that her husband does not want to listen to us yet.  In the near future though!  I know the Lord will soften his heart.  

Then, we went up to Chieti Alto (So beautiful!), still with Sara :) and we did a sort of get to know you lesson with Slla. G's parents.  Uau!  It went soooo well!  They said that they are sooo interested, accepted the invite to take the missionary lessons, and they are such good, kind, honest people!  They feel like family and we have just barely met them!  Wow, the miracles this week, you guys.  Heavenly Father has blessed us so much.

I truly love these people here. I mean, it is not easy peasy lemon squeasy to be a missionary- it is hard work, and it is really a 24/7 job.  But I am so thankful for my mission, and sometimes I feel like I never want to leave, like I never want to stop being a missionary.  Which I won't!  Maybe someday, I will have to take off my missionary tag, but, like the Apostle said one time, I will always wear the tag on my heart.  Always. I know now how I could have been helping the missionaries at home, and how I could have been a better member missionary.  And I know that the process of teaching people and helping them come unto Christ is not really as difficult and painful as I thought it would be in the past.  I love you guys, and I hope that you all have a fantastic week this week!  :D  Merry Christmas, and a super happy new year!  

Love, 

Sorella Corey Cherrington