Week 19 - New Companion and Snow

I'm still in Batti! My new companion is Sorella Barnes and she is just the cutest. Funny enough, she started out as a greenie in Battipaglia, and now she's finishing her last transfer in Battipaglia! 

We've had an insane day so that's why this email is so short. Basically what happened was there was a 20 minute snow storm and all of Southern Italy shut down. Imagine headless chickens driving trains and cleaning out the supermarket shelves of pasta like the apocalypse is coming. That's the summary of our day. There are no trains back to Battipaglia, so we'll be headed over to the other sisters house for the night.... 

Attached is a picture of me eating a bella pizza and all the train delays. 

Love you all, pray for the sanity of Southern Italy. 

Sorella Maxfield 

Week 18 - Done with trainig

Hello follow up training/the period where people decide whether or not they can still call you a greenie. We get our transfer calls in T-6 hours, so by the time you read this I'll know if I'm staying in Battipaglia or not, and who my new companion will be! It's incredibly unlikely that I'll do 3 transfers with Sorella Oveson, but it would be amazing if we did. 

This week we took on the roles of missionary, travel agent, attorney, and realtor, all of which I am very underqualified for. First, Sorella Summerhays came back to Battipaglia this week to get her permesso di sogiorno, so we were in charge of making sure her travel plans were arranged and that everything at the questura went according to plan. Then on top of that, we were put in charge of finding a house for a new family moving into our ward from Honduras. Luckily we have a contact who has dedicated her life to service and said not only would she help us find a house, but also stock it with food and clothes. She's a very devoted Catholic woman and I admire her with all my heart. 

Carnivale ended this week with an epic Martedì Grasso. Because of a scambio, I ended up spending my Martedi Grasso in NAPOLI. Where people throw washing machines off their balconies for new years and the teenagers throw eggs and flour at people for Carnivale. We were inside the Napoli church chatting with our potentials for most of the evening, but walking back to the train I was filled with fear that I would be hit by flying pasta ingredients.

We had two amazing miracles this week. First, we found a sweet new investigator from Romania! When Sorella Summerhays came up, we decided to do some trio finding. Fun fact about trio finding: either it works miracles, or you end up accidentally cornering frightened Italian grandmas. We were fortunate enough to have a miracle! This sweet woman opened up to us and we had a great lesson with her the next day. THEN last night we were doing door to door and at the very last name on the citofono a sweet old man let us in. He told us his wife had just died and we shared with him Mosiah 16. He was leaving to Rome but wanted to meet with us when he got back! It's amazing to me that Heavenly Father puts people in our paths who are so ready to hear this message. 

I love you all so much!
Sorella Maxfield 

Week 17 - In Italiano

Questa settimana stiamo facendo un digiuno di inglese. Voglio scrivere di questa esperienza in italiano perché penso che la mia lingua e molto più meglio adesso. Facciamo questo perché volevamo sentire lo spirito più nella lingua italiana. E un po' difficile per me di sentire suggerimenti o di pensare di una cosa spirituale durante una lezione perché questa non è la mia madrelingua. Quindi stiamo provando di parlare più in italiano affinché possiamo sentire lo spirito durante le nostre lezione. 

     ‎Ho pensato tanto questa settimana riguardo come io voglio migliorarmi. A questo momento non sono la missionaria che io voglio essere. Ma sto provando. E proverò per le prossime quattordici mezze! Prima, voglio essere un meglio insegnante. Posso insegnare abbastanza bene in inglese ma in italiano posso migliorarmi tanto. Voglio usare le scritture più nelle lezione. Voglio dire cose che aiutare le persone pensare più dello scopo di questa vita. La problema è che è difficile di sentire una cosa in italiano, tradurre in inglese, pensare di una cosa in inglese, tradurre in italiano, e finalmente, dire in italiano. Non c'è tempo per tutte queste cose! Per questo, devo provare di pensare in italiano. 

     ‎In questi giorni, proviamo di fare ricerca in diversi modi. Tipo una serra, facciamo un sondaggio e un'altra facciamo un gesso. Ieri abbiamo provato con una domanda sulla lavagna. La domanda era "hai una mente aperta?" e le persone potrebbero mettere una crocetta sotto le risposte "sì", "forse", o "no". Era troppo divertente!! Le persone ci guardavano e volevano parlare. Mi piace ricerca così perché è facile con i italiani per due motivi; prima, loro sono molto curiosi e secondo, sempre loro leggono ad alta voce. Quindi e facilissima di fermare le persone.

     ‎Ho detto prima che è un po' difficile di sentire bella come un missionaria. E questo è ancora vero. Ma grazie a soldi e Zara, ho comprato qualche vestiti nuovi. Adesso, se c'è un giorno in cui ho sento male riguardo la mia stessa, posso vestirmi con qualcosa nuova e bella. 

     ‎Comunque ti voglio tantissimo bene!

     ‎Sorella Maxfield

Week 17 - Eternity - Italian Style

Eternity has alway been an idea that I understand, but have never been able to comprehend. It's difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea of "forever," but thanks to Italian Beauracracy, I feel that I have a better comprehension of what eternity will be like.  Wednesday morning I had my fingerprint appointment for my Permesso at the Italian Questura. My appointment was at 10:00 so, being the punctual missionaries that we are, we arrived at 9:20  The woman gave us number 17 and we sat down. The next number they called was 5, so we were feeling good about only having 12 people ahead of us.  FOUR HOURS LATER they called number 17. I thought we were going to die at the questura. I also thought this was a pretty funny story, so I shared it with some of my italian friends. Three out of the four of them said "wow, only four hours? You guys were lucky you went there on a good day."

The work in Battipaglia is slowly but surely getting better. We had a couple weeks of hard finding, but now we're feeling good about the investigators and potentials we're working with. If I had to identify the trickiest part, it would be the fact that all of our investigators are smarter than us. We have two investigators who can speak english and use words that are beyond my vocabulary. For example, we were having dinner with our gelato miracle couple, and the husband used the word "hedonism." After a couple seconds of blank stares, this Italian man went on to define and explain this English word to two native speakers. 

This week, I'd like to share with you that when we fast and pray, blessings will come. Earlier this month, we fasted to have investigators in church. The first week, everyone we invited to church didn't show up. It was a downer, but we continued praying fervently to have success the next week. Like always, Heavenly Father answered our prayers. We picked up an ex investigator who was so determined to come to church, she asked us to bring her an alarm clock so she could wake up on time. (Why she didn't have any alarm clocks in her house is still a mystery to me.) Then, Saturday night, another dropped investigator called and asked if she could come to church the next morning! It was amazing to see how God can answer our prayers and our fasts in truly unexpected ways. 

I love you all so much
And happy Valentine's day

Sorella Maxfield 

Week 16 - Find Grind

All day every day this week. We're working really hard to find new investigators, which means nose to the grindstone everyday trying to talk to people and share the message. Our new finding technique this week was using gospel art! We walked around and asked people which painting of Jesus they preferred and why. It was really interesting to hear the words people used to describe why they liked the painting; pure, light, clean, kind, gentle, etc. It was pretty easy to segue into the gospel after that.

We had one big finding miracle this week. We were headed to a lesson and stopping people on our way. We got about 6 "non mi interessa" before we had success. We stopped this woman by telling her we liked her bracelets. Turns out they were Madonna bracelets (finally something useful coming out of the Italians' obsession with the Madonna) and she started telling us about how much she loved Christ and was so excited when we told her we were here to preach of Him. I've never met someone so open about their faith and so excited at the prospect of meeting with us.

Italian Culture Fact: They never. stop. celebrating. In the time I've been here, I have yet to have a week without some sort of Holiday. We had Maria day, Santo Stefano, Christmas, New Years, The Befana, about five other random Saint days, and now there's Carnivale. I think the Italians keep party store companies around the world in business. For the past week our Centro and main Piazza have been covered in mountains of confetti while little children in costumes run around and spray people with silly string.

Spiritual thought: I've truly discovered the meaning of and the joy in "feasting upon the words of Christ." I love the scripture study time I've had on my mission, because the more I read, the deeper my testimony becomes. This week was a trickier one in terms of feeling homesick and discouraged, but every time I even opened my scriptures, I felt a rush of peace and comfort. I know that we have been given scriptures so that we might be able to cherish and study the teachings of our Savior. They are a constant source of truth and happiness even when everything around us is changing. As missionaries, we're always supposed to be leaving people with invites, so I'd love to invite you all to set apart some time everyday this week to just listen to or read from the scriptures - whether it be first thing in the morning, in the car on the way to carpool, during lunch - in an effort to make scripture study a habit. I promise that it will help you feel joy and find guidance through the spirit.

I love you all so much!
Sorella Maxfield