Week 21 - Spring, maybe

Italian weather has proved to be more bipolar than Utah weather. In these past weeks, we've experienced A Siberian snowstorm, four days of non-stop torrential rainstorm, and finally finishing out the week with a nice sunny and 75. Not only was it nice to leave my winter parka at home, but it was incredible to see all the Battipaglia citizens out in the streets! There were families! Women! Youth! It was insanity. This whole time I thought the only citizens in all of Battipaglia were the old men who wander the streets in herds and the women who only know the words "vado in fretta." But thanks to this weather, we were able to do some effective and fun finding right in Battipaglia.

This week we were blessed to find a new investigator! The first week of the transfer, Sorella Barnes and I met this cute woman on the street who asked us why we were always in giro. We talked for a bit, and in the end she gave us her address to come by and talk with her. We finally were able to figure out where the address was, but were slightly worried because we only had the street name and the name of the woman, Anna. (Fun fact. 80% of Italian women are named Anna or some variation, thus the reason for our worry.) So we rang the first Anna we saw on the doorbell, and nothing. So we started ringing the other doorbells, and the very next one we rang buzzed us in! So we walked inside, and out pops Anna out of the door. She had no idea we were the ones who rang, but she was so excited. We talked with her and her family for a bit and shared the first lesson with her after her family left. We're praying for the opportunity to start teaching her family as well, so we'll see what happens in the next couple weeks!

For church yesterday we watched a broadcast of our stake conference. We heard from President and Sister Pickerd, the stake president, and someone from the Area seventy. Each talk was amazing and uplifting, and I'll share what I learned further on. But first, for the last talk, we were faced with what we call a "double language barrier," which basically means the Area Seventy was from Portugal, but was trying to speak English so the Italian interpreter could translate from English to Italian. He started out by saying "Im going to try to use my most well english." I was very very impressed with the Italian interpreter, throughout the whole meeting he was able to keep up. Until one word. The area seventy kept repeating the word "Hahhms" which the translator understood as "homes." After realizing that this word made absolutely no sense in the context, the translator and Portuguese elder exchanged a brief conversation over the pulpit, which resembled a mini game of charades. The Portugese elder repeated the word over and over and the translator threw out random guesses. I've been learning English my whole life and couldn't understand, so I was very impressed when the interpreter finally guessed right with the word "alms".

Despite that brief, slightly humorous, exchange, the talk he gave was very powerful. He spoke about the importance of knowing the nature of God. This topic has been coming up in my personal study recently, and now I know that that wasn't by chance. He spoke about how important it is that we know the nature of God if we truly are expected to become like Him. I would love to invite you all to start studying more about the nature and attribute of Heavenly Father and of Jesus Christ, and work to start developing those characteristics.

I love and miss you all!
Sorella Maxfield