Pazienza. Patience.

Hello!!
I am so sorry that it is taking forever to take care of Trayser's visa. I will pray that everything will turn out okay. About the packages, I am not sure, zone conference is this week so I will let you know next week!
Tell Danielle I say hello!! Everyone is starting to come home....weird! I will just stay in Italy my whole life and eat pasta and gelato. :)

Beautiful Italy!

Also you asked for a red sauce. Why do you want to ask an Italian when I can give you one myself! I have learned a thing or two in the year that I have been here. So the secret to a good sauce....is the ingredients. It has to be simple...but quality. So here is what I do:

Take some onions and chop them up and fry them in some extra virgin olive oil. Then (optional) take some cherry tomatoes and chop them in half and throw them in. And fry them with the onions until the tomatoes look pretty soft. Then take some PLAIN tomatoe sauce. None of that gross stuff with things already added in it! Then add some salt and pepper and fresh basil and even some garlic powder if you want. If you want you can cook up some meat (like you normally do) and add that to the onions. Honestly there is no big secret! It is just simple and quality ingredients. basta. (but if you want to spice it up a little bit put a spoon of pesto in it! And also you HAVE to put parmigiano on it. I don't know how to spell it in English! The cheese! But not the kind that is in the bottle. Get the real kind.)

So just a forewarning. My emails are going to be boring for a while...because it is summer...and nobody is here. And our work is really really slow. So not very many exciting things happen. I'm sorry! But here we go.

So this week. Has been....GREAT! (sense the sarcasm in my typing). It's been a little rough, but that's okay! I didn't agree to an easy mission.

Monday was crazy. So Sorella Palmer served in Rome 5. It is kinda fun because we get to talk about everything and I get to know all of the updates. And one of the members from Rome 5 came to Messina to visit us. Her name is Alessandra. It was good seeing her. She was surprised that I could actually have a conversation with her. haha We were planning on doing some shopping and just kinda hanging out, but then her dad showed up. So we just kinda hung out with them all day. It was fun!

Sorella Palmer, Alessandra, Me

Tuesday we went to Reggio for DDM and we ate pizza at Fratelli La Buffala. The best pizza place ever.  I'm going to miss it. anyway.... then we did English Course.

Wednesday we took a little trip to Catania. They needed our help with some work. And we had an amazing lesson with this lady named Agatha. I don't even know how to describe it. But I love being a missionary. Seriously...everyone should try it!

Thursday...we did a lot of random things. And then had a lesson with Arleen, the new convert. And there is this amazing sister named Leona who came with us. She is from the Philippines, and her husband died unexpectedly a year ago. And it was so hard for her. But with the help of the missionaries, she is a new person! And now she is obsessed with doing missionary work. And a little secret. The foreigners are holding up the church here. Literally, it wouldn't be able to survive without them.

Our awkward district.  (:

Friday we went to Enna for a zone blitz. They opened up Enna about a year ago, and there is 1 member that lives there. She was baptized about 2 months ago! And they do church in their apartment. And those poor Elders have no work. So the whole zone went to Enna on Friday and we just blew up the city! And oh my goodness it was so much fun! Everytime that you were walking down the street and saw another companionship you would switch. (Enna is really small). And the city is just cute and small and 100% Italian. And I had so much fun! We talked to a lot of people and we had some really spiritual experiences. I was able to go and do real missionary work with my MTC companion Sorella Pancheri. It was so fun to see how much each other had grown in the last year. Also I got to see the volcano Mt Etna! Oh ya!

Sorella Pancheri

Mt. Etna

Saturday we did some service for an old lady in our ward. We weeded her garden. But it was all worth it because she made us lunch!....And also we were doing what Jesus would have done....CTR
Then we saw another new convert Graziella and then Leona.

Leona

Sunday...was an interesting day. Sometimes I miss church in Springerville Arizona. Sometimes I have to remind myself that everyone in our ward are converts and they are trying their very hardest. The church is still so new here. It really makes me realize how much us members of the church who were born and raised....in the church, take for granted. So much! Pazienza. Patience.

We officially have 0 invesstigators. But that is okay! We will find some! The most prepared people are the ones who aren't at the beach...right?!

Also thank you for the letter. I haven't even gotten it yet, but I am so excited......because I haven't gotten any mail for at least 3 months.....I LOVE MAIL! Anything that you can fit in an envelope....seriously makes me so happy.

does that make everyone feel guilty?!

I'm out of time today, but here is the scripture of the week!
1 Corinthians 7:22-24
 "For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman:
 likewise he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.
 Ye are bought with a price; Be ye not servants of men."

I love you all so so much! Have an amazing week!

Sorella Wiltbank