: ciao famiglia
Hello family,
Another hard week has gone by. Thank you so much Mom for your sweet Valentines Day cards, and the family pictures! Wow, everyone looks so great. I definitely shed a few tears opening up that letter and seeing everyone together, but its all good. Im fine. Im human right. Thanks so much for your letter Dad, I look forward to those every week. How are your Mom and Dad doing?
This week was tough. We went over to see Giussi Pulvirenti last night, and she told us that her Mother passed away yesterday morning. It was overwhelming, and hard to be really her only source of comfort. She has never married, and has really no family. We have been teaching her for about 9 weeks now, and we realized it is time to drop her. Last night she offered us some coffee, and that was kind of the last straw. Its just super difficult for her to understand things. WE went to her Mom's funeral this morning, and they did the "funeral" without her....Super sad. I was balling last night as we just sat with her, and she talked to us about her Mother. I coudn't help but think how lucky I am to have such an incredible Mom. I get notes in the mail like everyweek that are just so sweet, and Mom you really are my best friend in the whole world. Thank you for all you do. We read Alma 40 together, and she really felt comforted by some of those verses. As far as her baptism goes, we both feel like its the right thing to drop her. She has only been to church one time in the last two months, and we feel she more has a desire to be with us and doesnt really see that there is a huge difference between the restored gospel, and anyone else.
Nando we were able to see last week. He is weird in the fact that he will just randomly call us and be like, where are you? Can we meet up in 10 minutes and talk? Haha so we met up, and we were outside the grocery store and talked. He is so interesting, but more just its so hard because he is SO intellectually driven, that he doesnt ever really read with intentions of feeling the spirit, or discovering new truth. He doesnt really have the right desires. In response to him asking me if I have read the Koran, and studied with other churches to solidify my beliefs, I can only bare my testimony that a testimony comes at different points for everyone. I have been fortunate enough to not have to go searching for years and years to find happiness, where as some people do, and they never find it. I dont think we will continue meeting with him. He just wants to exchange intellectual knowledge...
We have a tendency of talking to a lot of old people who are just angry at the younger generation, and homeless people who have talked to millions of missionaries and exchanged crazy theories about religion. It actualy amazes me how many people we meet who have read the Book of Mormon, and just say "si si ho letto già questo libro, è bello, è bellissimo!" But they just don't do anything about it. They think it is a great book that teaches nice Christian doctrine, but thats it. I just keep reminding myself that I am here to plant seeds.
The ward here in Siracuse is really struggling with members going inactive lately. Its very difficult and really sad. Never get offended, because no one ever makes us mad. We make ourselves get mad. Its so sad to see the inside scoop of what goes on in a ward sometimes (unfortunately). People gossip, people talk, and people become offended and leave the church. We as missionaries for some reason are like the middle ground, meaning people know we wont say anything or pick sides, so they choose to tell us EVERYTHING: TOO MUCH SOMETIMES. I cannot believe the things people tell us, and it becomes emotionally over bearing at times. Why can't people just love each other? I don't get it sometimes. I feel overwhelmed a lot at the responsibilities we have as missionaries.
We have decided as of our Zone Conference 2 weeks ago, that we are talking to everyone!!!! We definitely do get rejected more, but there are a few people who at least will listen to us. My favorite is when we teach a lesson to someone on the street like about the restoration, and then after a 5 minutes conversation explaining the restoration, they go " OH, yea, so we are basically exactly the same" hahahah wow, did you not listen to anything I just said?? Eh, oh well. Our new target is younger teens and like early twenties. Sometimes we are the most intimidated by them, but this week we started talking to more of them. We always think we should because all the converts here tell us they joined when they were like 18, 20 ish. WE found this girl Fabiana this week who agreed to let us come meet with her in the church tomorrow to teach her again. She sat and listened to us on her scooter. We were trying to teach two of her friends, and they were basically ignoring us, then she scooted up and was like what are you guys talking about? then we started teaching her about the reason we are here on the earth, and where we go after this life etc and she was realy interested. The younger people are just a lot more open minded than the oldies that are just nice and think we're cute.
We challenged Paola in a lesson on scripture study and prayer to pray again about a baptisimal date. She is still trying to quit smoking, but she is smoking MORE in these days than before. Sometimes i just dont know what else I can do for people. You want so bad for them to change, but you can only do so much. This is so hard. I cant say that enough times, but I know its making me into a better person. Just tough tough tough. I know maybe some people will be benefited by something I do in this time I serve amongst these people.
I love you all so much, thank you for your prayers.
-Monica
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