Threesome to Twosome - March 24th, 2010

Assignment - can someone compile a list for me of where different fruits and veggies should be stored? ie - fridge, bottom pull out drawer of fridge, out on the counter.

Recommended reading - the speech that Oaks gave at Harvard in Feb. of this year. I think you can find it online.

So I had to use most of the email time today snagging pictures from Sister Prina and Simons because we got transfer calls yesterday and they are both leaving :( I normally am completely excited for change and it doesn't upset me at all, but I am super, super sad about this one. I really have enjoyed being in this threesome, especially being with SIster Prina again. We were talking last night and both confessed that we are baffled why we get along so well because we really are completely different in a lot of ways. Anyway, she's off to Como without me. We had plotted in the MTC to serve there together, because that is where there is a whole village of Prinas for us to convert. Simons is going to Bergamo. And what is coming my way will be a HUGE change, especially after being in so many 3 somes. Sister Casalinga, who has been serving in another part of Milan will be my new companion. She is a native Italian (but moved to the states when she was 10) and so speaks Italian perfectly...maybe it'll help me out a bit!

On another note though, here are some highlights of the week...
- On Friday we had a repeat of Tuesday with tons of bidones and lots of time running around from point to point talking to people on the way. (yes Pop, we do call and confirm with people 2 days or one day before, and often a few hours before). We met lots of awesome people though...
A personal favorite was a woman on the street walking her dog with her daughter. She had a bag with music notes on it that we complimented her on. After talking for about 10 minutes we knew that she was a singer of sorts but did not know much more than that. As she was walking away Sister Prina shouts out, "Do you have any concerts coming up in the area that we could go to?" Without looking back or stopping the woman shouts out "yeah, at the Scala..." Sister Prina almost hyperventilated and was so sad that all we knew about the woman was her first name (we had tried to get her phone number but she said she wasn't ready to hear our message. booo.) . Then, A few days later when doing casa for a few hours and not getting in anywhere, the last door we were going to knock on let us in. They were an old Chinese couple with a bunch of ballet pictures everywhere. Turned out they were ballet dancers at the Scala for years. We are going back to them on Saturday.

Also when we were out and about on Friday a woman pushing a stroller does a double take when she sees us, then stops and with a ton of enthusiasm and asks who we are. We explained briefly and she was just so giddy and asked if she can hug us,then continued to thank us a million times for our work. We were completely baffled. More often than not Italian mothers literally run away shaking their heads no at us when we even say salve (hi)...not kidding, we did park contacting the other day and had this happen several times. We never really figured out in the end why she was so excited to see us. She had never heard of our church before, didn't really want to go to our church or meet with us when we explained why our church was different, etc. Oh man, then just a few minutes after this woman had stopped us there was another woman that responded super enthusiastically when i said hello then stopped as if to chat. Turned out she thought I was some Russian friend of her daughter and didn't really want to talk much when she discovered I wasn't. At least we were able to give her a little pamphlet though.

- We went back to Sister Prina's cousins house and this time went MUCH better. There were only 2 of his friends there so it was a much easier crowd to teach.

- In the middle of a lesson with Doris (an El Salvadorian woman who has had a super hard life and does not smile much or ever seem happy), during a pretty crucial spiritual part of the restoration movie, she shouts. I think she is creeped out by Heavenly Father coming down to visit Joseph Smith or something, but then I follow her pointed finger...the floor is COVERED with a white liquid substance. We had bought a container of Soy milk on the way to our appointment with her so we could make a dessert to bring to dinner at Andrea's house and I had punctured the container when scooting back my chair. It was awesome, though, because we all just busted out laughing and it was the first time I had seem her really smile. Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways...

- We had 5 of our investigators in church for all 3 hours which was saweeet. Tito and Luzmilla, Vincenzo (a Bolivian man that we had just taught the night before because he was randomly at the house of someone else we were teaching), and Lilia with her daughter (we met them on the street a few days before and had one appointment with them).

Alright, I'm out of time.

Thanks for all your love and letters and prayers.

Sorella Cozzens