Wednesday, September 20, 2017

September 20th email

Buongiorno!
It is starting to get colder up here in Bergamo! Some missionaries are starting to wear heavy jackets already! I am super excited for the winter, because you know what that means... Christmas 😍🎄 Also we have started listening to Christmas music in the apartment (finally).

Last P-Day we went to the Museo Civico Scienze Naturali. I loved it so much, especially because I haven't gotten to stimulate my sciencey-mind in so long. I took a lot of weird selfies with animal statues. And it was only €3 😀
On Thursday and Friday we deep-cleaned our whole apartment. It was wonderful. Just kidding, it was actual very tiring. But we got to listen to a lot of Disney and Christmas music which made it a little more bearable.

I don't know how much I have said this but I love Italy. I love the Italian language. I love Italians. They are so hilarious. But a lot of times I think they are being funny when they are actually being serious haha. This week Giorgio asked Sorella Hoffman and I out to dinner. We are unsure of his intentions 😅 I think he was a little put off when we told him we would have to share a spiritual thought with him. We said we would plan dinner with him later and quickly ran off the bus 🤣
Also since everyone just started school, the city buses and trams are super packed, especially in the middle of the day. A couple days ago Slla. Hoffman and I had to get on this bus that was literally so full that we weren't sure if we could fit our bodies on the bus. But we made it work. So we were all squished together in the bus and I was next to an Albanian man and his wife that we had been talking to at the bus stop before we got on. Slla. Hoffman was behind me. I was talking to the Albanian wife and felt someone stroke my hair in the back, but put it out of my mind, because I thought it was just Slla. Hoffman being weird (again). When we got home, though, she was like, "That was so weird when that man touched your hair!" And I was like, "What?! I thought that was you!" So the Albanian man actually was the one stroking my hair. 🤣

Also yesterday for district meeting, we all met at the church and made lasagna in the kitchen. It was molto divertente e anche buonissimo haha. I guess that's just something Italian missionaries do...

Today for P-Day we went to the Orio Center again. On the bus, us four sorelle were speaking in English to each other, then a couple of teenage girls starting talking about us and our missionary tags in Italian 🤣 It's so funny to be able to understand them. Because we turned to them and were like "We're missionaries for our church, that's why we have these tags" (in Italian of course haha), and they turned all red. But then we ended up being able to talk to them about the church.

Yesterday I was reading a talk by Howard W. Hunter from Oct. 1987 General Conference titled "The Opening and Closing of Doors." It talks about how trials and unexpected things happen in our life for, ultimately, our benefit. Such a great talk. Anyway, it said, "Being human, we would expel from our lives physical pain and mental anguish and assure ourselves of continual ease and comfort, but if we were to close the doors upon sorrow and distress, we might be excluding our greatest friends and benefactors. Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering, and self-mastery." It really helped me to realize that even though not everything goes as planned and even though not everything goes well all the time, God has our best interest in mind. And we will always be able to grow from the difficulties we experience. 

I am attaching a video through Google Drive from yesterday. It is pointed mostly at the ground but you can hear a man whistling super loud. He was sitting at the bus stop near us. After we took the video, he got up and walked way down the street, and you could hear him from like hundreds of feet away becausse his whistling was so loud 😂
I am also attaching a couple pictures I took from our apartment of the hills & beautiful view that I definitely take for granted, me with pajama pants and slippers on under my skirt for while I study because our apartment has no heat, peanut butter in Italia (€6 for a tiny jar! 😭), and me drinking a capri sun that a member gave me on Sunday

I hope everyone has a buona settimana! 
Sorella Johnson





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