The Italian way

Heather Hastings

Counting down the days until the conference with Anziano David A. Bednar of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Josè A. Texeira, and Anziano Steven B. Allen on Monday April 27th... five days!!!

Yeah, so life here in Reggio? I think you are dying to know how goes it being a trainer. As I'm typing I'm not quite sure what to say as all the thoughts are coming out at once. Last Wednesday night we slept over in Pavia. Thursday morning, get up, I say my parting farewell to sorella Pavich and I go with the STL Sorella Gluck to go pick up our trainees. This group only had 11 missionaries. 9 elders and 2 sisters. So we got to go chill at the cool President Dibb's house. We sat for about an hour and he kind of gave us like a training/advice for training, more like a pep talk than anything, but I guess it was helpful. Then we went across the street to the mission office (we don't know who our trainee is yet). The mission is nice, a cute little place. We all sit down in the packed conference room, trainers and trainees with the assistant’s, office elders and President Dibb and wife. We chat for a bit, kind of get another pep talk that didn't say much about how to actually be a trainer. They start calling up the elders, match up their companions. They did the sisters last. So they call me up (and I kind of had the feeling that my companion would be who she is) and I introduce the city. As I stand up I get really shaky and nervous! Why? Who knew? Then they match us up, and she starts crying. Sorella Montagnoli. She is 19 fresh from Utah. Yep, she is very much Utahn. Both of her parents served in the catagna mission and her sister served her, in this city. She lived in Rome for a year during high school, she studied Italian for a year. We get on our second train and we couldn’t talk to people because we had to sit by our luggage, so we sit down and she says "well let's make the most of this time and start to get to know people." 

She's all business. I had a plan to introduce her to everything and everyone, but she comes in like ten steps ahead of me and wants to jump right in! So, we changed things a bit, She wants to do all these activities to get people involved, and she really will be great for Reggio. She is definitely pre-trained. Kids these days, what are they teaching them now? It works.

Well while we were at the mission home we got to see President Dibb's office, too. That was really cool! He has a map and a board with all the missionaries, where we are serving and our names and info. I wish I got a photo. I would love to work with the President! If sisters get to work in the office ever, I want to be the first one. I know it takes away from proselyting though, so maybe not.

Any who, yeah! So my baby is really cool. She's bold, she likes to talk... a bold country girl, Italian, a hard good worker, doesn't like cheese or dairy! Sleeps very easily. She is organized, so that's good.

This Sunday night we get to come home early and go to bed early to get 8 hours of sleep, because Monday we wake up at 4 and take a 6am train to the Bednar conference. We are SO EXCITED! This past week, we saw some cool miracles. We did a lot of finding work. As far as I know our baptismal date Anna is going well with smoking and she is still set for the 9th. The anziani have a baptism this Saturday in church. Last Friday we got in to teach Maria Cristina, a lady we haven’t seen for a while. We shared Perchèeglivivi with her and we hope to keep teaching her, she is just busy. We met a couple of miracle people: like they came up to us and asked who we are.

Sunday, we ate lunch with the relief society president and her less active kids and a non-member husband. Such a cool family. My favorite: Lasagne, Italian type meatloaf and potatoes, then gelato. Mm. And Focaccia, homemade. So yummy, so much food! Sorella had a hard time.

Monday we looked up the address of an x investigator. Because her sister served here before, she wants to go back and find people that she taught. Well it turns out we looked up the wrong address, and we ended up doing a pass by to someone marked on the map. We got to the house and she had moved out, but we got to talk to her little sister and then we contacted their neighbor and set up an appointment, so that was cool! We took a photo outside the apartment to remember it. House number 2. 

Unfortunately I am out of time because I had to buy train tickets online today. But, we contacted an entire bus yesterday and that was fun! I talked with a man who used to be a pilot, retired. He’s basically traveled the world. Then we took out our pile our trash from two weeks and met our old man neighbor, 90 years old, who told us he was married to his marvelous wife for 70 years and then God took her from him and now he is alone. We talked about the plan of salvation. I wanted more than anything to hug that sweet old man. He said he'll read the pamphlet and we can pass by another time.

Ok, got to go. Those are some miracles, here are some photos. Ya know, I'm not stressed out too bad... just go with the wind, be happy, pray, trust God and do all I can to love and act like Christ. Life is good. Pray for us for Bednar! We are SO EXCITED! Also, here is poem I wrote inspired by being a trainer.

Vi Voglio bene!!!

Sorella Hastings =)

Love and Be Loved