28 NOV 2007

Buon Giorno a Tutti!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! There are so many things to be grateful for and I realize how blessed I am to be able to be out here serving a full-mission for the church! I love it!

I quickly got pulled out of my "Thanksgiving blues" (as Dad called them), that night during English class. I totally did not want to teach class but had no choice! So at the end of class we had a little culture lesson... all the Italians knew it was Thanksgiving anyway. I told them all about Thanksgiving and what we normally eat and do. They asked a bunch of questions. Then I made everyone go around and say what they were grateful for... haha. I started and said simple things in English... family, friends etc. Then we went around the room and they all took turns saying what they were grateful for in English. One student who is from Denmark, about 26 years old, I'm becoming to be good friends with. She speaks English so well. She said she was grateful to be able to speak English and then grateful that she came to know the Mormons, through the missionaries! So... that made me happy and I'm maybe one day we'll be able to teach her. A little tender mercy from Heavenly Father to help me out of those blues (only of course after feeling like a dork that I had even complained about no thanksgiving!) The next day we even attempted to make a little thanksgiving meal. I ate some mashed potatoes (comp can't eat them) and some turkey we bought and some veggies. So there you go... "I Want a Porsche Girl" got what she wanted!

We've continued to do a lot of finding work here. We were out in a little city called Cabras last week. We totally missed the bus to go back to Oristano and the next one didn't come for an hour! So we decided to do some house. We said a little prayer and the 2nd house that we rang let us in (remember this doesn't happen very often!). We were able to teach this lady a quick first lesson. We didn't get a return appointment but it was nice to introduce her to the gospel. Along that same street we also taught another women for a good 15 minutes at the door. Then it was time to catch the bus. Little miracles happen every day if we just recognize them!

Saturday morning we got to go on an institute "field trip." It consisted of Sorella Harvey and I, the branch president, and then the two Africans... Zuma and Aminu. We went to this archealogical site typical to Sardenga... called Santa Cristina. If anyone wants to know a little more about Sardenga you can do a search on "Nuraghi." It was the early people of Sardenga who built little civilizations. They built these tower looking things and they are all over Sardegna. We had a guide and he was telling us all this cool stuff... which we then had to translate into English for the Africans! I learned some new vocabulary that's for sure!

Sunday was great... with a record number in church... 14 people because the sister of Sorella Angius came with her husband and kid. Also the inactive family Mulas came. It was a nice Sunday. Zuma gave her testimony of how her mom introduced her to the church in Nigeria. It was amazing. I had to stand up next to her at the pulpit and translate it into Italian.

Monday we had our district meeting in Cagliari as always. I was in charge of the whole meeting...and this week it was in Italian (we've been switching off every week..so that the italian sister can understand every other week!) I gave a training that went pretty well. Yesterday we did lots of finding and hopefully can pass back by some potentials tonight. We had a meeting with sister Angius and fixed all the relief society lessons for December... I'll be teaching twice a month seeing as I'm now a relief society teacher. Yikes... may the force be with me!

Tom's email reminded me, and I've been thinking lately of miracles that have happened in my other cities. I never told you but remember how we were teaching these other Africans in Prato? Adesowa and Petra,the mom and the daughter? Well they got baptized finally this summer so I was super excited to her that. And then I heard the one of our inactives in Livorno... Stella... has introduced a friend to the church and know the sisters, my old comps, are teaching her. Just cool to hear how everyone is progressing! Can't wait to her that about Oristano! It will happen!

It's the last week of the transfer... that means transfer calls next Monday. The scary thing is is that president has to close a city for the sisters. I'm pretty sure he won't close Oristano seeing as how he just opened it... at least we are praying that he won't because we need more time to get things rolling here!

Okay, I love you and thank you all again for everything. This work is amazing and I'm grateful to be out here working.

Love you,

Sorella Boynton