Well, this week was a little crazy…everything from gingerbread houses, to MRI’s, to law of chastity lessons. But over all, it was a good week!! I hope you all are having a great holiday season! I miss the snow and mountains. But whenever I think I miss something about Utah, I remember I’m in Italy and then I go walk outside, eat a gelato, maybe get some fresh bread, and I feel a lot better. JK, I really do miss Utah though.
World Without A Savior
We had zone conference last Thursday and that was fun. We talked more about the, “A Savior is Born” video. We now have the, “A World Without a Savior” video in Italian. If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it! I actually don’t love it in English… I think the voice sounds like Liam Neeson. He’s the actor in the movie “Taken” that says, “I will find you and I will kill you”. And the music sounds like Kung Fu Panda so I just think of Liam Neeson saying, “I will find you and I will kill you” to Po, and it kinda ruins the whole video for me. So if you can get past that, then it’s a great little video!!
Also at zone conference we built ginger bread houses! But in Italy they don’t have ginger bread…or gingerbread house stuff. So you could say it was interesting. Ours took second place so we didn’t win the Pandora :(, an Italian holiday cake type thing. But it was still fun!
How Italians Work
So a little example of how Italians work. The president told me to try to get a z-pack (antibiotics) to see if that helps with the dizziness at all, so we went to a pharmacy and we asked if we cold get a z-pack and they said that they couldn’t give us one without a note from a doctor. So, we walked about a block to the next pharmacy asked if we could get a Z-pack they asked if we had a doctors note. We said “Oh no, did we need one?” And she said “yeah…” Then we said that we were just told that it might help. Then she said ok and walked to the back and got us one. There are 3 pills and you take one a day and you’re good. So basically every medicine is over the counter here.
District Meeting in Verona
Monday was a fun day so I’m going to write about Monday. We woke up early and got ready. Every Monday we have district meeting in Verona and we have to leave to the train station at 9:00 so we did personal study and headed on our way. District meeting went well we talked about how it’s important to use our time wisely. It was a good lesson and it was nice to talk to and see the missionaries from our district. And Verona is GORGEOUS so it’s always nice to go there.
See Through Gown & Itchy Nose
After district meeting we headed straight to a hospital to go get my MRI. So the guy who was helping actually spoke fairly good English so that was super helpful. He told me to go dress down and he gave me this robe type thing to cover me up, so I went and changed and put on the robe. And to be quite honest, I don’t really know if there was any point to it besides to make you feel better because it was sooo see through! So that was awk. They came and took me from the changing room to the MRI room and thank goodness no one was in the hall or they would have had quite
the show.
Anyway, I went and laid on this table thing and they but my head in this contraption and gave me ear plugs. Then, they sent me in. And they told me like 528,393 times not to move. So I was just laying there doing nothing, not moving and then I realized, I really, really, really, needed to go to the bathroom. You could say it was a long 45 min. Between that and the itch on my nose, it was death. Hahah. I thought I was going to die, my nose has never itched so bad in my life. They finally took me out of the tube and told me I was done and that while I was getting dressed they would look at the scans.
When I came out they told me the news. Brain tumor. JK…negative, not a thing that they could see was wrong. I was slightly disappointed. Not that I wanted a brain tumor, but I was hoping that they would find something because that way we could get rid of the problem.
But nothing, still no answers.
American Burger, Shake and Fries
On the way from the hospital on the bus we found a burger and shake place (Anziano Pack said that they have them in Texas where his mom lives) called “Steaks and Shakes”. Anziano Pack was sooo excited. So we figured since I got an MRI today we deserved a treat, so we went on and got a shake and fries. They don’t have shakes here so it was a big deal, even though since I’m still fresh here I think I would rather still get a gelato haha. But it was a really good shake! And we got cheesy bacon fries, it was good to taste American food.
The Africans Are the Best
We then talked to this this African man at the train station waiting for our train back to Mantova. He was super cool. Almost all of the Africans are basically the coolest people ever. They all love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and they love talking about them! They all have insane amounts of faith, it’s so amazing. I love talking to them because I feel like they are helping me almost more than I’m helping them. The hard part about Africans that I’ve seen so far is that they feel like every church that talks about Christ is true and it doesn’t matter which church because we’re all worshiping the same God and the same Christ. We try to explain the restoration to them but something just doesn’t click. We currently have 4 African investigators and it’s been hard to get them to come to church. So that’s our main focus with most of them!
The Law Of Chastity
We taught Dora again this week and if you guys have never taught an 88 year old women about the law of chastity, I would highly recommend it. It’s just about the funniest thing I’ve ever done. She kept saying, “Wait, Wait, Wait! So what do you guys do when you have that attraction?? Pray to God and say ‘help me?” And we were like “hahahaha, yeah….basically.” She’s said, “Ahhh Mama Mia!!!….” She was so surprised that this even existed hahaha. It was super funny. The best part was challenging her to live the law of chastity, hahaha. She looked at us like we were nuts. She’s my favorite.
Christmas Gifts
This week we decided to make little gifts for the families in our branch and our investigators. Here is a picture of them, they have little treats inside the bag then a picture of Jesus and then on the back it says “per noi è Nato un Salvatore, Buon Natale, i missionari” (For unto us a Savior is Born. Merry Christmas, the missionaries) I think it turned out well. And we didn’t even use Pinterest. How artsy are we? Basically we should be Pinterest famous by now. So yeah, they were fun to make but hard too pass out to everyone because no one lives by each other. We might just wait until Sunday and give them to the ward at church. A late Christmas gift. 🙂
Well that’s about all. Merry Christmas Adam to you all!! I can’t wait to Skype on Christmas!!! #BestPresentEver.
Okay, ciao ciao for now!!
Anz Griffiths
Leave a Reply