So...ITALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bari is beautiful! Bari is towards the stiletto part of the boot, right by the ocean. The weather has been awesome, not really cold at all except a little at night. Our apartment is colder than outside it seems haha. Bari has 2 districts, Poggiofranco and Libertà, and I am in Poggiofranco where there is so much work currently!!! I came at an amazing time and my trainer, Sorella Ashman, is constantly telling me how lucky and cursed I am at the same time haha. I'm lucky to start my mission on a high and see all this work and progression, but it'll be hard when I get to a new area and it's not as good :) I love my trainer! Sor. Ashman is from Las Vegas and she has so much personality and is a great teacher. She is very encouraging and is helping more than I can say. I can't imagine having a bad first companion...that would be a terrible experience. Her year mark for her mission is actually tomorrow and I am the second greenie she has trained. She is fluent in Italian because she studied for 3 years before her mission and so her Italian is fantastic. This is her 4th transfer in Bari and everyone just loves her. I'm grateful to be with her!!!!!! In Bari there are 8 missionaries - 4 sorelle and 4 anzioni. My district is just the missionaries in Poggiofranco, so there is my companionship and then 2 anzioni: Anziono Kafel from northern Italy and Anziono Pedreira from Uraguay. Neither of them speak any English so it's fun :) The 4 of us are in the same ward also. In my apartment are all 4 sorelle which is fun. They are Sorella Hicks from Oklahoma and Sorella Heiner from Mesa, Arizona. These 2 sorelle are in the Libertà area, so they aren't in my ward. My ward is so great!!! It's pretty big with about 80 active members and we are fortunate to have our own building for the church. Everyone has been really nice to me, even though I don't really understand what they say to me haha. They have such faith. I really admire them.
The Italian people are CRAZY. I can't even believe it. They are seriously the coolest though. I've never seen more beautiful people in my life, or people who talk faster, or more people who smoke! Jeez - I'll probably come home with lung cancer. They just love love love to talk so much. It is really funny to get a few Italians together and just watch their conversation...everyone talks at once and there is no such thing as being polite. In fact, they like it when you interrupt them because it means you're involved in the conversation. I need to work on that skill haha. We'll try and say a closing prayer and they completely ignore the suggestion sometimes and a prayer isn't said until 15 minutes later. I love it. My favorites are the old people...oh my gosh the old men are the coolest and the cutest. They especially love to talk.
We are teaching a lot of people right now!!! There is so much work and responsability in Poggiofranco right now. We have lots of appointments during the week and a fair amount of progressing investigators. It's really amazing to see the miracles that happen. Lots of stuff happens every single day, but I think my favorite day so far was Monday so I'll tell you about it. In the morning we had our study and then we go out at 10. I had an appointment for my permesso, so we walked all the way over there and were told that the person wasn't at work that day. Dumb. Your permesso is like your green card so you need to take care of this process in the first week and a half in Italy to be legal. So we decided to go to a different part of town and get a different thing that I need, my Codice Fiscale. On our way we got a number from a guy, and it was the first street contact we had where we got someone's phone number!!! We will call him and hopefully set up an appointment to meet with him. We wouldn't have met him if my permesso apt. worked out. Then we waited in the building for an hour and a half to get my codice fiscale and at the end the funniest thing ever happened. It probably won't be as funny written down but we talk about it all the time now. A guy working there sneezed REALLY loud. It got all over his desk and was disgusting. So right after he did the biggest sneeze ever he shouted "MADONNA MIA!!!" and started wiping at his desk with his hands. HAHAHAHAHA we were seriously laughing for 1 minutes. Oh my goodness. Whenever we sneeze now we have to say Madonna Mia. Then we got gelato and it was DELICIOUS. I love gelato. It's better here than it was in Jerusalem. Then we were only at our apartment for about 45 minutes beore we had an appointment with a man from Nigeria in the park (in english!) named Jared. He is intensely Catholic and it was really intense but good. Then we met a kid from Iran at the bus stop and he loved us because we're Americans and spoke to us in English. We wanted to see if anything would come of this conversation and we all rode on the bus together for awhile and we invited him to English course but he didn't show last night. Anyways, the encouter was kind of strange but whatever, he was nice and hopefully we'll see him again. Then afterwards Sor. Ashman was talking to an old guy on the bus going back, and this other old guy keeps looking at me. Then he started walked closer to me, but didn't look like he was going to say anything. So I said hi to him and asked how he was doing and he started talking a lot and I had no idea what he was saying! Luckily Sor. Ashman came back though (haha I'm so helpless right now!!) and we started talking to this guy and he really wants to come to church and we gave him a Book of Mormon and we're meeting with him on Thursday!!! OH MY GOSH!!! He even came to about 5 minutes of FHE with us at a members house so we were on the bus with him for about 30-40 minutes I'd say. It was intense and so cool! I'm so excited to meet with him for real and see what's gonna happen. So then we had FHE at Fratello Curci's house with a less active couple and it was good. Monday was a really cool day for me where I realized wherever you go it's for a reason, and if something happens that takes you in a different direction than you were planning, it is not coincidence when you meet people. Soooo cool. I need to get used to that :)
Ok, I should probably go. But I'm doing well and I'm working hard and having fun. Yes it's overwhelming every single day, but I'm so grateful to be here and be a missionary. I know that I am supposed to be here and I look forward to the coming week to see what miracles will happen. Italy is awesome so far. I'm so lucky to be here in Bari and serve the people here.
Here's some photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My mamma picking me up from the train station in Bari.
FIRST GELATO :) :)
BAPTISM!!!! My very first Sunday in Poggiofranco we had a couple baptism - Angelo and Marinella. They are so awesome!!! We meet with them a lot and I really like them. I can't believe that I already got to see 2 baptisms...that is so rare for 2 at once and especially to see that your first weekend in the mish. I'm so lucky!
Gelato :) :) :)
My first authentic Italian pizza.
And this is my address in Bari. Mom, Dad, Amy, and Janine, I sent you the wrong one because the Elders and Sisters switched apartments a couple days before transfers.
Sorella Sobeck
Via Giulio Petroni 99B
70124 Bari, Italy
Mail is pretty reliable in Bari, so you can send stuff directly here. Now is a time especially when letters and emails would be greatly appreciated.
I hope everyone is well. Love you all. Remember to pray all the time and read the Book of Mormon everyday. Heavenly Father loves all of us. :)
Love, Sorella Sobeck
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