Sorella Sobeck in Rome: Wise Men still seek Him

Ciao tutti! This week was great and while we didn't get to do a lot of missionary work I really enjoyed myself nonetheless!

It was a week of service projects. On Thursday...in the afternoon we went with the other sorelle to the house of a lady in their ward. The cat lady. She is famous among missionaries past and present becuase she lives by herself with 4 cats. There is cat hair EVERYWHERE - the cats hang out with the dishes and everything. We only went to eat some pandoro with her and we brought it ourselves because of past experience with other missionaries eating more cat hair than food...it is extremely unsanitary. When we went my seat basically on top of the litter box...it was between my feet and a cat decided to use the bathroom while we were there...so very pleasant. Anyways, that was a super fun experience. Ok...after the cat lady we went to the hosptial with all 8 missionaries in Bari along with some GANS (basically the YSA) and sang Christmas songs to the patients and also a lot of the hosptial staff. I really enjoyed that. Right after Sor. Ashman and I had to book it becuase we were going to Bitonto for another service project. I think I mentioned it, but Bitonto is a little bit outside of Bari and there are 2 more Anzioni there who are in my district. So we went with them to a special needs center and I LOVED IT! There was singing and dancing and much laughing, especially at this one boy with Downs Syndrome who especially loved to dance hahaahah. I took some good video of him! I had a really good time.

Christmas Eve aka VIGILIA! We went to a shoe shop where we have a ex-investigator named Anna. She loves us coming by and LOVES when we pray with her, but she wasn't really interested in hearing anything else and she wouldn't accept a Book of Mormon. So we went by just to say Merry Christmas, adn we ended up talking to her daughter for a really long time. We had a really great lesson, and her husband and 2 of her 4 kids ended up being there too! Its really cool how things like that work. We then gave them a Book of Mormon and they accepted it and seemed very interested, so we'll start going there more again. We went back yesterday and just saw Anna and we committed her to pray for herself. It's been really cool and I hope we see some changes in her. She definitely opened up more when we were there yesterday.

Ok...Christmas Eve dinner. This is good stuff coming up. We went to Cellemare to the Famiglia Juan, the same family we went to my 1st Sunday in Bari for lunch. Sorella Juan is AWESOME. Her and her husband are sadly getting a divorce and are currently separated. He is Mexican, and so their kids are sooo cute and they are quite chunky as well hahah and I love them. Leo and Andres. The night involved them playing video games/watching cartoons, Leo eating lemons like candy (he was just sitting there eating a lemon hahahah), the boys pantsing each other (HAHAHAHA), and fish. Yep, fish fish fish. The tradition in Bari is to eat lots of fish for Christmas eve dinner, and that iincludes mostly RAW fish. Which I ate for the fish time in my life. And this is not like sushi (which I have also never eaten in my life...), but it is literally raw fish taken from the sea and put on the table. I ate raw scallops, mussells, SQUID, salmon, and this other tube-like creature that was by far teh coolest yet most disgusting. (Picture attatched.) I discovered that my gag reflex works REALLY well, and while I didn't throw up on the table I felt like I could have about 5 times, literally. I drank a LOT of water and didn't do much chewing hahaha. It was definitely an experience. And I can't forget that after all this raw fish as the APPETIZER, we had tuna spaghetti (not my favorite but much more manageable), more salmon but cooked this time, fruit, then homemade chocolate chip cookies. That made the world a better place. Sorella Juan lived in America for 7 years so she knows how to make them good. After dinner I felt soooo sick hahaha. And we didn't go to sleep until late because there were a bunch of fireworks at midnight and I felt sick from fish hahaa. Good times in Bari!

NATALE!!!! Super chill morning where we made crepes and then we had only an hour of church. It was a GREAT meeting with a strong spirit. Afterwards we ate dinner with the Bari missionaries and just hung out in the church together. We played cards from Napoli and it was good to get to know each other better. We ate some AMERICAN style food!!! So yeah, Christmas really wasn't a big deal, it really didn't feel like Christmas that much to me but it was a good day anyways.

The Day after Christmas was our scheduled "day off". Usually its on Christmas but since it was Sunday they gave us the next day, especially since the 26th here is yet another holiday...San Stefano! So Monday we hung out in church again with the missionaries and this time Bitonto joined us and we all hung out in our pajamas/sweats and we watched Tangled and Tarzan and ate lots of leftovers!!! It was soooo fun!!!! We brought a bunch of blankets and were all bundled up in sweatshirts because the church is freezing cold hahaha. It was fun to watch a couple disney movies and just hang out. Then I got to talk to my wonderful family via skype!!! There were some technical difficulties to overcome, but all was well in the end and I really enjoyed talking to all of them. I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :)

Tuesday we actually got to do some missionary work again!!!!!!!!!! We went to the hospital yesterday to see a couple people. We had gotten this phone call from a member who is not in our ward and we have no idea who the heck he is, but he gave a referral to see a 22 year old girl in the hospital in the cardiology department. We knew nothing about her. But we were going to see someone else anyways, so we went yesterday and we met Giovanna who wants to be a nun but we gave her a Book of Mormon and she seems really special. She is a very spiritual person and she LOVED us. It was so wonderful to meet her.

After the hospital we had English Course, which is so much fun. There are these 3 men who come who I just love: Tommy (Tomasso)Frank (Francesco), and Amedio. All 3 of them have pretty darn good English, especially Tommy, and can say anything they want really. They say the funniest things all the time!!! Frank especially hahaha...yesterday he said "I am a beast" and it was soooo funny, especially in his Italian accent! LOVE IT!!!

This morning for Pday we went to Ikea with Daniele!!! We just walked around and we went mostly to get sparkling cider for New Years and because I've never been to Ikea! I want to go in America now and just buy a bunch of stuff! I can see why everyone loves it.

Ok well thats mostly the big stuff of what happened this week. Christmas was fun! We have more holidays coming up which is making missionary work difficult, but we'll get past it. I hope everyone had a great and happy Christmas and will have a great New Year! I can't believe its almost 2012! The world is ending soon...hahaha we get that question a lot. Hope you all ate lots of food! We are pretty fat and happy over here hahaha. Love you all!!!

Love, Sorella Sobeck

LOTS OF PICTURES THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When we went to Bitonto for a service project for people with special needs and it was soooooooooooooooo much fun!!!