Sorella Sobeck in Rome: Little Easter is bigger than Easter‏

Yep, Pasquetta is a bigger deal than Pasqua. Pasquetta is the day after Easter, when EVERYONE goes out to the beach or whatever. SO the missionaries get to clean their apartments!!! Hahaha Monday we had the lovely opportunity to deep clean our apartment and man oh man its amazing how dirty things get. And I saw some of the things we missed the LAST time I deep cleaned this apartment on New Years Day. Mamma mia. I feel much better about having a cleaner apartment.

So this week. Last Pday we had a little missionary party where we all went to teh church and just hung out and ate food. The weather was perfect, and it was great to just sit on the ground and relax and talk with the other missionaries, shoot some hoops. Yep. I felt very calm afterwards. You don't get that feeling almost EVERY during the mission...at least I haven't up to this point. I was very grateful!

There was a really awesome activity for the youth last Thursday and Friday. All the Young Men and Young Women in the Puglia came to Bari to have this 2-day missionary activity. They all had nametags, companions, and everything! On Friday we went and helped with that, we taught them the Rome Mission hymn (LOVE OUR HYMN!!), helped them have companion study, ate with them, adn then they street contacted us haha. It was so much fun.

Easter was really nice. Church was good, and we ended up having 1 investigator come. Not who we expected, but it was Emanuele, who has been an investigator about about 6 months now and never kept any commitments. He had promised to come to church at least 6 times in the past, and never showed up. So when he promised again I honestly didn't think much of it. But then he came for all 3 hours. During sacrament meeting (the last hour for us), he had to go outside to smoke, but I think he handled it all pretty well! Sweeeeet. After church we had lunch with the Santoro family. I really like this family. Their daughter, Maria Theresa, is leaving for her mission to Milan in just under a month now...which is kind of sad because she got her mission call when I first got to Bari over 5 months ago now...so she's had to wait a long time. But it was fun to eat lunch with them. And then afterwards we didn't have any plans and they told us in Italy we couldn't proselyte on Easter, so we just hung out with them for the evening, went to see some of their relatives, and all that fun jazz. I enjoyed the day and it was a nice change of pace and a way to get to know this family better.

We had set a baptismal date for Daniele for this Sunday, but he decided that he is not ready. It's true, he's not ready. I'm sad about it, but I feel peace becuase he needs to make some more changes and have a better relationship with Heavenly Father before he's ready to get baptized. And it might take a long time. i hope some day to hear the news that he finally made that step closer to God. But for now, we'll see what happens. Especially if I get transfered.

Yesterday we went to another funeral. This was my 3rd here in Bari sadly. And the saddest thing was that this was for a little baby who was only 6 months old. I personally don't know the family, but her parents and 3 siblings are in my ward in Poggiofranco. This little baby was born with a few holes in his heart and one of the veins didn't work. He had a 15 hour long surgery the other day, and he didn't make it. We were talking about it with one of our investigators last night, and we had taught him the Plan of Salvation last week. I felt so strongly talking about this little baby last night who is now in heaven that I know the Plan of Salvation is true. I'm so grateful for it, and that we have the incredible comfort that our loved ones are not lost and that we can see them again after this life.

Today for Pday, we're going BOWLING!!! I'm quite excited actually. Going bowling in Italy.

I don't really have much else to say. Transfer calls are Saturday and I'm really excited to find out whats going to happen. We all think A LOT of chagnes are going to happen. I feel like I will be transfered, but you never know. That will be the big news of the next weeks email. If Sorella Sobeck will stay for her 5th transfer in her birth city, or if a whole new scene will be opened up!!!! Let you all know later!!

Hope everyon ehas a great great great week. Love you all.

Love, Sorella Sobeck