Dear Family and Friends,
It is officially winter here now. It hailed for about 1 minute which is pretty crazy for Siracusa but yes, January is the month where it is probably the coldest here for Italians in Sicily. Anziano Moscon and I can tell as we try and find people to talk to on mostly barren streets smothered in our scarves and coats (thanks to saldi season). My first real "winter" as Anziano Moscon would say since he's from Idaho.
Despite the rapid change in weather this week, I love the work here. Yes it is probably stressing me out more than it should (no, I haven't pulled out all the hairs on my head), but I love it here. The festas sadly ended with La Befana, the holiday where the witch, Befana, rides around on her broom, fills kids stockings with candy, and maybe is the wife of Santa? More importantly, it's also the day the wise men arrive to see the baby Jesus. The Vinci's, a member couple here, actually invited us over to celebrate a bit and it was...interesting to say the least (happens more than you think).
On Friday night, Sorella Vinci started with singing a Christmas hymn like she always does (I don't want to say she isn't good at singing, but...) and we also sang call to serve together with them as well. Then we proceeded to eat a cold Margherita pizza (the way Siciliano eat it) and it actually was decent pizza (sorry to say it wasn't the same for the cold arancini). But the greatest part overall was with the Coke bottle. They brought out Coke for us to drink but they had put it in the freezer. Anziano Moscon said it would explode if they tried to open it. So I tried to open it slowly but since the bottle seemed like it would explode, I decided to wait for the carbonation to leave the bottle with cap slightly loose. Sorella Vinci decided to trust God instead on this one and began to say a prayer, blessing the Coke so that it would not explode. She then put it in a plastic bag and began to open it, causing the coke to spill luckily only in the bag. The lesson I learned is always say a prayer, even if it might be stupid, because God wants to help us even if we may think it's stupid. And it's definitely one funny experience I will remember forever.
Some other experiences that made the week were when Anziano Moscon and Sorella Tacchi tried their first horsemeat sandwich, Davide Corso (return missionary) came home this week from England and there was a huge party, I learned how to play briscola with five people from a less active member (basically like a mix of dominoes and rook), and our attempts to speak Singalese with George and Fernando who come from Sri Lanka. Mostly we do a lot of gestures and pointing and use pictures but we still need to improve on our methods. Hopefully, our small attempts will lead to something great.
Overall, the new year is great. We are doing our best to work hard even when it seems like everything isn't going in our favor. We have had great miracles like lots of members come to church, Sorella Conforto helping us with our missionary work, and especially felt the love of members giving us random food like pandoro, arancini, and even cooked pasta (they must think we can't cook). And we also have had some struggles, mostly with trying to meet our investigators with fellowshipping members, and helping our investigators keep their commitments.
I just want to bear testimony about prayer. This week, I came home stressed from missionary work and worrying about how to solve problems, thinking I had to do it all. But every time I kneeled down and offered my heart to Heavenly Father in prayer, I felt his love come and take the burdens away. I went to sleep those nights feeling calm and secure, knowing everything would be alright, and that I have a great companion, district, and missing president here to help. I know whenever we have any problem, we can always turn to Heavenly Father in prayer and solutions will come in time and we can always feel his love when we really want and need it. Thank you for your help and prayers! Have fun going back to school and work again, applying those new year goals!
Vi voglio bene!
Anziano Price
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