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Hello everyone!!!!

This week was so full of stuff I don't even remember what happened, but I will do my best to include all of the important details. 

Just a quick update on the lice......they are all gone. I think haha. 

Sorella Bicchierri was telling me how when she had her fifth week in Ragusa she tripped and fell and Sorella Rushton (who was here before me) did the same thing. Well this week Ragusa gave me the good old five week welcoming fall too. It was totally my fault though and was so hilarious. We were walking to find a less active member and Sorella Bicchierri said something about me not pushing something and immediately the scene from Happy Feet came into my head where the little penguin says "don't push me cause I am close to the edge". Yeah. My foot slipped off the sidewalk and I was on my hands and knees dying laughing. It was so hilarious. I am now officially welcomed into Ragusa haha. Also. It's FREEZING!!!

We had a really cool experience this week with a less active. Sorella Bicchierri had told me that this woman didn't like the Book of Mormon because of the war chapters. Because she doesn't believe that God wants us to go to war no matter what. So we enter into her house and sit down and she immediately starts talking about how the Book of Mormon is not true and how she stopped going to our church and started going back to her old one, but that one wasn't right either. She said she is really trying to find a church that only talks about Jesus Christ. No prophets. No wars. No anything, but Jesus Christ and his gospel. That's why she only reads the New Testament. But I tried asking her if there's anything we can learn from the war chapters in the Book of Mormon "No." haha so we talked a little bit more and Sorella Bicchierri and I were able to bear strong testimony that this book is true and that the only way we can get rid of our doubts, the only way we can know if it is true is if we ask in prayer. She went from at the beginning of the lesson not wanting to have anything to do with our church anymore to agreeing to read 3 Nephi which was really a miracle. It is so incredible to be able to see the spirit work through you and into the hearts of people you are teaching. 

We also had a frittelle party!! They are basically just like donut holes with raisins in them rolled in sugar. They make them in November and February for catholic holidays, but we just did it to basically have an activity and of course to eat haha. So we had everyone bring frittelle and we played this speed dating get to know you game so that people would kind of be forced to talk to people they wouldn't necessarily want to talk to normally and it worked out great! I think they liked it for the most part. 

This past week we also had an incredible lesson with an investigator named noemi. I don't remember if I've talked about her or not. Basically she is 15 and her parents won't let her get baptized. She had a boyfriend who is a member, but they broke up which was hard and she kind of stopped reading her scriptures, but we had this really cool lesson with her and she just realized how important it is to read the scriptures because when we don't, we lose that light and happiness, the peace that they bring to our lives. 

Update on Ida, she said she wants to get baptized if she finds out that these things are true. The problem is all of her friends are Muslim and it could be very dangerous for her to get baptized. She was like, I don't care. I will hide it. So I am a little nervous about that situation. We are still meeting with her though so I will let you know. 

We had a funny lesson with one of our ex investigators. She is 73 years old and is an ex investigator because her son won't let her get baptized, but she reads the Book of Mormon so intently and loves it. She's also very catholic at the same time though haha. She was asking all of these questions and wants to know the difference between this and that. She wanted to know if I have ever met President Monson haha and then she asks, "have you guys talked to the pope about this stuff?" Hahaha I just started laughing. Sorella Bicchierri says all the time how she wants to talk to the pope and convert him. 

Also my companion found out that she is not staying here for the next transfer so we have been doing quite a few, and by that I mean four trillion goodbyes. This next week is transfer week and I am pretty sure I will be staying here which I am happy about. Needless to say we have seen a lot of miracles this week. And I can say there will continue to be miracles. If you look for them, they are there. 

There was something that I came across this week that I wanted to share with you. It says:

An old saying teaches that you can count the number of seeds in a single apple, but you can’t count the number of apples in a single seed. The harvest is the Lord’s. Your responsibility is to thrust in the sickle. 

I just realized that yes missionaries and even we as members are to plant seeds, but I never really thought about what happens when those seeds grow up into big beautiful trees that are full of apples full of seeds. Our responsibility is to THRUST (to move or advance forcibly) in our sickles. The harvest is the Lord's. We do the best that we can and He will do the rest. 

How grateful I am to have a Savior who is with us every step of the way. 

I love and miss you all and hope you know you are in my prayers 

Con amore,

Sorella G ❤️️🇮🇹

This is a picture of mount Etna and you can't see the volcano. Nice!!