Worm cheese, walking great lengths, Miracle named Sergio‏

The Sanchez family. They're great members. We helped Adrian with English homework.

Sorella Barbiere, Adrian, Sorella Sanchez, Me

The sun was really bright... I know, it looks awkward.

The day of the little red bugs. We pulled our mattresses outside and wrote letters. (P-day, don't worry.) I'm 21 and still love juice boxes. This day I'm lovin' the apricot!

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BUONGIORNO....Principessa! (Sorry fellas) Well this week was such a surprise and I'm really excited to tell you about it. So...there's something here in Sardegnia called Worm Cheese. It's actually illegal to sell...but not illegal to buy. We missionaries have been wanting to get our hands on it just so we could try it and tell the story. Welp, don't even worry about it, the elders got some. We had our weekly meeting as missionaries and they had a wheel of cheese that as soon as you opened the paper that it was wrapped in, little white worms starts jumping everywhere! It was gross. So they brought crackers and we all ate some worm cheese! I ate it in a fret so I didn't really feel them jumping in my mouth. Some of the elders would just put a worm in their mouth and eat it...but I'm not that brave slash....you know. Anywhoodle, yeah for cultural experiences? ha ha I have always wanted to prove to myself that I could do something "Fear Factor"ish. ha ha There you have it. Worm cheese!On Monday we wanted to go find an in-active member who lives a couple of cities away. We took a bus to Frutti D'oro and we were SUPPOSED to take another bus to Poggio Dei Pini (Our destination) HOWEVER, it turns out that there's like a 5 hour break when the bus comes for that city. So we would have had to wait for like 4 hours for a bus and then who knows when there would be another one to take us home. So what did we do? We walked!! It took a bit and was toasty hot, but we were going to find this in-active! I just busted up laughing so many times along the way about how far we were walking and how sweaty we were. haha It was hilarious. I took a couple of pictures. we were romping around through mountainous terrain in search of a lost sheep! And after an hour and a half of walking, we got there. Unfortunately for us...she wasn't at home. We left her a note and told her that we walked to her house because we really wanna see her. haha Hopefully she feels the love behind it. No I constantly feel amused at how sweaty I get here. I'm not one to sweat profusely or anything but really...it's remarkable. Sometimes we'll get to a lesson and sit down and I'll have a thought in my head, "Wow, there is actually a driblet of sweat going down my calf." It's crazy stuff but...it doesn't stop me from loving Italy and all the amazing people here. Being sweaty is just part of the delightful experience. So I will be honest, last week was a bit of a doozy. It just felt like a lot of our appointments were falling through, our investigators wouldn't answer their phones and/or call us back, and it just felt like nothing was working out. We did a lot of house this week and one of the times that we did house I'm pretty sure I almost went all emotional-woman and burst into tears on the doorstep. It was a man who told us that he'd been to our church when he was younger. I just got so much hope and just tried to bear my testimony of our message and he shut me down. I tried one more time to bear testimony of why we were there on his doorstep and he kinda...was more blunt and less patient with me. It really shocked me how hard that moment was on me. If anything, it was really good though, because it helped me remember how important this church really is, and it really IS sad when people don't want to accept it. I think that night my prayer was a lot more sincere.There is always a light at the end of the tunnel and sun after a storm. The very next day was just that. We felt like we should go back to Dolianova. It's a city that we went to for the first time to see a refferal from salt lake. All of our appointments had ducked out on us, and we somehow decided to go back to Dolianova and do a day of house! So we did. We walked to a certain part of the city and prayed about which of the two streets to do. We both felt like we should do the same one. We started and finished the street with no one interested. At the end of the street and I said, "Well Sister Bjarnason why were we supposed to do this street?" One of the people who had shut us down was a pass-back from the last time we were there. We left a note in her mailbox because no one answered. On that street, she was at a friends house and shooed us away. So I said, "Maybe we needed to have closure on Angela." At the end of this street, we turned left onto another street and kept going. We got to one door and my companion told this man that we had a message of Jesus Christ. He said, "What?" She said it again and he said, "Okay, come in." We sat down and from the get-go he wanted to hear about our message. He had some amazing sincere questions about how to know if you're making the right decision. We talked to him about prayer and we taught him the restoration. He was listening so carefully to us and the spirit was so strong. It was so amazing. I know for sure that he felt it. We left, inviting him to church and we thanked him for letting us talk to him about the gospel. He thanked us for telling him about Joseph Smith. He said, "I never heard of him before. Thank you so much for telling me." And it was just so amazing. We have another appointment with him tonight which means that our P-day will be cut a little bit short but good riddance! I don't even care! He's just amazing and so sincere. I can't wait to teach him again tonight. One of the members of the branch presidency lives in that city too so we want to do a family home evening all together. AH! It was just such a wonderful experience after a rough time. I talked with my companion about it afterwards. When we prayed about the two streets that we wanted to do house on, the street that we both felt good about--nothing actually happened on that street. But we needed to take that street in order to turn and get to Sergio. The other street would have taken us somewhere else. It's just cool that Heavenly Father helps us out and helps us see a bigger picture. I'm grateful for the good experiences and the hard ones. I'm learning and growing and there's no other way that could happen if it was always easy. Thanks for being wonderful you guys. I love you all very much and keep you in my prayers. Transfers are on Monday. I don't think that I'm going anywhere--I sure hope not!--but perhaps my companion will leave. She's been here for 3 transfers so...who knows. I'll find out on Monday. Take care, love your lives, and know that I love ya. Sardegnian amore, Sorella Hansen

Referral from Salt Lake, Baptism disaster, Queen‏

The Goumba family! They're members that had us over pretty frequently. They're amazin'. My last night with them they made fried bananas. I was nervous but uh... socks rocked? Check!

Sorella Goumba, Marilena, Me, Sorella Chevalier, Stefano

Carmela and Giada! Yeah for investigators!

Carmela, Sorella Chevalier, Giada, Me

My dear lil' Italian comp. Sorella Barbiere. This was our first P-day together at the Vatican.

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Buongiorno from roasty toasty BEA-utiful Sardegna! Everything is going splendid. Every week has new fun surprises. This week we bought a special bus ticket to go like an hour away for an appointment. It was a referral from Salt Lake. We didn't really know what to expect but it ended up being amazing. It's a couple and their 6 year old son and they went to America for vacation a couple of weeks ago. I was like, "Er...why did you go to Utah?" ha ha And they went to a bunch of our national parks and they went to the Salt Lake Temple. I couldn't believe that they would even know what it was. But we'll meet with them again this week. They're an amazing family and I'm excited to keep working with them.OH MAN! There was a baptism on Sunday. It's one of the Elders investigators named Marco. So I had to play the piano for the baptism and I thought that that would suffice as my contribution to the baptism. Welp, as a missionary...you just get volunteered a lot and you have to be happy to do it. ha ha So...they asked me and my companion if we would sing a song. So we picked Abide With Me...but obviously in Italian and I kid you not....it was more then just a little of a let down. My companion, bless her heart, doesn't really like to sing. She's really quiet and her eyes were glued to her hymn book the whole time--though maybe it was better that way because I looked up at the audience every now and then and I just wanted to run for the gates! ha ha The Branch President and his wife were mouthing the words for us and some people had confused looks on their faces. ha ha Oh dear. I told Anziano Brewster (our zone leader who does musical theater) that perhaps he should be the designated musical number. ha ha Oh buddy is was a disaster. I kind of wish that I had it on film or something but at the same time I don't think I could make it through. It was wretched, but....the most important part is that ol' Marco got baptized and will get the Holy Ghost on Sunday. Let's just focus on that!We haven't been able to talk to Queen for a while. We call her and she doesn't answer. Last time we saw her she was having problems with one of her feet and she was waiting to hear about whether or not her husband can come out of jail. We just dropped by her house yesterday to see how she's doing and she's great. I guess we have to wait until July 7th to see if her husband can come out. But we got to meet a couple of her relatives that are all from Nigeria. It's fun. We have a bunch of people that are potentials but the tricky part is turning them into investigators. We'll figure it out though!Well today we hiked Devil's Saddle ....again because the Assistants are here and we wanted to do something as a district. ha ha We've hiked Devil's Saddle three times now. ha ha I actually really enjoy it but I also come home looking like a sweaty little mongrel. It's hardly my best look, but I'm getting over it! It is getting hot and toasty here in Sardegna. The slightest breeze is paradise though! Good thing this church is true eh? I usually talk to people on the buses about how hot it is and they say something like, "Oh, just wait until July and August." That doesn't do anything to make me feel better--espcially when their solution to the heat is to go to the beach. "Hey guys, I'm a sista missionary. We can't just go kick it and the beach."Welp, that's it for this week. I love you guys very much and pray for ya and hope that you're happy and doing well. Thanks for everything. You're wonderful. Vi voglio un sacco di bene! Sorella Mallory Hansen

ANFFAS, new investigator, our pet chubbers‏

This is Aldo. He's pretty much the highlight of English class in Rome. HILARIOUS!! He used to be a piano player for a living so after English class Anz. Herrick & I would throw out requests and off the top of his head he would play and sing. He even played at the Ritz! Anywho my favorite request was 'My Heart Will go On' that Titanic song by Celine Dion. No worries. GOT a video and you can see it 2010.

Ha, Ha... THE witch hunt baptism dress!
Me, Sorella Chevalier, Diana, Mani

The day of Diana's baptism!

Diana, Sorella Chevalier, Me

Lunch at Vince and Elenas. They're THE best BTW. We were joking about the juice that we brought (called 'Don Simon') life of the party. LOVE these guys.

Me, Anz. Brock, Anz. Herrick, Anz. Rogers, Elena, Anz. Bradford, Vince, Sorella Chevalier

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Happy Fathers day fellas! (Sorry it's a week late.) :)Welp another loveably unpredictable week here in Cagliari. One of my favorite things that we do here is our service. Oh man, we go and volunteer with this...agency?...it's called Anffas. It's so much fun. It's people who have mental disabilities and they go to this center everyday and make things like picture frames and decorate boxes and journals. It's really cool actually. So, we get to help them every Thursday for a couple of hours and talk with them. They just completely kill me, they're so funny. We ride the bus with them to the place and it's so much fun. The bus driver loves us and pretty much considers us family (Uh...yeah, he's so getting baptised if I have anything to say about it. He'd be great with the young men. Yeah, sometimes I let my mind jump ahead of reality. First thing's first!) He always asks us stuff about the church and it's fun to watch his interest and see how he thinks about these things that we tell him. So this bus driver always asks us funny questions about America and it gets everyone on the bus laughing. They've asked us about Halloween, how we celebrate Christmas, what fruits we have, musicians, etc. It's so funny. I wish my life could be filmed when I'm with them because they're just too funny.Well, we had a couple of appointments with potential investigators this week--which is a big deal for us. This last transfer I've tried to be better about getting peoples phone numbers. THIS transfer I've been trying to figure out how to turn those numbers into appointments, and therefore turn THEM into investigators. Well, our appointment on Sunday kinda...tanked. ha ha It was with a guy named (and I'm not even joking) Golam. I proved to be completely oblivious to the world and he ended up being Muslim and tried to tell us how there were no more prophets after Mohammad and that we were wrong. Well, the only thing I felt to do was to bear my testimony that I know that Joseph Smith was called of God. It seemed to me more of a learning experience for us as missionaries then a ground breaking lesson for him.On the other hand, we had 2 other appointments with potential investigators (just people that I'd met on the bus) and...2 new investigators this week! One of them is named Mattia. This is such a cool story. So I met him on the bus on Saturday. When I say I met him, I mean....I noticed him but wasn't able to talk to him before I had to get off of the bus. Thank goodness Heavenly Father gives second changes. Sunday--the very next day, mind you--I got on the bus and made eye contact with him. I realized this was the loving slap in the face that I needed and I just walked up to him and sat down and started talking. He immediately said that he had heard of our church before. By the end of the conversation--right when I was about to get his phone number---HE said to ME, "Hey, why don't I give you my phone number and you can send me a message when your English class is." Er....for reals? You're OFFERING to give me your phone number? That stuff doesn't just happen does it?! So, I called him on Monday to tell him that our English Class was on Tuesday night if he wanted to come. He said he had to work but asked if we could do it some other time. We told him we could teach him some English earlier in the day. (We've taught English to people before, but it's hard to slip the gospel in if you don't start with it from the get go) So I said, "And because we're missionaries, we love to talk about the church. So we'll do a spiritual thought beforehand is that okay?" And he was totally cool with it.SO at the appointment, we started with the "spiritual thought" where we taught him about the restoration of the church. At the beginning I was just praying that he'd pay attention and be interested. Welp, don't even worry about it, he was asking questions and it was such a great lesson. At the end of the lesson I asked him how he felt about the things that we'd taught him and he said that he believed it. We'll meet with him again sometime this week. And in the end, we said, "Well do you wanna do some English?" and he didn't really seem to want to. He really just wanted to hear about the gospel! It's great to see that there are people that just really truly want to hear our message, there are people that are ready. I'm ever so grateful that Heavenly Father is patient with me because sometimes I drop the ball out here. But He has given me second chances SEVERAL times and I'm just so grateful that He humors ol' Sorella Hansen because I'm learning a lot.In other news I am still as girly and ridiculous as ever. Our laundry machine is out on the porch and so for some reason whenever I go out to put some laundry in the machine...there is always at least one chubster lizard out there! I usually make some sort of unvoluntary reflex reaction/sound and scamper back inside to tell my companion. (Because she really wants a picture of them) I don't know why, but they're never out there when she puts her laundry in. Negative. It's just when I'm out there. So awkward. So I can just imagine our neighbors across the way watching me tip-toe onto the porch with an armful of laundry, trying to be sneaky and quiet in case I need to make a fast get-away from our unwanted lizard friends. Ah, my life. At least Sorella Bjarnason has captured a picture of one so she knows that I'm not completely nuts.Well, I hope that you're all doing great and are healthy, happy, and loving every moment of your beautiful lives. I'm trying to do the same over here. I want you to know that I do have a testimony of this church. I know that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet to restore the church. I know that Heavenly Father loves us so much and answers every sincere prayer. I adore reading the scriptures. It's debatably awkward, my love for the scriptures. I learn so much from them and love my hour a day that I get to learn from them. I love you guys very much. Drive safe. Put on Sun Block. And remember that there's a blond sister missionary in Sardegna that loves you very much! Sorella Hansen

Scambi, Rita, Interestin' food‏

Well hello family and friendsiesIt has been yet another not disappointing week in Sardegna! First of all, at this moment I'm not e-mailing from Cagliari but from Sassari. It's like the northern most part of the island....ish. ha ha But we are doing a scambi. (A companion exchange) It's been a crazy week because right after our district meeting on Monday we had to take the train to Sassari (it takes like 4 hours but on top of that it was delayed). I was SUPPOSED to just drop sorella Bjarnason off and bring Sorella Hughes right back on the train BUT because our train took so long to get to sassari...we missed the train back. So I had to sleep here in Sassari without anything. No pajamas, to shower goods, no new clothes for the next day, toothpaste...nada. So it was interesting. It wouldn't be a very big deal, but I have to be a missionary, you know? Like I can't just look completely mangled and ravaged by wolves for no good reason. I'm pretty sure it's in the rule book! ha ha Anyway, so the Tuesday morning we woke up at like 5:30a.m. to take the train home to Cagliari, we had a full day and then this morning (wednesday) we woke up at 4:30a.m. to take the train back up here to drop off Sorella Hughes and pick up my companion. ha ha Man oh man it's been an adventure. Lots of train rides for Sorella Hansen! So I'll take yet another train ride home today at 2 and then no more train rides for a while. It's been an adventure to say the least!SO let me tell you about something completely wonderful that happened! So do you remember Giuliano? I met him my first week here in Cagliari and went to talk to him while we were doing Mostra. Anyway, we taught him two lessons and then he stopped answering my calls. I was actually SO sad about it because I really felt like I was supposed to talk to him and I ....I dunno, it was just sad that he just stopped answering. So we went a MONTH without hearing from him, and him not answering. Well a week ago we got stood up on an appointment and I just ended up walking to this piazza to make a phonecall. Well, guess who was just hanging out at the Piazza? Giuliano himself! Anyway after the conversation I still got the feeling that he was holding back. He told me that he was really busy with work and stuff and THAT's why he didn't answer. I tried to be nice but I didn't believe a word of it. You can tell. Anywhoodles, so then this sunday we went to this Piazza to do chalk. (pretty much we lay a sheet down on the ground and draw the plan of salvation or something). You'll never guess who we ran into...our ol' boy Giuliano! AH! I kind of felt frustrated and like I didn't really know what to do. So I did chalk for a second and then went over and sat by him and talked to him. IT WAS SPLENDID! Listen to this: So he told me that he had read 30 pages of the book of mormon. Er...I think my mouth dropped open as he continued by retelling the whole story of Nephi killing Laban!! Seriously, come on, does this really happen?! So I felt like I could do this so...I totally called him on not answering our calls. ha ha And it actually turned out being just the right thing to do. He knows my personality well enough that it worked and he understood and it was good. I guess he just felt like it was too much for a bit and wanted to wait for a little bit. I was just like "Giuliano, if we're not going to hear from you for a month will you just tell me first?!" ha ha He just laughed and...whaddaya know, we have an appointment for Saturday! It was such a rewarding experience to have an investigator that I found tell me a story from the book of mormon. It just helps remind me that I'm supposed to be here when something like this happens. It was the best feeling and I just felt so happy for him. I'm trying to work on being more bold and in this situation it worked out!On our scambi yesterday with Sorella Hughes, we had an appointment with our new investigator, Rita, that we found doing house like a week ago. Holy smokes that family is great! It's her and her husband Antonio, and their daughter Federica (who's 26) and HER son Alessandro (who's 19 months). It was really cool. Federica is practically my age and she is fantastic. If things go according to planned, then she'll be a new investigator next time. We were able to finish teach the first lesson-the restoration. It went well. There were some elements that were a bit out of our control but it went really great. Federica had some really amazing and sincere questions. She told us that she doesn't believe in the catholic church and she feels like the people in that church are just men. You know like...pretty much saying that she doesn't feel like they have authority. Which was cool. THEN, I'll have to explain something. In the catholic church, they don't pray directly to Heavenly Father. They pray to Mary--the mother of Jesus, and she I guess...delivers the message...or something. Also, they pray to saints. But Federica was telling us that she doesn't like praying to the Madonna (Mary), because she says that it doesn't feel natural and she just doesn't like it. It's just so cool to see people recognizing inside themselves a desire for the truth. They don't always recognize it, but it's so clear that there's something inside of her desiring to know. BAH! Love it!After the lesson we had lunch with them. We had some crazy stuff! I thought, when I got my mission call that I was pretty safe as far as weird food goes. It's italy! Come on! But I had my first Anchiovies! I don't know if I spelled that right. But they were...hardly ideal. I dunno, like I was able to swallow but I wouldn't force them upon anyone that I love! Also, after the meal we had a green fig. It was like the size of a baseball but shaped like a ...top. You know, like those toys that you spin. Then on the inside it looked like a sea anenomi (Wow, my spelling has gone rapidly down periscope! Sorry if you can't understand a lick of this e-mail) The texture of what was inside was completely bizarre. It looked like it should live and sway about in salty water, and should glow-in-the dark. ha ha It was the craziest thing but it was actually pretty A-okay. I think I'll try another one sometime!Well thanks for tuning in to this eternal e-mail. I hope that everything's going great for everyone. I learned so much from my scambi from Sorella Hughes. She's a really bold missionary. That's one thing that I really want to work on because it's so great. The church is true. Read your scriptures. Say your prayers. And love your beautiful lives everyday, all the time. Sardegnian love, Sorella Hansen

Zone Conference, Lost & Found, Answerin' prayers‏

Family and friends ... This week has been a splendid one indeed! First of all, we had Zone Conference yesterday and it actually blew my mind! Elder Kopischke came (Probably butchered the spelling of his name...He's German. I speak Italian now...it's just not in the cards for me to know how to spell it!) Anywho, he's kind of an Elder Jeffrey R. Holland kind of a speaker. You certainly don't leave feeling prideful and like the best missionary in the world. That's for sure. I don't know how he does it but somehow he sweeps the pride ladder right out from under you and somehow you just get up feeling completely okay about it. Seriously I don't know how he gets the job done. I just wanted to be 500 percent better. He really talked about the importance of planning and finding. He said those are the things that we need to work on in this mission. He's right. I think I took like half a notebook worth of notes and just loved it. We were in church like all day. The Zone conference started at 10 and then ended at 5. It was a doozy. THEN we had English class afterwards which was a good time as usual.So here's a rad story that I really wanted to share. My first week here in Cagliari I talked to someone on the bus. I remember it was my birthday. I talked to this guy for like 15 minutes and I was really stoked about it and then when we got off I didn't get any of his information and this other guy at the bus stop started talking to us and...before I knew it the OTHER bus that we needed to take came and we needed to get on. I felt really bad that I didn't get Massimo's information or anything. We were doing service that morning at an inactive members house and I just remember being preoccupied the whole time because I felt bad. Well, every time we're at that bus stop I say a little prayer that by some chance he'll get off a bus or we'll already be at the stop. So. on Saturday we left an appointment with one of our investigators and were walking back to the bus stop. The street was unusually chaotic. There were lots of things that were distracting. Old men painting the walls of an apartment building, some young guys making a van driver mad because they were in the middle of the road, etc. Well, we continued on and I noticed there was someone in a doorway up ahead. I was just going to say "buona serra" and keep going but about when we got even with him I froze in my steps and just whispered "aspetta..." I turned around and the guy in the doorway smiled. I said, "Massimo?" and he nodded. It was crazy! I don't think I hid my excitement to finally see him again. ha ha We stopped and talked to him for a bit and got his info and...it was just a splendid answer to prayer. The thing is, I don't know for sure how interested he is or anything, but Heavenly Father helped me out. I jacked up my first try and He gave me an opportunity to have closure and try again. Ah. How cool is that?! After it happened, like every ten steps I would ask my companion "Can you even believe that that happened just now?!"Here is another Jewel that happened: We were early to an appointment with one of our investigators by like..45 minutes. My companion and I have a goal of doing house everyday. So...perfect opportunity. We got off the bus stop and were walking in the direction of the investigators house and were just glancing down the street trying to feel out which street we should do house on. I saw one and honestly I don't remember any overwhelmingly strong feeling or anything but I just felt like, "okay, that's it." We crossed the street and said a prayer outside of the first door and got started. The first door was actually pretty fun. The guy wasn't super interested but we had a good conversation and we left him with a pamphlet and a good impression of the missionaries. So we continued on down the street. We got to one door and this man in his 50's answered. I excitedly told him who we are and that we have a message about the Savior and he kind of smiled and said, "Let me get my wife." Well, the wife came around the corner and I introduced us again and she just smiled and said to come in and make ourselves comfortable. Uh....wait, what? We went in and asked them about the pictures on the wall of their family. They were SO nice to us. I just instantly fell in love with this cute couple. My companion looked at her watch pretty much right as we sat down on the couch and...we were almost late for our appointment with our investigator. I asked if we could just say a prayer with her and come back and teach them about the church another day. She said yes. She told us several times that she was so thankful that we came. That we brought her so much joy. She said she'd been having a really hard day, was feeling really down, and that we were an answer to her prayers. She started crying. We went and gave her a big hug. It was so amazing. We have an appointment with them tonight and if things go according to planned, we'll have two new investigators tonight! How cool is that that we answered someone's prayer? It just made us wanna knock on so many more houses and help more people. Who knew? House works!There's so much more that I could tell but this will suffice. What a great week as a missionary. I certainly have flaws up the wall (thanks Anziano Kopischke! ha ha) but we get so blessed and Heavenly Father is sure patient. It's been cool to watch us as a companionship. My companion has grown and gotten so much better. I'm not saying that she's bad, because she's wonderful. But it's cool to look back at when we started and say, "Well, look at you cute thing, you're talking to people on the buses more and more." or "I was so proud of you when you chased that old lady down at zone singing." We're learning and growing a lot together. No doubt there is a lengthy laundry list of things to change but little by little we're learning how to better do this work and trying to make it a fun and happy work too. Because...it should be. :) I love you guys so much. Be safe! Lots of Sardegnian love, Sorella Hansen

Transfers, Musical Number, Adelle‏

(Photo courtesy of Google images ;)

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Well Hi-dee-ho~We had transfer calls on Monday and, you guessed it....uh...I'm not going anywhere. :) I'm actually so glad that I'm not going anywhere. I'm really happy to be here in Cagliari and my companion is staying with me too. I have learned so, so much this last transfer. I hope I can be here for a long time.So I noticed something this week that I thought I'd share. It's just a random moment of my life but I enjoy it so here it goes. There's this one bus stop that we go to kind of often because it takes us to church. Well, when we're at this stop we usually have to wait for a while for the bus. ALMOST every time at some point during our wait, a little old Italian man on a rickety old bicycle will ride by and we'll say hi to him. It's not even that it's the same guy--it's a different old man every time--but every time I just kind of smile because I love it. It just seems like such an Italian moment doesn't it? It just makes me laugh and I enjoy it. It made me think of that one part in the Truman Show when Jim Carrey notices that certain people pass his house every day. I felt like I was on the Truman Show. Somebody knows that I love these adorable little Italian men on their bicycles and they magically get cued to pass me when I'm waiting at the bus stop. ha ha I love it.So there was a baptism this weekend. It's one of the investigators of the elders. His name's Giovanni. The zone leader, Anziano Brewster, asked me if I would play the piano while he sang for a musical number. He ended up wanting me to make the last verse a third higher and make a pretty little transition between verses. ha ha I think he misunderstood my capabilities with the piano but, of course, I told him yes and did my best. It was simple, but really pretty. He sang "Come Thou Fount" in Italian (obviously) with Anziano Pace. It was way pretty.AND we had an investigator at the baptism, Adelle! Oh my word I wish every one of you could meet this woman. She's just completely unreal. I pretty much die laughing every time I'm with her. She has the best personality. She's SO happy, has this wide-eyed innocence about her, just every thing's exciting. It's my favorite. She loved the baptism too. I was standing behind her as she was watching Giovanni get baptised and I saw her move her arm and she told me, with her eyes all lit up and big, that she got goosebumps. Ah man, she's great. THEN she came to church the next day! So I mistook her age last time I wrote. I think she's like 70 but she dresses so cute and just has the most adorable personality she just seems so young. But anyway, since it was the fifth Sunday of the month we had a combined meeting and the District President just mentioned modesty a little in his lesson. Afterwards I talked with Adelle and she asked me if she needed to take her earrings out and her rings off. ha ha She's adorable. And she's already a hit with the branch. How can you not love her though?AND to make things greater. I hope I told you the story about the man who offered us water because it was so hot. Well, we went back to see them this week and we brought a bottle of water with us to give to them and we wrote a little card that was just like, "Thanks for the water. One day you guys will be two of the Seventy". (I hope I wrote this story last week otherwise this will make little sense.) Anyway, they loved it and we got to talk to them a little bit more. Well, one of these men came to sacrament! Granted, he was a little late but he still came and talked to us and said 'hi'. His brother-in-law is a member in Milan. It was a great day.Well, every thing's going chipper. I'm learning a lot. I have so many things to work on and improve it's kind of ridiculous but little by little I can see the changes that are happening and the help that I'm receiving. I really do feel so blessed to have the opportunity to serve as a missionary. There are still days that I scratch my head as to why Heavenly Father wanted me to be a missionary but it's awesome. Thanks for all of your support, prayers, letters, and love. I love you all so very much and pray for you all the time. Be happy and take care.

Italian sister missionary love, (which is the best kind you know) Sorella Hansen