La Spezia, Cinque Terre, Teachin' a family!‏

(This is the Cinque Terre)

Hey guys~What a crazy week! (I know, I say that every e-mail right?) There was a grundle of traveling to get to this beautiful city of La Spezia. 4 hour train ride to get to the boat, overnight boat ride, one hour train to Rome...wait for my companion to arrive in Rome, and then a four hour train ride to La Spezia. And my word how have I acquired so much stuff?! I had to go to a little Chinese store to buy a little suitcase because there was just magically not the room that I was hoping for. ha ha I don't know if I mentioned last e-mail but I got "Blown In" to this city. That just means that both of the sisters that were here before me...left. So my companion and I are brand new here. We don't know the city, the investigators, the members...you name it. Thank goodness we speak the right language eh? There's only one elder in our district that has been here in the past so we ask him all kinds of questions like, "Hey, how do we get to our apartment?" ha ha When we got off the train, they had to bring us to our apartment because...well...we'd never been there before. It's been kind of stressful, but mostly I think it's a pretty sweet adventure. I like it. It puts more pressure on us to quickly gain good relationships with our investigators and members...everything. I'm really enjoying it so far.We've had two lessons with investigators. One was with a woman named Miriam. She's great. We taught her about baptism and she's a rock. She has a pretty rough family situation but she's keeping everything together and ...yeah...she's a tough woman. I like her a lot.Our other lesson that we had was with a FAMILY...yup!...family. I was so excited that we were teaching a whole fam. They're adorable. They're from the Dominican Republic and yeah...they're great. We also taught them about baptism and...asked them to be baptized. I know, right? Our first time meeting these people and we asked them to be baptized. Welp, the lesson mustn't have gone too bad because they said yes! Seriously, how much do I love blessings? Oh yeah, kind of like a lot! AND...my companion and I forgot to fast on Sunday, so we fasted on Monday instead and had just broken our fast before that appointment with them. It was way cool.Church was a completely different experience then I'm used to. We went to Relief Society and there were 2 members there...besides us and the teacher. Crazy stuff right?! I've never been in a relief society that small. In Rome there were like 25 women in relief society...in Cagliari about 10-15. But what was cool was I met all of the members and could probably tell you all of their names. ha ha That's kind of nice! I think there were people that were missing though so I'll be meeting more of the branch this Sunday. The members here are amazing. They're so strong in the church and I just love them already. There's so much work to do here though. We're trying to keep finding new people to teach and there's plenty of inactive work to do.We went on the most AMAZING hike today. We went to the "Cinque Terre". Oh mylanta it was beautiful! It's like a 5 hour hike that you walk along a mountain...along the coast, and there are five different cities that are just built into the mountain. It was breathtaking. These cute little towns were exactly how I'd always pictured Italy in my head. It was like a movie. Ah. I'll send pictures. :)We have a new contact. My companion and I were on the bus going home and (Well, I try to be really nice and smile and be friendly...because...it's not like we blend in with our attire that we're rockin'.) I smiled at the people on the bus and this one guy made eye contact with me and he got off at the same stop as us. I was kind of worried because I didn't know if I should be worrying about his intentions. I was kind of getting creeper vibes. BUT, he stopped us to talk to us about the gospel. he's talked to an elder in the past and he wants to know what the true church is. His father is Muslim and his mother is Christian. Anyway, he has a lot of questions. We gave his number to the elders and helped them with the first lesson and it was pretty cool. I've never taught someone whose not very familiar with God and has a different religious base. It was a cool experience though.Well I have written too much as usual. I'll tell you a bit about my companion next week. She's great. Sorella Skabelund from Mesa, Arizona. She finishes the mission in February. Love her. She's fabulous. Well I love you guys so much. Please be safe, say your prayers, smile a lot, be happy, and have some ice cream...even though it's not as good as Italian gelato. ha ha Okay sorry, that was mean. Italian Kisses! Sorella Mallory Hansen