Transfers, Manuel, Questions...

The Sunset from my balcony.
Thanks Nellie! (ward member)
Ha ha, She gave me this magnetic necklace/bracelet thing. I just thought of Kenzie because I think Kenzie has like five of these. Ha ha

Christmas Morning!
I'm holding a present that I got from a ward member named Nellie. She doesn't even know me. How sweet is she!?! P.S. That's my comp. Sorella Chevalier


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Well this morning...and many mornings quite frankly I woke up in a web of lies! False...just a web of strings from my comforter. Really, I need to take a picture of it because it's pretty hilarious. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes because my left arm is twisted up in the shredded string from my comforter coming apart. Somehow even at 3 in the morning situations like that just make me laugh. Ah...I love my life.OH! So transfers just happened on Monday! There's really no super cool news or anything. I'm not going anywhere and neither is my companion. Only two people from our district are leaving. It's good that I get to keep my companion for at least another transfer. I don't know the area enough yet to show another companion around. And I still need to get better relationships with our investigators before Sorella Chevalier leaves. Okay, I hope you're ready for this story because it's pretty sock rockin' if I do say so myself: So we've been trying to get a hold of this lady for a long time. She's a referral that the sister that I replaced got like...the day that I got here. We finally set an appointment with this woman (and she's cancelled on us like 2 times before) but it was really far away. Last time we went all the way out there she called us right before and cancelled and it was kinda frustrating. :) So we were nervous about how serious she was and about having to go all the way out there to see her. But of course we decided to go, and we met with her and she's fantastic! Her name's Luisa and we're hopefully going to keep meeting with her. I think she really liked what we were teaching her and really enjoyed it. HERE'S the catch: So when we walked into the pasticceria (it's just like a tiny restaurant where we could sit and talk) I made eye contact with this guy sitting at a table in there and we just smiled and nodded. Well, we sat at the table right next to him and I'd glance over at him every now and then while we were teaching and I noticed that he was listening and nodding when my companion was talking about prophets and apostasy. Crazy right?! So I just kept watching him and he was listening to the whole lesson and seemed really into it. Well, Luisa had to leave so I pulled out a pamphlet about the Restoration to give to her and I just set it on the table while my companion was still talking. Well this guy...was like straining to read what I'd pulled out of my bag. He looked at me and I just gestured to it and asked him if he wanted it. He said 'yes'!...well "si". And I gave it to him and he started reading it while we finished talking with Luisa. Well we said good-bye to Luisa because she had to go and I just walked over to this guy to start talking to him. He'd already read like half of the pamphlet! READ---not skimmed. We left the little pasticceria and walked with him for a little bit and were talking to him. Holy smokes the spirit was so strong while we were in the pasticceria and while we were talking to him it was so crazy. But his name's Manuel and he's from Cuba. He's in Milano right now because he's a photographer but we called him and invited him to family night tonight. The sad thing is that he's not in our area so we can't teach him, we'll have to give him to the Rome 2 missionaries-- but we got his number and he seems really interested. I'm so excited to see what happens. It was way cool!

**Here are some questions from this last week: Are people nicer to you now that all think that we got it right with this new Pres? I don't really know all the happenings with what's happening back in the states but President Obama has been in the papers here quite a bit. I see people reading about him on the Metro a lot. Generally the vibe that I get is they think he's going to help change America or something. I just can't have an opinion as missionary. But yes, they seem to be optimistic about him as far as I can tell.

**How is the Italian? Well that is truly the question of the year! :) No it's going good I think. I obviously still have oodles to learn but I feel like it's coming and I know that French has hooked me up a lot with this language. I'm far from fluent but I'm learning a lot and love attempting to speak it.

**What would the world be like without MJ? Fantastic question. Musically speaking, it would be a tragedy indeed!

**Do you ever see Elder Holloway?Up until now...negative. But word has it that he is, in fact, here somewhere. Elder Oaks is coming to talk to us in February and hopefully the whole mission will get together to listen to him. I think there are like 3 people from American Fork in this mission. Kinda weird cause I've never thought of American Fork as a big town or anything but..yup, it's sweet.

**Do you ride a bike or just walk and use puplic transportation? No bikes. We mostly just walk and use the buses.

Well love you guys tons! Muah! Sorella Mallory Hansen