Week 11 - Ragusa, Sicily, Italy

Things are awesome here in southern Sicilia.  The language is coming nicely.  I can understand the gist of most things and can communicate well but slowly.  My trainer is very good at Italian, so I am learning from the best.  Monday, we arrived at the base and were able to get some American made goods like Mountain Dew, x24 and it's long gone already :( , Spam (also gone,) and deodorant sticks since they only have spray kind.  We had some Subway but it wasn't the same.  Well, I don't know if it was worth the six hours of bus riding but what's done is done.  We met some people while in Catania and got 4 numbers for the missionaries there so it wasn't all a waste.

A few days later we visited the beautiful mountain city of Chiaramonte with a new member and on Thursday we left in the early afternoon for a long bus ride to Siracusa.  We walked around the old city, Ortigia, and saw the Greek Temple Apollos where Paul preached and a bunch of fat old tourists in swimsuits lounging on the rocks along the sea.  We ate some pizza that night with the missionaries there.  Strangely enough, my favorite kind of pizza here is one with eggplant and ricotta cheese on it.  Sounds gross, but it is delicious.  The next day we went to zone conference which was super fun and exciting with all the training we did and then we took the bus back to Ragusa.

Saturday, we cleaned the baptismal font and later we held the baptismal service for Samson Abada, the eighteen year old man from Nigeria.  His member friend Goodluck, shown in the attached picture, kept saying "Good Job!" and "You are now a full member of the true church of Christ" over and over again.  It wasn't exactly true since he wasn't confirmed until the following day, but it was great to see his enthusiasm for his friend.

Ci sentiamo la prossima settimana!