Things are pretty good here in Ragusa. On Monday we took a bus to Catania and then a train to Messina (the city closest to mainland Italy.) Anziano Durham had an appointment at the Questura there to renew his documents to stay in Italy. That night we met up with the sister missionaries serving in Messina and ate at a Sri Lankan member's home. They live with this 90 something year old lady who doesn't understand hardly anything the two members say to her in their accented Italian. We ate some typical Sri Lankan food and I for the first time in the mission thought I was going to puke there at the table. It was this spicy heavily seasoned rice with pork/fish/bones/guts? mixture with yellow pasty stuff and weeds. I ate half of it with a smile on my face before throwing in the towel. The members were cool with it thankfully. The sisters barely touched it but Durham ate it all. It was impressive. He was also sweating profusely the entire time as was I. Crazy night. We slept that night in Messina at the old Elder's apartment and then the next morning after the appointment, we left on a bus back to Ragusa with some mattress pads, suits, medicines, games, and other things from the Messina apartment. The mattress pads were very bulky and awkward to carry but it was definitely worth it.
The rest of the week was spent doing English course and teaching lessons. Our progressing investigator is doing really well. He accepted the Book of Mormon and is coming to church. He is a big talker during the lessons and always tells the greatest stories. When we were teaching him about being a good citizen as part of the commandments lesson, he told us about his older brother who in his words, is "so cool." He apparently has a reputation for refusing to fight back in Nigeria and if anyone asks for something of his, he gives it away. We agreed with him that his brother was a pretty good example of a peace-loving citizen. It is hard to explain everything in words, you kind of just have to be there to enjoy his stories.
On Friday morning we had a meal appointment with this elderly couple. It was a really good meal but the elderly husband almost choked to death on his pasta. He got all red and sauce was dribbling out of his mouth as his wife whacked him on the back a few time. Then he got his throat cleared and while grinning with his toothless smile he garbled, "Tutto a post!" (which means literally, "all at place")
Italian progress has been going really well too. I don't translate everything into English in my head anymore; now, it just makes sense. Tomorrow we head to Siracusa on a three-hour bus ride for Zone Conference.
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