Week 22 - Ragusa, Sicily, Italy

This week flew by. On Monday, we went to a member's (V) house for a family home evening. We talked about what we can do to strengthen the relationship between the missionaries and the members and afterwards, we ate some pasta and Italian style nachos. It consisted of kind-of tortilla chips and melted Kraft-style cheese squares. It was pretty funny. Then, Tuesday morning after helping an African send money back to his family in Africa, I got my hairs cut. The barber spent an abnormal amount of time slicking my cut hair straight back from my forehead and getting everything to lie perfectly in place. It was looking pretty ridiculous so I took a shower at lunch and did it up my own way. Later that day was packed with a hike to Ibla to teach some Africans and then a few hours of teaching English course at the church. The next day, Anziano Durham had to go to the government immigration building, the Questura, to go do some fingerprinting for his permesso di soggiorno. It took all morning so I stood outside talking to a man from Mali and then a man from Albania. It is crazy to see how different my life was in America to theirs. On Thursday we did a district meeting and Friday, a friend hooked me up with some Mountain Dew from Vittoria. The mountain dew was a little off-colored and apparently bottled in Romania but it tasted normal. On Saturday morning, we agreed to help this lady clean the church. It wouldn't have taken so long, but her two little kids kept unplugging my vacuum cleaner and turning it on and off. The little boy was throwing hymn books and pass along cards everywhere and also ate some of the microphone off. He just kept laughing and when I turning the machine back on he grabbed my tie and my top button on my white shirt busted off. I don't remember little kids being so hard to deal with. Hopefully I won't go bald from this episode in my mission. Yesterday, after a good long day of church and fasting, we ate at the home of the ward mission leader (a super funny Sicilian man and a great cook, too.) I ate two very large helpings of pasta al forno (basically lasagna with meat sauce, cheese, ham slices, and hard boiled eggs), two chicken things (chicken and other stuff wrapped in a net and cooked), a bunch of oven roasted, olive oiled, sliced potatoes, melon, and then gelato. And also a bunch of coke, water, and orange soda. It was uncomfortable to sit afterwards with a pancia fitting to burst. The only comfortable position kind-of was lying down. The sisters tapped out on every course - ha ha. The baptism last Saturday didn't happen for a few reasons but it should happen in two weeks if everything goes according to plan. You got to have a little patience sometimes. Basta for now.