Letter #2 From Bari, Italy

Ciao Cari!

This week has been wonderful :) I have loved every minute of it! The members love hearing about mom and dad. They would like to see some of your mission pictures if you could send them. Grazia Bellomo sees me on sundays and she calls me over saying, "sorella Preston, Vieni vieni!" She loves saying my name.


She and all her family are all still super strong in the church. Some of her children live in SLC and she wanted to know where you lived. Sadly not that close! I explained that St. Louis is pretty far. She asked her daughter in Salt lake if she remembered you and she remembered your names.I saw Sorella Rosa Magno last night at Carmen's setting apart. Carmen leaves today for the Madrid MTC :) Her setting apart was a bit strange because the whole ward came! I was not sure if that was supposed to happen but it did and it is too late to worry about if that should have happened :) But Rosa was super sweet and she wanted Dad's email so she could email him so expect an email from Sorella Magno soon. I told her that I took my name from her and she loved it :) Mom I will get you Grazia Bellomo's email. She is in the hospital recovering from a heart surgery so keep her in your prayers.

Dad, also there is an anziano here who is a convert (anziano Hurlburt) and when he found out you are a patriarch he got so excited. He had a ton of quesitons and wanted me to ask you if you could share what you do to prepare to give blessings and what it is like being a patriarch:)

 

We just had zone conference yesterday and it was amazing. I learned a lot and I made some goals to be a better missionary. I also was asked to sing "This is the Christ". While I was there I got the low down on mailing and packages from Sorella Kelly! So finally I now know everything about mailing in Italy. 1) Two known things that never come through are shoes and medicine/vitamins. Also anything that i could buy in Italy. They dont like competition so they dont let it come or they tax it a ton. So if I can buy it here it is better to put the money in my account :) 2) mail with padded envelopes they are cheaper. My companion just recieved to packages from home for her birthday yesterday. They only cost 16 - 20 dollars to ship. But when they got here they were taxed € 30!! ON every package you send oversees you state or write what is inside and then how much it is worth. THE PACKAGE WORTH MUST BE MORE THAN THE COST OF SHIPPING! Her parents had sent my companion TOMS (very expensive shoes) so they wrote "shoes" (DONT WRITE THAT EVER) and declared it as $150! CRAZY DONT DO THAT EITHER.

Tips:

1) Write " Missionary Supplies" or "Candy" these two things are never taxed and come through fine. Never write "GIft"

2) Put pictures of the Virgin mary or Baby Jesus on the package!! It sounds INSANE but for some reason packages with that stuff on them come through just fine :) I love italy!! Also youcan write "AMO GESù Bambino" on the package and it come through fine :)

3) Must mail package to my apartment not mission home so when it is getting close to transfers dont mail me anything. Transfers are every 6 weeks. I will be in Bari till Christmas I almost certain because president kelly hinted at that.

4) To lower declared value you can mail used things. Sorella kelly just said, " have your mom wear it for a day. Then it is used and all is well".

You should be getting a letter soon from the kelly's that they send to the parents about packages. At zone conference we talked about obedience a lot and preparing to get a lot of missionaries. We dont know but with the huge influx (especially of sisters) we could get our share. The president told me I could train a 19 year old! I would love that! He also talked about the temple and its construction. They are putting on the roof right now and the Cristus Statue is almost done. It will be the same size as the one in Temple Square!!!  If you havent seen the design yet they are building the temple so when you leave the temple doors you see first thing down the hill the Cristus statue throught the visitor centers glass front. There will be fountains leading down to the visitor center! I am so excited to see it finally finished!! The mission president pointed out that the people we are baptizing now will be able to go to the temple!! The are so many baptisms in the surrounding areas in our zone they all got at least 2 in the last month! It is crazy!  

I love Bari. it is beautiful. I am attaching some pictures that I will list what they are at the bottom :)

My companion and I are starting a diet so pray for us. It is a lot like the HCG diet without the drops and not quite as strict but we are cuttling out all sugars, oils, dairy, and breads for a few weeks. We have calcium pills so we will still get our calcium. I am very excited.

The members here are amazing and I love them. We have a lot of less active sisters or sisters too old to come to church and i get to go see them they are so sweet. One of our investigators, hopefully, have their grandmother living with them. She has alzheimers and she speaks in a super thick dialect. I could not understand a word coming from her mouth :) at one point she was trying to kiss my hand but I think she forgot how. I look over and she is trying to stuff my hand into her mouth!! I retrieved it and all was well.! We also met with sorella Leone who is pretty there mentally and she loves to sing. she sang O Mio signor ( How great thou art) with us because it is her favorite hymn. All in all the members are super helpful and they fight to feed us, literally. 

Last sunday i met one of the older members of the ward she was adorable and crazy. I thought i knew what to expect from Relief Society ITALIAN STYLE but i was no where even close. This member was not there last sunday. During annoucnements she kept interrupting telling everyone how old she was and insisting she was the oldest person in the ward until the sorella making announcements told her to shut up!! THEN we were talking about self-sufficiency and food storage for our lesson. When all of the sudden this lady whips out of her bag a 3 gallon bag (at least) of individually-wrapped cookies and starts screaming, "This!! This is what I have to give to the poor!" Oh how much i love relief society!

I dont think Giovanni will be baptized we still havent heard from him. But we are keeping the faith. The most important thing is that we tried and then he has to choose whether to act or not! I love quotes especially from Elder Holland. I told you about his talk I watched in the MTC I am prettysure. I read my notes again from that this week. This week was a bit harder but it felt more fulfilling. There a few more people yelling at us than usually. It is hard when people insist that we are brainwashed or tell us we never got to choose what we believed. But I have been very blessed. the comments have rolled off and I have only been left with the sweet confirming feeling from the Holy Ghost testifying to me that God is proud of me and my efforts! I love that I get to work here and see miracles. My companion and I were talking about how we have been prepared to serve missions. The more I am here the more I realized God has been preparing me my whole life to come here to Italy and work among these people. I have so much to learn but I am blessed to be here. One of my favorite quotes I dont remember by whom is ,"IF you are getting rejected you are doing something right". I can not get rejected unless I talk to people :) I love finding! i LOVE it on strada, casa in casa, autobus, anywhere! It is fun :)

I love you all and I hope your lives are going well! You are in my prayers

Sorella Preston

PS
I forgot to tell you I went to the questura today! that was fun!! (Editor's Note: Police Headquarters) and insane but now I just have to wait a few months and they will text me when my permesso arrives. They also had the dirtiest bathrooms I have ever seen there in this building. I took pictures!!!! :) There was poop on the walls and everything :) sooo much fun! Love you all!