pidocchi

So maybe I had lice this week. Yup, I'm gross. Luckily I figured it out right away and bought this weird foam stuff to kill the little suckers and washed all my sheets and shiz in boiling water, but really, who goes to Italy and gets lice? This moi, gross. Sorella Simkins keeps calling me the smelly kid like we're in 3rd grade again. It already feels like 6,000 years ago even though it was only Monday. Every now and then I'm think "Hey, remember that one time when I had lice?" Sicky. Its source will be forever unknown but I have my suspicions.

ANYway. It's been a weird week. Chock full of miracles, but it took me a few days to get used to the switch of having Sorella Jacobson leave and Sorella Simkins get here. I'm 3 for 3 so far, all my companions from Utah, but Sorella Simkins is great. She's been in Italy over a year and spent her senior year of high school in Sardegna so she speaks well and is a good teacher. We already feel like we're teaching pretty well, she's just learning to pause more and I'm learning to butt in. She's chill and happy and loves to be outside, kind of like me. Pics to come next week. I kind of hate being in charge of everything, but it will even out as she learns the city and all our peeps.

Three fav miracle stories of the week:

Miriam: She is the roommate of one of our awesome members Rocio, who teaches Gospel Principles in Sunday School, served a mission in Bolivia, and is really one of the most wonderful humble people I've met. Roommate spends weeks at a time in Milano where she works taking care of a baby. Saturday evening there was no English class because of a huge GANS activity for all of Italy and some other bits of Europe here in Bergamo and the church was crawling with them.

We called a sacco of people but really couldn't make any plans for the day. But we kept finding the right people and were seriously led by the Spirit and I felt like we should go see Rocio. I was pretty sure it was just because I love her and wanted to stop by and introduce Sorella Simkins, and then turns out roommate was in town for the weekend. We taught an awesome first lesson and explained the restoration and she was eating it up. At one point she had to leave the room for a second and Rocio tells us that she's been praying for Miriam all week and then we came over at the exact perfect time. Miriam is in Milano for two weeks but she is excited to read the Book of Mormon and meet with us again and talked about how she's known for a long time that her faith isn't perfect (she's catholic). It was pretty much wonderful.

Samuele: He is the son of a member who we visit pretty regularly because she needs a bit of strength and support. He's 24, usually would listen when we would come see his Mom, and a few months ago we tried to teach him seriously, started from the begining and he basically shut us down and we were pretty surprised.

Well things have turned around. We taught him the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation since Sorella Simkins got here and asked him to pray about May 17th as a baptismal date. He calls us at almost 11.00 on Sunday night I think, and I'm mostly asleep and therefore quite confused, Simkins is worried that he's calling us, so she answers.  He tells us he just wanted to say vi voglio bene and something proprio meraviglioso had happened and he would tell us about it Tuesday when we had planned to teach him again. We went yesterday and meanwhile some drama has gone down. He works nights as a cook and that night or morning or something a drunk coworker came and hit him across the head with a plate and Samuele wanted to kill him, but he just stood there shaking and white and walked away. His ear had started bleeding again coming home so when we see him his neck and chest had blood all over the place.

Well, we couldn't teach him because he went to go get stitches, but first he recounted the story of how he read 20 pages of the Book of Mormon and there were tons of things that hit him and struck a chord, and he prayed about it and got an answer like this joy and everything good pooling up inside of him, and feeling like God was real and close. Then he prayed that everything would be well at work, and it was more or less the best night at work, everyone getting along and going smoothly.

Then it was the next night maybe that the dude broke the plate over his face.  He said he was not sure what to think, and we both said YOU GOT YOUR ANSWER! HOORAY!  Now Satan is trying to mess with you but do now let that S.O.B. mess this up!  Or something like that. We're going to go see him again this afternoon and Friday. I'm basically praying for him all the time because he is bravo and ready. A few weeks ago he even decided to stop drinking because he didn't feel good when he did. Yeah, this dude is ready.

Letizia: Lately I've been feeling like the only people we teach and the only people that will listen to us are stranieri, and I want to feel like I'm here helping Italians come unto Christ too. And then on Monday almost everyone we talked to and all the numbers we got were for Italian women. One woman was named Letizia. We were walking by her house and we both noticed her door so we went up and knocked (the only door we knocked all day). She let us right in and we taught a great restoration lesson, said a kneeling prayer at the end, gave her a Book of Mormon and even though she's going out of town for two weeks, she made sure we had her number and would call her as soon as she got back to teach her more. She's from closer to Rimini and is a German teacher for kids 14-18 and was pretty much awesome.

OK! Love you all like whoa, hoping to normalize myself this week and figure out pian piano what I need to be changing to be a better missionary so Sorella Simkins and I can make the best of this time here in Bergamo and I can feel like I'm really fulfilling my calling. Granted she hasn't been here even a week and I am just bad at being patient with myself. But as always, it's obviously the right thing for this moment.

Running shoes sent? Ian's job? Mom's foot? Happy anniversary! 27 years? I'm trying to remember? Have you gotten my birthday letter yet? I don't trust Italian mail for anything. Pics from our adventure with the Capelli's next week as well as this new comp.

xoxoxo

sorella bush