Week one in Italia

Well I don't really know where to begin so I guess I'll start at the
beginning and try to tell you everything! The magic potion for flying:
1 dramamine  + 1  Benadryl = a very sleepy but not pukey Sorella
Hatfield. It's was great! I slept the whole way to Italy! We made it
through customs and everything no problem with everyone's luggage. We
waited for a few minutes and then these really tall and really white
guys with name tags came through the doors... Never have I ever been
more relieved to see missionaries! We took our bags to the van and
then went back inside to wait for the second group of missionaries ( a
group of native Italians from the north and one Sorella from Costa
Rica) to land and meet up with us. Sorella Wise was so funny. After
the flight board showed that their plane had landed she said, "Yay! We
aren't the greenies anymore!" But she quickly changed her mind when
the "new" greenies showed up speaking flawless Italian! Greenies in
Italian is "Venerdini". The first thing we did was... Go see the
temple!!! It is beautiful! We didn't get to go inside, but just being
on the grounds was pretty special! Seeing how the Italian missionaries
reacted to it was sweet, one of the Sorelle and in very broken English
said to me "I have been praying for this temple and now to see it
means so much for me and the people of Italy". It truly is an honor to
be serving here and I don't feel worthy if such a calling or blessing.
Before we left the MTC we saw the elder from Italy who is going to
Florida and he said to us with tears in his eyes, "Thank you for
serving missions. Thank you for serving in Italy." I almost cry every
time I think about it. We stayed at the mission home for two nights
dpi paperwork and being trained with the iPads and such. The Villa
(mission home) is so cute! Sorella Waddoups (the mission presidents
wife) has a blog... Find it! She keeps it very well updated with
stories and info and pictures! Just google her name and my mission. My
fist area is... OSTIA! It's right on the coast and only about and hour
metro ride from Rome, so on p-days we can go anywhere in Rome that we
want to except for the Vatican! Today is beautiful however so we are
going to the pier this afternoon and into Rome next week! Sheesh I
have so much that I want to tell you guys! Next week I will just send
pictures of my journal! My companions name is Sorella McKenzie and she
is from Mountain Home! We get along super great! I am her first
Venerdini! My first day here we taught two lessons and we have 4
people with baptismal dates and two more hopefully by the end of the
week. A for the language... I probably understand about 60 percent of
what is being said, but I'm already teaching half the lesson,
answering the phone, texting, contacting on the metro and streets and
I ORDERED MY FIRST ITALIAN PIZZA IN ITALIAN ON FRIDAY! So I guess you
could say I'm doing pretty well... Just to prove how well I'm doing
I've got a story for you all! Make sure you pee before you read about
it because I don't want any of you to have an accident. We were on our
way home from the Merx's and we were in the station(awesome family
I'll tell you about later in the email) and we saw a guy that Sorella
McKenzie knew from the English course that we teach and the two
members that were with us also knew him so they started talking and I
asked him if we were going to see him again at English course in
Tuesday and said, "a Martedi?" And apparently my pronunciation was
terrible because he thought that I said "Ha morte di?" Which basically
doesn't really make a whole lot of sense but "ha morte" means "to
death" so when you try to put it together and make sense of it, it
sounded like I was telling him that I'm going to kill him. Seriously
about died laughing when I figured out why he and the other two
members looked so confused and my poor trainer had to clarify that I
was trying to ask if we would see him on Tuesday. Oh good times...
Really though, I guess that most new missionaries don't start doing
things until the third month/second transfer or so. I thought I was
just being normal and trying to help my companion and be a good
missionary. Don't get me wrong, this mission thing is kicking my butt
(obviously)and yesterday I wasn't so sure about it, but we taught a
couple about the plan of salvation and I remember why I was out here.
Yesterday was full of tender mercies for me and the biggest one is
truly a miracle and I'm still in shock a little bit! Mom, do you
remember at quick draw when that lady gave you her sisters information
for me?! Their family (Merx) is in my ward here in Ostia and last
night we went to dinner at their house! She is an angel and I am so
grateful for her! One of the members that went to dinner with us is
named Nohemi and she is sweet! She was baptized in Bolivia 30 years
ago, but we haven't been able to find her records so she was going to
be rebaptized. Her daughter, Alejandra (20yrs old) got baptized last
month and when they sent her baptismal information to SLC to have it
recorded, the computer liked her records to her moms records and we
were able to find Nohemi's membership records! It was a miracle!

Okay, so yeah next week I'll send some journal entry stuff and then
I'll actually be able to talk about more normal life stuff with all of
you! Talise, Happy Birthday! Mindy, thanks for the video of your
little man- too stinking cute!!! I'll send some pictures in a
inferential email! Love you all so much! Thanks for all of your
thought and prayers!!
Love, Sorella Hatfield