Biking around Rome... My favorite part? WEARING PANTS!!! Haha not really but that was a bonus!
Basillica di San Paulo... Well supposedly St. Paul is buried here... It just confuses me that first they killed the apostles and then they decided that they were actually pretty good guys and so they built these hives churches and cathedrals as if that was going to fix what they had done...
So the person that took this photo... An American, LDS woman from Idaho... No joke. Their family was trying to quietly discuss if we were the sister missionaries and I happened to hear them and I was like heck yeah we are! That's Rome behind us.
Fun facts for the week: Apparently I am 45% fluent in Italian according to duo lingo I have 41 husband points
Okay, missionary moment coming up... We are celebrating Easter this weekend! I would assume that maybe you guys are too... I dunno though! Haha Anyway, there is a new Easter video out that was produced by the church and it's really awesome! If you haven't seen it yet, you should make sure and watch it! I love getting to teach about Jesus Christ. I know he lives. I know that we can live again too. He died for me, but He also lives for me and for all of us. How blessed are we?! I love you all! -Sorella Hatfield
This is for minds and granny d... Poor sound quality. I blame the iPad not our lack of talent. Also, just pretend that it's your names! Haha we didn't have time to sing the song three times! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! TANTI AGURI! I LOVE YOU!
Before I forget... Transfer calls! My companion and I are both staying in Ostia.
We did a lot of less active work this week and while trying to find a man named Tido, we found Chris Brown. 1st. How American is that? 2nd. That's the name of a pretty famous rapper for anyone who doesn't know haha We also contacted another less active. We made cookies and invitations for the ward party this weekend and were taking them around and we rang the citofano and they hollered for us to come up and they literally were in the middle of a drinking party. Hahaha my companion was embarrassed and I was just laughing. The less active was a woman but there were a bunch of guys there and they kept asking me, "who are you?! Who are you?!" while my companion talked to the less active. It was hilarious.
Okay so... We managed to blow a breaker... Is that how you say it? on Thursday! I was baking cookies in the kitchen and my collega was blow drying her hair in the bathroom and that was that. We tried to flip the breakers...? It didn't work. We tried knocking on our neighbors door to ask her if she still had power and to see if she knew how we could get ours turned back on. She wouldn't answer the door and was instead just yelling to us... So we called the Anziani because they should know, right? Wrong! Thankfully we only knocked the power off to our apartment and not to the whole building. After about 1.5 hours without power we found a closet downstairs with all of the breaker boxes and we got our power turned on again. It was pretty funny! Later that night after we got home our neighbor knocked on our door and apologized for not answering her door earlier. Apparently somebody in the building had been robbed or raped... The words in Italian for both of those are really really similar and we weren't sure which she used... Anyway, she said that she was afraid to open the door because of that. She's like a 65 year old lady who lives alone. Her name is Tina and every time we pass her door all I can think of is the movie quote from Napoleon Dynamite, "Tina ya fat lard..." I can't remember the rest of the quote but yeah... The next night after we got back to our apartment she brought us homemade biscotti that she had made with her granddaughter and told us we could have it for breakfast!
On Sunday after church we had Pronzo with Alejandra and Nohemi and Colojero! Nohemi made lasagna (okay I hate lasagna in America but I could eat it for every meal here) for the first course. And then for the second we had fried chicken (I don't really understand how those two go together...) and spinach, and bread, and a fennel/oranges/green olives salad (I'd never eaten fennel before... It was good. The olives were disgusting! But just some good ole Bolivian (Nohemi is from Bolivia) knowledge for anyone who needs it... If a mom isn't producing milk, she should boil the fennel leaves and make a drink and after she drinks it her milk will come in). Then you have desert, which was a cake called shaped like a dove that's super popular here right now because it's almost time for Easter! It's kind of like a fruitcake... With candied nuts in the top and dried mandarin oranges in the cake... It's actually really good. Oh and they celebrate Easter over here for like 1.5 months! After Pronzo Alejandra wanted is to teach her how to make brownies. They were some of the best brownies I've ever made and she was so excited!
We had a dinner appointment last night at the Merx's (American family)!! Clara and her daughter Laura went with us as the "Italian guests". They do dinners like this so they can practice their Italian and get to know the ward members better! I love their family and Clara and Laura too! They are from Columbia! It's funny because I wanted to go Spanish speaking, but I was called to an Italian speaking mission, but everybody here is an immigrant from South America so they speak a Spanish/Italian. Prayers are answered. Just sometimes not in the way you think. This is just more evidence that Heavenly Father has a sense of humor.
Oh so funny story from dinner last night... Sorella Merx always makes American dishes when we go over there because, "she doesn't cook Italian for Italians!" Smart. Haha We just can't do it the same no matter how hard we try. Anyway, for dessert she made "Better than you know what Cake" and of course Clara and Laura had never had this type of desert before, but they loved it and wanted to know how to make it and then they wanted to know what it was called. I honestly started laughing out loud when Clara asked what it was called. I don't even know how to say that in Italian, so I just told her it was called chocolate cake... I thought Sorella Merx was going to die of embarrassment.
Okay last story for the week! We were calling people a few nights ago about Corso and I had called a number, but the guy didn't answer. A little while later he texted us and was just like "sì?" So Sorella McKenzie texted him back and just said "hey we are the missionaries who do the free English corse and we just wanted to let you know that we are still doing it and invite you to come again." He texted us back and was like "Oh okay thanks! Goodnight! Oh read Alma 37:37. Goodnight!" So we looked up the scripture and it's something about laying down at night unto Christ or something... So there ya go I f you ever need a good night scripture.
Love you all! Thanks for the emails and the pictures! Sorella Hatfield
Check it out! They gave us Smarties at Zone Conference!
#vaticano
Io sonno una Principessa. I am a Princess. In a dirty metro station.
This is Alejandra! I loooooove her!! She is a recent convert and was baptized in January. Yesterday she asked to wear Sorella McKenzie's name tag and then she was asking questions about serving a mission so...
I can't remember what the thing is called that I ate, but it was the best thing I have ever eaten in my entire life and if it's all I ate for the rest of my life I would be satisfied! "Sono stata" the guy in the background is the cafe owner. He and his wife and their son run it together. They are the sweetest family! He is originally from Sicilia so all of their food is Sicilian not Italian and its out of this world good!
One of my favorite things to do to pass free time is "ricerca" at the mare! The people are usually so nice and happy to talk to us about anything from English course to the family proclamation. Plus it's gorgeous! How did I get so blessed?! The past couple of weeks have been tough as far as the work goes. The Anziani only have one investigator and it's not looking too good with her right now. We have probably ten or so potentials from English course, but as far as any solid investigators go we only have one. Her name is Raffaella. I'll tell you more about her later. We got together with the Anziani on Saturday night and tried to do some ricerca at the mare, but it got super windy and cold basically as soon as we got there. It was honestly terrible. But fun in a weird way too. We were sandblasted and there was no one to talk to... Eventually we found a few people, so hopefully something comes of it! Our Anziani are Anziano Simonsen (the one who looks American) and Anziano Bellini (the one who looks Italian; his parents were born and raised in Italy, moved to America, he was raised in Washington except for the five years that they lived in Italy) I wish I could tell you where that delicious looking pizza went, but obviously I don't know what happened to it... Nobody here shares a pizza. Everyone always gets their own pizza and yes, it's always at least that big. We were celebrating Sorella McKenzie's halfway mark! We have been getting a TON of rain!! On the plus side, I get to wear my rain boots and use my cute umbrella! On the downside... Italians HATE the rain, so they just stay in their apartments-they don't even open their stores or anything really either. This was yesterday morning on our way to church and the streets were all flooded. There was even a pretty good hail storm with thunder and lightening and everything a few nights ago too!
