So I've been plopped into this small little town on a mountain called Mistretta, population 5,000. It has a branch of the church with about 13 active members, which is very very small. The only reason there's even a Mormon presence in this small town is that two brothers were converted up in Bologna many years ago, and then they moved back to Mistretta, bringing the church with them. Since then, there have been missionaries to work not only in Mistretta, but in the surrounding little towns up and down the northern Sicilian coast. The closest costal town to Mistretta is Santo Stefano and it's pretty gorgeous, right by the ocean. Almost every other town we visit is bigger than Mistretta, but for the most part they are not what I would call large cities.
I'm still trying to learn all the cities, but right now we have
Mistretta
Reitano (just down the mountain, between Mistretta and Santo Stefano)
Santo Stefano (where the church building is)
... from there, going east, we visit
Aquadolci
Sant'Agata
Capo D'Orlando
with lots of little places in between.
We do have a car here -- the only area in Italy where sisters get cars, and I'm here! I'll have to learn to drive this funky little Italian Opel car. It's a manual transmission. My trainer, the other sister missionary who has been serving longer, assured me that she never knew how to drive manual before and she learned just fine. Whooooo.
We live in a great little apartment. I don't know what it is about Italy/Europe, but I really like it. I like how all the food smells in the fridge, how the blankets feel, how the tile in the bathroom looks, how everyone hangs their laundry out to dry... One of the missionaries in the Book of Mormon, Ammon, describes how when he visits the people of his mission that he "desires to dwell among this people for a time, yeah, and perhaps until the day I die." I could honestly say the same right now. That will probably change in the future (and I like to think that Ammon maybe didn't always feel that way), but for now, I'm pretty much in love with the Sicilians.
Being in such a small town/branch has its challenges. We visit outlying cities and are working with some investigators, but several of them have to drive a half-hour/hour to church. While that's not a huge deal compared to other parts of the world, it makes it hard to get people who are starting to become interested to begin coming. The nice thing, is I already have two automatic callings, as ward pianist and Primary teacher here. The one member of our primary, Lucrezia, is the daughter of the branch president and is getting ready to be baptized. Since she's a little older than 8 (the tradititional baptism age for Mormon youth), we have to teach her the missionary lessons that we teach all potential converts. So last week, I taught her a VERY SIMPLIFIED version of the Law of Chastity (using an awesome idea from another sister missionary). It was grand.
My trainer is fantastic. She is from Fresno, California. I love seeing the differences between missionary work in America/Arizona and Italy. In America, there was a lot of emphasis on diligence. Here, there's a lot of emphasis on patience, which has been great for me. I'm still trying to figure out how to be a good missionary without being a crazy/robot missionary, and my trainer is understanding and instructive. We also have a lot of fun.
Here as a missionary, I feel like I do a lot more missionary work (at least how I had imagined it before I went on my mission). I am enjoying each aspect of missionary "work" . I think it's a combination of things, like lessons I've been learning and the mission culture in Italy. But I'm pretty sure this mission is exactly what I needed.
For example, we do have a cellphone, but no one has answering machines in Italy. AWESOME. Really, the style of missionary work is completely different here and I'm digging it. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel
O Sicilia! You're breaking my heart! You're shaking my confidence daily!
O Sicilia! I'm down on my knees! I'm begging you please to come home (to the gospel!)
much love!
sister fuller
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