Email from Sara 12/3/08

Ciao tutti!!

This will be short and sweet today.  It's been a long but good day- things haven't gone exactly as planned but you just have to roll with it I supposed.  I went with the Sister half of the senior couple this morning to a shopping center to help her buy some things- she needed a little bit of help with some translations on lotion bottles and things like that.

Anyhow, we thought that it was just going to be a little store, but it turns out that it was like a giant mall.  We had planned to go shopping today anyway becasue Sorella Ross wants to buy some things before she goes home, so we ended up staying there all day long practically.  This may sound great and wonderful, but I'm not the greatest fan of all day shopping trips, especially when I don't  have an overabundance of money, (I did buy a few shirts, though :).

Anyhow, there's actually a grocery store- a giant grocery store attached to this mall, and an Ikea intrestingly enough, and so we did ALL of our shopping.  We had lots of stuff, but the problem at this point was that we didn't know where the bus would come to pick us up because we had ridden with Sorella Pearson to the store.  So we go outside the way that we think we're supposed to go and don't see a bus stop, and the bags were REALLY REALLY heavy, so we walk a little further and there's still no bus stop. We see a bus that we could maybe figure out the route on but even it was going the wrong way.  So we, being the spoiled sister missionaries that we are, were able to make a phone call and have someone come pick us up.  It's a very nice luxury, but the point of that very long story is that I don't have much time tonight.  And there is a very Very VERY sad detail in this story- and that is that I lost my memory card for my camera. I had taken it out and left it in my camera case because I'm working on a christmas present for you all and had a new SD card in my camera and I think at somepoint today my old card fell out of my camera case.  I'm pretty bummed out about it because I will never be able to get some of those pictures back.  My only- and very small- consolation is that most of the time I was taking a pictures other people were as well so there are similar pictures somewhere around here.  :( But I guess it's not worth losing sleep over.

That's very exciting news about my new nephew.  I like the name Andrew James.  I'm excited to meet him someday and I hope everyone is doing well.

I had a great thanksgiving.  It was all the missionaries in my district and everyone contributed somethings and we had a regular Thanksgiving with Turkey, Dressing, and all the fixin's.  It was fun to get to know the elders and couple missionaries in my district.

A quick cool story and then we've got to go because we have an appointment, but sometimes on Sunday's we have °zone singing°  and we go to a big Piazza where there are a lot of people and just sing and if people stop to listen then one of the missionaries will go and talk to them.  It's a really good way to find new people.  Anywho, we were finishing up and there were only a few of us left and there was a small group of people who stopped to listen.  We ended up talking to them a little bit afterwards and it turns out that they were also from the states- New York specifically, and doing a study abroad.  There was  a girl, Caroleena, who was amazing.  She was really nice and I was able to bear my testimony to her- in English- and it was fantastic to be able to share my testimony unhindered by the language.  Obviously I have no Idea if she'll ever persue the gospel. She lives in Florence now and will be going back to NY soon, but the seed has been planted.  It's a good feeling.

Alrighty, well my time has expired.  I hope everyone is doing splendidly and gearing up for the holiday season.  I love it!  People are starting to decorate and it's so fun.  I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Vi voglio piu bene!!
Sorella Leckie