Email from Sara 1/14/09

Well hello hello hello!

It's been a great week here in Italy. It's truly wonderful to see how much the Lord loves his children. We continue to work with some amazing people. Investigators, inactivies, and members. They are all wonderful and we just love them so much.

I'm probably going to be pretty short today, we- my companion and I are going to go play catch. We're pretty excited about it. Most P-days are pretty hectic, and we decided to try and find someone with a baseball and gloves so we could just enjoy ourselves. We ended up borrowing some from the Acerson family as baseball is not too big here in Italy- mostly people like soccer.
Lets see, since last week it's really been a pretty regular week. My companion and I are trying to be better about talking to more and more people. It's so easy to say "hi, how are you" and leave it at that, but we're getting better about continuing the conversation and getting contact information, etc.

I don't know if I've told you in other emails, but the past couple of weeks I've been "translating" in primary. I really just try to get them the general idea, because that's usually all I understand, but they really understand a lot so it's not too bad. It's been a learning experience. Some of these young ragazzi (boys) are a handful and a half. Too much energy in one classroom. But the primary is pretty good sized. There were about 20 kids in there. There aren't quite as many teachers so the classes are also big and there are only two or three classes. I'm not sure why they don't have more teachers because it's actually a pretty big ward. And it is a WARD, not a branch or district or anything else. There are not a ton of wards, but we're very lucky to be in one.

Alrighty, I'm going to try to answer your questions, mom. Thanks for putting them all together so I could recognize that I should answer them :).

I don't say much about dinner appointments because we don't have a ton. We do eat occasionally with a few families, but the problem is that pretty much, if we want a dinner appointment with someone we have to call them and make an appoinment. It just feels awkward for me. There is one family in particular, the Duran's, who are absolutely wonderful though. They live really close to us so that's also very convenient. They feed us pretty often and have two daughters. They are from Bolivia, I believe, so the food usually has a little bit of a south american flair, but it is absolutely delicious, and the sister won't tell us her secrets. We try to bribe the daughters into telling us her secrets, but they are pretty loyal to their mom. Sorella Bennion and I are going to make dinner for them next week because they have us over so much as a way to hopefully say thanks.

But other than that it really just depends on who we are with. If we are eating with an american family they usually try to give us stuff that we can't usually get because they can buy it at the base that is in Napoli or at the commisary here in Roma. So we can usually get most things we might want... like cheddar cheese... if we go eat with the american members. I don't eat as much pasta as I thought I would when I got here, but Sorella Bennion says she's had much more in other areas, so I don't know.

If we eat out we get pizza. That's pretty much your only option for fast food around here. It's pretty different because you just buy how much pizza you want and then they heat it up for you. It's really yummy. We do have a favorite pizza place and we go there about once a week. The owner, Duvis, is so so nice and we're working on teaching her the lessons.

There are McDonalds here, but I just can't quite get a cono when there's real italian Gelato right down the street. The gelato is amazing. Unfortunately for my mouth, and fortunately for my waistline, most of the Gelateria's have closed for the winter.

I was kind of mentioning it before but there are several hundred people in the ward. In sacrament there are probably usually around two hundred, but of course there are the inactive people.

Transfers are every 6 weeks. We are actually in week 4 of this transfer so we'll see if I'll be hanging around here for another 6 months. Transfer calls are a week from monday.

Laundry. We have a small washing machine at our house. In the bathroom actually. So we wash our clothes there and then just hang them up on drying racks. Apparently its a little backward from how it is at home where the humidity is in the summer, but here it is the most humid in the winter. So in order to dry your clothes here, you pretty much have to dry them inside because it just rains too much and is too cold and humid for them to dry outside. But it is so nice to be able to do our laundry in our house.

I think that was all of your questions. Let me know if you have anymore.
On a different note, one of the elders and I will be singing in church this sunday.***see below*** I think we'll be singing in English so that could be kind of different for the ward, but they NEVER have special musical numbers so hopefully they will appreciate it. I think we're singing a really really nice arrangement of I know that Me Redeemer Lives. Oh, and I think i've heard the song you mentioned "All that I love is Home" I do remember liking it. I know there's one line in there that says something like "... a place to belong, people who miss me whenever I'm gone..." It's nice to be missed and know that I miss and love you too. But I am so thankful to be here and to be having these wonderful experiences, and meeting and loving such wonderful people. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!

Love, Sorella Leckie

This was a pretty sunset from one the bus stop.


This is my district. We had DDM at the Pearsons and had lunch afterwards. It's homemade sushi. It was super yummy and fun!


This is pretty close to downtown rome. This is a little bit nicer area, but pretty typical.

"I Know that My Redeemer Lives" Sara and one of the Elders singing their special musical number.