Email from Sara 11/25/09

Quick One.

Oops. I spent too much time responding to personal emails and now I don't have too much time. It's been a good week. Gil, Josy's brother is showing more interest in the gospel and has become really good friends with the elders. Josy is so excited to see his progress and I love it! We have another new investigator, Nicoletta who is an english class student. She says she would like to feel the way we feel but doesn't think it's possible for her. We're gonna prove her wrong! At least we're sure gonna try.

My brain is exploding with speaking Italian all the time. I can't imagine if I had had an Italian companion closer to the beginning of the mission. My comp, Sorella Gambardella is from southern Italy and goes home on February 10th. Just ask her. She's very excited and prays every day that Heavenly Father will just get her to the end of her mission. Its a little tough for me, because I can honestly say that I love the mission, to see someone who wants to go home so badly, but I'm learning a lot of patience. Honestly, I can say that at the beginning of the mission I relied SO much on Heavenly Father because I needed so much help. As I've gotten more comfortable in the misson with the language and teaching I can see now that I've relied less and less on the Lord and more and more on my own abilities. What a great reminder it has been for me of how dependent I am on the Lord. I can honestly say that I can feel the power of the prayers that so many send this way, and I am SO thankful. Keep them coming!

Honestly, I'm doing great and I am so happy to be here in Italy. We're having our thanksgiving dinner and I'm pretty curious to see how it will go. We might be a little short on dressing, but there should be lots of turkey and some ham and lots of mashed potates. I'm really looking forward to it. As long as everyone brings what we asked them to bring we should be okay. There will probably be at least 50 people or so, and because I'm kind of a bossy person, speak english and Italian, and becuase I know about Thanksgiving traditions, I kind of got more ropped into helping than I intended to. But oh well, it should still all work out alright.

Okay, really gots to go now. I haven't taken a picture with my new companion yet because I had to charge my batteries, but I'll send one next week.

Love you all and hope you have a very very happy Thanksgiving!!!
Sorella Leckie

Email from Sara 11/18/09

Change in the Winds

Well, I will be staying in Livorno, but my companion, Sorella Cheesman will be going to Sassari on the Island of Sardegna. We were supposed to be together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and now she's ruining all my plans! I guess it's not entirely her fault though. My new companion will be Sorella Gambardella. She's an italian from Cicila (Southern Italy) She only has a transfer or two left so she's got some experience under her belt. I'm determined that it will be a great transfer.

The fireside in Florence was great and it was great to hear the love and support from President Monson. They talked a lot about being true at all times and ways to stay close to the spirit. It was great. Josy came and she got to talk with Sister Cook so that was cool. It was also great to see so many of the members from Pistoia and a few from Florence.

It's been a good week, though. I'm getting over the worst of the cold and it's about kicked the bucket. Life is good. We're working with some great people, we have some inactives that are making progress, and the work is going forward.
We're actually planning a big Thanksgiving dinner for the branch next week. It should be really fun. I kind of took over, so hopefully it will go really well. It will be interesting to have a Thanksgiving dinner with an Italian twist. We are asking the members to bring traditional Thanksgiving items, so we'll see what they come up with. ;)

Alrighty, I'm gonna call it good now so I can hopefully add a few pictures. Love you all so much and hope you have an absolutely fantastic week!!!

Con tanto affetto,
Sorella Leckie

This is in front of the station waiting for the bus. It's just such a typical situation for us.

I was using a moped to write a note to leave for someone and my companion had my camera and was taking pictures of me in the rearview mirror. It was kind of funny.

Email from Sara 11/11/09

Happy Veterans Day

Alrighty, we have to be super fast because we have to be at the church at 4:00 and we still have to get groceries.

AHHH!! We have to be at church at 4 because we're going to a fireside in Florence. Sorella Barbara Thompson and Mary Cook (Counselors in the RS and YW general presidencies) will be in Florence. It's a little far away so I wasn't initially planning on going, but then the YW pres here asked us to go if Josy came. Well, Josy's coming so we are going. I'm excited, but it makes for an even shorter p.day. We have had a fun day though. We went to Lucca today to have a guided tour from a member here. It was fun and an absolutely beautiful day. We had to book it back though to do email and shopping. Lots of traveling today. But still fun.

Okay, lets see. There were several things I wanted to mention and now they are all escaping my mind. I guess my talk went alright on Sunday. It was interesting. The first and only other time I've given a talk in Italy was in my 4th transfer and I really had to write out almost every word of my talk because Italian was still a very foreign language, but this time I was able to just make an outline. It was only 10 minutes and I actually went over a little bit. It was on Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and there is just so much you can say about that, ya know.

We've had some great lessons this week with Josy, Veronica, and Leslie. They are great and I have so much hope for them. We also have some other good potentials and I'm excited for them.

My very generous companion has so kindly acquired and shared a pretty good cold with me, so I'm sniffing and coughing right and left. I'm sure the people around me love it. :) Especially on the buses.

Well, I think i'm going to call it good now so maybe I can get a couple pictures off since it's been a couple of weeks now.

We had president interviews this past week and one of the things that stuck out to me and that he emphasized to me was just the importance of loving those we serve and how even when they don't do what they want we want them to, it just increases our capacity to love. It was a good reminder of why we share the gospel.

Hope you all have a wonderful week and prepare well for Thanksgiving!!!
Love you so much!!
Sorella Leckie

This is from Lucca today. It was so pretty.

There is a really cute piazza with the "le sorelle" store. So here you have us... le sorelle. : )

Email from Sara 11/4/09

Happy November!

Wow! Can you believe it's already November?!?!?!? I can't. This year just seems to be flying even faster. They are already putting up Christmas decorations here in Livorno, and I hope I will be here to see them all lit up.

Friday night we had a great Halloween party. It started a little slow, but then lots of people came. We invited all the English class, the Pisa branch, our branch (of course), and then contacts, investigators, other random people, etc. There was a pretty good turnout. We had some games and treats for people in the multi-purpose room/ chapel, and then we had turned a few of the classrooms into a haunted house. There was a crazy doctor who was operating on someone's leg, and then a scary room that was dark and had sheets hanging all over and they had to get through to get to the fortune teller who would ask questions to the "voice" (an elder under the table with a microphone) who would then tell the "future" something ridiculous, like their feet would turn green, or all their hair would fall out... etc. Then I was under another table with my hand through the bottom of a candy bowl, and then when the people would go to get some candy I would scare them and try to grab their hand. It was actually pretty fun. But it was kind of sad that I had to stay under a table the whole time and couldn't see who came. :(, but it was still fun. It was a fun activity.

The other night there was a pretty good storm and my companion and I went by the ocean and it was magnificant. I can't even describe to you how turbulant the water looked. It was invigorating. Unfortuately though, there weren't any people around to talk to so we had to go. For some reason most people didn't want to be around, even though the storm had already passed, it was crazy windy. It really was absolutely beautiful. Wish I could have taken a picture.

As far as work goes. Things are going well. We are having a little trouble nailing down a time to meet with some of our investigators and then cold season is starting and people are less willing to come out for a lesson when they are sick. But the work will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent.

It's been a good week, it was a little strange because of the halloween party, but we were able to talk with a lot of people and also meet with other inactives. There's room for improvement, and we have lots of ways that we can be better and work harder, but little by little we have to improve. I've tried to fix everything at once and it lasts for a day or two and it's just not very maintainable for me. There is hope though, and there is progression.

This is going to be a little shorter today and next week we're going to go to Lucca with one of the members here who is pretty much a tour guide (or so he says) and the other elders. After that we may be going to Florence where there will be a fireside from Barbara Thompson and Sister Cook (General YW Pres?) It will depend on if Josy can go or not. If her mom says yes, then the YW leader here has asked that we go. So hopefully her mom will say yes, becuase that would be a really cool experience. So... I'm not exactly sure how much time I'll have to email next week, so you may not get pictures for a couple of weeks. But I'll still write, I promise.

Okay, gonna run! Love you all so so so so much!!!!! Take care and remember your missionary here in Italy!!
Sorella Leckie