Casi di Cura, Cockroaches, Caldo, Cleaning, Cibo

Ciao guys✌🏼

I hope summer is going well!!! It's mind blowing that it's July this week. Non ci credo!! This week was one for the books. 

Between transfers and all the crazy exchanges and zone conferences this month, my comp and I somehow were OUT of money this week and we don't get paid until this coming weekend. Well example #364638292946 of God providing for the missionaries: we got 4 meal appointments this week(!!!!!!) Let's put this into perspective for you... we had a total of 2 this entire past 6-week transfer and 4 in this past week alone. #blessed. 

Funny story: We had a lunch appointment this week with one of our friends and she had us help her finish making the food in the kitchen. You guys know me and how I'm a huuuge germaphobe (thanks mom) but this lady had COCKROACHES alllllll over the kitchen and on the spoons she was using to make our food😳. The mission has calmed me down a lot so I just didn't say anything and smiled and casually tried to kill cockroaches when she looked away. I cleaned up the kitchen while Sorella Zapata helped her finish cooking and the lady kept telling me I'm "turning into a domestic Italian housewife" hahaha. She asked me to say the blessing on the food and let's just say I've never said such a sincere prayer on the food in my entire life hahahaha. 

Miracle: So I called this old English course student a few weeks ago after I found her number on an old area book potential sheet. She told us she can't come to corso anymore but that we can come see her at work sometime! Bingooo! So we went to see her and guess where she works?! She owns a little assisted living center!!!!!! Anyone who knows me knows how much I looove old people after working as a CNA in high school. I was happier than when I ate my first napoli pizza... okay maybe not, but close. They had a piano sitting there so I got to play some music for them and they were loving it. Thanks again for forcing me to take piano lessons all those years Mom 💕 But we're organizing an activity with all their grandchildren and the elders this week so we're excited. Stay tuned. Catania takes the Casa di Cura.

This week I was kind of having one of those "poor me" moments. Nothing happened that triggered it, I was just being a downer about everything--our lack of investigators, it being hotter than ever, having no money cuz it's the end of the month, exhausted, stressed about going home, haha you name it ... Pretty sure every missionary has been there. But we went to an appointment and beforehand I said a little prayer to myself to be able to get over myself and look outward. It's amazing what serving people can do! It can change your entirrreee day around 100%. If you're ever feeling bad for yourself, the best thing you can do is what President Hinckley's dad told him when he was a missionary, "Forget yourself and go to work!" I have that quote on my desk and I think about it all the time. The Savior never sat around and felt sorry for himself, He looked around and tried to help others. That's where true joy comes from :) 

Another thing that hit me this week... we can't control a lot of things that happen in missionary work. We can't control if people come to church or if they stop smoking or if the bus passes on time... But we CAN control our attitudes. As long as we do our best, God will help us out and pour down blessings on us, sometimes in ways we aren't expecting. We just have to look for His hand in all things because it IS there. I promise :) 

D&C 123:17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us ​​​cheerfully​ ​​​do​ all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the ​​​salvation​ of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

Talk to you next Tuesday! We have Zone Conference in Palermo on Monday :) Happy 4th!!! 🇺🇸 

Con amore,

Sorella Hess

Via Genova 27 

Catania 95127 

Italia

Le foto:

Last P-day at Santa Maria la Scala. 

Some of our cute friends at the assisted living center

Cool church from last P-day in Acireale

After our meal appointment with some cute members (not the cockroach one😊)

Bella Sicilia 

Dyyyying from this humidity hahaha. I will never complain about being hot in Utah ever again. I didn't know what hot was until I got here. 

final transfer.....what??

Hi guys!

Well President threw another curve ball and Sorella James left me this

week to go to...BARI LIBERTÀ TO BE WITH SORELLA BELLOMO. I just came

from there!! She's going to have a blast! Bari is the promised land

haha. And she gets to be there for Monica & Massimo's baptisms this

weekend💕😭

My new companion is... Sorella Zapata!! Fun fact for you guys: I

actually met her at the beginning of February before she had left on

the mission. She's from Rome and was visiting friends in Bari. I told

her that day that we would for sure serve together! I was right 😎 She

was born in Ecuador but has lived in Rome since she was 5 so she's

pretty much Italian. She is in her 3rd transfer now so I'm follow-up

training her! She's darling and we're having so much fun already.

This week consisted of a lot of craziness but when does it not?!

Transfer day was interesting haha. Sorella James had a flight to catch

at 5am so I was alone with the Anziani until 9:30am when Sorella Ferre

came to the rescue to spend the afternoon with me in Catania ❤️ I love

Sorella Ferre so much. Sorella Zapata came in at 5pm and then at about

7 the Anziani call me and say we have an emergency haha... so the two

brand new greenies going to Palermo missed their train so they were

stranded in Catania for the night and had to stay with us. I felt like

a mama duck walking around Catania for the rest of the night with 3

young missionaries following behind hahaha. It was fun showing them a

little bit of the city!

Then the next morning we had to drop them off, we almost missed their

train because right before we got to the station we realized one of

them had left their tablet in our apartment. Soo... Sorella Zapata and

I hopped off the metro and sprinted back to the apartment and we

BARELY made their train. All before 7am hahaha. The mission is the

best. I'm gonna miss all the crazy stuff.

PSA: The mosquitos are alive and well in cat city. They got me BETWEEN

MY TOES last night when we got home. I have easily over 20 bites right

now 😑

We had a neat lesson with a less-active family in the ward this

weekend. Their dad recently passed away from cancer and we were able

to talk to them about the Atonement and how it's not just for us when

we need to repent but that it's there for us when we are suffering or

going through challenges. The Spirit was so strong! They also have a

super cute new puppy that's a Chou (idk how to spell it but it's like

a bear and the cutest thing I've ever seen haha).

Yesterday we had a HUUUGE miracle in church. Deannah is a member from

Australia and her husband is from here. She's 25 and is our best

friend. Well her husband isn't a member and they've been married for

almost a year now and he's never been to church before. We're good

friends with him because we visit them all the time and HE CAME

YESTERDAY. Guys I almost cried when I saw that he came! Such a cool

miracle. Deannah just cried during the opening hymn because the spirit

was so strong and she was so happy he came.

Also Lucia came which was a big miracle!! Catania sta fiorendo!!!

I'm dying of heat down here but I've never been happier. I can't

describe the joy missionary work brings. All the rejections we go

through are worth it just to see someone feel the spirit. I love

putting on my name-tag every morning and being a full time

representative of the Savior. Hopefully I'm becoming a little more

like Him each day :)

Also Happy Father's Day yesterday to the greatest dad in the world!!!

So blessed to be your favorite kid, Dad 😉 Thanks for everything you

do for me ❤️

Vi auguro una bellissima settimana!!

Con amore,

Sorella Hess

Via Genova 27

Catania 95127

Italia

Le foto:

Alone with these two during transfer day hahaha. Only the Italy Rome mission where the closest sisters are HOURS away hahaha.

Sorella Ferre💕💕

My cute new collega Sorella Zapata!!

Our friend Godspower from Nigeria after volleyball the other night. (Yes, his name is really Godspower!!)

Cutest puppy

The one with the doves

Carissima famiglia!

I hope you guys are all doing well and having a fun summer! It's just

getting hotter and more humid every single day here! We're working

hard to find new people that want to learn more about the Savior!! If

you guys know of any women/families in Catania that could have

interest in the gospel, let me know!! ;) We loooove referrals.

This week we got a lot of "bidones" (cancelled/no-show appointments)

but it's okay. It happens! A lot of our people are leaving for the

summer so we're kind of starting from scratch and trying to find the

people who WILL be here for summer.

We met some cool kids from Kentucky this week who are here for the

summer as volunteers to work with refugees! What an amazing

experience! We are going to try to meet up with them again and see if

we can help them with a service project or something. Haha it's always

so fun to run into Americans that are our age haha. The only Americans

I ever see are the 4 elders in my district and my companion haha.

Funny/Awkward story: some people were speaking English last night so

we asked where they are from and they were Americans. They told us

they were doing a prayer walk around Catania. Then they asked if they

could pray for us so we said ya, and then they went on to pray for us

for at LEAST a solid 7 minutes and then told us they picture us as

free white doves flying away into the wind. Hahaha. We appreciated the

extra prayers and it was quite the experience. 🕊🕊

We've been doing HOURS of street contacting and it's honestly super

fun. I went through a phase on the mission where I didn't really enjoy

it because we get rejected so much but I'm glad I like it again. It's

fun here because there are sooo many tourists so we get to talk to

people from all over the world... BUT, that kind of makes it difficult

for us to grow our teaching pool. But we have referred people to meet

with the missionaries in Kansas, Germany, Russia, Washington,

Colorado, Holland, and about every other state/country in the world

haha. We have faith though that the Lord is going to bless us :)

Sorella James was sick the other day so we spent the morning inside

and I got to study for a few extra hours which was really nice! I read

some amazing talks. One of the cool things I did was I went through my

patriarchal blessing and wrote down 3 columns. One of them I titled,

"who I am," the next on was "promises," and the last one was

"warnings." It was so incredible to study it in a different way. The

Lord truly does know us each individually and perfectly. If you don't

know that for sure, get on your knees and ask him! He will confirm to

you that you are His child and how much He loves you.

Tonight we get transfer calls....my last transfer call!! Ahh. Where

has the time gone? I'm excited for these last 6 weeks and to see what

the Lord has in store for us. Vi voglio tanto bene ❤️

Con amore,

Sorella Hess

Via Genova 27

Catania 95127

Italia

Le foto:

1-4: I loooove Catania

5: This is Erika. She's my fav. She turns in her mission papers in a few months and is going to be the cutest missionary ever. We're gonna be best friends at BYU when she gets home😊

Fud is Gud

Ciao guys :)

This week kind of reassured me that God has a sense of humor and that

He's completely aware of us. We've been working hard all week (and all

transfer) to be able to continue to grow this work here in Catania and

we've seen some cool miracles but haven't had many (if any)

progressing investigators. Saturday night during my personal prayers I

kind of expressed to Heavenly Father my frustration and how we have

been working so hard and doing hours and hours of finding everyday and

how I didn't know what else we could do here. One of our investigators

randomly moved to up north of Rome this week without telling and our

other ones are all too busy with exams/vacations/life in general to

meet with us or to keep their commitments.

Well Sunday morning after fast and testimony meeting, we see a lady

we've never seen before and go up and talk to her. Her name is Lucia

and she said she's driven past our church many times and has always

wondered who we are and what we believe so she decided to come.

HALLELUJAH THE CHURCH IS TRUE PEOPLE. We had an incredible lesson

right there on the spot with her about the restoration and she is so

so sweet and interested.

I love how God waits until we're about to give up then that's when He

throws us a bone (or an investigator). I've definitely learned on my

mission that this is the Lord's work and that He doesn't actually need

us to do it but that WE need it. We take so much more out of our

missions than we actually put in. I'm thankful for those little

experiences that we have that show us just how aware the Lord really

is of us. I'm just some random sister missionary in some small city in

Sicily but the Lord hears my prayers and I promise He hears yours too

:) I don't know if Lucia will get baptized right away but it

definitely gave us the spark of hope we needed!!

This week was fun! We were able to do a scambio in Messina with the

sorelle there. I was with Sorella Gleave from Salt Lake! Fun fact for

you: we actually lived in the same building fall semester at BYU

before I left but we never actually met until the mission! The world

is so small! We did a lot of finding and had fun exploring Messina

while we talked to people.

Haha we found a suuuper yummy restaurant today called "Fud" so that's

where the subject line comes from. It's honestly one of the best

burger places I've ever been to. Go Italy!!

Our entire district had colds this week but we finally feel

better...well good enough to hike Mt. Etna today for P-day. That's

right 😏 2nd volcano I've hiked on the mission. Italy is so

breathtakingly beautiful. I feel so blessed to be here doing the

Lord's work! "Avanti andiamo con fede nel Signore!" I love you guys.

Have a fun first week of summer! Go boating and get snow cones for me.

I'm eating my fair share of granita and gelato :)

Con amore,

Sorella Hess

Via Genova 27

Catania 95127

Italia

Le foto:

With members in Messina :)
View from the Messina Sorelle's apartment

Took this on the train! It's called Taormina and apparently Trump was here last week with a bunch of other leaders in the world.

McDonalds wifi today as a district

The side of Etna today! This is all lava from when it erupted in 1989.

More pics to come! I forgot my card reader :)