Kassi's email 4/25/13

KEEP IN MIND WHEN SHE SAYS MOM SLOW YOUR ROLL ON THE EMAILS, SHE ASKED ME TO EMAIL HER MISSIONARY FRIENDS TO SEND ME THEIR WEEKLY EMAILS ALSO, THEN SEND THEM TO HER. S SHE GOT 2 WEEKS OF THEIR EMAILS BECAUSE HER PDAY GOT MOVED TO TODAY FOR THIS WEEK DUE TO A SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY FOR A SPECIAL CONFERENCE YESTERDAY..  :)

Tutti! We have 2 baptism dates! AHHH. Miracles. Im running out of time and I honestly want to go play field hockey with the bishops kids in the church haha. so im going to make this a list form. 

I had 23 emails! SANTA HORCHATA. Mom, you gotta slow your roll man haha.

My ward is still rockin the 40 day fast, I had to fast for 2 days in a row, long story. BUT. I fasted that the Mother and daughter we are teaching will accept our baptism invite...THEY DID. WAHOO. MAY 25TH!  And they came to church on Sunday. We see them about twice a week and the daughter comes to the activities and English class with us too. Were all buddies. Already invited her to come visit me back home in Cali since her dream is to go to LA. 

We almost had a 3rd date the day after! ARG. Our longest/first investigator works and goes to school non stop so its super difficult to visit with him. We had an awesome lesson in the middle of the road Sat night and it was pretty chilly, but we were there for like an hour answering his questions. He needs to pray and read more to see if he is sure, not to mention he needs to make some more time to see us! 

Our cultural activity was legit. Lots of people showed and had a blast. Us american missionaries danced to Beat It by MJ. haha then all the missionaries were kind of pranked by anz murphy, he made us go up and sing the austrailian national song with him hahaha. 

We go out of Bergamo atleast twice a week it seems! We have had zone meeting and a zone conference in verona once a week, we have scambi with the Milano sorelle for the third week in a row and then we had a conf in milano ieri and then Stake conferenza in Verona is Sunday. Bahumbug. But its pretty cool i can say i have to go to stake conference in verona haha. 

I will text yall next week what happens with all the craziness of new sorelle, everything is changing so i might get backup trained by someone else, all i know is my loverly bergamo people are all changing! I loveeeee my peeps here. 

We get flaked on ATLEAST once a day by peeps, but its cool, its sad but you just kind of expect it. back up plans really are important haha. the other day we taught a few lessons in a row and it was rad. one was an awesome muslim dude from africa who is a french rapper and music producer haha he showed us his song it was dope. 

Lots of cool things happening, opening a city is rough but we are seeing small miracles everyday. You really learn to recognize how God puts people and situations in your path on a constant basis. Its just like Ferris Buller says, if you dont stop to look around every once in a while, you might just miss it.

p.s. matau talked about having a scambio in bergamo and città alta...yeahhh buddy reppin la mia città! Also, the pics and letters from erryone else are super rad! 

man too many funny and miraculous moments to even write! im not even going to try anymore haha. thanks all for the love, this is the best mission ever, i am excited to see some of my peeps get baptized, ive already pictured them with callings and in the temple, so its bound to happen one day even if im not around to see it. Sowing the seeds!

Vi Voglio Bene, Grazie tutti, ci sentiamo dopo!

Sorella Gillette (BTW. using my phrase "like the razor" works out here too haha everyone asks if i am rich.)

Le collone sono vivere con il suono di Bergamo.

Email from Kassi on 4/17/13 - Including a little Rap written by Kassi & her companion Sorella Bunker!

Kay so i am going to slim down my general email a bit. and i think im going to do this one differently to answer some peoples questions. kay so things i have learned since living in italy- CHEEBO! The food here is usually pretty fantastic. theres a whole isle in every grocery store of just pasta noodles and sauce haha. so many kinds. GELATO IS NOT OVERRATED. I literally never want to have american ice cream ever again. its a sick joke. people here take trains, buses, trams, walk, public transportation is normal. everytime you tell someone you are from las vegas, their faces are priceless. northern italy, a lot of times people can be pretty unfriendly and rude. when you eat at someones house you EAT at someones house. they dont stop feeding you. Every sunday we have pranzo appointments at members houses. also, we dont eat dinner, only snack around 930 ish. pranzo is a big deal. kind of like the spanish siesta. toilets are different, theres no rule about where you smoke. i dont feel like i really had a culture shock like everyone said. sure its a bit different but its alot like the states. oh also, 1 and 2 dollars are in coin form haha. super strange. people dont use credit cards as much here either. they all about cash money! 

i found myself yesterday and today wishing i had more time to study the scriptures, like thirsting for it ya know? man, i feel like an idiot. all these years i have wasted and now all these things i need to know! Our Jdub investigator asked some of the hardest questions, that i dont even know the answer to in english. sorella durfee was my comp for a day, we did another exchange this week with milano, so i stayed in bergamo and my comp went to milano. so i ran the show with our investigators and stuff. durfee was super sweet and has been out for about 8 months. with our investigator, i actually talked a lot, prob more than durfee, and we didnt even teach the lesson we had prepared, it went a totally different direction. this lady is so nice and is very faithful, but she was anti the bom and still kind of is. but get this miracolo! before she didnt want us to use scriptures from the bom and i was able to get her to read moroni 10-3-5. then this lesson i really wanted to have her let me leave her a bom, before she refused. dude. not only did she read the restoration pamphlet i left her last time, but she let me leave the bom and said she would read the chapters i assigned her, with no problem. also, my comprehension during that lesson was the best its ever been. i know it had to have been the spirit because later on at night my brain was fried from italian and i couldnt really form sentences haha. also with durfee, we scored 5 peoples numbers during some street contacting, and within that time i saw one of my investigators and a 2 potentials we had met previously and i pretty much scheduled appts with all of them. such a successful day! also yesterday, well remember i told you how we found a lady last week after casa and we had an appt with her? we show up and end up teaching her, her husband and her daughter. they are sicilian and its hard for me to understand them, but bam 3 new investigators. the daughter came to english class last night with me and gjika (our comps were still in milano) and it went super well. we all played fooseball and she met all the missionaries and she is going to come back with us thursday after our appt with her and her family. and to top it all off, she said she has read the first 14 chapters of 1 nephi and really likes it! during the lesson we had with them last week, the mom was totally feelin it and reading the bom to herself as we were chatting with the hubby. ahhh. praying for miracles. also idk if i told her our ward is super supportive and doing a 40 day fast for missionary work. 

ive def been slapped around a little bit about having more faith and what that really means. the gospel is so simple but dang its not. i have to start hardcore studying old testiment too for one of our investigators. we now have 8 technically, and one we can consider progressing. its hard man. i have ups and downs all the time and especially about the language. but this week alot of people have been building my confidence about it saying im better than they were, and even some italian people i meet, on the first encounter too, they are always saying hey if i went to america i wouldnt speak or understand anything. haha so its nice. HF is prob inspiring those people to make me feel better. I feel like the time is flying out here. When every hour is planned out from 630-1030 it totally does. Tomo i am going to verona again for a zone meeting, us four girls decided our last pday of the transfer we are going to go to verona and check it out. its gorgeous from what i have seen from the train. 

i will close with a rap sorella bunker and i made to the fresh prince of bell-air theme song. (also, in missionary lingo you are born, and die in cities, i.e. i was born in bergamo and my comp will die here, and i am her daughter she is my mom. i also apparently look like my great grandma. also a simpatizante is an investigator in italian, therefore simp is short for that)

"In East Bergamo I was born and raised, on the tram stop is where we spend most of our days. dropping some passalong cards thinking we're cool, talkin some gospel outside of the school. When a couple of missionaries who were up to no good, started takin simps from the neighborhood. we got in one little fight about boundaries and prez got scared, he said you're all doin the Lord's work so i just dont care. We pulled up to the casa round 7 or 8, and found out from errybody we all got baptism dates. Look at God's kingdom, we're finally there. Everyday missionaries we love what we share.

pretty cheesy rad right??? you can def tell i made this haha. and some of that isnt true, its mostly just for funnies. 

Vi Voglio Bene! A dopo!

Sorella Gillette

Over 90 Photos since Kassi has been on her Mission - No order, just randomly added- (some have already been added but too hard to keep up with :)