Ferragosto

 

I was asked if I use a lot of post it notes.. . the answer is YES!

Buon Giorno mamma e pappa!
So the most amazing thing I've seen out here is probably the Castles. But its hard to choose because even the scenery here in little old Calabria is incredible! My pictures don't serve it justice...The ice cream, gelato, is scruptious of course, I never knew how much I was missing out on chocolate icecream! The Gelateria have soooo many types of gelato it's insane. I don't really eat dinner here, we eat a huge lunch (pranzo) then I'll have a pb&j for dinner. It's amazing when people invite us out for pranzo but it rarely happens so we make a lot of pasta at home. I haven't been going to open markets like Ryan has but they certainly are all over the place. We go to this cheap grocery store called Lidl...I don't know why, I can't tell if they are trying to be english or what. But we shop for a 2 week period so we buy un saco di cibo! Hopefully it cools off here real soon but I heard end of Sept. Believe it or not but I'm finally starting to understand the language haha Italians speak so fast but I can finally understand them! certainly not 100% but I hold my own conversations :) it's a difficult language ha well I mean every language is difficult but I thought it'd be easier, but NOPE God decided to humble me some more haha.

Anywho this week was pretty great! we went to the mountains again but for the district activity. District is equivalent to the Stake. So of course good food, good company and Great Weather! Then we had our deep cleaning day on FerrAgosto. This catholic holiday is weird, it's just a tradition really. But there is literally no one outside and every single shop is closed. This is what I was told about the holiday. STORY TIME. The pope was curious about what happened to the mother of Christ since the scriptures don't mention it, so he sent some cardinals to Jerusalem to do some discovering. They came back to Italy without any news so they held a meeting with all the cardinals to discuss. The pope presented 3 hypothesis: 1. Mary died a good life as a saint. 2. She was martyred for testifying of Christ or 3. She ascended into heaven being translated for her righteousness. So of course all the cardinals voted for the 3rd option...and this story turned into a belief of the catholic church. Anyways, its a good holiday to eat a lot of food :) which is exactly what we did!
The work in Crotone is coming along. We're still working with an investigator to quit smoking. And we are doing a mass publicity for our english course so we're stopping everyone! We've literally seen people cross the street while walking towards us to avoid us, ha, somehow we have a bad reputation I guess?
I love you all! Have a great week at school!
Love,
Anziano LaFaye