Small and Simple Things - Bergamo, Italy

Ciaooooo tutti! 

It's been another wonderful week. Thursday was full of travelling back and forth between Bergamo and Verona for zone conference. Mamma Mia trains are the worst sometimes. BUT good news is on the way back I sat across from a woman named Luisa and she and I chatted and I found out that she is a professional printmaker. For any of you who know me well, you'll know that that is a very big deal. I got very excited and we talked for the next hour about pictures of her work and the church and we exchanged numbers and she invited me to come see her show if I ever find myself in Brescia! It was awesome. 

Friday and Saturday were composed of a lot of appointments with a lot of the Africans we work with right now. I also ate fufu for the 1st time so that's an achievement. For those of you who don't know, fufu is a typical African dish composed of a slick, dense dough that you use your hands to dip in a vegetable meat sauce, and then swallow the whole little glob without chewing. Imagine swallowing a ball of cookie dough but it's not sweet and if you chew it they get offended. It's a fun time. 

We taught a couple more lessons to {F} this week, and she is doing well! We finished teaching her all the lessons and we are on track for her baptism this Saturday. At the end of our lesson we asked her why she wanted to be baptized. Her answer was simple and I felt the spirit very strong as she was talking. She told us in about 2 sentences that she wants to follow God and be closer to him. It was such a simple thing to say but the Spirit hit our hearts in the silence afterward and we felt good about it. It was a good reminder to me that through small and simple moments and experiences, we can slowly grow our faith and testimony and God loves growth even if it's slow. 

The church is also working very hard on this "21 day Book of Mormon Challenge" and it's starting to become more popular in our area. The challenge itself has been extended to the just the Europe area, and had a question correlating to each day where you read a passage of the Book of Mormon to answer the question posed. For example, day 2's question is "how can I find joy?". I recommend everyone go read Mosiah 4 and go figure it out

This week is transfers calls so wish us luck! Vi voglio bene come sempre 

sorella McConkie 

Our district at zone conference (the ties were just for the photo).

A cute watermelon sign

Hiking up to a church in a cave today for pday

Visiting {K}and {F} who I promise are happy people
but just don't like to smile in photos apparently

Eating fufu for the first time

A not so subtle note we left to an investigator who's been avoiding us.