Sorella Ashlyn Henderson: 4 SQUARE!!!

Ciao again everyone!!! Wow this week went by really fast. But it was a really good one, for the most part haha. How is everyone's Christmas season going so far? Christmas in Italy is absolutely gorgeous. Especially living in a big city like Bologna where they have a ton of beautiful lights and stuff is really awesome. Unfortunately this week, I didn't meet with any Africans so I don't have a cool subject line for you this week haha SORRY. Although I think that that subject line is still pretty cool.

One of the biggest things we did this week was meeting with less actives from our ward. The Bologna ward has about 500 members, and they are building another big chapel in the city, which is awesome! But unfortunately, at least half of the members are inactive. So we met with quite a few people this week who are having problems getting to church or other personal issues that the bishop asked us to meet with. Yesterday, we visited with the sweetest lady ever from Peru. She spoke to us in half Italian and half Spanish so I literally learned some Spanish from that conversation haha but it was just so great to see her recommit to doing the things that she needs to do, like praying and reading scriptures and coming to church! She also really wants to share the Gospel with others. It's great to see that kind of fire in the members about missionary work!

We've also been working on growing our English class and making it better. And the Lord has been blessing us this week with more members! It's been awesome to see more people coming and random people coming, too. We've started talking to some of them and are pretty hopeful for them.

Probably the only not-so-good thing I have to say about this week is that our simps, Anna and Margherita have stopped progressing, so we didn't get to set a bap date with them like we thought we would this week. It was really sad to come out of our last lesson. The Spirit really wasn't there, and they had all of these crazy questions about things that they had looked up online and they kinda dominated our lesson so we couldn't even teach what we wanted to. It just wasn't very productive, so we are gonna try again with starting back at the basics to gain them a testimony. Because we realized that they are missing some of the basics that carry you through. So we are still hopeful for them! But right now they don't seem to be making much progress, unfortunately.

So I used probably the most important skill that I learned in the MTC to do finding... 4 SQUARE!!!! Hahahahahahahaha and it was amazing! We drew a court with chalk in the Piazza Maggiore, which is, as you can guess, a big plaza. We got so many kids playing with us. We talked to them a little bit about how we were missionaries, but they were actually on some kind of Catholic church field trip and their Priest was right there. So it was kinda weird. But we got a lot of attention for sure, and we found some potentials from it. And it was fun haha. Definitely the best idea I've had so far in my life.

Well I'm just living life out here in Bologna, Italy. Which is sort of crazy in itself. Just pushing through and enjoying all the ups and the downs. (: Thank you for your emails and words of support. They mean so much, and I love hearing from you guys. Keep pushing on, and remember to Light the World this Christmas! I know that service can be awkward sometimes, but there is always a time and a place for it. And you will be blessed for it too, as well. Vi voglio bene! Ciao until next week!