Sorella Ashlyn Henderson: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Wow I hope that everyone had a great Christmas with your families and that you all ate good food (although I doubt that anyone ate better than me). And most of all, remembered Christ this Christmas. But also had lots of fun (: I know that I did. Christmas was so cool to spend in Italy! If anything, the day was so fun because it was so different from the norms. My district played a lot of games together and made French Toast out of Pandoro, which is like this nasty cake thing that they like here but for some reason tastes good as French Toast. We also got to watch a movie, and we chose Beauty and the Beast. Oh and we got to Skype our families!!! I loved being able to talk to my family and see that they are still as gooby as ever haha. And they even Facetimed other family members that weren't there so I got to see a bunch of different people through multiple phones haha it was sick. They probably looked a little insane holding up 3 phones while people talked to each other through them hahaha.

My highlight of this week that's non-missionary related was probably the pranzo that I had on Christmas Eve with a family in my ward. That was my first legit meal with an Italian family, and holy cow MY LIFE HAS CHANGED. They made a lasagna that MADE ME CRY. A serious legit 5 course meal in one of the coolest houses I had ever been in with just a bunch of Italians roasting me in Italian and I can actually understand them... It was the greatest couple hours of my life, I swear hahaha. I loved it. It was pretty hard to do missionary work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We're not allowed to knock on doors, and no one is out. So we tried to do a little bit of finding, and the other Sorelle in our district actually made an appointment out of it! So that was cool. But mostly just felt like us wandering around in the cold pulling stickers off of street signs haha at least the lights in Bologna are really pretty this time of year.

On Christmas Day, we all went to the church in the morning to cook breakfast, open our presents from each other, and watch Beauty and the Beast. The Anziani got me a little book to start learning Arabic from Italian, which I'm so pumped for!! I actually just got back from a mini Arabic lesson with Anni and let me tell ya I definitely picked up Italian a lot faster than this one but it's not impossible! (: Mostly it's just fun, though. Anyway, after that we played some Italian card games, then we went to our pranzo appointment for Christmas. We went to a less active member's home whose husband is a nonmember. She's from Peru, so she made us some typical Peruvian food, which was turkey and rice and some kind of egg salad type thing. I ate a ton this last week, and it was amazing.

The other amazing thing that happened this last week is that we finally had a lesson with one of our potentials that they've been trying to see since before I got here. And it was awesome! Her name is Suki, and she's from Morocco and Italy. And she speaks 7 langauges. So she is my inspiration for learning languages right now haha. But we taught her the Resto, and it was awesome. Sorella Mitchell and I definitely need to work on our teaching skills and language skills, but the Spirit was strong, which is most important! And we are gonna see her when she gets back from Christmas vacation. We are so hopeful and excited for her. We also had other lessons with our African investigators, Samuel and Grace. Unfortunately, they're not really progressing. But they're really cool and give us a ton of food when we go because they "don't know how to eat Italian food." Lol I love them.

Well that was kind of my week! I guess a spiritual thought for this week is something that I found this morning during my personal study. I came across a scripture in 1 Pietro 3:15. It basically says that if we have the faith in Christ and the attitude of Christ that we should have as members of His Church, then we have to be ready at all times to answer questions about the Gospel because the way that we live will spark questions in others. I think that is so cool! A righteous example is the best way to be a missionary and a light for others! Christ was a perfect example of righteousness, and He brought so many people to righteousness also while He was on this Earth, and still does now. I've truly seen miracles in my life, especially while on my mission, that come from living the Gospel and trying to be like Christ. Other people see that, and they want to know Christ too. I am so grateful for our Savior and that I got to be a missionary on Christmas. And now I am so grateful that festa is this much closer to ending so that our investigators can come home haha. (: Okay I love you all! Enjoy the rest of your holiday season and Happy New Year!!!