Sorella Ashlyn Henderson: Ferragosto

Ciao tutti! Well, I forgot to send you all my group email from last week, so I have sent you all that one as well. I was just so busy being TRANSFERRED that I forgot! Yes, I have now been in Lodi for a week, and I absolutely LOVE IT. It was really hard for me at first to leave Navigli because I loved it so much and all the people there, especiallly our investigators, but the members in Lodi are so amazing. I haven't met most of them because literally everyone goes on vacation in August, which means we are doing a lot of finding and other things and no one comes to English class, but the people that I have met are so cool! And half of the ward is from South America too yay.

Best things about Lodi so far:
1. No sounds of sirens and car horns all day and night.
2. We have a car!!!!!!!!!!
3. My comp! Sorella Button is a beast. We were in the MTC together, and I just love her.
4. The city is really, small but the center is SO cute! It looks just like the Italy that I imagined before my mission.
5. Somehow I end up having gelato given to me every day since I've been here which can be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it.

Con:
1. It smells like cow manure sometimes. ):

As you can see, from my list, Lodi really is awesome! I got to do new driver training on Monday, and the office anziani (which are the Anziani in my district and ward that we serve with) wanted to see how we drove, so I got to drive a car for the first time in almost 10 months! I was a little nervous, especially because we were in Milano, but it all came back to me. I missed driving so much! Right now Sorella Button is the designated driver because she has been here for a while, but if she leaves next transfer, I'll drive. Woooo.

I have met one of our investigators so far (the rest are on vacation), and she's named Monica. She's blind and speaks perfect English and Spanish, but she's Italian. And she loves the Book of Mormon! But she also loves the Catholic church. So it's a little hard. But we are working on her, and now that she finally has a copy of the Book of Mormon that she can read with her braille reader, she loves to read it! She's pretty cool.

Yesterday we had our semi-annual mission cleaning day because today is Ferragosto, aka one of the days a year that ALL OF ITALY IS CLOSED. So we cleaned for 5 straight hours and by the end Sorella Button and I wanted to die but our apartment is so clean!

Okay there is definitey so much more to say but I won't say it because this email is getting long. But I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sorella Henderson