It's the weekend

Wow, so much has happened this week.... it's definitely not been a relaxing one, and I feel my time for relaxing is gone and work is definitely beginning.

This week Mauren Little and I went up to Udine on Tuesday and Wednesday, which is about an 45 minutes-one hour away, to pass out fliers. OH THE WALKING WE DID! Seemed like at the end of the first day I could barely move my feet! Hannah Walti and I went up and down streets putting fliers in mail boxes, getting scared to death by dogs barking and trying to get out from behind the fence. We both said, "Now we know what the mailman goes through..." By the second day I felt like a pro! The strength God gives when you think you can't carry on! Crazy stuff, for sure!

Yesterday and today Mauren and I have been training at her house just a few minutes away. She's teaching me everything I need to know for ESL. Everything from time management to role playing on how to share the gospel. I got so overwhelmed on how to share the gospel because it's not evangelizing as you know it..... or at least how I knew it. Here you have to start from the basics. Whenever you start talking to them they think you're a mormon, and you have to explain that you're not and how evangelicals are different from mormon.... etc. etc. etc. Then most everyone here proclaims to be Catholic, yet they only know the basics of what they believe, because hardly any of them go to church on a regular basis. You never get to the Adam and Eve story. You have to know the basics about what you believe and what catholics believe and what mormons, or testimony as they call mormons, believe. It all was extremely overwhelming, and I did break down in tears after that. Tears of frustration but also tears of just being sad about how truly lost these people are. It's definitely going to be an interesting semester. But I already know God's hand is on everything that is going to be said and done. My prayer is that God speaks through me when talking to the Italians.

Whew! So, it's the weekend and what better way to relieve the business of the week, than by taking a trip all day tomorrow to Venice? I don't think there's anything better. All the students and I are going to take the 8:30 a.m. train. EARLY! But I think that we're going to have a good time. I will take loads of pictures to up on here and facebook.