Week #67 – Many Small Miracles
Hello Everyone!!
Okay I’m starting off with our Thanksgiving FEAST because it was incredible. Shout out to Sister Palazzo and Sister Duffy who sent me some awesome Thanksgiving recipes! Thank you!! Alrighty so we ordered a 7 kilo turkey from a butcher. Dressed it. Seasoned it. Baked it.
Came out perfect. Pulled off all the meat. Saved the bones and skin to make a concentrated broth. Poured that over the pulled meat. Let it sit in the fridge for a night. Then baked it again. Also made a delicious gravy from the original pan drippings. Then also made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (shout out to Yskes) and pumpkin pie.
The Sorelle made two different kinds of potatoes and stuffing with the turkey broth. It was incredible. We had SO MUCH FOOD. Definitely one of the most complete thanksgiving meals I have had in years.
Lesson learned: if you want something than you need to go out and make it happen.
In other news this week was full of many small miracles and a lot of what we Italian missionaries call “bidone” (meaning a no show or last minute cancellations of an appointment). When I say miracle it probably isn’t what most people would consider as a miracle but for me they were miracles. With all the no shows we kept having we hit the streets a bit more this week and it reminded me just how much I don’t like street finding in Italy but when there’s no other option you have to push through it. We had two cool experiences though. First was with a young man named gianmarco. We attempted stopping him on a corner to invite him to our free English course. In nice words he was not interested in the slightest. Strangely about 5 minutes later we run into him again even though we kept walking down the same street at an American walking speed so I have no idea how he caught up to us.
Anyway we didn’t really know what to do and we didn’t want to talk to him again but my comp just tried asking him what cross street we were about to come up to (because in Italy street signs are hard to come by) and this time he was completely different. Friendly. Helpful. Then as we were walking away he asked us again about our English course and if it was really free. That opened up a pretty cool conversation for why we were missionaries in Italy and by the end of it we exchanged numbers and agreed to meet when he comes to English course this week to teach more about it. Second experience: were walking and I tried to stop this couple to ask them a simple question based on the Christmas season in order to introduce the new Christmas service initiative that the church is rolling out. The woman was, again in nice words, not very happy we stopped her. The man seemed kinda indifferent. Oh well.
We kept walking. About two blocks later the man comes up from behind us and stops us to ask what it was that we wanted to ask him. We asked our simple Christmas question which turned into us basically teaching the restoration to our new friend (Ferdi) and setting up a time for us to meet with him again this coming week. We even said a prayer with him almost in the middle of the street.
Mixed into the week were other miracles like a man, named Giorgio, who met with the missionaries a year ago, and now all of a sudden shows up to church and says I have more time now I want to meet. Or a new older couple (Mimmo and Mariella) from English course agreeing to meet with us. Looking back this week I remember the hard days of walking the streets and not seeing much success but then all of that is overshadowed by the small miracles mixed in that help me along and remind me that God is our Heavenly Father and he does love us and he does provide small opportunities for us to see his hand in our lives if we are looking for it.
So that’s my invite this week. Focus on the positive no matter how small it may be. I would argue that the size of our problems and also our blessings, more often than not, depends on how much attention we give to each in our minds and in our hearts.
I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!
Anziano Friedman
