Merry Christmas!!!

Dear Family, 

Last night was the American Relief Society Christmas Party, they had a wonderful progressive dinner. We cheerfully ate American food, listened to beautiful music numbers (including Carol of the Bells on the steel drum! it was soo cool!), and chatted with members, less actives, and non member friends. When we showed up at the first house we asked what we could do to help, and were told to just go and sit down. That was a shock to our systems, but it was a lovely evening. There was an Italian lady there who was invited by her neighbor, so I went and talked to her for a while. She's come to several activities before and said that while she understands almost nothing of what is said, she likes to come and experience the American culture. Being with the Americans is just different than being with Italians. I love them  both, but it's helped me realize how much I love Italy. 

Work in Pordenone is going pretty well. We've experienced a little slow down because of the hollidays, but we've also seen some wonderful miracles. The other night we had a little bit of a rough finding experience, so we sat down on a bench, took a breather, and made some calls. We called an investigator that we've been working with for over a month, but is hard to see. We've only had one formal appointment that we've set a head of time that she doesn't cancel, but we've given her lots of passbys so we've been able to see her. She hasn't been reading in the Book of Mormon or making any progress. Anyway, I called her and talked with her for a minute and asked her if she had read in the Book of Mormon this week. Her reply was ''not really, maybe a little'' which normally means, no. So I think I might have asked what she read about because suddenly she said that she read something about Manchester. I was shocked. So after a little more prompting, she opened up and told me all about the Joseph Smith Tesitmony at the start of the Book of Mormon and then finished with, ''I wasn't able to read much, I need read a lot more.'' God always gives you miracles right when you need them. 

If you remember a few weeks ago, I talked about baptismal challenges and how we walked right up to a man in a park introduced ourselves, our purpose, and asked him to be baptized. He replied with, ''I guess I should know something about your church first.'' Sadly, he's a single man, so we passed him onto the Anziani to teach, but he's been coming to church ever since and is getting baptized next week! 

I'm completely enjoying having Christmas time in Italy. Centro is completely decorated with giant lights across the streets, santa's village, and a giant Christmas tree. We ride through with our bikes and there's always at least one person playing an accordian.

For the most part the humidity has left and a dry cold has set in, but last Friday the valley was covered with fog. We were visiting a member closer to the mountains, and he drove us up above the fog line and we could see the blanket of clouds enveloping the area. 

Well, Have a wonderful week! Since next p-day is Christmas, we'll be taking a little time on Tuesday for grocery shopping and email. We still haven't confirmed plans for when we'll be calling, so the same two hour gap applies for now, but on Tuesday I'll be able to give you a better idea of when I'll be calling. 

Love you!

Sorella Pace