Cari,
So much to say, so much to say! Last week we went to the incredible Boboli Gardens at Palazzo Pitti (a palace) here in Firenze and it was beyond my wildest dreams. We were exhausted after walking all over the monstrous garden full of statues, fountains and mysterious paths. Sorella Jacobson and I love our little adventures every Wednesday. We also saw the treasure of the Kremlin and an amazing costume gallery of period dresses through the last few hundred years. It was like the very fashionable icing on an already beautiful cake. I cannot say enough about it. We taught a young woman from Vancouver who referred to God as a source, but she is really exploring spirituality and the truth and we are going back a third time to teach her again. She prayed for the first time at our first lesson and the next day got a scholarship. She was blown away that God really does listen and answer prayers. We taught a twenty something young man one of the most amazing lessons of which I have been a part. He is extremely religious and wears a mini bible around his neck and knows not only the bible, but other books of scripture from various religions as well. He is a diligent seeker of the truth and I am amazed at all he knows and is willing to learn. He loves the lord and just wants to do right. It is awesome. We had our scambio last week and Sorella Jacobson went to Modena for a day, and although it was fun because Sorella Bowman was here and is terrific, I missed my collega. We had a great lesson with Erica this week and Silvia accepted a soft baptismal invite! The work is moving forward! We talked to some great girls from Singapore in a park and prayed with them and a couple days ago we met a young man from Romania who said a prayer in Romanian with us. It was incredible! We made pasta carbonara with sauteed zucchini (thanks for the recipe Sorella Modugno) which was delicious! Sunday Sorella Jacobson made pancakes and I invented a citrus pancake syrup using pineapple juice, orange honey and spices. It was so much fun and so tasty! Speaking of tasty...Ludmilla, from our ward, gave us fresh basil and extraordinary tomatoes from her garden with which we made a topping for some sort of bruschetta and Sorella Faita, also from the ward made us some really tasty cupcake things that I can't accurately describe. Also this week Sorella J and I tasted kiwi gelato and basil gelato, both of which were extraordinarily delicious. My heart breaks thinking we don't have that in the states. I love the Gelateria de Medici. It is beautifully delicious. I translated for a mom and daughter from Utah on Sunday for the first time. I think I understood most of what was being said, which is a tremendous improvement to previous weeks. Yea! We taught the mission standard of 20 lessons last week for the first time! we are awesome! A crazy man tried to tickle us on the train. Luckily, we escaped. We had zone conference on Monday in Modena which was so uplifting as always and President Wolfgramm played the song "The Impossible Dream" in a slide show of pictures from the mission. I was so contented. Sorella Jacobson and I did an impromtu musical number for zone conference, completely unpracticed, but she is AMAZING on the piano. WOW. She made up an interlude or something. It was great. And other missionaries are so sweet! The train coming home was kind of late but we talked to a girl and her boyfriend, both from San Diego, here for a study abroad and the girl said her religion was of her own creation and she called it " earth". It was one of the most fascinating bits of conversation I have ever taken part in. We decided to keep today a little relaxed so we cleaned really well and then went to IKEA in Sesto Fiorentino. It was fun and relaxing and we got to eat some tasty Swedish meatballs. Needless to say, I love my home here in Firenze. I love being in a place so artistic and historically beautiful where I can serve the Lord. I try every day to serve Him with more of myself and I hope he makes me who He needs me to be. I love you all so much!!! Talk to you soon.
Sorella Chandra Lloyd
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