il mio primo giorno

Salve la mia famiglia e i miei amici!
I made it to Italy and I am as happy as can be! I got in yesterday afternoon and had quite the adventure coming over here by myself but it was great to finally get here. I feel bad that Anziano Coxs visa didnt come but its okay...hopefully itll be here soon and he will be over in italy this next week. I made a few friends on the flight over from New York to Rome. I was surrounded by Italians who were very curious about the tag I was wearing and so I explained to them I would be in Italy teaching the gospel for a year and a half. One of them whoàs name was Gino is an Italian teacher and he taught me some great Italian phrases and pronunciation as I helped him with English. It was great. When I got to Catania, I was so tired that I walked right past the baggage pick up and forgot to pick it up. It gets better...so I tried going back in but I had to go back through security to get my bags. I finally got to my bags and only one came, the other was left in Rome. At this point, I was so exhausted and I saw Sorella Taranto (the mission presidents wife) and just wanted to go so I filed a baggage claim form and President and Sorella Taranto brought me to the mission home. I met my companion, Sorella Robb, who is so fun. We then had dinner and I was able to take a little nap. In the meantime, the airport called and said they had my luggage so we packed everything up and left for the airport. I had to go back through security and when I finally received my luggage, the security people (who did not speak any english) xrayed my bag and started talking really fast to me in Italian and I picked up that they thought I had a gun in my bag. I told them I hoped that was not the case because I did not place it there. So they had me open my bag and it was my blowdryer! ahh. it was quite the event...they then were not so mad at me and started laughing. Then President sent Sorella Robb and I off and we are in Ragusa now! Ragusa is a beautiful, cute little Italian city about an hour and a half bus ride. I love it! When you think of the pastel colored homes on top of a hill with narrow streets, that is what Ragusa is like. There are beautiful catholic cathedrals everywhere--I mustve seen about 5 today. Today is Pday so we went with the Anziani exploring a city close by. Ive met a lot of people in the past couple days and its all a blur right now. The work here is going well. Ive noticed how much the Italian people just LOVE to talk so its not super hard to spark up a conversation. I already love the people here. My favorite thing is to hear little kids speak in Italian...a teacher at the mtc told me to listen to them speak and it is just the cutest thing. We teach a preschool class English tomorrow which Im super excited about and then tomorrow night is our adult English class. Everyone calls me sorellina which means little sister because they think Im so young. One lady thought I was 16. haha. Sorella Robb is friends with just about everyone in this city too so just about everywhere we went, she knew someone and introduced me. Yesterday at the bus stop, I taught my first lesson to a man named Giuseppe. It was really neat although I wasnt able to say a ton. Today we found a lot of people as we were going places and the members are very involved in the missionary work here. As we stopped for some Gelato today, we met the owner, Giovanna, and we started to talk to her. She is going to be in Florida soon and so she asked if I would make some reservations for her at some hotels over the phone because she couldnt speak English very well and then we started talking about the gospel. She knows a few members of the church--one of which just happened to walk in during our conversation so it was awesome. We have an appointment set up with her on Monday. I love it here already---its so good to finally be here. Ive got to go but I hope everyones doing well! Vi voglio bene!

Love,
Sorella Hashey