Second Letter from Bagheria

Hi Everyone!

 

I’m doing well here in Italy! But, yeah, keep sending letters

and stuff to the mission home because we don’t get letters

at our apartment. I’ll get the letters during transfers or

during zone conference or something. My companion is great,

Anziano Ferrin.  He is from Utah. He is a great guy. We have

both taught each other a lot and we learn more every day. He

helps me a ton with the language which is really good. It’s

tough because everyone in Sicily speaks dialect and some

don’t even speak Italian. So, it’s hard when you talk to

someone in Italian and they talk back in Sicilian. It’s tough,

ha-ha, but I’m getting better and I’m good down here. It

rains like every day because its rainy season and I guess

that’s just what happens. Hopefully it stops in the coming

weeks and starts to warm up. I love it here, it’s so much fun!

The members here are awesome and they treat us well.

We went to a members house yesterday and they live in
the mountains. They made us "pumpkin pasta".  It’s like

mashed up squash (it’s different than American squash)

and they cook it and mix it with pasta! It was way good!

Yeah, so the train ride down from Rome tooklike 13 hours.

It was a long day. When you get to Sicily the train breaks

up into the smaller cars and you put the train in the hull

of this big boat and then the boat takes you across. It’s super

inefficient but pretty cool. They don’t have a bridge because

the mafia can’t have an easy escape off theisland. Blood

oranges are soooo good. I had one on the train ride down.

They are a regular orange but the inside is like red, like
blood, hence the name. They are soooo so so good though.

The blood orange season is over though so I don’t think I’ll

be having any more which is sad. Yo, so get this, this week

I tried a new food. It’s called "panino di milza" which

literally means "sandwich of spleen" and it’s exactly

how it sounds. It’s thinly sliced pig or cow spleen and then

they slow cook it in a big tub of lard. They then take it and

put it on a sandwich with cheese and lemon juice. And

totally honest, it wasn’t that gross. Like I don’t think I

would ever order it again but it wasn’t like super nasty.

I’m glad is tried it though. It was a cultural experience.

Love you all and miss you tons! Have a good week!
Ciao

Anziano Yskes

 

A cool piazza next to the Palermo capital building

 

 

The street we live on in Bagheria

 

 

 

Teatro Massimo (The Theater)

 

 

The historic district of Palermo