Charissa's mission 20081015

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
Ricotta, Albania, Nigeria, Australia...
10/15/2008 4:26 AM

Buon giorno da Ragusa!

It's the start of another wonderful transfer (6 week period of time) here with Sorella Bernabé. I probably will be here until Christmas with her in this wonderful city. For a quick update on life here: It's officially ricotta and ricotta calda time now,

Charissa's mission 20081009

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
A temple is coming to Rome!
10/9/2008 12:38 AM

Buon giorno tutti!!

So for those of you who read the title and are thinking, «a what?» here is a brief explanation. This past weekend

Charissa's mission 20081001

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
Today this is coming from sunny Siracusa!
10/1/2008 5:46 AM

Buon giorno tutti!

I am here in Siracusa--today and yesterday we are doing scambi with the sisters here and so I got to meet a few of the people they are working with here, see some beautiful sights of the ocean, and today we went to this greek theater and some other ruins here.

Charissa's mission 20080924

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
4 months into my mission, 2 months in Italy!
9/24/2008 7:03 AM

Ciao tutti!

I promise there is a good reason I didnt write last week. I'm sorry, but hopefully that will be the last missing weekly email for a while. Again, if you are a friend who is emailing me and wants to hear an individual response back, I am happy to write you by snail mail but I need your address.

So last Thursday I was on a train all day and night to Torino; my companion needed to renew her permesso di sogiorno [visa]. In summary the trip was long and exhausting, but definitely beautiful scenery. My favorites were

Charissa's mission 20080910

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
9/10/2008 7:22 AM
update from your amica in Ragusa

Ciao tutti!

So last week we ended up working a lot on Wednesday and only had a bit of time for internet, and sorry but my immediate family gets priority.

Charissa's mission 20080903

Subject:	Re: hello from us
Date:	Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:12:39 +0200

im glad you liked us singing. that was the toned down version. bummer we never recorded our gospel version while running down the stairs to go to gym.... :)

aww!!! i seriously love lydia. everyonce in a while when i see kids (there are actually families and kids and babies here now that the festa di san giovanni happened, and school starts in a few weeks)

aww. sounds like everyone is doing great. i would believe some of this stuff more with pics. but not to be hypocritical, because i left my camera at the house today. we have pday half today and half tomorrow because the capi zona are at catania and we want to go to some city around here all together as a district. i love that ill always be with 4 elders, meaning ill never be alone!

so i had this discussion with slla bernabé the other day and she was saying how her family raised her to go to school to learn to love people. that just living life with adults or going to school just to learn was being to selfish. i really lvoe this philosophy. i dont know. i think i want life to be easy, and so instead of trying to understand other people all the time, i wanted to be in school for myself. maybe that is waht other people need to do, but i know that at the end we need to learn how to love everyone, not just people who are smart or whatever. yes the glory of god is intelligence, but at what cost? (btw this is all out of the mouth of her mom) so when she was in school and growing up she was taught that we need to only answer when it helps other people. not brag or show off or want to just read teh textbook in the back of the book. but help everyone around us and not just try to gain knowledge for ourselves. we need to make friends with everyone adn help them come unto christ-realize they are children of god by our example. no one wants to think that the black family are just those smart mormon kids but that we are nice and helpful. i think some of us have learned this already. but i dont know. i feel like i really didnt understand this when for example i was in elementary school and middle and high school. weve all been given these talents so that we can help other people to become better. i hope we can all strive to help those around us and reach out to others.

ah i have no more time to even get out a weekly letter to everyone this week!!! ...

the other day i was really frustrated because here everyone interrupts, and because i cant speak italian fast enough i often cant get a lot of thoughts communicated during lessons and such. but i'm trying to constantly pray for more courage to talk to everyone, remember teh atonement every day can help me, and taht i have been so ridiculously blessed! this work is great, and so are the people, language, weather, food, everything.

... yay 42 ppl we talked to on teh street already and one lesson. yay! but ah, its spanish at home today (alternate with english) and i need to practice so bad...ugh. my brain goes from italian to spanish sometimes, adn inglese to spanish sometimes. its so confused!

love youtons frmo ragusa, charissa

Charissa's mission 20080827

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
Spanish? Albanian? Twe? I think I'm in Sicily...
8/27/2008 6:00 AM

Salve tutti,

So I've officially been a missionary for 3 months now, one month in Italy. Its amazing to think how the time passes. I really have come to love Sorella Bernabé and am learning a lot from her. I can almost get around Ragusa, am still sort of scared of talking to people on the phone, my hair is lighter already, and I am starting to feel like this is home.

Charissa's mission 20080820

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
Fresh figs, lots of interested people, and summer sunsets in Italy
8/20/2008 5:11 AM

So this past week I didn't get a normal day off (preparation day) because we had a maxi conference, that is, all of the missionaries in Sicily (1/2 our mission)got together wednesday in Catania (our mission headquarter city). It was great to be able to see

Charissa's mission 20080806

Sorella Charissa Black wrote:
8/6/2008 8:25 AM
It's another beautiful day in Sicily!!!

Hello,

... So basically these last few weeks have been fabulous. ... I don't have much time to write today, sorry. We spent the last few hours in Modica, a nearby town. The history here is amazing. (as are gelsi and mandorla granitas!)

Charissa's mission 20080730

Sister Charissa Black wrote:
Wed, Jul 30, 2008 4:16 am

Buongiorno tutti:

This week has been fabulous! Time sure flies when you have fun, and I am having a lot of it! Before I say anything else, I forgot to mention last week that you can email me at this email address

Charissa's mission 20080723

Subject:
Guess where I am.....Paradise aka. Italy!!!
From:
"Charissa Black"
Date: Wed, Jul 23, 2008 11:55 am

Buongiorno tutti!!!!
So this last week has been completely sopraffatto--overwhelming!!!! I had my last days of everything at the MTC, packed, said goodbye to the younger missionaries going to Milan and Rome, my branch presidency there, my fantastic teachers who are pretty much the coolest people ever, and got ready to go on a bagillion hour journey.

Charissa's mission 20080716

Charissa Black wrote the following to family:
...
I love you all a ton.

i just saw melissa barazza and said hi to her ( a girl who was my neighbor last year and now works here ) ok guess what. a few days ago

Charissa's mission 20080708

Charissa Black wrote:
7/8/2008 5:44 PM

... This week has been another wonderful week at the mtc. I cant believe i leave 2 weeks from yesterday, i'm so excited!! 4th of july was fun, we had a fireside where we played patriotic songs on chimes and then we went and watched the fireworks from the mtc. last tuesday j richard clarke emeritus 70 spoke to us and it was way amazing!

Perry, Tathea

Saturday, July 05, 2008 2:32 PM
Kevin Black wrote:
A reader review on I think amazon.com commented on the dichotomous distribution of reactions to this book--loved it or hated it--thus: "'The Book' (a major focus of the novel) was supposed to divide people and families. I think Anne Perry's book does the same."

I read this book over the past couple of weeks and I loved it.

This is a book that is meant to provoke thought. Many of the negative comments essentially could be summarized as "it is boring to think about theology for 522 pages." Many of the remaining negative comments complained that Perry's heroine is "too good"; that you never expect her to actually succumb to temptation. Ironically this is a major theme of her work: that philosophies and works of art are insipid and, more, evil, if they paint Good with all sweetness and light and ignore the struggle with Evil.

Although it is very different from Orson Scott Card's Saints, I think it rivals it for Best Mormon Novel. In my opinion Card is more skilled, perhaps especially at the balance of describing scenery and characters' thoughts versus moving the action, but Tathea is written passionately and I think its more intense discussion of theology is a strong point in its favor.

Interestingly, I am now in the middle of George Eliot's Adam Bede, and I just read the title character's extended comment on his pastor at the beginning of Book Two. Eliot essentially argues through Bede for turning away from doctrines (cf. "of tenets thou shalt not talk," Doctrine and Covenants 19:31) because (a) people don't want to hear it so in the end it is ineffective, (b) it tends to hypocritical judgment of others, (c) it misses the point of charitable kindness toward your neighbor, and (d) it is hubris to think we mere humans can claim to be right about doctrine. She says that mere thoughts don't motivate a change in behavior; emotions including awe and love do. Perry couldn't agree less. Tathea is an argument for the central nature of doctrine in the Christian life. "True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior" (Boyd K. Packer, “Little Children,” Ensign, Nov 1986, 16). Without the true doctrine, one would not know what to be passionate about. The fact that no one wants to hear the watchman cry out in the middle of the night does not relieve him of the responsibility to cry out (Ezekiel 33:2,6-7). Without true doctrine, one would judge wrongly what is kindness and what is smothering, cloying paternalism.

I read a very insightful review in something like BYU Studies or on the AML site that summarizes the plot and points out comparisons with the Book of Mormon. I can't find it at the moment but will add the URL if I find it. [See below.]

I think this book is worth your time.


1. Saturday, July 05, 2008 4:08 PM
Kevin Black wrote:
That review pointed out for instance that the book has the same # of pages as the current English edition of the Book of Mormon.

One theme in the book, exemplified on p. 412 in a discussion of other more commonly mentioned traits of good leaders: "... who has the strength to tell the truth when it is hardest to hear, even to be hated for it, and not turn aside."

P. 437: "'He loved the beauty in it above everything,' she replied. 'Even above the truth. On his lips, little by little, it grew softer in the telling. The hard edges of price because blurred and finally so dim as to be ignored.' ... 'We twisted mercy into a softness of the soul that denied the existence of sin. ... We made too few demands. We did not want to exclude anyone or drive them away because we asked more than they wanted to give. We thought they would be unwilling to let go of their old pleasures, so we changed the faith to accommodate them.'"

2. Sunday, January 04, 2009 1:32 AM
Kevin Black wrote:
The review that pointed out the number of pages, and the comparisons mentioned above, was by Richard Cracroft and can be found on pages 159-168 of Dialogue, Volume 32, Number 3, Fall 1999.

He felt as I did that she succeeded in her attempt. A contrary but thoughtful view is given by Darlene Young.

various books

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 8:04 AM
Kevin Black wrote:

The Hot Zone, A Terrifying New Story, by Richard Preston. Anchor, 1994.
This book is a fictionalized nonfiction narrative that teaches about Ebola virus by describing the cases of the apparently benign (in humans) Ebola Reston variant found in Virginia in 1989. I liked it. It was a page-turner. A few facts about human disease and monkeys were a little off but by and large it should provoke discussion at any dinner table . . . as long as you leave out the rather florid descriptions of death and dying the author seems fond of.

Saturday, July 05, 2008 8:32 PM
Kevin Black wrote:
Smithsonian Magazine review of _The Hot Zone_, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/book_0695.html

Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen (1814).
I read this book by accident, thinking it was another book from the same period that had something to do with psychiatry. I can't hope to say something new or profound about such a famous work, but here are the things that stood out to me. 1. Characterization. Even the dull Mr. Rushworth becomes more real at the end. 2. Reality. I don't know how to say this except that it reminded me of an essay by Orson Scott Card about Book of Mormon authorship. He pointed out that much science fiction says things like "he waved his hand clockwise so that the motion-sensing door would iris open, powered by the small fusion generator," whereas no one in real life ever thinks about how to open a door. A book would instantly sound false if it said, "he grasped the waist-high doorknob, twisted it a half-turn clockwise, and pulled, so that the door swung open on the hinges that held it to the frame along one side." Anyway, even though the world she describes is almost bizarre to a 21st-century reader, the narrator is steeped in it and makes it feel natural. 3. Even though the plot, if summarized in a few sentences, would sound boring, and even though you expect that in the end true love will prevail and all that, for some reason after I'd started I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened, and in fact the outcome was not at all certain until near the end.

Other junk I read on vacation:

= Lost City, "A Novel From THE NUMA FILES", by Clive Cussler

= some single-author collection of scifi short stories that was fairly forgettable; one of the short shorts was about some alien culture that visits earth and inspires people with hopes of sharing the alien technology, but soon bores everyone with their ceaseless and somewhat incomprehensible door-to-door proselytizing. Then it gets worse when another alien culture visits, shooting down the boring missionary aliens in the name of their own religious fervor. The Common Man In The Street character closes the story with words to this effect: "I thought it couldn't get worse. We had the Mormons. But now it's the Muslims." (Disclaimer: I know this is politically incorrect, it's not about Islam per se, but radical islamist elements, etc., but after all the thing was written something like 50 years ago.)

= Scent of Magic, by Andre Norton
A typical fantasy novel, okay except for the unsatisfying ending.