It's been too long...

Well it's been pretty much over a month since I updated. But things have been so crazy, that everytime I sit down to write, I have to go. Things have been CRAZY here. (did i say that enough).

After I last wrote, millions of visitors have passed through the Walti Hostel. :) JJ Leach came for a fantastic visit from Wales. She was SUCH a joy to have here. She is such an example of someone with a heart after the Lord. His joy permeates evry fiber of her being. I will treasure our conversations for a long time. :)

After JJ, came my parents and little brother Alex. Again SO grateful that they are here. Especially that they came in a time when I was still teaching classes, so they were able to sit in on what I have been doing for the past 3 and a half months. Now when I tell them hilarious stories about my students they actually know what I'm talking about.

I am SO grateful they came. I think until they actually saw me teaching they didn't really understand. They also came to class and shared about life in Florida and New York, which was hilarious. The students loved them.

While Mom and Dad were here we had graduation for all of our classes. What a crazy week. I don't know if I've ever communicated my schedule here. Let me give you a break down.

Monday: Meet at 9 am to Study Italian and Do class Planning for the week until 11 or 12. then hop on a train to Valvasone (about a 25 minute train ride) to go teach classes there. From 4-5 Maureen and I have our Bible Study (which is a post in itself, God is SO good!). Classes begin at 6:15-7:15 with a second classes at 7:30-8:30, after which I rush to the train station to catch the 9:11 train which gets in at 9:38, where I wait for the 9:55 bus and get home at around 10:15.

Tuesday: 9am Udine Church Meeting (as ESL teachers we also help with any events or outreachs for the Church here in Udine, we help whenMission teams come with anything they need from cooking to helping groups get around the city, we were also doing a book study on "Charity and It's Fruits" by Jonathan Edwards, which I usually read on Monday night when I got home.) Then from 2:30-3:30, we have what i liked to call "Quiet Times with Ken Wells". Where Ken would meet with us teachers and we would ask any question we wanted, regarding the bible, evangelism, theology, everything. Such amazing times. Then usually I would meet with a student until 4:30 when we would teach 3 classes until 8:30, get the 9:00 bus and be home by 9:30.

Wednsday: Study Italian at 9 am, clean house, and meet with students until about 2, where I would catch the bus to the 2:30 train to get to Valvasone to teach kid's classes at 4:45-5:45, then teach Adult Classes at 6:15-8:30 again, with the same train schedule as on Monday.

Thursday: 9 am at Becky's house, to drive the 40 minutes to Valvasone for ESL Team meeting, complete with bible study (aka Cryfest '09), Italian quizzes, class planning, and scheduling. Then Sherry and I jumped on the train at 2:30, get to Udine by 3:00, walk the half hour walk to the building and then teach from 4:30-8:30.

Friday: DAY OFF or as we like to call it, the day we are supposed to have off, but we never really do, and its totally ok.:)

Saturday: Meet with students, clean the Church at 10 am.

Sunday: Church at SBI in the morning, and then come back for Udine Church at 5:30. Clean the church again after church. Go home and sleep.

SO MUCH FUN! :) and I'm not being sarcastic. We really had a blast. The best thing was meeting with friends, because everytime we got together, they asked us tons of questions about why we are here, etc. So many oppurtunities to share the Gospel, the most precious thing we have. And apart from those times there were the times just walking down the street that a Catholic Missionary or Jehovah's Witness or Mormon stopped me on the street who I had oppurtunities to share with as well (we have a joke about me attracting lots of all the missionaries, I don't know why). God is so gracious to give me the words in Italian. His power is so amazing and so displayed when I was able to speak language I'm really not that familiar with.

Anyway that a really long post and I didn't even get to talk about graduation, where at every graduation we had, we had our boss come and share the Gospel with all of our students, who then asked us TONS more questions. I miss my students SO much. I have continued getting together with some of them, but it's been kind of hard because now we are on family vacation (Georgie, Noelle and Brynn just arrived). But Please continue to be praying for what God is doing here in Udine, Italy. Anyway, miss you all and see you soon! I should have some pictures up soon. Of Graduation and stuff!
Love,
Alyssa

Prayers Please!

Hey Everyone,
I don't have a lot of time to write anything long, but I just wanted to say that the earthquake in Italy this week did not affect my Udine at all. :) I've been getting some emails and calls asking if we are ok and we are fine. But the earthquake did affect many people in l'uquilia, a town east of Rome, from what I understand there is a large group of believers there, who run a Christian camp. So please be praying for them and for all the people affected by this earthquake. :) love you all!

More Birthdays...more amazing Italy :)

Hey Everyone!
It's been a while and things are SO busy. With classes ending at the end of April, things are getting crazy! But so amazingly fun and God is just SO good. :)
I think I mentioned the bible study I am helping with in Valvasone on Mondays. Maureen and I started a couple weeks back and yesterday we had our third meeting. With all three ladies still there...and one more came! It was SO exciting. Now if I haven't explained, these ladies are unbelievers, they don't read their Bibles and basically only believe Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They don't think that the Old Testament is relevant at all. We decided to do this study on the book of Esther, and to my surprise, they had NEVER heard or read the story of Esther. In fact the Bible Stories I've grown up with are totally new to them. So we began the study, and now in our third week everyone is coming back, everyone is comfortable to share, really thinking about it and have asked to extend the Bible Study past 4 weeks!!! It's been amazing. God has been so good to use me to speak Italian words, I've never even heard before. haha! We are so excited! Maureen and I close the door as they leave and just begin to pray together, thanking God for His providence. He is SO good!!! Some of the ladies are so excited about it that they said, "I read the whole book I couldn't wait!!" (Because we are going chapter by chapter). And a friend of Maureens' in Florida is doing a Bible Study on Esther too and when we told the ladies in our study they got so excited, now the two groups are praying for eachother! Also, my Bible has like notes on the bottom, extra things, maps and such, and everytime I share something from there they are amazed that I have a Bible that gives explanations, or that these things really happened in history. We are watching the Bible become a reality to these women and it is such a privelege to watch! So please continue to pray for them!!! Mirella, Liliana, Mikela, and Clara, such sweet ladies who are very close to my heart!
Also just a note:
Last Saturday March 21st was my brother Georgie's 25th birthday. I just wanted to wish him a belated Happy Birthday and say How much I love him! :) He is the best older brother I could ever ask for. He has always been there for me, and I've loved getting to grow up with him to see him grow up from a Ghostbuster to a godly husband and now father. :) He's seriously one of my best friends and I miss Him SO MUCH! His love for music, and the way he uses the talents God has given him is so encouraging to me. I love you Georgie!
Second, today is Miss Hannah Marie Walti's 16th birthday! My little sister, for sure. I just have to say that seeing her today and talking to her today, how God is growing her to be a young woman with a heart after him. To see her maturity these last few months has been amazing. God is truly using her and working in her heart. :)
Well thats all for today! Love you all and miss you SO much!

Birthdays and Bowling.

This was a pretty crazy week. On top of classes we had a missionary group from North Carolina here and we have been helping out with them this week. Also, Friday was Abby Walti's 6th birthday party. It was a blast...17 screaming little children...so much fun! :) The neat thing was a lot of their parents stayed and Mr. Walti got to share the Gospel with several of them. Also that night we had our ESL bowling night, we invited our students out and had a blast! There are so many great relationships developing with them, it's going to be hard to leave. These are just some pictures from the Friday! :) Love you all!







On the left is Sherry one of other teachers and Alessia a student. Then you know me and Beebers...:)

Smile...You're on Candid Camera....:)

So this is a picture post...:) yay! I finally have good pictures. We had a St. Patrick's Day Party in our classes on Tuesday, complete with Irish Coffee (ok no whiskey, we just used green gelato!), green clothes and Leprauchaun bowties. Our students love hearing about things we do in the USA, so we let them read the history of St. Patrick's Day to practice English and learn some new words. They thought the word Shamrock was crazy....and kept trying to translate it into Italian...we had to explain that is comes from an Irish word. But they all had a blast. I love my students! We gave them paper shamrocks in class with the verse "Declare His glory among all nations..." Psalm 96:3. We aren't really supposed to share about the Gospel in class, but we worked the verse in with how St. Patrick was a missionary to Ireland and he shared about God to them. It was neat. :) Well here are the pictures, the first is of our Advanced Class, the second is our Base class and the third and fourth are our Intermediate Class, and the last picture is Sherry and I teaching about the Shamrock, with me translating. Yikes! and all of them are Tuesday-Thursday Udine classes. :) Enjoy! :)

Where to start...

Ciao!
It's been a while, but I have been crazy busy! Between teaching, meetings, class prep, and getting to know students outside of class. It's been crazy, but amazing! :) My Italian is definitely improving, so thanks for your prayers. The other day I was able to have a full conversation about the Gospel with our neighbor, it was such a blessing, I had Italian words coming out that I don't know where they were coming from, except for the God leading me and giving me the words. :) It was really neat.
I've been meeting with students, and getting to know them. All of them are Italian and super sweet. They all want to know why I am here for long, and it's a great way to share the Gospel, I let them know exactly why I'm here...to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with Italians. I've had some great conversations with them. It's so hard here because of the Catholic church, one lady told me that in America it's easy to convert to Christianity, but here you have to be Catholic it's tradition. This is how so many of the people here think. Either you are Catholic or you are an Athiest, there is no in between.
Classes are going great. I love teaching and the students are SO much fun. They love learning and love hearing about our lives in the United States. It's amazing how God has given me such a love for the Italians. His love is so sweet, it's unfailing and endures FOREVER. He is the only one who can satisfy the need these people have. They are so empty, when you first meet them, they seem happy and joyful, but the more you get to know them the more the facade falls and you see how much they need a Savior, how desperate they are. The other day I was in Valvasone, walking around, and I saw this Catholic Funeral Processional, first the car with the body and flowers, than men holding a cross, then the Priest then like 100 people, all going through town on the way to the cemetery. It was so sad, you could see the emptiness in the eyes of the people, praying for their dead, not knowing that it is too late for those who have died, but that there is hope for them. Also the bells rang all day long, people pay to have the bells rung for when a person dies, the longer they ring the richer the person and the more likely they are to get out of purgatory. It's so sad. Please be praying for the people here!! They are so lost.
Well I have to go, but I'll leave you with a couple pictures!

On the left: We had a day of park ministry with the students from SBI.
On the Right: Part of the ESL team (missing Bethany) and two of my friends from Valvasone The rest are pictures of the fantastic ESL team. :) At Becky's birthday party, clockwise, it's Bethany, me, Becky, Sherry and Maureen!

busy, busy, busy...

Hey Everyone,
It's been a while! I've been so busy, I hardly have time to talk to my parents, but it's my day off today so I figured I'd post a little update.
Things are going great here, classes are a BLAST! The students are so much fun. Now we are past that awkward nervous stage and they just love hanging out, in fact after class, they just want to stay and talk to us. It's so much fun! I've got a lot of meetings with students this upcoming week, so please be praying for me for many oppurtunities to share the Gospel! :) Latel it's bene really sunny and a huge blessing.
Last week was Carnevale in Italy, It's like New Orleans' Mardi Gras but better. We went to Venice on Saturday and had a blast. It's actually pretty safe, and there were no drunk people running around, or anything, the best part was all the crazy costumes people wear. Bethany, Hannah and I all bought masks and just had a fun time getting out and doing something fun. :) We also went to Trieste last week with the Walti family, and that was great! Trieste is on the Adriatic Sea and it's really beautiful, the castle there looks like the castle in the Little Mermaid.
Also this week the students from SBI, (the Bible school in San Lorenzo), were in Udine for ministry week, where they handed out tracts in Italian, and did mimes in the street. I heard it went well, but Bethany and I didnt get to see them because we had classes, we do get to participate tonight, though, when they come.
All this week I've just been so grateful for the team we have here. The ladies on my ESL team are amazing. We are having a blast. It's just amazing to me that we all come from different places, we are all different ages, but we are united in the body of believers, we are united in Christ. I know that if I am struggling with something they are always there for me. This week there has kind of been this theme running through all of our meetings about the body of believers and loving others more than we love ourselves. It's been really neat. The people on my team are such an example of that, of loving others and sacrificing for others out of love for them and love for our Savior. :) I love getting to watch them do this everyday.
Also as a side note, it's been requested of me (by Mr. Walti) that I let everyone know not to forget about their friends in Italy, or who are serving in other countries. It can get lonely and receiving emails, and letters of encouragement is huge. Some of my friends here have been feeling it, so please be praying for them.
I miss you all tons, today is actually the mark, I will be home in exactly 3 months. Crazy, I feel like I've been here forever, but at the same time 3 months just doesn't seem long enough! Well i love you all a ton.
Love,
Alyssa

P.S. I understand that Titi Donna has been reading my blog! I miss you! :) Just as a side note for you though, A.C. Milan is playing Udine team here in May. Yea you know what I'm talking about...Rinaldo! :) haha, someone told me that the other day and I had to let you and the family know! Love you so much!