Buona Festa della Mamma!

Hey Family!

I got to talk to my parents yesterday! So that was awesome. This week was good, we were all over the place. We had to go to Rome twice this week, once for Zone Conference and once yesterday for Stake Conference. Both were great and super edifying. I love Zone conference it gets me so pumped it's like a pep rally for missionaries every six weeks! After zone conference my greenie had her "Best 2 Years moment" you could say. If you've never seen the movie, it's about this missionary who gets sent to Holland, and about his mission experiences and the first person he gets to teach on his mission ends up being an American, which was great because he couldnt really speak Dutch yet.

And so it happened like this, Zone Conference finished, but we didn't have interviews for another 2 hours, and we don't actually serve in the city of Rome, so we didn't have anything else in particular to do, so I was like let's hit the streets! So we leave the church and start walking, don't really know where we're going, but eventually we happened upon a park. So we were like okay who are we going to go  sit by, and it was like almost only old men, but then I saw the back of this one head and it seemed like a woman so we went to got sit by her. It turns out it was a woman but she was suuuuuper drunk, like completely incomprehensible and there was a big carton of emptied out wine dividing us on the bench so we were like, okay! Let's try someone else. So we kept walking around the park and then we found this one guy sitting on a bench, and he seemed pretty nice so we decided to talk to him. We went right to it and asked him if he believed in God, turns out he spoke English and he was from the Philippines he said he was waiting for someone but we said we would only take a couple minutes so we started and then we ended up talking about a half hour but it was great! (That just hit an all time high on run-on sentences). Anyways, it was a really great experience and he wants to read the Book of Mormon, and it turns out the people he was waiting for were missionaries for another church, because he is someone sincerely searching the truth. So that was cool!

At zone conference one thing we talked about is how a big part of our whole purpose as missionaries is just to invite people. And it made me think of the morning I was picking Sorella Jarnagin up from Rome, and on the bus ride back to Pescara there was this woman who was talking on the phone for about the first half hour of the ride yelling at a family member because she didn't receive a formal invitation to someone's communion. She was so livid that they would have forgotten about her! In the culture here, someone's communion is a pretty big deal, so not inviting a member of the family was just unheard of. And it just kind of made me think, THESE ARE ALL OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. How would they feel, if they found out after the fact that we could have invited me to them party, but in the end we were just too lazy to do it? That would be the saddest thing ever. So we've got to do our best to invite these children of God, and maybe some of them will use their agency and choose not to come to the party anyways, but at least we've invited them!

I love this gospel so much, and I love sharing it with strangers and everyone everyday! I know that Thomas S. Monson is a living prophet of God, and how amazing is that? The Book of Mormon is true, and an awesome gift. Yesterday at stake conference the area seventy from Spain did a super in depth analysis of the Book of Mormon and it blew everyone's mind. Anyways, I know Christ lives! And I know this is His church.


Alma 5:49
49 And now I say unto you that this is the order after which I am called, yea, to preach unto my beloved brethren, yea, and every one that dwelleth in Italy; yea, to preach unto all, both old and young, both bond and free; yea, I say unto you the aged, and also the middle aged, and the rising generation; yea, to cry unto them that they must repent and be born again.

 'Merica

The American restaurant...haha, but with olive oil and balsamic in the middle of the table. I love this country. :)

 For our pday activity today we went to this American food place and I literally almost shed a tear. There were license plates of almost every state on the wall. It was beautiful and it tasted good.

When people throw out your brownies so you buy a flower

Zone conference

Mission Hymn

Last week was crazy long and fun!

Hey!
So last week was crazy and long and fun. The first half of the week,
Sorella Anderson did all of her goodbyes, and then we went to Rome
Wednesday night because she had to catch a plane early morning to
Sardegna and I had to be at the station at 6:30 a.m. to get my
greenie. Which means waking up at 4:30 and leaving the sisters
apartment at 5, blaahhh. On the mission you are to bed at 10:30 and up
at 6:30 everyday, and like any change of that schedule is killer, let
me tell ya. Anyways then we got to the station, waited a little bit,
and then finally they arrived yay! My little new ball of sunshine is
name Sorella Jarnagin, she is from Utah, and she likes so sing.
It's really weird having a companion so fresh on the field, because
I've kind of forgotten what it was like at first adjusting to a new
country and not understanding people at first. I remember getting
headache after my first few Sunday's of church because it was so hard
to understand everything, 3 straight hours of Italian was a mental
work out for sure. Crazy how I can kind of understand people now!
Haha, but now I've got to work hard on really perfecting the language,
so I at least look like I know what I'm doing with my new companion.

Saturday night the primary did the CUTEST activity I have ever seen in
my entire life! They all dressed up as princesses and princes and then
they had chairs for the parents, and crowns because they were the
kings and queens. And then they had rows of chairs for the rest of the
ward to watch, we invited some investigators and it was just awesome.
They talked about eternal families and how grateful for they are for
families, and being children of God, and Gods plan. It was the cutest
thing ever. And then they tied it in with some Disney stories. One in
particular, they talked about the part of The Lion King when Simba is
out doing his own thing and then he's visited by the monkey Rafiki and
he kind of reminds him of who he is and then Simba has a vision of his
father and his father is like "ricordati! ricordati chi sei!" And like
Simba every now and then we all need to be reminded of who we are.
We're children of a King! Everyone has so much potential and so much
greatness to achieve.

Sorella Jarnagin and Sorella Holiday

 Our first gelato together

 Comp item-shades

 Last pday in Rome

 Last pday with Sorella Anderson

 Selfie :)

 From our hike a few weeks ago

 My greenies first time doing porta e porta

This house is so sick!

Training

 I'm so sorry but this is going to be another short email.
Okay, HIGHLIGHTS of the WEEK :
1. Definitely yesterday after relief society when the bishop came in
and laid down the hammer. It was awesome! I wish I could have recorded
it and that it could have been put into the ensign. Anyways, a little
background of the bishop here, he's a two time mission president and
was the temple president of Switzerland temple, he's speaks pretty
good English. And we missionaries love him because whenever he chooses
to say a phrase in English it's like the most powerful phrase like,
"she will be baptized" or something like that. Okay but yesterday he
came into relief society and also priesthood and just brought down the
hammer about how people need to stop worrying about others and worry
about themselves more. Like church isn't about you going and judging
others, it's about you doing your own part to help build the kingdom
of God. He was like just make sure you've got you're own brick down
before you start worrying about the others, and there is no one you
can blame about your lack of spiritual progress other than yourself.
We are all our own agents, and yeeeep

2. Our new investigator from Romania. She just lost her job, she's
been a nurse in Italy for 10 years, and got a job offer in England but
has to work on her English, so she saw an add for our free course and
came, and met vescovo at the door and is now taking the lessons

3. Woman on the bus, says hi, asks us who we are, and then is like
"I've been searching for something more in my life, and I think that
God has sent you to me.

4. And oh yea! Transfer calls and I'm TRAINING this transfer! I'm
going to be a mission mom, hahaha. I'm super stoked and super scared.


Okay well that's about it, for sure for sure, I'll have more time to
write next week!

 District Pescara

8 months?

Wow that's super duper weird that I've been on a mission 8 months now!
This week was pretty good, today we hiked up a mountain to a castle,
so that was cool. Pretty solid work we have going right now. Hmmm yea
that's about it :) the crazies, the miracles, the creepies, and the
great. I'm loving it!

"their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their incomprehensible joy" !

So this week we did have a baptism scheduled for Saturday, it did not
happen. Thursday was a really rough day. Wednesday night our
investigator called, and was like, "I'm not really feeling it". Then
said she wanted to meet with us Thursday, and told us that she didn't
want to do this anymore. It was the weirdest thing, and whenever we
started talking she turned over to her friend for reassurance, and
wouldn't look at us. It was just so weird, every other time we had
seen her she had just been so bubbly and happy, like she's the one who
called and said she wanted to be baptized in the first place we were
really thrown off. Then talking to her she seemed like a completely
different person. After she left we both cried, well we both bawled
and those were honestly the most painful tears I've ever felt. It felt
like a parent or sibling had just died, and I thought that might have
been a dramatic way to word it but later on when my companion was
talking about it she described it the same way so yea that's what it
felt like.
 She called us later that night and invited us to come over the next
day. So we went hoping we could talk about it, help her in some way,
but instead she just seized it as an opportunity to yell about us
about almost every complaint I've ever heard about the church. She was
missing a few, but she laid out a pretty nice list. But like c'mon
man, I've grown up in this church! There's no thought or question that
hasn't run through my own mind, but I've found my answers and I've
received my responses and there was such a big part of me that wanted
to just wanted to throw down a set of scriptures on the table and set
her straight on everything. But we're not here to contend with people,
and that wouldn't have been right. So we listened with love, shared a
short message with her, bore sincere testimony, hugged and left. It
made us really sad to see what a change had happened, and how her
heart got so hard, but in HAPPIER NEWS:

Our little Italian mama read the Book of Mormon and bible one night
for 4 straight hours and found that, hey! It's true! It's really
actually exactly what it says it is, and it is a gift from God for our
days. So she wants to be baptized and share the gospel with all of her
family so we are also teaching her niece and sister now! Valentina
received the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday. We were searching for a
less active member one day, and hiked a big hill to find her, she
doesn't live there anymore, and then we missed the bus coming back so
ran to try to catch it, but couldn't because like flats and skirts and
bags. But someone saw two poor girls trying to catch a bus and so they
pulled over to offer us a ride, and it turns out it was exactly the
woman we were looking for! :) So that was great, and we know where she
lives now.
Heavenly Father has just been raining the blessings and miracles down
on Pescara, and it's an awesome time to be a missionary! :)
#laItaliaStaFiorendo

Today for pday we went to the house of a member from Napoli and she's
teaching us how to make Napolitano pizza! And an Abruzzese dolce


Sorella Holiday

#15 When we were checking for that less active and finally made it to the house but she doesn't live there anyways. Haha

 Abruzzo

 Chieti. Cute little city.

P-day

Companion picture

Little Castle

The Pescara 6

Making Pizza. Waiting for the dough to rise.

Making the pizzas

We're seriously put here on an Italian hilltop countryside making

pizza with members, coolest pday

 Now they just need to cook

La mia :)

 DDM Pranzo

Waiting for the bus

Baptism!

Woo! One of our investigators got baptized yesterday, and it was one
of the most beautiful and also stressful days ever! The spirit was so
strong, the church is so true, and it was awesome!

Also, general conference, how great was that? We actually only watched
the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions, because we could just watch
them live those evenings. But I'm excited to read the rest of the
talks. Also, I have to comment on that number that the tabernacle
choir did at the end of the Saturday morning session. They literally
KILLED "Come Thou Font". Not a dry eye in the congregation. It was SO
GOOD.

We did a lot, it was a great week, but I sent a pretty long email last
week so I figure it all balances out with this. :)
Baci!

Sorella Holiday

Here we are with the sister that was baptized yesterday. She is blind and literally one of the coolest people ever.

 The font. Haha, I love this font. It was SO HARD to put it together. It's basically a jacuzzi with a plastic blow up pool liner inside. They used a ladder to get in and out.

 He is also blind. They are the biggest spiritual giants I have ever met.

I made pretzels for lunch and Sorella Anderson made cookies for the baptism.

 Sorella Anderson got her permesso this week! Oh yes and I got my "Sorella Vacanza" nametag at the last zone conference. So I just introduce myself as that for the people that struggle understanding "Holiday" and the people that already know that word in English just laugh, it's a good conversation starter.

Bus selfie :)

 After DDM pranzo

 We got pizza with the Anziani to celebrate

 Arrosticini

Typical Abruzzese specialty. Basically lamb and fat grilled on a stick. Wayyyyy good.

 This is the beautiful view behind our home

 New nametag

Nightly planning

 The tomb, He Lives!

 The Easter mostra we did last weekend

English Course

Sorella Anderson turned 20 on Thursday!

Haha, I forgot to send this one earlier. Sorella Workman and I leaving the island.

Here is a time lapse from last Monday. We bought a giant chocolate Easter egg because that is the tradition of Italian Easter. Opposite from us the chocolate is on the outside and the plastic surprise is on the inside. We got an Iron Man toy and it's pretty awesome. Haha, we laughed at the serious looks on our faces.