April 28, 2014

Ciao Mia Famiglia!

First off- Happy late birthday to my angel mother!! I am so sorry that I forgot to mention it in my e-mail last week, but I was thinking about you on your special day! You looked absolutley beautiful in the pics, i love your dark hair! I hope you had the greatest day. I am so grateful that I get to be your daughter!

Thanks everyone for all of your emails, pictures, and videos this week! As always, it was great to hear from you! I'm so glad to hear that everything went well with Kim's surgery and that mom was able to spend some time in colorado. And sonn is off to LONDON! Woot woot! Get ready for the time of your life bummie! You're gonna love it :) 

As for me, it was a great week to be a missionary here in Palermo! We saw so many little miracles this week and were so incredibly blessed. I'll try my best to get everything in here! 

So I'll start with a story from earlier this week. Sorella Nef and I were doing personal study when our phone started to ring. We went and got the phone and turns out the call was from Erika, our former investigator. She was calling to say that she and her boyfriend had just broken up, and that she was really sad so she wanted to see us. So Sorella Nef and I went over to her house to go visit her. We talked a little bit about how we are all daugters of God and how she has so much individual worth. Then we gave her a few talks from President Uchtdorf to read. We got to talk to her about them later and she said she loved them and they really helped! It was such a sad situation and so hard to see her hurting so much, but I was instantly so thrilled when she called that we were going to have the opportunity to help her. I love Erika so much and I want the absolute best for her, and I was so relieved when she turned to us in her time of need. But I know that what I experienced was only just a small example of the way that our Savior feels about us. He loves us all so much and He is overjoyed when we give Him the opportunity to help us. He knows what is best for us and he wants so badly to give it to us, we just have to choose to let Him. I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to experience that a little bit. Anyway, we are not sure what will happen with Erika but we are excited to start working with her again!

Next! This story comes from one of our students in English course. His name is Enzo. This week after our lesson he stopped sorella Jackson and I and said he wanted to talk to us for a minute. Basically what he said was this - he had been going to his church for years, but the priests in his church never seemed to be happy. Then he met us. He sees us twice a week, and we are happy every single time. So he just asked us why. why we are so happy. hello. could you ask for a better question as a missionary?? It was so great. It gave sorella jackson and I the opportunity to testify of the blessings of the gospel. One thing that I said was that one thing that made me so happy was the knowledge that I get to live with my family forever. So just so you guys know you are very much a part of the work that I do here :) thanks for all your love and support!

Next highlight from the week! So this week on the 25th was like independence day for the Italians. Some of the members threw a little activity that they invited us to. What I didn't know is that they way they celebrate this holiday is by having an all dayMEAT FEST. They just cook and eat meat all day long. Haha my worst nightmare! Normaly at meal appointments I just do what I can to eat what they give me, but I couldn't do this one. I had to say something. I ended up telling them that I can't eat meat. They were all shocked and they teased me pretty bad for a little bit, but then they roasted me some vegetables and everyone was happy. Haha but I didn't escape without them forcing me to try some of the meat. And it was the worst of the worst. lamb guts. I ATE THE INTESTINES OF A LAMB. Haha it was the tiniest little bit, but it was something that I would not care to do again. 

But oneneat thing from that - we got some awesome member missionary work done! So one of the members brought a non member friend. While we were at lunch I overheard one of the members talking to her and explaining the book of mormon. just doing our job for us, no big deal. Our members are awesome. Anyway, we jumped in and gave her a book of mormon, then all the members there took turns talking about their favorite verses and bearing the testimonies. the coolest! 

So all in all we have a lot of potential for some great work here in palermo! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers, keep them coming our way! I love you all and I can't wait to see you in just a few weeks for mothers day! 

Love you all so much!

sorella marsh

Sorella Boscia and I at the farm a few weeks ago

Turns out there is a restaurant here called America! Shout out!

The girl with sorella nef and I is Marta. She is a friend of Erika's

Easter Eggs! Thanks again for the dye :)

Our chocolate Bacci eggs

This is the senior couple that works in the office, the Steurers. They know rachie really well, so that is fun! She is the one who sent me the text about madie's call!

the top of mt pelligrino

Hiking mt peligrino! Meet Riccardo and John, the greatest teenagers in Palermo.

sorella marsh...cutest.

LAMB GUTS. Haha freaking out but trying so hard to look happy about it.

happy meat fest day!

Some of our members here in Palermo!

April 22, 2014

Ciao mia famiglia!

First off, I am so sorry I didn't get to write yesterday! Yesterday was our deep cleaning day, so we spent the day inside cleaning our apartment and P-day was moved to today. So don't worry, I am safe and everything is fine! I'm just a ding dong and I forgot to mention that in my e-mail last week. Sorry about that! Also just a heads up, I wont be able to send pictures today so sorry about that too!

Anyway, buona Pasqua everyone! I am so happy to hear that you all had such a great Easter! Thanks for all your spiritual thoughts, I loved reading your testimonies. All the pictures from Monticello looked so great, I'm so glad you all had so much fun! I loved the easter eggs, especially the Sorella Marsh and Hermana Marsh. They looked pretty good next to each other :) Speaking of that, I still just can't get over madies call! Ahh I am so excited! I took 20 minutes of my English course lesson last week and made all my students tell me about Spain since most of them have been there. They all say that the food is great and the people are very kind. Sounds pretty much like Sicily! Even if it isn't Italy, at least it is pretty dang close.

Sorry for the side note. Back to Easter! It was a great one for me here. Italians celebrate Easter a little bit differently, but we still got a few American traditions in there. We went to church in the morning where we all got pecorelle in Relief Society. They are cute little lambs made out of this almond stuff that looks like cookie dough. They are an Easter tradition here and super good. Then we had a meal appointment at a members house where we got even more food and treats! Then we ended the day off by having a dinner at the church with some of the youth in the ward and the family of a sister missionary who served here, they are back visiting the area. We got to dye Easter eggs, which was super fun! The kit you sent was perfect mom :) then we switched back over to Italian traditions. So instead of an easter egg hunt they each just get a huge easter egg with a surprise inside. So we all got one of those as well! All in all it was a fun day, but it was especially great to have a whole day to just focus even more on the Savior. We are so blessed to have a knowledge of Him and of His gospel. I know that through Him we can do all things. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be His representative here in Italy!

So the exciting news for the week here in Palermo is that we got a senior couple! They are the Andersons and the are from American Fork Utah, and we are thrilled to have them. Their call is to specifically work with the youth here in Palermo, which they are incredibly needed for. We had to take a little time to get them all settled in, but I think this week we'll start getting them involved in the work and see what happens! They are going to be so great.

The rest of the work is going well! Our investigator Francesca got back from her trip this week so we are excited to meet with her and get things going again. We also started working with a less active member this week, which we are really excited about. Her name is Sorella Albamonte and she has 3 daughters who aren't baptized. She is going through a hard time right now and wants to start coming back to church, so hopefully we can help her do that! She and her family have a lot of potential, so we are thrilled about that. 

Also, I have big news. I met another one of my goals this week. Remember the restaurant called Ganci's that I told you about? The one that has the donuts? Well I am very proud to say that this week they gave me free food! I am officially "in" with the people at Ganci's! I'm starting to make my mark on this place.

I think that is about it from me this week! Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers! I am one incredibly blessed missionary. I can't wait to hear from you next week!

Love you all so much!

Sorella Marsh

April 14, 2014

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

SPAIN SPAIN SPAIN SPAIN SPAIN!! CONGRATULATIONS SONN! I am BEYOND thrilled for you! You are going to be the greatest missionary, and you will be right next to me! So it will be perfect :) I did get to hear the news a few days early, so I'll give you guys a quick run down of how it went. Sorella Nef and I were at the internet point working on stuff for her permesso when we got a text from the office saying where the call was. I opened it up and instantly started crying. All I could say was "Spain! Spain! Oh my gosh she is going to Spain!" I am still so mad at myself that I forgot to have Sorella Nef film my reaction so I could sent it to you guys...but just know that I was thrilled. Looks like I'm gonna have to learn Spanish when I get home if I want to fit in the fam! 

Also not nearly as exciting news but still pretty great...I GOT THE PACKAGE! Thank you so so much mom! Literally days before I was so sad because I had given up hope that it would come, and I was just moping around saying "it would have had reeces eggs in it...I just know it would have had reeces eggs in it." Sure enough, you didn't disappoint! Also the shirts are perfect! I love them. As a matter of fact I am wearing the grey and white striped one right now! It's perfect. On that note I also got to bust out the sandals for the first time today! LOVE THEM. Good work mom al and sonn :) Anyway, I got the package and I was stoked on life. And if it couldn't get any better, I got the nelson news that day too! It was flawless, there must be a really good editor or something ;) thanks again mom and dad, and Brenda and Dick for sending the package from Germany!

This week was a pretty great one for me! We got to do some great work with our members this week, which was super fun. The family we worked with are called the Boscias and the live up in Monreale. They told us they had a few referrals for us so we went up to go check them out. The first referral was the farmer who gives them all their produce, and the second was their aunt. So we were excited to go meet up with the first referral, but what we didn't know was that we were actually going to his farm. So we got to spend the afternoon walking around an Italian farm, looking at all the animals and talking about the gospel! Coolest ever. And the guy ( I'm the worst and I don't remember his name, so I've just been calling him farm boy) was super nice and let us eat some of the fruit and veggies from his garden. I wish I could send pictures but we are at the internet point that gives everyone's sim cards viruses right now so hopefully I will be able to send them next week! Anyway, it was super fun and we have another appointment with him this week! The second referral went really well too. So Aunt Boscia is about 80 years old and she is the kindest sweetest lady. She has already started to read the Book of Mormon and is very sincere in wanting to know the truth. So we are excited to meet with her again this week too! 

Another highlight from the week - I made my first phone call in Italian! I called one of the youth in our ward whose name is John. The very first thing I said was "this is Sorella Marsh. I have to practice Italian, so please talk slowly!" Haha I am sure the phone call was very painful on his end, but I did it!

So one of the cool things about living in a Catholic country is just how openly everyone talks about Christ. For example, yesterday was Palm Sunday, so everywhere you went people were selling palm branches that you could buy to celebrate. They were beautiful and it was just really neat to have that reminder of the Savior all around. It got me thinking about Easter coming up this week and I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to celebrate it. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Savior. I am so grateful to know that I can turn to Him during times of struggle and He will make my burdens light. I know that because of His Atonement He is the perfect source of peace and comfort for us in our lives. I know that He lives and that He loves each one of us individually and perfectly. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to share that knowledge with the people of Italy!

Thank you all so much for everything you do for me. I can feel your love, support, and prayers each and everyday. I cannot believe how blessed I am. I hope you all have a great Easter! Talk to you next week :)

Sorella Marsh

April 7, 2014

MIA FAMIGLIA!

Okay everyone...how AWESOME was General Conference?! Seriously the best ever. How blessed are we to be able to hear the words of living prophets and apostles? Such a truly incredible gift. I love the spirit that conference brings. Conference was a little different over here, but I loved it all the same!

I know you already had conference recap, but here is my two cents. I wish I had enough time to tell you about all of the things that I learned at conference and the things that stuck out to me, but I will at least tell you about a few! So here's a little background: for a few days before conference I decided to use my personal study time reading the "missionary chapters" in Alma to use the sons of Mosiah as role models for the type of missionary I want to be. As I studied I wrote down attributes that I admired in the missionaries, then I went back through later and thought of questions I could go into General Conference with to develop those attributes. One of the questions was along the lines of how I could better serve people through the language barrier. Sure enough, in the first session of general conference, my question was answered by Sister Burton with her talk on spiritual "help wanted" signs. It made me realize that I don't need to understand everything that people are saying to be able to find ways that I can love and serve them. So that was a great testimony builder for me that God truly does hear and and answer our prayers.

I also loved Elder Andersons thoughts on spiritual whirlwinds, and how they are opportunites for us to grow. I thought that went along well with the message from Elder Bednar about spiritual traction, and how it is necesarry for us to carry a load to get on the road that will lead us back to our Heavenly Father. But I loved that throughout these messages and many others we were told that these spiritual whirlwinds and the heavy loads we bear can always be made light throught he Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ. However, it is important to remember that the promise isn't that the burdens will be taken away, but that they will be made light. The Savior doesn't promise to remove our trials but to help us bear them. And I know that when we turn to Him He will do that, everytime. 

I also loved the many talks on missionary work and being a disciple of Christ. We truly have an incredible work ahead of us, and as President Uchtdorf said there is too much at stake to give a half hearted effort! So with that we are ready to head back to work :)

So because of the time difference the sessions are set up a little differently over here. First of all on saturday we got to watch the General Womens session, then when you guys were watching the Saturday morning session at 10, I was watching the live stream here at 6 in the evening. Then on Sunday we got to rebroadcast the priesthood session in the morning, then the Saturday afternoon session, and then we watched the live stream of the Sunday morning session again at six. We haven't been able to watch the Sunday afternoon session yet, but we are hoping to be able to do that tomorrow at district meeting. 

Anyway, so before we headed over to the church for the Saturday sessions we had a meal appointment with one of our members, Sorella Giambona. She had the greatest thing in store for us...to celebrate General Conference we would be making arancine! Oh my gosh you guys - I wish there were adequate words to describe these. So for typical aranchine what you do is you take some rice and you make a little ball, then you fill it with cheese and a meat ragu sauce, roll it in bread crumbs and deep fry it. But Sorella Giambona doesn't mess around. We got to her house to see that she had prepared four different kinds of rice: mushroom, spinach, pumpkin, and the ragu. I was literally speechless. Let's just put it this way...there are few things on this earth that would soften the blow of missing out on homemade conference donuts - but arancine was one of them. But don't worry, that still didn't stop me from stopping at Ganci's on the way home and getting some donuts too :)

With that, here are some other highlights from the week!

So this week I got to go on an exchange with Sorella Mikesell. To make a long story short, neither one of us speak the language very well so I'll be honest, I was a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to meet anyone we could share the gospel with. The night before I said a prayer to Heavenly Father, asking Him to work with our weaknesses and allow us to still reach out and share the gospel. While we were on the exchange we had to go to the questura for our fingerprint appointments for our permesso's. It took a little longer than we thought it would, so we ended up being there for a few hours. While we were there we ended up talking to one of the cleaners who said he wanted to know more about our church. We were  able to teach him the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. Prayer works :)

Also interesting but not nearly as cool sidenote -  we got bored at the questura and decided to measure ourselves and turns out I'm 5'7" now. Not quite sure when or how that happened, but there ya have it. 

Also he is a funny little Italy culture tidbit. So I'm sure you all know that here they do the kiss each other on the cheek thing when they greet each other. So our MTC teachers were very good to us and taught us that when you do it, always remeber to go to the right first. I thought I had it down...but here's the thing, they do everything differently in Palermo so apparently that rule doesn't apply down here. They basically pick whichever one they want to go first, and you never know if they are just goin in for one cheek or both. Basically I have a constant fear of greeting people because there have been too many close calls and awkward encounters. Haha I have almost been here for 2 months and I still can't get used to that one. Oh well! Makes for great stories. 

I think that's about it from me this week! Thank you all so much for your love and support. Can't wait for next week to find out where Sonn is called to serve!! What in the world?! Best thing EVER! I hope you all have a great week! Talk to you soon!

Sorella Marsh

Sorella Giambona!

Conference donuts! There were only 4 left...conference miracle.

I met this girl at the train station! Her name is Morgan Newmiller and she went to highschool with Kenzie Maxfield!