Sorella Steph Serving Italian Style: September 8, 2014

cari miei,

so great to hear from you all this week! thanks so much for writing, i can never say it enough but you guys are the greatest. I have so much to tell you about this week! Get ready for it.

This week was such a great one! We saw so many incredible miracles. It got a little crazy because the days got switched up with zone conference, and we also traveled down to Battipaglia for a scambio. Which was awesome, by the way. Such a cute little city and my old companion Sorella Mitsvotai actually served there! It was so fun to be there for a day and talk to all the people who love her as much as I do. So that was a great highlight and tender mercy for me.

Anyway! Our work here is going so well! We'll start with Rina. We met with her this week and just took some time to read with her in the Book of Mormon. She is doing so great. She loves the scriptures and has such a sincere desire to learn and to do the right things. She is definitely making some great progress. She was even going to come to a relief society activity this week! We gave her a call a few hours before the activity and she said she would come, but then it started to downpour rain. So that was a bummer. But she has been reading in the Book of Mormon on her own! Little by little we are heading in the right direction :)

Next we'll talk about Antonella. I can't remember if i have already told you guys about her before...so i'll do a quick sum up just in case. Antonella is an Ex investigator. The sisters taught her about a year ago. Then randomly one day she just showed up in church asking us to come visit her again! So we went to go see her and she told us about how she could feel a difference in her life when she wasnt meeting with the missionaries, and that she wanted to have that peace and happiness again. We told her that was definitely something we could do :) we were able to meet twice with her week and the lessons went really well! We taught her the restoration and at the end challenged her to baptism - and she accepted to prepare to be baptized on october 11th! So we are thrilled about that. She has such a strong desire to follow God, so we are really excited to be working with her.

Next Amalia. You guys she is doing SO WELL! It is the greatest thing to see and to feel this Christ like love and joy from her progress. This week we taught her the word of wisdom, which I was so stressed about. We have just had problems in the past with her keeping commitments to read and pray, so we were a little nervous about moving on to more challenging things like giving up coffee and tea. The lesson went really well though. She understood everything and at the end when we asked her what she thought she said "well coffee and tea is a little surprising...but i dont think that will be a huge deal. i dont smoke, i dont drink wine, and i only drink a little coffee every once in a while." MIRACLES. Miracles all around. Haha unfortunately a few days later she got sick, so she drank a little coffe in the morning to help her feel better. So at our next lesson we talked about the importance of obedience so we could really emphasize that we keep commandments to show god that we love him. That lesson went really well. We had a member there helping us which makes all the difference in the world. She recommited to living the word of wisdom and so far has been doing great! We are still having problems with getting her to church...but one battle at a time.

Okay on to our new investigators! First I want to tell you guys about Antonio. So this is a guy we met about a month ago. We were just walking by a bar when he stopped us and literally said "hey! you are american! i have granddaughters in america! you are like my granddaughters! come by anytime and i will by you guys something." So we stopped and talked to him for a minute and got his number, not really thinking much of it. Then he went out of town for a few weeks so we werent really able to see him, but we called him a few times to follow up a bit. When we talked to him on the phone he told us he had been informing himself on the mormons for when we met. Which made us a little nervous...i mean you can never trust whats out there on the internet. Heavenly Father must have really helped out with that one because he found all good stuff! We were finally able to meet with him this week and he told us all about how we had a prophet who restored the church, but was then killed, now we have another book of scripture, all stuff like that. So we gave him a copy of the book of mormon and next thing you know hes talking to us about how he is going to get to church on sunday. Haha long story short, we made plans to meet up at the metro stop to walk together up the hill to church (pozzuoli is a little city on a hill - no matter where you are walking it is always up.) best part of the story - this man is 75 years old! can you believe that?! 75 years old and walking up the hill to church. So incredible. We have an appointment this week to introduce him to Peppe, so we are thrilled about that :)

Okay one more! we got one other new investigator this week and his name is Massimo. Backround for him - one day we were down near the port in pozzuoli. We at the bus stop waiting for a bus when i saw a man staring at my name tag. So I walked up to him and ask him if he had any questions. We talked to him a bit, got his number, and said we would be in contact to set up an appointment. Later this week we were able to meet with him. We invited him to come to the church so we could teach him there and give him a tour. Luckily for us there was a relief society activity going on, so one of the husbands was able to join us to make it a member present lesson! Anyway - the church tour went really. We stopped in sat down in one of the rooms for a while to talk and get to know him a little better. Apparently he left the catholic church years ago and has spent years searching for the truth. He has studied with all sorts of religions trying to find a place in "set his anchor" in his words. So we asked him what he would expect from meeting with us and he said that he would like to meet twice a week to discuss the scriptures and learn more, and maybe in the end if it felt right he could get baptized. The man gave himself a bap invite!

Haha the greatest part was what happened after though. We took him down to see the chapel and the baptismal font. As soon as we stepped into the room he said "you are going to think i am crazy...but i have seen this room before. I have seen all of this before. I remember that projector being right there. That is how vividly I remeber this. And that baptismal font too. I have seen all of this before" He then went on to talk about the feelings he had when he first met the missionaries (he met some anziani a few years ago before meeting us again) and how he got that same strong feeling the moment he entered the church. All we had to do at that point was testify that it was the Spirit he was feeling, testifying to him that all of these things were true. We have an appointment with him this week.

I love being a misisonary. I can't believe I am so lucky to be able to experience these things and take part in God's work. I love you all so much and cant thank you enough for all of your support. I am so grateful for all of you and hope you have a great week! Go get em sonn! love you bummie :)

sorella marsh

battipaglia scambi!