May 11, 2915

Carissimi Miei,

It was SO great to see you all this week! Seriously I have just been on cloud 9 these past few days. Thanks everyone so much for making the skype call happen! I really am convinced that I am the most blessed sister missionary. And of course Happy Mother's day to our wonderful angel mother. What on earth would we do without her? Love you mom :) 

This week was a fantastic one for us here in Crotone! I have lots to tell you guys about. This week we got started on our exchanges with the other sisters so we had the sorelle from Cosenza with us for a few days, which was fantastic. Twice the amount of work done in the same amount of time, what more could you ask for? They are incredible missionaries too. We have been seeing lots of blessings from the work they did here with us. One of which includes our new investigator Slesia! She is so fantastic. So sorella McFarland and I actually met her at the beginning of the week just on the street. The day was almost over so we were on the way home when we saw one more person on the street, so we decided to stop her before heading home. She said she was interested in learning more so we set up a return appointment for a few days later. However because we were doing the scambio during that day Sorella McFarland and one of the sorelle from cosenza went to the lesson, and had wonderful things to report. Turns out that during that lessons she said that she felt like she never really found a religion that felt right to her, but in these days she tends towards buddhism. But she is filled with a desire to learn. She just soaks up everything that we teach to her and even better she is willing to act on it. She even accepted the invite to be baptized and came to church with us yesterday - for all three hours! She is fantastic, we are really excited to be working with her.

Another great miracle of the week - we contacted a long lost referral! So when I first got to the area there was the name Roberta on our board. She is the daughter in law of one of our members and was given as a referral a few months ago, if I remember right. The sorelle in the past tried to contact her and set up an appointment, but I guess it just never worked out. But this week while we were doing weekly planning we had a feeling that we should call her again, so we did. She picked up the phone and we asked her if we could come by to see her and she said "well I'm free this afternoon if you want to come by" to which we quickly responded yes. Haha so we headed over to her home and she is just the sweetest woman. Her husband passed away very tragically a few months ago so she is going through a very difficult time. Honestly it broke my heart listening to how much she was hurting. But I found so much comfort in knowing that we could give her exactly what she needed to heal. We left her with a pamphlet of the Plan of Salvation and we will go back this week to follow up on it. 

Our other investigators are doing great as well! We are continuing to work with Juliette, and this week we officially started working with her daughter Victory again! They are such a cute family and we think that we are going to see a lot of great things with them. Unfortunately we weren't able to see Rossana and Teresa again this week, but we are hoping to meet with them again soon. And the D'Agostino family is doing well. Unfortunately Raffaela has gotten pretty sick again, so we haven't been able to stop by in these days. But we hear from each other frequently on the phone and we hope to visit them soon. 

Needless to say, it has been a pretty incredible week :) I love doing the work of the Lord. We have got a few pretty exciting weeks ahead of us. After the conference with Elder Bednar President Waddoups announced that he has raised the standards of excellence for our mission. Which means we've got work to do! It is so exciting to be a part of though, and so rewarding to think that the work we are doing now is going to change the way that future missionaries will serve here in Italy. The Lord really is hastening His work, and I feel so blessed that I get to take a part in it. I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Sorella Marsh