June 29, 2015 Stephanie's LAST email!

Carissimi Miei, 

Buongiorno a tutti! I can hardly believe that this week will be my last one as a missionary. What in the world. It still just seems so surreal to me. These last few weeks have just flown by, I can't believe we're here at the end. I have a few more days here in Crotone, then on Friday Sorella Puzey and I will leave for Pozzuoli where we will spend the weekend. Then next monday I will head up to Rome! Which means I probably won't get a chance to write next week because we will spend the day traveling. 

As my mission has been coming to a close I have been thinking a lot about these past 18 months, and this week I wanted to share two experiences that we had that describe why I have loved being a missionary so much. The first was a little experience we had with a less active this week. We were out one morning when a random thought popped in my head that we should give her a call and ask her if we could come see her. We were near the store where we normally visit her while she works, so I figured it wouldn't hurt just to call. She told us that she was really busy that morning, but that she could give us about 10 minutes if we wanted to come pass by. I'll be honest, I was a little confused about why I felt like I needed to call her if she was so busy and didn't have a lot of time to see us, but we went anyway. As we were walking over we decided we were going to show her a mormon message by president uchtdorf that talks about our individual worth. She absolutely loved it. After we watched it together she told us that earlier that morning she had woken up feeling terrible. She was overwhelmed by all that she had to do, and she didn't feel adequate to do it all. She told us that she said a prayer, asking for Heavenly Father to help her to get through the day. As we watched the video together she said that she knew that it was an answer to her prayer and that Heavenly Father sent us to her because He was aware of her. I feel so blessed that throughout my mission I have had the opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord's hands to help others draw closer unto Him. 

The other experience I wanted to share was one we had with Joy the other day. We have taught her the restoration, the plan of salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ, so we wanted to do a little bit of follow up on everything before moving on. As we were talking to her about her thoughts and feelings about everything the conversation was turned towards Joseph Smith. We asked her if she believed that he was a true prophet and if the church was true. She smiled at us and said yes, I believe. Every time that I come here I have so much joy and happiness. I feel good when I am here. My friends try to tell me that this is not a true church, and I tell them that when I come here I feel joy. That means that it is good and it is true. As a missionary I have loved seeing the pure happiness that the gospel brings in others lives. I know that when we live the principles of the gospel it truly does bring us peace and happiness. I know that because I have seen it in the lives of people here, but also because I have felt it myself. As a missionary I have loved seeing the pure joy that the gospel can bring.

And the best part about these things is that they don't have to end! In a few weeks I may not be wearing a tag, but I will still be able to be an instrument in the Lord's had to spread the joy of the gospel to others. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to serve the Lord for this past 18 months in Italy. I am so grateful for each of you and for your constant love, support, and prayers. I can't thank you all enough for all you have done for me throughout my mission. 

I love you all so much! See you soon!

Sorella Marsh

June 22, 2015

Carissimi Miei,

Hello everyone! So great to hear from you all this week! I am so sorry that it's a little late, but happy father's day to the greatest dad in all the land! I hope you had a fantastic day. I am so grateful for all that you do for our family and I can't believe how blessed I am to be your daughter. Love you papps :)

We had another fantastic week here in Crotone! It has been so hectic and we have been so crazy busy, but we wouldn't have it any other way! Best news of the whole week - Juliet is a confirmed member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! The baptism was absolutely beautiful. Incredibly enough Sorella McFarland was able to be here to see it! She had to come back to crotone to pick up her permesso, and it just turns out that the baptism happened to be the same weekend. We held the baptismal service Saturday evening and we ended up doing the baptism out in the sea. We were stressing a little bit the day of because a few of the roads were closed off that led out to the sea, so we ended up taking a long round-about way to get there and it took a bit longer than we thought it would. But in the end we got there just before sunset, and it was absolutely incredible. Juliet was thrilled, she could hardly even wait to get in the water. The whole day was very special, but my favorite part was when I had a few moments to walk with Juliet back to the car after the baptism. We were talking for a bit when she looked at me, smiled, and said "now I am a new person. I will start a whole new life." The next day she was confirmed a member and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. The spirit was so strong throughout both of the ordinances. Juliet has worked so hard and has made so many changes in her life to prepare herself to be baptized, I am so proud of her. But even more importantly we could all feel that God is proud of her. It was an incredible weekend.

We truly were so blessed this week, we saw so many miracles in our work. We finally got to talk to Salvo! He is back from vacation and we should see him soon. We also started to work with Vincenzo, the man who let us in while we were knocking doors this week. He has been so incredibly prepared to receive the gospel. We taught him two lessons this week and during that time he talked to us about how he has always just been searching for the right religion, but never felt like he found it. He decided to give up for a while, but then felt that God was telling him that he needed to listen to us. He has already started reading in the Book of Mormon and loves it. He loves the idea of prophets and how God can communicate to us through them. We are so excited to continue meeting with him. This week we also had a really great lesson with Roberta. For a long time we have been struggling with how we can help her. Obviously she is going through a really hard time, and very often I don't feel adequate to help her. But this week we felt that we just needed to talk to her about temples and the lesson went so well. We talked about eternal families and she was so touched by what we said. She talked about how for the first time she felt peace and hope, and we explained to her that we were here as missionaries to help people know for themselves that the message we bring is true. She told us she would start reading in the Book of Mormon this week, so we are hoping that things continue to go well. 

It has been incredible for me to see this week how much the Lord's hand really is in this work. We were able to contact a less active this week and we had a really good lesson with her. While we were talking with her she was expressing feelings of guilt and how she just felt like she had made too many mistakes in her life and she just wasn't good enough. Which are all things that I have felt at times as a missionary, at least to some degree. But I have had to learn to focus on the enabling power of the Atonement and gain a greater understanding of the love that God has for us. And because of the experiences that I have had I was able to reach out to her in a way that I wouldn't have been able to before. It was a really touching experience. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here as a missionary and to be an instrument in the Lord's hands to reach out and bless other people. 

Thank you so much for all of your love, support, and prayers. I am so grateful for each of you! I hope you have a wonderful week. Talk to you soon :)

sorella marsh

June 15, 2015

Carissimi Miei,

Buon P-day! Gosh I can't believe I am already back here writing again. Somehow the weeks just keep flying by. But it was another great week for us here in Crotone!

First thing's first -  we are almost 100% ready for Juliette's baptism!! We have literally had to see her just about everyday this week to finish all of the lessons, but we will finish up the last one tonight and then she will be ready to go for her interview tomorrow. Meeting with her has seriously been the highlight of each day though. This week we finished up teaching her all of the commandments, and it has just been so incredible to see her make all the necesarry changes in her life to be baptized. And she is always so willing to do it! She seriously is incredible. The best story I can think of to describe her is when we taught her the law of tithing and fast offerings. We went through and explained both laws and in the end showed her how to fill out the tithing slip. When we asked her if she would live both of these commandments not only did she agree immediately without any hesitation, but she also asked us to translate the rest of the slip so she could understand what other organizations she could contribute to as well. She honestly just has the biggest heart - she is so willing to do anything and everything she can to help and serve someone else. I love her so much. So now we just have a full-filled week of actually planning the baptism and she will be ready to go! 

We have also seen a lot of good progress with our other investigators as well! We are continuing to teach Glory, she is so adorable. My favorite thing about teaching her is just seeing how much she loves the book of mormon. She carries it with her to each of our appointments and always brings it to church. In church if there are any scriptures read in class or in any talks she always opens up and tries her best to follow along. She always loves to read during our lessons and will stop us and ask us to explain words that she doesn't understand. She really is a sweetheart. We are continuing to work with Slesia as well! We have decided that in order to help her understand better the role of Christ we need to focus more of our teaching in the Book of Mormon and encourage her to be reading more. So this week we just sat together and started reading. She feels the Spirit when she is with us, we are just trying to help her understand that the Spirit that she feels is a testimony of the truth of what we say. She'll get there though. She is the sweetest, most gentle, and I think the most patient person on the planet. Please continue to keep her in your prayers, I know the gospel would help her so much. On that note I would also like to ask you to keep Roberta in your prayers as well. We have been continuing to work with her and she is still just having a really hard time with the loss of her husband and she really needs help and comfort at this time. 

I really do feel so blessed to be working here with all of these incredible people. We truly do see miracles everyday. This week there was the miracle of all miracles - get ready for this one. For the first time ever in my whole mission I was actually let in to someone's house while out knocking doors! We went out in the morning trying to contact some less actives. Incredibly enough we actually found one at home. After we left her house we went out to do some finding, when sorella puzey turned to me and asked if casa and casa usually worked in the area where we were at. I told her that I had never tried, but that it was worth a shot. So we trying to ring some doorbells, but turns out the door where we were at was broken and we couldnt actually get it. So we went to the palazzo next door. The first door we knocked the woman said she was busy, but that we could come back another day. Then we felt weird staying by her door, so we decided to go all the way up to the top of the palazzo and just work our way back down. We knocked the first door and no one answered, We moved on to the next door and a middle-aged man opened up. I told him that we were missionaries from our church and that we had a message about Jesus Christ and asked him if we could come in and share it. He shook his head yes and invited us in. At that point I just looked at Sorella Puzey completely cluless as to what to do. Haha luckily she maintained her senses. Turns out this mans name is vincenzo. He met some missionaries on the street years ago. He tried to come to our church but could never find it. We started talking a little bit about the Book of Mormon when he ran back to his room and got his copy that the missionaries had given him years ago. He agreed to meet with us again to talk some more! Can you believe that?? The Lord truly is preparing people.

I can't believe how blessed I am to have this opportunity to be a missionary! I truly do love this work and I am so grateful to be a part of it. Thank you so much for all of your support from back home. I love each of you so much! I hope you have a wonderful week, and I will talk to you soon!

Sorella Marsh

June 8, 2015

Carissimi Miei,

Buongiorno a tutti :) come state? I can't believe another week has already come and gone! It is great to hear from you all, I am glad that all is well back home. 

Things are going well for us here in Crotone! This week was a bit of a strange one, though. On Tuesday there was capi conference held in Rome but we participated through skype from Cosenza, another city in my area. So on Monday night we headed over and stayed the night before the conference. Unfortunately that Tuesday was also a holiday, which meant there was no public transportation running and no way for us to get home. So we just ended up spending a little bit more time in Cosenza with Sorella Hamilton and Sorella Jones! It was a bummer that we got back to our work later than expected, but it was so great to spend the day with those two. The conference was really great as well. Lots of much needed guidance and counsel for how we can help the work move forward here in Italy. 

But as always, it was great to get back home and get back to work. I love the people here and I am so excited and feel so blessed to be working with them. Slesia is progressing really well. Our main focus with her right now is still trying to help her understand the role of the Savior. This week we watched the movie Finding Faith in Christ together and just had a discussion afterwards. We asked her what she liked about it and she said she loved how Christ served and forgave others. We then talked about the Atonement and Christ's love for each of us, and it was a truly incredible moment. One of the most rewarding as a missionary. We were able to simply bear testimony of the reality of the Atonement and how we have felt it in our lives. The spirit was so strong, she is beginning to feel it. Please keep her in your prayers this week! 

After that lesson with Slesia I have been thinking a lot about charity and Christ's love for us. As I was thinking about it I realized that so many of the miracles that I have seen on my mission have been a result of us reaching out to make someone feel loved. For example, this week we wanted to go pass by a less active. We have been trying for about a transfer now to contact this less active but we have never had success. While we were walking over there Sorella Puzey had the idea to walk into a flower shop on the side of the road, just to be friendly and try to talk to some people about the gospel. The worker wasn't interested, but she was so kind and gave both Sorella Puzey and I a rose. We had no idea what to do with them, then we got the idea to take them to the less active member we wanted to stop by. We went to her home and she wasn't there, but the front door was open that let us into her apartment complex (divine intervention on that one). So we went up to her door and left the rose with a note saying that she could call us if she needed anything. Incredibly enough later that night we received a text from her telling us thank you for the note and the rose. Who knows what will happen in the future, but we were glad that we were able to reach out and contact this woman in some way and help her feel loved and cared about. That's what missionary work is all about anyway :)

Anyway, that is a tidbit of my thoughts these days. Our other investigators are doing great as well! Unfortunately we didn't get to see Juliette very much this week. There was a miscommunication and we thought she was out of town when really she leaves today to go to Milan. So we might have to postpone her baptism a bit just so that we have enough time to finish the lessons. She is doing really well though. Her testimony is growing each day and she is so excited to be baptized. This week we also started teaching her friend Glory. She is so cute! She is 18 years old and also from Nigeria. She has been to church 3 times with us and at the end of sacrament meeting yesterday Sorella Puzey said she overheard Glory praying for both of us by name. How could you not love her?!

We are also continuing to work with Roberta, and things are going well. This week we taught the Restoration and invited her to start reading in the Book of Mormon. She has an old copy from her husband, that was really neat to see. Things are also going well with Salvo! He left on vacation last week and won't be back until next week, so unfortunately we weren't able to meet with him at all but we have heard from him a few times and he said that he took his Book of Mormon with him! He has been reading it and says he finds it very interesting. So hopefully we'll be able to start up the lessons again in a few weeks.

Needless to say we are very blessed missionaries over here! As this precious time that I have to serve the Lord is starting to come to an end I have just constantly been overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity I have to serve as a missionary. I love this work and I love the people that we are doing it with. Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers. Talk to you next week!

Sorella Marsh

 The Roses

Steph was forwarded this picture: of the entire mission from the Elder Bednar Conference.

She titled it "Where's Waldo?"  She's funny!

June 1, 2015

Carissimi Miei,

Buongiorno a tutti! Here we are again at the start of a new transfer, can you believe it?! It still just seems so strange to me that it was 6 weeks ago that I first got here to Crotone, it does not feel that long at all. Luckily for me I will be sticking around :) I am happy to report that my new companion arrived safe and sound! She is fantastic, I am so excited to be working with her. Her name is Sorella Puzey and she is from Lehi, Utah. She is 21 years old and has been on her mission for about 7 months. She works so hard and just radiates light. Needless to say it should be a great transfer!

We have only been working together for a few days, but we have already seen huge miracles here in crotone. For starters, Slesia is making so much progress. In our lessons with her this week we focused mainly on Christ and His role in each of our lives. It has been a really interesting experience teaching her because a lot of these concepts and ideas aren't new to her, it's just that she's never felt for herself that they are actually true. It reminds me a lot of the talk "the music of the gospel" from this past general conference. Her whole life she has been taught a lot of the steps, but has never really felt the music for herself. But she is progressing more and more each day. She is continuing to read, pray, and come to church, and with each of those she is feeling the spirit increasingly. It has been really incredible to see how, little by little, she is starting to "hear the music" through the spirit. It has also been a really neat experience teaching her because it forces us to go back to the basics and really consider how we got a testimony of these basic doctrines for ourselves and how we first felt that these things were true so that we can help her feel it as well. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to work with her.

Juliette is doing great as well! We are just finishing up the review on all the lessons and we are right on track to have her be ready for her baptism! She is so excited, it is so cute. She is the greatest missionary I have ever seen. Every week she brings at least 2 friends with her to church and tells us that they want to be taught the gospel. She is a referral machine. The best part is to hear her share her testimony with her friends though about she knows that our church is the real church of Christ. This week we were also able to meet with Roberta, and things are going well! Actually a pretty incredible story happened with her this week. So before Sorella McFarland left Roberta wanted to have us over for dinner. While we were there she also invited a friend to eat with us. After the meal was over we did a spiritual thought about the Book of Mormon. As we were talking about it her friend jumps in and says "oh yeah, I have one of those. The missionaries gave it to me about a year ago. I never read it, though. I think I will start reading it tonight." Needless to say we encouraged him to do so, and told him we would love to talk about it another day. Miracles all around!

Speaking of miracles, this week we picked up two new investigators and I am so stoked to tell you guys about them. Their names are Salvo and Giovanni. So last week we had to got to the train station to try and get sorella mcfarland a train ticket to go to palermo. We did to run over before DDM, but the machine wasn't working so we just had to leave and try again later. While we were turning to go Salvo stopped us, asking us if we were American. We told him yes, and that we were missionaries for our church. We then gave him a pass along card and didn't think much of it. Then later that day he texted us asking if he could come meet with us in the church. We set up an appointment for a few days later. Sure enough he showed up, and even brought his friend Giovanni. He truly is so prepared for the gospel. During out first lesson together Salvo told us his experience at the train station. He told us that it was as if someone had grabbed him, turned him around, and said "talk to those girls". He was raised a catholic, but doesn't practice much because he feel that there is a lot of corruption in the church. During our last lesson we taught the Restoration, and at the end we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. After we said the prayer he looked up at us with tears in his eyes and said "I am so happy - I have never had a bible of my own. I have never had a book like this to hold in my hands and to call my own. Thank you." I was so struck by how much he treasured that book - made me think about how many times I have taken it for granted in my own life. We are really excited to see where things go with him.

I truly do feel so blessed to be here as a representative of Jesus Christ and to do this work. Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers that have carried me throughout my mission until this point. I hope you know that I have felt and continue to feel them each and every day. I love you all so much. Have a great week :)

sorella marsh