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
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