MAMA MIA!

Cooking Italian Style!
Thank you so so so so much for all the emails this week! Unfortunately I got so caught up reading them, I now only have 30 mins. left to write to you! Ai yai yai!

Oscar came to church last week and the elders have taught him two lessons so far!!

The man that called us during Internet time last week, we have not been able to get in touch with since. That is half of our problem here. We never seem to be able to get in touch with people.

We couldn't find the address of the family that we met at the bus stop. We had an appointment with them and they gave us the address when we talked to them on the phone just hours before our appointment. We haven't been able to get a hold of them since.

Pop-
Questions for the week:
Got enough $ or need some?
Doing well. We don't even have time to shop anyway. The only thing I can think of that I'd need to pay for is a Christmas show of some sort here. Our mission president has even encouraged us to take a night off once a transfer and go to some type of show. I quote..."It's not just about being a missionary for Christmas, it is about being in Italy for Christmas!! Take advantage of it." So now I just need to convince my companion and choose what we want to see! Oh, and we have to pay to call you guys. Don't know how much that will cost, though.

Favorite thing you learned this week?
I learned a lot this week...
1) Patience. With myself, with members, with investigators who aren't progressing, etc.
In "Preach my Gospel" it says that patience is the capacity to endure DELAY without becoming anxious and the ability to wait for the Lord's promises to be fulfilled. I applied the promise in Alma 17:9-11 to me. If I am patient (not necessarily in long suffering- I'm not really suffering here, just frustrated that more isn't happening) I can be an example and the Lord can make an instrument of me in his hands unto the salvation of many souls. As a result of this patience...read Alma 26 to find out what will happen. I will look back at the end and realize that I couldn't have imagined at the beginning of the work the blessings from God that I would witness at the end (many were brought unto the fold of God!). This thought also connects to a talk by Uchtdorf called "Seeing the End from the Beginning". We have so many things in our life to help us see the end keep working our hardest - prophets, the scriptures, patriarchal blessings, etc.

2) Visiting and home teachers are SOOO important. Half of the work that we have been having to do here as missionaries are things that I am pretty sure should really be done by visiting and home teachers. We have visited many less active families, arranged for the Elders to give a little girl a blessing whose parents' didn't know anyone else to ask in the ward, WERE helping a woman do her grocery shopping every Saturday because she didn't know who her visiting teachers were, etc. Seeing now the effect that a weak visiting and home teaching program has on a ward really makes me feel bad for missing out on opportunities to serve within the ward as a visiting teacher or whatever else. If members really understood their role, the missionaries would be freed up to do what we are called and taught to do, TEACH! We all need to work together.

Best progressing investigator(s)?
We currently don't have any. Victoria and Elizabetta are not keeping commitments. Maria and the two Indonesian girls can't get baptised because their husband and dad, respectively, wont allow them to get baptized and they sometimes don't keep other commitments we leave.


We always searched out families. Do you focus on families or just whoever will listen?
I started out just talking to whoever will listen. I had actually made a goal before I got out in the field, though, to focus on families and am now trying to refocus myself on finding families. While walking down the street yesterday morning, we saw a bunch of super nice looking Italian parents walking their adorable children to school and it killed me to know that none of them knew that they could be together forever.


Best spiritual experience this week?
Zone Conference. One of the Senior couple sisters bore her testimony and told us about the most meaningful Christmas she has had in her life. Tears were streaming down my face for like 20 minutes after she had finished. Also, while I was waiting in the Police office for 5 hours on Friday I got into a conversation with two Italian women sitting next to me in the waiting room. One was a lawyer with a one year old and the other a German teacher with 2 teenagers. Since we were all sitting there waiting, rather than rushing on and off of trams and metros like norma,l I had a real opportunity to share my testimony and actually think a bit about what I was saying. When the conversation had turned to completely to me and what I was doing here, etc. I went on for about 10 minutes about what the gospel is and why it means so much to me to be here as a missionary. One of the women had been telling us how it had been such a hard time in her life recently (topped off by the fact that she was sitting there in the police office to report a stolen car...or at least that is what I got out of what she was saying). I told her we had a book that would help her during this time in her life and that I wanted to come by her house and share it with her. I also invited the other woman to let us come over and teach her more about Christ. Clearly it wasn't as spiritual an experience for them as it was for me, because they both said no. Neither of them seemed offended or wierded out or anything, though, about what I had said or about what I had offered and they continued to be friendly and chat with me. Even though they turned me down I felt like I had said and done everything that I could have which was a huge comfort to me. I generally leave every lesson, every encounter, etc. just praying that the Lord will make up the difference, because I knew that I hadn't said or done everything I should have. I didn't feel that way after this, though.


Two things you love most about your companion?
Last week we had interviews and our district leaders asked us if we could set exercising goals and English "fast" goals together. Most of the other sisters complained about the 10 minutes of running and the week of not speaking English. My companion was pumped. I love that she genuinely is dedicated to this work and wants to improve herself. We had a conversation this week and a few experiences that helped me realize that she and I really are more on the same page than I thought. I think she has been stuck with really lazy companions for the past little bit and was suffering the influence of that.

She is very very self-less.

I love you all lots and hope all is well at home. I like the name Noelle better this week, Christi. Choose that, eh?

BTW, my email address will change this week because gmail is taking over myldsmail. Thank goodness!

L