Hello my dearest family!
I love you all and pray for you every day! I hope things are good for you-things here are going great! I LOVE being a missionary!! This has been such a good last week. It's really a miracle to have the goal of just being positive all the time! It makes me happy...I just view every single situation as a learning experience from God. "We just lost an investigator, God wants us to find the elect!" "I am so sick right now...God wants to teach me not to eat 10 day old yogurt!" Just stuff like that. It makes me learn to laugh at myself. I've learned that when you're positive, you're showing your faith in God, and when you complain about the trials God sends your way, it's a form of pride in showing that you don't accept the trials God is giving you to grow. Yay for positivity! (and yes...I did eat 10 day old yogurt. I know.)
Um, i'm so bursting with joy right now I don't know what to talk about first. Well, my new companion is so incredible, I love her with all my heart! Her name is Sorella Jana Crandall, and she is from everywhere (she's a military kid). Most recently though Germany. She also went to BYU-Idaho and studied photography. We have a lot in common, and we have a lot of fun together. We've made a goal to do at a minimum 15 hours of finding a week. Our appointments have been cancelling on us, so we're almost at our goal after only two days! haha We've had some incredible experiences though. We made the goal to give away one Book of Mormon each a week, and we already fulfilled that goal the first day...we gave away two in less than an hour. We're having a lot of success, and we're finding the elect! There was one guy sitting on a bench, and I just felt like we had to go talk to him. He was really young, and we generally avoid talking to men our age (Italian men...no need to say more) but I really felt something pulling me to him, and I had been praying really hard that morning to be led to those searching for the gospel. So we went up and started talking to him, and he said that he's searching for happiness because he's had so many bad things happen in his life, and he said he tried the JW's, Catholics, but none of them had what he was looking for so he asked if he could come to church this sunday with his girlfriend and see if we have it. I gave him a Book of Mormon and promised him that it has the happiness he's looking for. Now i'm praying every day he comes! He gave us his phone number too, so we'll call him and give him a little reminder.
We had a funny thing happen yesterday while we were doing house...we were ringing a citofono, and we did our little spiel, and the guy started yelling, "WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU WANT?" and we just looked at each other and were too scared too answer and he started screaming "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" We BOOKED IT out of there and were laughing so hard as we ran down the street. It was funny.
Um, what else. Last night we went and got pizza with three of our english class students/potential investigators, and the pizza was burnt, and one had anchovies on it! SO GROSS. We were so disappointed we decided we deserved better pizza so we stopped at another place on the way home and got more. Then we went to eat it and it was SO NASTY! I've never had bad pizza in Italy before. It was such a bad pizza night! I don't know why I told that story-I think it was just really ironic.
Our investigator Belinda is making a lot of progress. We're going to challenge her to baptism again tonight. It's been incredible to watch her grow from absolutely no faith or belief in God, and now she believes in God and Christ, and wants to know for herself that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet. Slowly but surely!
Wow, this has been a long email. I love you all lots! I'm off to Rome tomorrow for a 2 day conference for all the newer missionaries. Apparently we get to watch the new Joseph Smith movie and be spoiled and spiritually uplifted for a day. Yay!
I love you all lots! So does Jesus, read 3 Nephi 9:13 until the end of the chapter...it's incredible! Such a powerful promise of happiness for those searching for it. Also read President Uchtdorfs priesthood talk from last May. I read it this morning and really asked myself the questions. Do you have anything in your life that you feel is keeping you from being the best father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife, member, missionary, or priesthood holder that you could be? What is it? Are there any grudges holding you back from focusing on the important things in your life? You CAN change. When christ was lifted up on the cross, he was crucified for your sins, and they went with him. You CAN change.
Lots of bunches of loves and hugs!
Sorella Jenessa SMiles
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