Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Italy, Week 7 - Miracles and Green Smoothies


We had a miracle Sunday this week and it was all because of Sciopero!!! (Strike) Who would have thought that any good would have come from all of our trains being canceled? Also, since we're going to be fed 2 times almost every day the week of Christmas, we're eating green smoothies any time we're home pretty much. It's spinache and lots of fruit, so it's our saving grace. I'm super excited for this week though! Italian food for dayyyyyssssss. So fabulous.Anywho, let's see what happened this week.... So our investigator who is preparing to be baptized is so BRAVO!!!!! We taught the Word of Wisdom Friday and Tithing, Fasting and Obedience Tuesday and he accepted all of them! He said when we works and is earning money he will pay his tithing after he's baptized. HE'S SO BRAVO! So yeah, things are going really great with him! The only thing is he might have to work on the day we set for his baptism and that means he would be gone two weeks, so we would miss two weeks of lessons and have to push his date back, which makes both of us nervous, just because that's never a really great thing. Anywho, so we're praying a lot that he doesn't have to work....
Sunday: MIRACLE DAY!! We taught the three daughters of a woman  in our ward who all just joined her here after being separated for a while. They're not members, but they're really open to the messages we teach and they seem to like us! They don't speak Italian, but they understand it pretty well. We just get pretty creative with how we teach, it's really fun! Then we had an appointment in another city, but there was a strike for the trains, so we were a little nervous on our way to the train station. When we got there, ALL of the trains were canceled... And any time a new one came up, boop, it would be canceled too. After a while we went into a corner and said a prayer that we would be able to get a train and get to the city to teach the family of our investigator with the bap date. We went back to where we were standing before and there was this woman who was standing by us before and had kept looking at us. When we came back, she started talking to Sorella Yost. It turned out she was trying to get on the same train that we were trying to get on, so we were all hoping for the same thing. She invited us to sit with her and then she said we should say a prayer. She said it! How cool! So Sorella Yost said a prayer and we looked up at the board and the only train that hadn't been cancelled got canceled. GAH! When we talked about it later, both Sorella Yost and I started praying in our hearts for a miracle. After a while, we looked back at the board and a train that had been canceled earlier was no longer canceled and was instead marked as 15 minutes late!! Okay, yeah, that's a huge miracle. It was AMAZING. And the woman said it was because of our prayer! We talked a little about prayer and our relationship with God. We got to sit with her on the train and her umbrella was broken and she was trying to fix it. All of a sudden Sorella Yost offered to give the woman her umbrella. At first the woman didn't want to take it because she felt bad and asked how she would get it back because we live pretty far from each other. Then, bam, we got her number and said that we'll be in contact with each other so we can meet up and she can give it back. When we were about to leave we said Merry Christmas and she said "No , no, we'll see each other again before Christmas." She's so awesome!!! So yeah, Sciopero miracles. Then we went to our investigator's house and we were just going to teach him and his sister, but his parents decided to stay for the lesson and we taught the Plan of Salvation! It went soooooo well! The dad asked a couple hard questions, but we covered them pretty well, I think. And the mom seemed to be touched by the lesson ( I mean, what mother wouldn't be touched by the knowledge that she could be with her kids and husband for all of eternity. That's pretty amazing) So yeah, strikes are annoying, but God works miracles through them!!
So yeah, the rest of the week we mainly did Christmas finding. We made little pass-along cards with the website to the "He is the Gift" video and we pass them out to people. It's been going really well! People are more open to accepting it and most of them are really nice to us!
Yesterday when we  were walking down the street, this little old man saw us and just had this huge smile on his face when he saw us and started telling us how beautiful we are and asked where we're from. Normally it's just creepy guys that say "bellisime" as we walk by and stare at us which is gross and creepy but whatever. But he was just like this cute little old grandpa and was saying it in a grandpa-like complimenting way. It was kind of random but pretty funny.
Also, random funny stories that I forgot to write in past letters. A few weeks ago we had a man on the train wish "male children upon us" as we left the train after talking to him. 
Another time, we walked out of our house and it was raining, so we were geared up in our rain stuff. We walked past this old man and said hello to him and he stared at us for about 3 seconds and started laughing... Didn't say anything, didn't do anything, just laughed and kept walking... It wasn't like mean  laughter, but he was definitely laughing at us. Let's just say we were a little self-conscious the rest of the day haha. It was super random, but I guess we do look kind of funny wearing big rain boots and skirts. Oh well! It's the missionary life and I love it. Plus I'd rather look funny than have wet feet and be uncomfortable all day...
Anywho, that's about all for this week. It was a good week! I made it through my first transfer in the field and I'm officially in my second! We have a fresh new greenie in my district now, so it's really fun! There's three of us now in our district, so it's pretty fun :) ( I totally just repeated myself. I'm sorry..)
Today we're going to the third biggest market in Europe woo! I'm pretty excited. A little nervous, I hope we don't get lost... 
Anywho, I'm so grateful to be out here serving the Lord. It's so cool seeing how much God loves His children. He has given us so much to be able to make it through this life and return to Him. Although he can't physically be with us, He has given us a means of communicating with Him through prayer, the scriptures, a modern day prophet, and sooo much more. He didn't put us on this earth to be miserable and suffer. Yes, we have trials and we suffer at times, but it's so we learn and grow and come closer to Him. He loves us so much and wants us so much to come back to Him. And He's given us so much so that we can, inculding His own Beloved Son. I love teaching this to people and I'm so grateful for the Christmas season when more people are open to hearing about it. I hope this next week will be wonderful and everyone can enjoy the true Spirit of giving and feel God's love. 
I love you all!!! Thank you for  EVERYTHING! You're the BEST!!! Vi voglio un MONDO di bene!!!! 
Love, Sorella Hawks :)

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