Letters from Milan: Italy, Week 43 (9/2/2015) - Spiritual High: The Kearon Conference

Hey! So I had spent ten minutes writing this email on a computer, saved it, and headed out. But as I feared, it didn't translate to my iPad. Va bene, fa niente. COMMUNQUE. So yeah, the president of the Area Seventy over the Europe area, President Kearon, came and spoke to us missionaries on Thursday and it was so good! Before the conference started, he took all of the STL's and Zone Leaders into a side room, shook each of our hands and asked our name and where we were from, and then stood there and thanked us. He told us we were going to have to stretch ourselves and keep getting better. The Spirit in that room was absolutely incredible. I just wanted to bask in it all day haha. But then he gave us an incredible conference and we talked about not settling and getting comfortable with where we are and what we're doing. Some of my favorite points were that, attacking the day, how to help our investigators and those we teach with understanding the importance of reading the Book of Mormon by giving them reasons and promising blessings through personal experiences, inviting the power of the Spirit into the work, and becoming the message. I especially like the last part: to become the message. It's so important to be what you believe, in private and in public, everywhere you go. You don't pick and choose to act like a disciple of Christ depending on where you are. You already made the decision to take upon you His name and therefore you are His disciple. You don't choose where and when you're going to be good. You already made that decision. The choice now is HOW you're going to be good. What you're going to do now to be even better. BE the message of the Gospel that we know and love. Do people look at us and think we're weird and different? GOOD. We ARE. News flash.... The world is full of corruption, sorrow, filth, and heartache. But we are the light. We need to show it. Don't wait until tomorrow, and don't dwell on the past when you were such a great light. BE IT NOW. Christ is trusting you with His name. Wear it well. RANTS. Sorry hehe.

Anywhoooo then the next day we had a missionary council (consiglio) with President Kearon and it was awesome! We talked about how we're going to help everyone apply these principles into their lives and the most important part. I'm super stoked for this transfer! You always get so spiritually pumped after conferences like these and everyone feels it. It's awesome!

So we recently started teaching two new investigators. They're two girls that a member lives with (their family friends) and they're awesome! The second lesson we had with them we brought two new converts, a young man and a young woman, and they were AWESOME. Youth have such a power about them. They basically taught the Plan of Salvation and the Five points of the Gospel and then the investigators talked about the Restoration. It was probably one of my favorite lessons in the fact that everyone else was teaching each other and it was just a beautiful thing.

On Monday we had a surprise scambio and we were in a trio with one of the Sorelle from Como! They're In a trio and two had to go to Genova, so one stayed with us, Sorella Insalaco. She's a genius. She write symphonies. I kid you not. She wants to write music for movies, and she is absolutely more than capable. She's so cool.
And now we're here! Today we met up with the Como Sorelle at the Duomo and we ran into the Sorelle from...... BUSTO ARSIZIO! My birth city!! And they were there with a few members! One of which we were working with to help re activate and she's fully active now! Gah! I'm so happy. Then we went to a creepy bone church that had all these skulls and bones in the walls. Why would people do that. But it was fun and we got really yummy food after :)
And that was our week! It was great! We've just been killing it here in Cimiano and I'm loving it! I just love the mission so dang much.
And I love YOU all so dang much. You guys are the best, I'm so grateful to each and everyone of you. Stay strong and don't just live the Gospel, don't just love it, BE it!

Hugs and kisses (only to the girls) and firm handshakes to the guys,
Sorella Hawks :)