Letters from Milan: Italy, Week 64 (1/27/16) - Pepper, Tomato, Honey, Pizza, Chocolate, Gelato

So that was basically my week. Food. And the rest of the week is continuing as such. So. Much. Food. Forget losing weight before I get home, that idea is thrown out the window and shot in midair. :)

Well, this week was wonderful :)

On Wednesday we watched the worldwide mission broadcast and it was so good! I loved how they talked about the Spirit's role in conversion. We as missionaries and members in general have no power to convert others. We are instruments in the Lord's hands, without the Spirit sent from God, we make no sound. We can speak, but the message of truth will not be carried to their hearts if it is not down so by the Spirit. It was so cool to hear from some of the apostles and other leaders over the missionary department of the Church. They're so inspired!
On Thursday we had lunch with a young family in our ward as part way through our message to them, their neighbor knocked on the door. So we went from talking about missionary work and tactfully moved it to prophets (we were talking about Noah) and then onto the Restoration. Woot woot yeah. Haha it was really cool though! He was very open and willingly accepted to receive a copy of the Book of Mormon!

Friday and Saturday we had a Scambio with the Sorelle da Vicenza – they’re so fun! I went with Sorella Stephens who just so happens to be my mission niece and we both served with her "mom", so needless to say it was a fun scambio :) that night the other sisters had received a phone call from a less active family saying that they have two kids about to turn 8 and they asked us to come teach them so they can be baptized. It's cool because we had never met this family before, but for Bernice's baptism we literally sent an invitation to every number in our phone. They texted back and said they couldn't come but invited us over for lunch. We didn't have time to go that day but we said we'd schedule for another. And then they called us! They live waaaaaayyyy out there though, up in the mountains. It. Is. GORGEOUS. So we ate lunch with them, and then taught their kids. My gosh, I love teaching little kids! Why haven't I done this more?!?! They're so cute and know way more than we think.

Sunday Bernice was Confirmed!!!!!! Yay! After we asked how she felt and she all she said was "good" because that's all you gotta say, you know? Bernice, she's so wonderful :) after church we went to a member's house for lunch and she had her friend over. We had taught him the Resto. Before and this time we talked about the Book of Mormon. This guy is a boss. He had called this member a few weeks before and told her he was coming to church. She didn't have to invite
him! And he has been working the night shift, so from 12am to 6am. And he still came to church and 9:30am. Ummm what. There are MEMBERS who don't even do that. I want to be that committed when I grow up, and now. I'm not waiting.

Poor guy was pretty exhausted, but he said he's going to read the Book of Mormon and keep praying! It was a very spiritual lesson. As we were walking out, Sorella Griffin and I were talking about how blessed we were and how many miracles we keep seeing in this city, when all of a sudden a car drives by and the people inside are waving to us. They halt to a stop and this girl jumps out (in the middle of the road, mind you) and runs toward us yelling that they're Mormons too. She's like come over! Teach us! Let's make pancakes! Haha so we jump in the car and head over. We didn't have much time so we just talked about Christ as our Savior, took pictures and headed out. We went to visit a referral the Anziani had sent us a while ago that we kept trying to see, but things kept getting in the way. But we finally got to see her and words cannot describe this woman. She's from Morocco and lost her dad when she was a baby, lost her mom when she
was eight, went to France to study, and five months ago just lost her only brother. And around the time of her brothers death, her boyfriend who she was in love with broke up with her. And now she lives by herself in a TINY one room apartment that fits a bed, a tiny table, and a tiny night stand. Like picture small and its smaller than that. Everything's bigger in America. Umm yeah. And yet she was smiling and so positive. She kept asking us how to find comfort and how to overcome this. She said as of right now she's just doing all she can to stay busy. She has two jobs and she says its to keep herself from thinking because she knew that if she wasn't always busy, she would turn to other things like drugs and alcohol to try to forget it. But she kept asking us "how do I overcome this?" She's Muslim, so we showed her the Christmas video "why we need a Savior." She only believes in Jesus as a prophet, but we know that it is only through Christ that we can overcome things. So that's going to be the main focus of our lessons :) she's a BOSS.

On the way home these two guys from maybe Ukraine or something sat next to us on the bus. Now, I normally don't talk about when people catcall at us or try to hit on us, but this was too funny,p. We're sitting there and talking in English and Italian. These guys are obviously talking about us in their language and I hear something that sounds like "Jehovah" so they obviously think we're JW's. After a while one says to us "do you guys want to get breakfast with us tomorrow morning?" Luckily I was looking something up and showing my comp so we just acted like we didn't hear hoping they would leave us alone. After a while, I just said, "meh, è la vita.....delle suore.“ Which means "meh, that's life.....for nuns." And they went SILENT. Bahahahahaha! They didn't try to hit on us anymore after that :) Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Monday we visited a woman we haven't seen in a while and her grandson was there, sitting at he table reading the Book of Mormon. Yeah. It was a good lesson :) although they kept arguing during it haha. Italians.

Yesterday we ate lunch with an old couple in the second ward and that was fun :) they kept arguing too and saying how sometimes it was hard to love each other, but when the sun is out life is great! Haha Whenever I see them it always makes me see and drills into my mind HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO MARRY THE RIGHT KIND OF PERSON. It scares me a little, but it's fine.

And yeah, that was my week in a nutshell! Teaching people and helping them come unto Christ.

This church is true. There is only one true church on the face of this earth, and it is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And it is only through covenants that we make with God through proper authority, which only this Church holds, that we can return to God. I know it, I've felt it, I've witnessed it.

I love you all and I wish you a wonderful week full of joy and sunshine! Vi voglio tantissimo bene :)

Sorella Hawks :)