Italy, Week 50 (10/22/15) - Glad Tidings of Great Fun!

So last week's email was super lame. But fear not! I bring ye good tidings of great fun. For unto us is given this day adventures and conferences. Come. See.
On Thursday we saw one of our investigators and every time we met with her we asked about baptism and she always said that she wasn't sure and wanted to learn more, but she was praying about it. This time when we asked her she told us that she wants to be baptized! She's not ready now, but she knows that she wants to be a part of this. So cool!  She's so great :) we just need to help her get up early Sunday morning and come to church...
That night we got super lost trying to find someone's house because we came from a different direction and couldn't find her house.  #milanoproblems but we made it home. Our home, not hers. But we made it home. That's all that matters.  We got to teach the second half of mission prep (because we were late. Oops.) and it was so cool! Teaching mission prep is the funnest thing, especially as a missionary. They're so excited and open and wonderful!  There's just a great spirit there.
We had a scambio this week and I was with Sorella Taylor. She is the funniest person ever haha! It was SUCH A FUN SCAMBIO. In the morning we were doing metro finding and at one point I was sitting and she suddenly told me to lift me feet and I look down and see some strange colored liquid running towards my feet. When I look at where it was coming from, this poor teenage boy had thrown up and it ran all the way down the whole metro. Poor kid, he was probably traumatized. But it was cool to see all the people that stayed where he was and gave him tissues and tried to help in some way. Good people are good :)  So that was fun!
Oh I forgot to mention in my email last week that on that Sunday, (which was fast Sunday) one of the members got up and showed a little drawing and announced to the ward that it was a picture of the ship that would bring us to heaven. That was exciting. She asked us to bring her like five copies of the Book of Mormon in three different languages. Am I worried? Slightly.
On Monday and Tuesday we did another scambio and this time I was with the cutest ever Sorelle from the Philippines everrrr. In her first transfer and my second, we got to do a trio scambio with her, Sorella Snow and I while our trainers were in a meeting. So we got to do a real scambio this time! And she's awesome! We got to go do some missionary work with this cute new convert who's fifteen years old and it was so fun!
Tuesday night six Sorelle came to the church because they were sleeping over for the conference we were having the next day. Three of them slept over our house, so I got to hear a little about Trieste :)  when we were about to head into FHE, some old guy asked if we were having a pajama party and I joked around and said yes and he thought it was super funny. Like, so funny. He just puts his harm around me and pulls me in and holds me, laughing and I freaked out. Guys, I haven't been hugged my a male figure in a LONG time. It was terrifying. AND HE WOULDN'T LET GO!!!! I had to shove my elbow in his side and push away to free myself.
That night after the lesson in FHE we played a game that's a lot like switching truths and it was fun but INSANE. Like, really dangerous because there were a ton of people in a tiny room, running around, pushing. I got sat on. 
Then we had the coolest conference ever!!! Which is why Pday was moved back a day. Sorry i forgot to say something! Oops. But it was with Linda K. Burton, the general relief society president, Bonnie L. Oscarson, the young women general president, and Elder Johnson, an area seventy. All of the Sorelle in the mission came and it was so cool! After the original meeting, they dismissed all the elders and the Sorelle got to stay. During lunch I sat at the same table as Sister Burton and it was awesome! She is the most wonderful woman ever. She's so spiritual, so funny, so real. One of my favorite quotes from that lunch: "We are not Pinterest!" Haha! She was talking about how everyone thinks they have to be perfect, but that doesn't matter. We need to simplify and focus on the important things. She's so cool! It was an AWESOME experience. I love meeting with general authorities
because we get to see that they're real people and they're so wonderful. It really grows my testimony that they truly are called of
God to lead the church.
And here we are! Happy and somewhat healthy :) getting nice and chubby, but trying to resist it. It's not working.
I love you all so much. I had a lot of really cool, good spiritual thoughts this week, but I can't think of them. Just remember to be
happy and love where you are and what you're doing, and serve those around you. Find the joy wherever you can and love what the Lord gives you, because all of it is good, even if it's hard.
I love you soooooo much! Have a WONDERFUL week!
Tanti baci, vi voglio bene,
Sorella Hawks :)

Fun Picture from Mission Conference (Note General Church leaders in the back)

Sisters meeting after Mission Conference with the general relief society president and the young women general president

 This is my companion!  She is awesome!

We're so cool!

Italy, Week 49 (10/14/15) - What Even Happened This Week?!

A question I couldn't answer. This week feels like it was forever. I was looking through my planner and I saw that we had our zone training meeting this past Thursday and I was baffled. THAT WAS FOREVER AGO.  Time, it's so weird.
Anywho, I'm happy, I'm working, I'm trying. It's still kinda weird having so many missionaries in one city but it's super fun.  
Our whole mission is reading the Book of Mormon through and finishing 25 December, so we have to read about six pages a day. But here's the fun part (maybe I already talked about this last week...): we are focusing completely on Christ, His ministry and His attributes in this reading.  It's so beautiful.  I'm learning so much and the Book of Mormon has been given such a new light, seeing how truly focused it is on Jesus Christ.  One thing I noticed in my reading this morning was that I started the Isaiah chapters and as I was focusing on Christ, I understood it so much more. It makes perfect sense! We all got an email from our president saying that it turns out that everyone is saying the same thing. Isaiah's prime focus is on the Savior. When we read his teachings with our focus on Christ, it makes sense. Why else do you think we are exhorted to read his teachings?  They bring us unto Christ and teach us how to gain salvation through Him.  
How cool is that?!
Give it a try, I dare you :)
Anywho, things are going well here in Milano. Nothing exciting or different happened this week. Sorry, no funny stories... I'll try to make some for next week :)
I love you all so much! Thank you for everything!
Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawks :)

Sorry for lack of pictures, they're all on my comp's iPad....

Italy, Week 48 (10/7/15) - I 3 Conference. Basta.

Gooooood morning people of America!!! Or good night maybe...  Anywho, this week was great! On Thursday I dropped off Sorella Nilsen  and picked up Sorella Stott, my new collega! She's from Idaho and loud and therefore super fun. I love her, she's great :)
We visited a lot of great people and I love the opportunity to have five new missionaries here because they don't know who to talk to and who "not" to so they talk to everyone! And so I learn the names of all the people I forgot! It's great! Haha.  We had one cool miracle where we went to teach a new convert and as soon as we got there was like, "Sorelle, my friend is here. He's not a member. I'm going to go get him, you think of something to teach him.“ 
Ummmm okay, awesome! So we taught him the restoration and it was awesome! He came to general conference and then to FHE and now the Anziani will be teaching him! So really exciting stuff :) I love our members, they're so involved with missionary work and work so hard to get their friends to learn about the Gospel. I love it!  So we had conference this weekend and I only saw two sessions, but it was awesome! I love that it talked so much about turning to God to know what we need to do personally to improve. That's been my biggest thing lately. In my past cities it was obvious what I needed to learn.  But now I'm here and it's all different so it's been such a blessing to hear about how I can know for myself what I need to do.It's been an interesting week, lots of new missionaries, lots of reorganizing and figuring things out, but lots of  wonderful things are coming :)
I'm sorry this email is short and lame, but it's all I can really think about right now. I love you all so much! Keep being wonderful and keep seeking for ways to consistently improve, I'll do the same. 
I LOVE YOU! Vi voglio tanto bene!!
Sorella Hawks :)

 Me and all my living comps!!

 I'm just way too happy in this picture

 I'm still in Milano!

Italy, Week 47 (9/30/15) - I Feel Old

Okay, I guess I will start with the most exciting part of the week, which would happen to be transfer calls. Sadly, Sorella Nilsen and I are not staying together for a third transfer as we had hoped :( BUT I get to stay here and my new companion is Sorella Stott. Sorella Nilsen is going down to Prato, which is super close to Firenze and SHE GETS A CAR! It's the only car in the mission for Sorelle, so it's really exciting. I hope I never get the car. Drivers here are insane. They don't follow ANY rules.  Communque, it's sad, but exciting! Plus Sorella Nilsen and I know that we‘ll be best friends after the mission still and hang out at BYU and all that great stuff, so it's not too sad :)  
On Thursday and Friday we did a scambio with the other Sorelle in Como and it was a dream. They have zero problems. Their our dream coppia. I absolutely love all of our Sorelle, but this scambio was an answer to my prayers. I got to go to Como this time and we got fresh baked bread in the morning for breakfast and the best gelato in Italy and it was divine.
We recently started teaching a new investigator who is a referral from a member and she's awesome! She's 17 and is looking to come closer to a church. She's really quiet, so sometimes it's hard to know what she thinks about everything, but she keeps meeting with us! She's really great, so cute.
So. One day on the mission tanto tempo fa, Sorella Nilsen had a dream about a yellow house and knew that there was a family in there waiting for the Gospel. Before I left for my mission, my mom had an impression that there was a family with dark hair in Italy waiting for me.  There's a street of actually houses near our apartment that we knew was special and sacred. We finally made time to go there, but we just had enough time to knock on the yellow houses. Nothing happened, we had lots of rejections, some nice enough and some really not nice. But we noticed that there was a woman outside her house next to one of the yellow houses that we had just tried. She came out and we had a wonderful conversation and she told us to come back! It was a red house and she had gray hair, but we don't pick and choose what God blesses us with! Plus we didn't finish knocking all the houses, so just wait to hear about those miracles! They're coming! Brace yourselves.
We had a delicious meal with our new convert Chris and his mom and dad and it was soooo yummy! So. Much food. It was a mix between Italian and Filipino, but it was a great mix. Yum yum.  Sunday we visited a less active family that we see a lot and there was an explosion and tears and straight up yelling. It was not pretty. How do we help this family?!?! Two teenage daughters who are great, but are teenage girls who spend lots of time on their phones and don't always listen to their mom, and a single mom struggling to understand her daughters and won't listen to us when we try to help her. I just want them to have peace and love in their home!
Monday a member from Nepal wanted to feed all us missionaries, so.....  Oh my gosh, half my email just got deleted. So mad. Okay, basically  this member fed us a lot and it was yummy and fattening, then later that night we got fed more and felt sick, but that's the mission. The COOL part that got deleted was how we went to visit a less active member. I'm just going to post what I wrote to President. 
We had a week full of miracles!! It was incredible! one of them happened when we went to teach a less active member. In the morning we were trying to plan her lesson, but nothing felt right. We tried to find scriptures but everything felt off. We tried thinking of something else we could teach her but nothing was coming; we were having a stupor of thought. But we chose to go with what we had originally planned, knowing that there was a reason and everything would go the way it needed to go. A few minutes after we arrived at this member's house, her non member friend came over. We started teaching the Gospel, and after talking about baptism the conversation slid into the Restoration and she just kept asking all the right questions. When we talked Bout Joseph Smith searching for the true church, she said that she is just like Joseph. It was a beautiful lesson, full of the Spirit.
So that was cool :)
Last night we had FHE and it was crazy! Oh, other transfer news, both the Anziani are being taken out and FOUR new ones of coming in. Aka there's going to be six missionaries in Cimiano and only one of them knows the city. And guess who that one is? Yours truly. 
TALK ABOUT STRESS.
I'm fine.
It's payback for when my trainer and I whitewashed Busto and one Elder had to teach three of us the city. It'll be fine though, I'm honestly not super worried about it. But anyway, so FHE was crazy because three missionaries were leaving, but it was super fun! And a member randomly gave us each a bouquet of flowers, it was so cute!!  What I've learned this week is to always be grateful. Be grateful in the moment. Love the people, love every moment you spend with them, and love your trials for what you're learning. Going around saying goodbye to people (not me...) made me see how truly great these people are and how much I truly do love them. But it also made me realize how much more I need to show that love for them. It made me realize that if I had left, would they have known that I loved them? I'm not an open person, I don't talk about how I feel to people. I feel weird telling them I love them. But it's what they need to hear! That's why I'm here!
Thank you to all of you for always sharing and showing your love to me. I'm so grateful to know that I have friends and family supporting me who love me and want good for me.  You guys are the best. Thank you
thank you thank you. Vi voglio tanto bene!
Sorella Hawks :)

Italy, Week 46 (9/23/15) - The Lord Blesses His Missionaries

My brain is very aware of the fact that I should be absolutely, one hundred percent drained and exhausted to the point where I should hardly be able to take one more step in front of the other. But I'm not. Yes, I'm tired, as is normal, but I cannot comprehend how much energy I have. I'm honestly not kidding when I say that the Lord has blessed me immensely. This week was great but tolling, but the Lord has blessed me with a strength emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually that I cannot believe. But what I love is that I haven't been blessed with incredible super hero energy where I feel like I could run one hundred miles and back in an hour. I'm still my normal tired where sitting for too long my eyes get a little heavy, but it's just what I need. I know at the beginning of my mission when I started getting really tired I didn't understand why I was tired. I thought the Lore would bless me with an inhuman ability to never be tired because I was doing His work. But I have come to understand that He gives us exactly as much as we need, in everything, to go on and do what we need to do. I love that. He doesn't baby or over spoil us, but He sure as anything takes care of us.
We had an AWESOME zone training on Thursday! It was so weird being up in the front doing a training with the zone leaders, but it ended up
being super fun and I actually enjoyed it a little! Plus it turns out there's an Elder from Palmyra NY! FORZA EAST COAST. Then we did a scambio with the Lugano Sorelle and I was with my wonderful German friend Sorella Kras again :) it was so fun! We got yummy gelato to celebrate my year mark. I didn't take any pictures, I'm sorry, I'm so lame.
Fun news, I was asked to play for the stake choir at stake conference this coming October haha. Hopefully I'm still here for it!  This guy at the metro station started talking to me because I was trying to see what time our metro was coming and he was in the way. He was Napoletano and old and kept telling me he was looking for a girl.  Well he didn't find her in me, sorry Massimo. He was super nice, but.... I'm a sister missionary nun. Quello flirtare non va bene.  Oh! And on Sunday this really professional musically talented member of our ward was like, hey, I brought my violin, let's do a musical number. So during sacrament meeting he handed me the children's song book and told me how he wanted to do it and 20 minutes later we played it. It was a little rough, but really fun nonetheless! :)
Then we went on a scambio Monday to Tuesday in Como and I got to be with a fresh new missionary in her first transfer, Sorella Carrus!  She's from Sardegna but lives in Reggio Mila and is going to the Temple Square mission, but is here until her visa comes through. She is INCREDIBLE. Literally, she knows so much and understands so much about the mission that I didn't figure out for a long time. She's on fire and knows what she's doing. She and her trainer are practically whitewashing the city, so it's a little rough, but Sorella Carrus is amazing!
But again, tears were shed and tantrums (literal tantrums) were thrown towards the end as we had a meeting all together. It wasn't very pretty. But we tried our best to give council, and Sorella Carrus listened and learned! I told you, she's fantastic. She has no problems, she could train herself.  ANYWHO.
I just want to share with you what I've learned from seeing a lot of different situations from a lot of different Sorelle. We are all clay in the hands of God. He has put us here on the earth to shape us.  Sometimes it's hard and it hurts, but we are becoming more beautiful.  We are a work of art, but it is our decision whether or not we let ourselves become the beauty that God sees in us. He has given us certain situations so that we can learned and grow and be shaped. The situation is ugly, but we become all the more beautiful because of it.  Let us be soft clay. Let these moments, these beautifully tragic moments in our lives shape us and let it be easy for God to shape us.  Don't be hardened, dry, unmanageable clay that believes that you are fine just the way you are. You may not consciously think that, but sometimes you need to take a step back and see if you're acting that way. Don't tell God what you want Him to do or how you think things should go. Give your will to His and find the learning opportunities instead of whining and complaining and waiting for the day when your situation might change. If you do that, you're just an outline. These moments are for us to be filled with color, brightness, shading, and who we truly are. Just please, I beg of each and every one of you individually. Look at yourself. See how you've grown, if you've grown.  Everyday should be a new learning experience. There is not a day that goes by where God doesn't try to teach us something. If you haven't learned something, search for something new to learn! Don't let this precious time pass you by. Be soft clay in the hands of the Lord. I can promise you that you are nowhere safer.
I love you so much, I am so grateful for my parents and siblings who taught me how to handle trials and adversity and helped me to grow.  I'm grateful for your strength and love. You are all so dear to my heart. I wish you the best of luck.

Vi voglio un mondo di bene <3
Sorella Hawks :)

#youknowyoureinitalywhen this is the view outside you're window. If you're colorblind.

 Consiglio!

Maxi burgers at Roadhouse. Yes, you can find a good old Mexican burger here

 It's frightening how big it is.

 

Duomo!

Italy, Week 45 (9/16/15) - Gratitude Lessons Learned From Drama

Hello my wonderful beautiful family and loved ones. I love you all so much. I'm so grateful for all of you.
I'm so tired.
DRAMA.
I'll get back to that later.
So on Thursday we celebrated a new convert's birthday with banana bread that we managed to turn into a cake by topping it with buttermilk frosting. It was good.
Okay, I'm going to skip boring stuff, I'm so tired and my brain is fried. Friday morning when we were going to start weekly planning, we get a call from one of the companionships of Sorelle that we're over saying that they were straight up depressed and didn't know what to do. Needless to say we didn't get weekly planning done. That night we got to participate in a young women's activity and it was so good to be back with the young women! Sometimes I forget how much I miss being in with them.

Anywho, Saturday we had time to go out and do some finding (I still can't believe I just said that. I remember when we would spend about 6 hours a day (at least) doing finding in my last city. It's GLORIOUS.) and we stopped and talked to this older guy named Enrico. At first he was just asking questions about why we were here and details about what we
do, but he told us not to preach to him. He did, however, let us pray with him. And after that prayer he was so different. When we ended it we looked up and he was looking straight ahead very quietly and had a single tear in his eye. After that he asked us more about our church and wanted to see us again. It was such a tender moment. 
Oh! And on Wednesday night we taught this woman from Ukraine who just showed up after church one day and then came again to sacrament meeting two weeks later! We taught her the restoration and it was
awesome! She is so wonderful! I love her so much!!!  Sunday we went over to another companionship of Sorelle that we're over with Oreo cheesecake and determination. Their companionship is really struggling. They both opened up to us on our exchanges and we decided it was time to take action and make them tell each other these things. It took a while and there were tears and tension, but it all worked out in the end :) We hope it actually helped. They said they've seen some improvement, so that's great! 

Monday we had consiglio (missionary council) and it was so fun! We talked about faith and how faith will cut out all our fears, and we talked about how we're going to help other missionaries grasp this and apply it to their work. I love consiglio because we really get to know President Dibb more and see his true character. He is so great! I love him so much! Then we did another exchange and we heard more companionship problems. Like, where they went three days without talking to each other at one point. This, this right here is why I am so tired, so emotionally drained. I love these Sorelle, but sometimes they can be such GIRLS.
And you know, a lot of the problems in one of these companionships started because of gossip. Three words: GOSSIP IS DUMB. Another three words: DON'T DO IT. It doesn't do any good whatsoever. There's a very fine but definite line between opening up to someone about your hardships and struggles that you may be having and gossip. Don't.  Cross. It. It drives me NUTS.  Anyway, I love being here and helping others, but sometimes when they've already given up and don't want to listen or try anymore, it's like bashing your head into a brick wall. 
It's really not that bad, I promise. I'm just ranting.  Speaking of rants, I LOVE THIS GOSPEL SO MUCH. I just love reading the scriptures and praying and being able to open up to my Heavenly Father who I know loves me and will be bold enough to chastise me because He knows my potential and He knows how to get me to reach it. I am so grateful for the lessons I've learned on my mission so far. I hit my year mark tomorrow and I love taking the time to look back and see such a change. My companion and I will talk about what changes we've seen in ourselves and I realized that I am absolutely the same person.  Same personality, I am still Danielle Elise Hawks, that doesn't change. But I have learned to be more humble, to listen more, to be
more confident and bold. I have been stripped of all pride and sent raw into hail storms of trials and tears and sweat and a little bit of blood sometimes. I have learned an immense amount of patience and trust in the Lord and His timing. I've been blessed with the opportunity to be placed in the hottest part of a refiner's fire and I have been blessed with the cool soothing, healing balm of the Atonement. I've been put in so any different situations where I've been able to grow in different ways. The work here in Cimiano is so good and it is such a well-taken care of city. And because of that I can focus on helping others with new responsibilities that I am given.  I'm learning to be a leader, not the kind that is in the midst guiding people along, but I'm trying to learn to be the kind that leads from the front. It's super uncomfortable and I feel like a fool most of the time, but I'm learning! That's the point, right? Sometimes I feel like I've seen it all and experienced it all, what more could I learn? And then I get hit in the face with something else and I realize, mamma mia, I have a LOT to learn.  And I thank you all for always being there for me. For supporting me and for helping me before to prepare me for this. Thank you for your examples and kind words of love. I love each and every one of you so much, you are all so dear to my heart. Have a wonderful week, vi voglio bene.
Sorella Hawks :)

Italy, Week 44 (9/8/15) - Can't Think of a Good Title...

Sorry! Aside from the lame heading, however, this week was full of miracles and wonderful things :)
First off, we got to visit a less active family and we brought a new convert with us who doesn't have very many friends. They're some of the few Italians in our ward, so they hit it off great! They're all from the South, so we got about five words in the entire night, but it was great! They talked about how America influences Italy too much and
it's New York's fault that everyone in Milano stays up late and build giant waterslides. Don't ask me what we did to cause such havoc. But they're all friends! Plus we're hoping that this friendship will help our new convert's husband to find more desire to join the church. And miracle of all is that we made it home on time! And by on time I of course mean that we didn't have to call our mission president....
Friday and Saturday we did a scambio with the Sorelle from Lampugnano, another city in Milano. I got to go there with a new missionary in her second transfer who's from England! Her name is Sorella Barlow and she's so cute! Funnest accent ever. We visited one of their investigators who is from New York! He's from a small town near Sleepy
Hollow and he actually knew my school. It was so fun! We would randomly stop each other while we were talking when the other would say something that the other hadn't heard in forever and whatnot. It was a little piece of home!
The scambio was super fun! But dang, it's hard being an STL.... Comp struggles and drama.... Sorella Nilsen and I both heard different ends so we're probably going to have a comp inventory sit down session.   Hope all goes well!
We saw an ex investigator who had texted us and told us that she wanted to meet with us! We taught the Resto and it went so well! She knows this church is true but she doesn't recognize it, which is hard.  We tried explaining that maybe the fact that she feels so good here and missed the church and wanted to meet with us again is her answer.
But now she just has to come to that conclusion for herself. But she is so great! 

On Sunday we visited the cousins of a new convert and it was so fun! We had delicious Bolivian food where the chicken just fell off the bone. So good. Then we taught them and they were super open! We have to pass them over to the Navigli Sorelle, which happens to be my ex-comp Sorella Burt, so I know they're. In good hands :) after that we
had a lesson with a less active member and the senior couple in the office came with us and it was a miracle lesson. The Sister is a reflexologist and she worked on our member while we taught and by the end of that lesson, there was a peace in that home that I had never felt there before. It was incredible. The lesson went well and our member was so happy and calm. It was SUCH a miracle. I need to study that stuff when I get home.
The rest of the week we taught the wonderful word of God to our wonderful people here in Cimiano. I could go on forever about them, but you guys probably wouldn't find as much joy in it as I do haha. 

Just know that I love you, but more importantly that God and Jesus Christ love you. One of my favorite things about serving a mission is being able to tell so many people that they are not alone and that they need not feel alone. We may be surrounded by people, have a good family and great friends, but we still feel a small, quiet emptiness.
A little tiny part of us that's hollow, that often times we don't  notice in all the world around us. But when we're by ourselves, do we feel God's love? Do we feel it was we walk to busy street to work or school? Do we try? I love telling people that no matter their situation, whether it be heartbreak, a broken family, devastating illness, or just a feeling of loneliness, they are not alone. Christ suffered not only for our sins, but for our sorrows. He shed our tears and laughed our laughter. And He continues to do so with us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. We need never feel alone. That empty, hollow part in our heart can and will be filled as we turn to our Lord and Savior. I know this is true, I have experienced it in my life multiple times. He loves us and wants us to be complete, full, and overall  HAPPY. I love that word. HAPPY. Yes, we can and should be happy in this life. But true lasting happiness and joy only come through Jesus Christ.
I love you all so much, thank you for everything.
Vi voglio un mondo di bene,
Vostra Sorella in Dio,
Sorella Hawks :)

These are our cards we made for our Sorelle! Attack the day!

 Got your good old El Camino in there