BECOME THIS MESSAGE

ok so much to share with so many people I love and I don't have tons of time so I am going to try and start from the beginning........

The week started out with a really good lesson with our investigator Elena. Sometimes I really wish I could have like Natalie Gochnour at our lessons because Elena loves politics and just talks for like forty minutes straight about her different theories and I wish we could figure out how to somehow relate it to the gospel, but I have no ideas about politics. BUT we got her to realize that she was listening to us, but not doing anything we had invited her to do. So she said she was going to prayer and seemed very sincere about it, but we will see how that goes. Then it was pretty late so she took us home and almost killed us like four times. I'm pretty sure she needs glasses and you would think an Italian would know not to turn down a one way road, but there are always exceptions!!!

THEN WE GO TO GO TO ROME!!!!

Our train left Taranto in the morning and we had about a four and a half hour train ride to Napoli. I absolutely love the train ride. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on a lot of things. Like who I am as a person and really what I would like to become. It is such a tranquil ride through the country. The clouds are incredible. The cows laying on the ground while the farmers harvest from their fields. Mountain goats grazing the rolling hillsides. Rivers running through big walls of rocks. Little old cities built on the tops of mountains. 

When we arrived in Napoli we had to switch trains and Anziano Friedman had one of his friends bring us pizza!!!! It was sooooo good. We got a diavola which is like pepperoni kind of and it was actually super heavy and we couldn't finish them haha. But it was very good. Then we finally got to Rome after like two more hours of travel and we got there right during rush hour or something and the metro was PACKED. Wayyyy too many people. The Sears (a senior missionary couple) picked us up and we got to stay with them for our time in Rome, which was only one night. But they are so nice and made us salmon. So that was fun to be with them. Senior couples are the best. 

Then we had the conference. The Sears took us on a scenic view kind of haha. They took us a longer way into the city so we could drive on the appia which is supposedly where Paul walked. The conference was amazing. We started off singing called to serve (obviously because we are missionaries what else are you going to sing every second you can) in Italian and it was so cool. 160 Italian missionaries very loudly singing Siam Chiamati. And then we got to hear from President Learon and Elder and Sister Sabin. President Kearon is the coolest guy. I have so many notes that I took because I loved hearing from him. I could listen to his voice all day long because of the way he talks and the vocabulary he uses. It's so elegant. The word that stuck out to me the most that he used was probably the word bask. Which is so descriptive and visual.  I wish you could have all been there with me. When you are in that situation with a general authority, they are so much more personal. He started off by telling us how much he loves us. President Kearon was a convert himself in England and he said to us, "I am a sisters convert." Haha I love that. Telling about his conversion story with the sisters he said, "It was as if I was stopped on the street by a wall of light 

It was like sunshine from them in a place that isn't very often sunny." (Picture him describing this to us just with a smile on his face and in an British accent.) He repeated so many times DON'T WORRY, JUST WORK HARD. He talked about how in this church, we have never been scared of doing hard things. He said, "Ever since Joseph walked into those woods, we haven't flinched from hard things. The pioneers sang amidst their grief and their pain. They saw themselves not as victims, but as pioneers. BE LIKE PAUL, LETS GO OUT AND GET PERSECUTED." 

I copied and pasted my notes because there are so many good things that I loved. Read them or not, but there is some really good stuff in there. 

• BE HAPPY
• You've got to have your being match your message
• Worry less, work harder
• BECOME THIS MESSAGE and let it show
• Remember who you are and who they are
• Just be kind
• It requires mighty prayer. That kind of pleading
• Don't worry about you
• Jacob is the worrying prophet. He uses the words anxious and anxiety, but he is worried about THE PEOPLE - FOR THE WELFARE OF THEIR SOULS
• Rejoice in who you are
• Think about how Heavenly Father and the Savior see you
• Christ calls us His friends
• This isn't something that you teach, it's something that you are
• The thing that will surprise us the most when we pass through the veil, is how well we know our Father
• He knows your name. He is our Father. His first word was when He visited Joseph Smith was, Joseph. He knows us. So bask in that, receive it
• You're meant to be exactly obedient, but you're not to have your personality removed
• BE YOURSELF - be happy, you don't have to be super lively -Your personality is fine
• FULL OF FAITH
• working working working, but pleading pleading pleading with God IN THE NAME OF THE SON
• like Nephi, he didn't ask to be released from it, but ask for the strength 
• Don't hesitate
• You have to be able to hear no no no no and still envision yes
• Make it a PLEADING prayer and also a prayer of GREAT FAITH
• Don't DRIFT into the day - ATTACK your day
• We have two ears and one mouth, so listen more
• Invite with a sense of joy and wonder about you
• Be genuine 

Then we had a little break for lunch and he said to me at lunch, "Hello front row friend! It's nice to see your face and the encouragement it brings on the front row."

After lunch we played Joseph Smith's first prayer and it was really cool. Anziano Anderson and I played while other missionaries sang and it turned out really well I thought. Thanks to the spirit. 

Notes continued...

• Be less of a victim and more of an agent
• It takes a great conference to last past Tuesday 
• Stop worrying, drop your shoulders and just smile. And ask questions
• If they are smelling of smoke, give them a hug. Look how the Savior treated those people
• Isn't this just glory when this is happening?
• Teach the children. If you teach the children you're teaching everybody. 
• THE GOSPEL IS EITHER TRUE OR IT ISN'T
• I get to represent the Savior of mankind, the creator of the world
• You know you are on the right trail if it's uphill
• Fill your mind with truth, your heart with love (you're here because of love), and your life with service - to be happy 
• You'll never be happier than you are grateful
• If you woke up the next morning with only the blessings you thanked the lord for the night before, would you think more about what you are thankful for?
• JESUS CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF THIS CHURCH
• Your success will be the fact that you tried so hard
• Don't let the fact that you are 19 let you think that you somehow lack what you need to do this work
• Don't let anything unworthy stand in your way. 
• The atonement is glorious and marvelous I am deeply grateful for His patience and forbearance with me. 

• Strive joyfully to become the message that you bear. 

• AND I KNOW THAT WE KNOW HOW THIS ENDS 

I wish I could go through and comment on every single one of those points, but I can't so something I am really trying to change in myself is becoming something. We are all here on earth to become the person that Heavenly Father wants us to become. You know you are on the right trail as long as it's uphill and we know how this all ends. 

We ended the conference with "I'll bring the world his truth" from the children's hymn book and I looked up and president Kearon was just looking at all of the missionaries singing this song in Italian and he was blinking really hard. It is such a cool experience to be a missionary during moments like that. They are priceless and I will never get them back, so I am doing my best to cherish them. 

And after I got some letters from nana and papa and one from Eli and one from Carly. Woot woot!!!!

Then on the train ride home right after we had the coolest experience!!! I travel with my cute little violin on my back which is kind of a pain a lot of the time, but is a very good conversation starter. So Sorella Flansberg and I sit down and there is this man sitting next to me and he asked if I played the violin and so I said yes, and then we did t really say a whole lot for about the next hour.......and THEN Sorella flansberg asked him where he was going and from that point on we talked to him for the rest of the train ride to Bari (which was three straight hours, in Italian, on a train). I asked him what he likes to do in his spare time and that was where the conversation like turned completely. Turns out he like composes music and plays the piano and we were both able to relate to that. We talked about his family and he said he used to go to our church when he was a teenager, but he's not baptized. He doesn't like smoking or drinking coffee which is SO rare (like are you even really Italian?). But he told us all of these cool places we should go see (which were all in Bari, where we can't go because it's out of our zone) and it was an incredible conversation that I felt like I really participated in a lot. I feel like the language comes in spurts. Times like that I feel like I can speak and understand fluently, but then there are days where I am just really struggling at following conversations, but it's coming. Piano piano. His name is Antonio Valerio. Maybe you could look him up and find something about him haha. I don't think he's famous but he puts on concerts once a year his community.

Then we gave Cristina a bap date!!! She is so ready to be baptized and this situation is not changing so we decided we need to take a leap of faith and act. We prayed about it and decided that she should get baptized on October 1 and she agreed, but we still have to figure out how to get her partner to move out and figure out how she is going to pay for her apartment without him, but we have faith and are acting and whatever Heavenly Father wants to happen will happen. 

We visited Sorella parabita this week and sang hymns with her in Italian. It is only so long before she passes away, but we are cherishing the time we still have here with her. I will never forget sitting in her kitchen singing come come ye saints with her. 

There have been a few scattered rain storms this past week haha. Our investigator Elena (the one who likes to talk about politics and believes that God is inside every one of us, also the one who almost killed us) called us last night when it was pouring rain and told us she doesn't think we have the equipment to come to her house in the rain, which she was right haha. And she then went on to say she doesn't understand why we make such a big effort to go to her house and teach her because she says, "I believe all of the things you guys tell me already. You don't have to come to my house and tell me them. I believe in whatever you tell me. And i believe in Jesus. That's the most important thing isn't it? Whenever you guys want to do the baptism thing I'll do it!!!" Just imagine a 63 year old Italian lady yelling this at you over the phone in English (with the thickest accent ever), waiting at a bus stop in the pouring rain. So classic. We want her to get baptized, but there are still a few things we need to figure out haha. I love Elena. 

That was my week this past week. I really hope I serve in Rome at some point in my mission. It is such a cool city. 

I love and miss you all!! I hope you have an incredible week!

Sorella Lucy Ann Gochnour