Hello folks!!
This week was quite full of miracles and I am going to share two of them with you. And a funny story haha.
We'll start with the funny story (and it might now be funny to you guys so just bear with me here). Well our investigator pool is quite small right now and we are trying super hard to find new investigators!! On Wednesday we went to this ex investigators house and did some casa in casa (door to door) around her neighborhood. No luck, BUT it was super hot and I saw this guy in this little ape (mini Italian truck) selling cherries and I told sorella Wood we had to stop. It was €3 for one chilo of cherries and €5 for 2 chili of cherries......so we got 2 haha and then went and waited the bus and took pictures of our cherries and spat out cherries seeds. It was on a really busy road and I'm pretty sure all of the cars thought we were the strangest people ever, but hopefully if they ever see the missionaries they will remember two sweaty American girls eating
cherries on the side of the road!! That's actually not that funny...sorry
Also this week we had a sciopero!!!! What is that? It's a strike. I'm pretty sure it just happens in Rome haha. Maybe other places. But what happens is all of the bus drivers and metro workers get together and say we're not going to go to work on this day. So literally none of the buses work and the metro is closed and locked from 8 in the morning until 5pm at night. Usually there are like one
or two buses that will pass and you can usually figure out how to get most of the things done that you need to, but this time they decided to like go all out and NOTHING was running. We had two appointments to get to, both of which were pass off lessons (you give your investigators to other missionaries). One was near our house. The other was by the Vatican which is approximately an 1 and 45 minute travel with bus and metro. Well the first appointment we walked to, which took us about 50 minutes. Back to the old RAGUSA days (walking)!! It wasn't bad at all, the only downside was that it was at 1 in the afternoon and felt like 40 degrees Celsius outside. The second one we were able to shift the appointment time a little to make it there in time! It was such a miracle. They were three really great investigators so that was kind of sad, but I'm excited for those missionaries and hopefully they will help those people enter the waters of baptism!!
The first cool experience of the week was when sorella Wood and I were like very desperate to help our FHE problem. In Rome three we do a weekly family home evening every Monday night to try to help the ward. Recently we have been getting about two members here and it is really frustrating because we have tried literally everything to get people to come. Well we have prayed and fasted so many times for this and felt like we just weren't getting an answer. Sorella Wood was kind of like "come on Heavenly Father we have prayed so hard to figure out the answer, WHERE IS IT??" And after that we just started talking and talking and spitting out ideas and building off of one another and
just like that we had a six week family home evening program and an invite for every week and all of the spiritual thought, activity, food, and invite are on the same topic so hopefully they will remember it more. It's kind of hard to describe the whole thing, but really it was the spirit working through us to receive answers to our prayers. The spragues were so grateful almost to the point of being emotional about the plan we had come up with. There is SO much joy feeling like you were an instrument in the hands of the Lord to make someone's
burdens a little bit lighter.
The next cool experience was when we met this man from Bangladesh. We were on the metro and I was holding a Book of Mormon in my hands and the only thing showing was the back cover which says, "la chiesa di Gesù Cristo dei santi degli ultimi giorni" in really little font. Well this middle eastern man says, "excuse me, that doesn't happen to be a Book of Mormon, does it?" He didn't know what Gesù Cristo meant but he thought the Book looked familiar so he looked it up on google translate and saw it meant Jesus Christ and then asked us. He used to be an investigator of the elders, but they aren't allowed to teach him due to his safety and our safety, bit honestly it was probably the coolest experience ever. We said a prayer with him and talked to him about religion and his situation. We like kind of helped him realize that we didn't run into him by accident and he said he would try to come to church but that he's super busy with his tests right now. He didn't come, but it was still a really incredible miracle.
When I meet people like this man there are a lot of thoughts that run through my brain. How grateful I am for the plan of salvation, how blessed I was to be raised in the circumstances I was raised in, the incredible amounts of faith that people have, how grateful I am to be experiencing these things. I find so much comfort in knowing that Heavenly Father has a specific and perfect plan for each and every one of His children. It's so easy to say, "why does this person who is
such a great person with so much faith have to go through so much pain and hardship?" when I witness the incredibly hard situations people deal with and then I just feel peace to know that Heavenly Father loves them. He knows them and He has not left them alone. FAITH IS REAL PEOPLE. Experiencing the things I experience daily as a missionary is something I wouldn't trade for the world. It is priceless. And I love it.
Sincerely
Sorella G ❤🇮🇹
This week I almost started crying because the song "con te partirò" popped into my head and I realized that someday I am going to have to say goodbye to this country
Also no surprise with transfers. I am staying in Rome 3, the only change is that I will now be the sister training leader with sorella rushton. So that's exciting! It's going to be fun!! I have no idea what I'm doing haha.
No comments:
Post a Comment