“These were days never to be forgotten......”

Ciao cari miei......

Well, this is quite saddening. I had my first breakdown on Friday morning so hopefully, I can keep it together this week. 

In Alma 26:23-24 it says 

23 Now do ye remember, my brethren, that we said unto our brethren in the land of Zarahemla, we go up to the land of Nephi, to preach unto our brethren, the Lamanites, and they laughed us to scorn?

24 For they said unto us: Do ye suppose that ye can bring the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth? Do ye suppose that ye can convince the Lamanites of the incorrectness of the traditions of their fathers, as stiffnecked a people as they are; whose hearts delight in the shedding of blood; whose days have been spent in the grossest iniquity; whose ways have been the ways of a transgressor from the beginning? Now my brethren, ye remember that this was their language.

That was kind of how I felt coming to the Italy Rome mission. A young 19-year-old Mormon girl trying to preach the gospel to the Catholic capital of the world. I felt like Ammon and his brothers who wanted to go teach the Lamanites (a people they had been in conflict with forever), pretty crazy idea to some, but they wanted to go because they knew that they could help bring a knowledge of the truth to them. And then they could partake of the same happiness Ammon and his brothers were experiencing. 

I have not been a perfect missionary and am not a perfect person for going on a mission, but I do feel like I have been able to grow closer to my Savior and develop a few of His attributes. To Heavenly Father it doesn’t really matter about numbers and baptisms. He loves all of His children and all He wants is for them to be able to return to Him and receive His eternal glory. 

Ok, my thoughts are so scattered, but I wanted to tell you about what my name tag means to me. It’s super special to be able to look at that little piece of black plastic because my name is right above GESÙ CRISTO. That is so special to me because, in life, that is my goal, to BECOME like Him. It is such an honor and a great responsibility to be a missionary and to have SORELLA GOCHNOUR right next to the name of the Savior. For these past 18 months, I have been able to represent Him here in Italy. I was sent to be a rescuer to Be like the Savior for these people. In Preach My Gospel it says, “you need to BE a Christlike missionary, not just do missionary things.” 

This life is about becoming. I am grateful that I get to have my name close to the Savior and I hope that I will be able to ALWAYS remain close to Him. I dread the day when I don’t get to wake up and put my name tag on. I don’t get to wear that thing that PHYSICALLY states that I AM A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST. But I thoroughly believe that you don’t need a name tag to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

I have grown an indescribable love for these people, for this culture, for the language, for the food, for this lifestyle. It pains me to say goodbye and it’s quite funny because I feel like I am living in a chiasmus. There are several in the Book of Mormon, but before my mission, I was a little bit scared and sad to leave my loved ones and now I am experiencing the exact same thing. My missionary friends and this ward and all of these people have become my family, that I now have to leave! I will miss this country dearly. 

I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and I know that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored again on this earth, along with the power of God to help us be guided to know the path we should follow on this earth. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and was given to us to gain a testimony for ourselves of these things. 

D&C 100:4 says,

4 Therefore, I, the Lord, have suffered you to come unto this place; for thus it was expedient in me for the salvation of souls.

Heavenly Father sent me here because he knew that it was the best way for me to help His children come to know Him. 

I love you all and I will see you soon 

Mi mancherai Italia

Con amore

Sorella G ♥️🇮🇹

LET THE HOLY SPIRIT GUIDE

OK....

There was SO much that happened this week that I want to tell you about and to be completely honest, I don’t feel like my mission is ending. So this week was just another great week! 

It started off with an FHE that we did with the Musicco family in Trani. Ok, I don’t know how to explain all of the details of how everyone is related, but our investigator Nunzia is a relative of these people so she was there. We did this little activity where we all wrote something down on a piece of paper something we wanted to change. Nunzia said that she wants to pray more so that she can talk with God. She got really emotional and said she feels like God is calling to her right now. That was a really cool experience. 

On Wednesday morning Sorella Baielli and I had a goal of having six gospel conversations in the morning before we went home for lunch and we started doing finding and no one was stopping to talk to us. So we decided to start counting our contact attempts so that we wouldn’t feel as bad if we went home for lunch and had one gospel conversation. So we started OPENING OUR MOUTHS and Heavenly Father filled them. We were able to end the morning with 51 contact attempts and 8 gospel conversations. That was such an answer to prayers that Heavenly Father gave us the strength and the desire to talk to all of those people. 

We had a meal appointment this week with the Anziani and one of the members in Bitonto haha and it was a classic Italian pranzo meal appointment haha. She made us focaccia and olives and taralli for the antipasto. Primo was lasagna, then we ate ham wrapped in chicken and smothered in cream. After that we had salad. And then the fruit. After the fruit Anziano Dickey was like, “ok Sorella we prepared a spiritual thought for you” and she goes, “sì mo dobbiamo finire di mangiare” which means, “yes Anziano but now we have to finish eating” so then she got out the frutta secca (dried fruit) as in nuts and then she grabbed the crostata, which is like lie and had us each eat three pieces haha. Then we were almost done with the spiritual thought and she says, “yeah that’s great. Let me share my testimony with you.....” and she then proceeded to tell us her whole conversion story. AND THEN she got out the photo albums haha. I love Italians. 

We got a referral this week from a member from Bitonto and her name is Isabella. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and I am really excited to continue teaching her. We taught the plan of salvation and she had difficulty understanding why Jesus atoned for our sins. They’re not His responsibility, they’re ours. But I loved bearing testimony to her that He CHOSE to do it because He loves us that much. 

Ok and I know that this email is already like forever long, but just bear with me because this was really cool. So Saturday:

We had an appointment with nunzia (she lives in Trani which is an hour north of Bari) and the zone leaders also had an appointment in Trani so we organized it so that they would give us a ride and that way we would save time and money and both be able to go to our separate lessons. Well at about 8 in the morning we get a text from nunzia saying that her son and husband are sick and we can’t come anymore. So we texted the Anziani and for some reason they were really pushing for us to still go to Trani (later i came to find out that they felt like they were being repeatedly told by the spirit to get us to go) So we texted our member who got surgery last week and who told us that we couldn’t go visit her after her surgery. She told us we could pass by so the plan was to go to her house and then stop by nunzia’s just to say hello anyway. (Well me being me had this thought come to my mind. “Well sorella lomartire (the one that got surgery) always feeds us lunch so while she’s sick we should bring stuff to her house and make her lunch!” Great idea right? So we texted her and asked if we could use her kitchen and she said no. And what did I do? I put everything we had in our house to make a four-course meal and chocolate chip cookies in a bag and we drove to Trani with the Anziani. As I was walking out the door I just said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to make something out of this day because we were going all in. Haha ok so when we get there sorella baielli and I had to go to the store because I didn’t want to show up without some ingredients and then have to leave her house and get all of the ingredients so we ran to the store and then showed up at her house. She had bought us cornetti and made us some orzo and there was some small talk and then I just said, “hey sorella we brought everything to make you lunch, can we make you lunch.” And she said.....YES! So we were able to make her lunch and chocolate chip cookies and I think it was really special for her. No one has ever done anything like that for her and I think she appreciated it. That made my day and was such a miracle. 

THEN we had some cookies left over that we were going to take to Nunzia. I didn’t want to bother her especially because she told us we couldn’t come, but we just wanted to take her and her family some cookies to let them know we were thinking of them. So we tried calling and she didn’t answer so we just rang the doorbell and her darling seven-year-old daughter, Miriam, opened the door and let us in. Nunzia told us we could stay and so long story short, the Anziani left and went to go see a different contact while sorella baielli and I did her dishes and helped pack up some boxes (because they are in the process of moving). It was time for us to start leaving and the Anziani came pack to pick us up, but we hadn’t had a lesson and we weren’t prepared for one because we didn’t think we were going to be able to see her. So we were going fully on the SPIRIT! We watched the video “grazie a lui” And I asked everyone who Jesus Christ is for them. Then I asked because of that information and that faith, what do we need to DO? Anziano cutler chimed in that we can’t heal people miraculously or walk on water, but we can be baptized in the exact same way that He was baptized. Which led nunzia to ask what the difference was between her baptism and ours and we just bore testimony of the restoration and the priesthood and the spirit was so strong and then we closed it and left! I have never left so quickly after a lesson and I have never felt that I really left the spirit somewhere in my life. 

AND THEN 

At the gesso we saw our ex investigator Grazia and she has seen a lot of miracles in her life recently and she was so happy and we asked her to come to church on Sunday and she came! 

Ok, I’m not going to keep going, but basically, I have a testimony that Heavenly Father knows His children. He loves us. He answers prayers. And He guides us through the gift and power of the Holy Ghost. 

And I wouldn’t trade being on a mission for anything. 

Love

Sorella G ♥️🇮🇹

BE WHERE YOUR FEET ARE

This week was probably one of the best weeks I have ever had in my life....

Ok that might be exaggerating a little bit, but it was an incredible week. 

Sorella Baielli ate a green bean!!! I cooked like onions, mushrooms, green beans, and some chicken and made her try a green bean and she said to me this morning, “I think I’m going to buy green beans this week.” WHAT?? She didn’t end up doing so, but that is a big step considering that the first thing she said to me was, “I don’t like vegetables and if you try to make me eat them I will get mad. And I don’t want to get mad so please don’t make me eat them.”

The best part of our week started off with the Halloween party we had. It was so much FUN! We made a lot of cute little Halloween treats and taught them a bunch of scary vocabulary haha they actually didn’t like that, but we played some games and scared some people!! With the mystery boxes that were “brains” but really just cooked spaghetti. We had lots of fun. Then when we got home we got scared out of our MINDS by the other Sorelle. They had been waiting at home and had taken out my suitcase and acted like someone went through it. Chairs were knocked over and boxes were on the ground and we didn’t know what to do. We heard one of our balcony doors slam and started freaking out. We went into the hallway and called the Anziani and the Sorelle jumped out and yelled, “Happy Halloween!!” IT WAS SO SCARY. Sorella Baielli started crying haha. 

Then we took a lovely trip to Roma. We took this bus that drove us past all of the beautiful countryside, which is one of my most favorite things about Italy and we also stopped in Napoli......so we were able to get a pizza.......and it was the best pizza I have ever eaten in my life. 

Then the conference came and when I saw Sorella Demann I ran to her and she started crying and it was the best hug I have had in a long time. I love her so much and we just kept hugging because it was like it wasn’t real haha. I have been waiting for 9 months to see her!!! We were visited by Elder Enjbeow (I think I am spelling it wrong, but I don’t know how to spell it) anyway he was called as a general authority in this past general conference and there were a lot of things that really stuck out to me. The assistants said something that I loved which was, “be where your feet are.” And I think that applies to everyone everywhere. But Elder Engbjerg said, “sometimes you have to go a long way to save someone.” I loved that because to Heavenly Father, we are all His children who He loves. He cares for His children one by one and it’s up to us as rescuers to bring His children home, one by one. 

We also had MLC and it was a very neat experience. It was more of a counsel setting and they gave us some time to meditate upon a couple of questions. One of which was, “what have I learned from President and Sister Pickerd that I know I am going to be remembering and do for the rest of my life?” The first thought that came to my head was, “seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Just like all of the great leaders in the church they sacrifice health, family, and personal comforts to serve their fellow men. They have so much charity and are filled with the spirit. They also teach us doctrine and then let us govern ourselves which, in my opinion, is the healthiest way to help someone learn. 

On Saturday we had a lesson with Nunzia. She will not be able to be baptized before I get home, but we had a great discussion about the plan of salvation. She said, “I didn’t really expect for you guys to come tonight, but it was as if God himself came here tonight to tell me these things.” She is so awesome I wish I could explain it. She also told us she was going to come to church in Bitonto on Sunday! And so we told her we would come. We walked into church and she texts us telling us that she can’t come haha. But that’s ok. 

There were some other funny things that happened this week, but this email is already very long so I will just leave you with one last thing. 

At the mission tour, I had the opportunity to bear my last testimony to the missionaries (meno male it’s not my last testimony ever) and it was a little difficult to pick something to bear my testimony because there are obviously A LOT of things that I have gained a testimony of. But I thought the most important thing for me to share with them was the testimony I have gained of the law of sacrifice. I didn’t find true happiness on my mission until I learned how to give up myself. I needed to understand a little bit more the principle of grace and accepting the will of God. I thought that going on a mission would be a way for me to tell Heavenly Father thank you for all of the blessings that He has given me in my life. But going on a mission was not a sacrifice for me. It’s never a sacrifice when you get back more than you give.

Love,

Sorella G ♥️🇮🇹

OLY TITANS IN ITALY

AND HALLOWEEN PARTY IN BARI

 BEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD - NAPOLI 

MY MTC GROUP 

LOVE SORELLA GLEAVES