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 ♥️🇮🇹