Hello family and friends!
I'm really feeling the "missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience" this week. But just because this week has been a bit difficult does not mean I haven't seen any blessings. Because I have. They are always there. Like a sliver of sunshine hiding in the clouds. And I find myself being grateful for the little things.
On Monday for p-day, the anziani wanted to go bowling again. It looks like I made a few friends with my bowling idea last week. I also think Anz. Pope just wanted to beat me.. Which he did, but I am blaming it on the fact that I still didn't feel 100 percent healthy. We tied the first game at 114. Then, that evening we went to help this lady call her grandson who only speaks English about some family problems. She took the lessons before and was not interested. She is like full on Catholic, but she is always willing to have us share a short, let me repeat... Short spiritual thought with her. This time we talked about prophets and how general conference is coming up soon! Side note: I am so excited for general conference!!! Although listening in Italian, we'll just have to see how that goes.. She thought it was interesting that we have a living prophet, so next time we go we will show her a talk by President Monson.
Tuesday was absolutely crazy! We had an appointment with a less active that morning who believes in reincarnation now, so we were going to teach her about the plan of salvation. Speaking of which: there was something I really liked in the pamphlet for that lesson. It says, "when we choose to follow Christ, and keep his commandments, we grow in wisdom and we strengthen our character" or something along those lines. Ever since I watched the character of Christ in the MTC, the idea of a person's character has been so intriguing to me. Elder Bednar described character as the moral qualities of a person that are consistently lived, strongly developed, and strikingly displayed. How cool that we can strengthen our character of being a disciple of Jesus Christ by following his example. Back to the lesson. We ended up walking to the street she lives on when we remembered that we had forgotten our phone so we didn't have the number of where she lives. The street was pretty short, so instead of walking back, we rang on citofones all the way down the street to see if anybody knew where this woman lived, but I guess nobody knows their neighbors because nobody knew her. Va beh, oh well. We'll straighten the reincarnation thing out some other time. :) Then, we ate lunch and did lingua and we had a lesson planned with the proposal man. We were a bit hesitant to go because of the awkward messages he had sent. But, we took pictures of our boyfriends with us.. My boyfriend, and Sorella Defranchi's ex.. She dug that one up real quick. ;) Anyways, it went alright. He tried to explain the proposal thing as a psalm, but we just said that we are representatives of Christ and should be treated as such. We then taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he still wants to be baptized.. He just needs to come to church, which he still didn't do. That is something else I have noticed. A lot of people will be willing to listen to us and they will feel the spirit and they think that what we are saying could be true, but they won't act on those feelings. I feel like Italians and maybe just Europeans in general because I see it in my companion sometimes too, or maybe it is just the human mentality, that they don't want to change. They close their minds that change is possible and that change can sometimes be better than the old routines of tradition. Not all the time, but I still think we should be open and willing to change things that are not contrary to our standards. It's what my mom and dad say.. Is it a preference or a principle? I mean obviously changing your life completely is hard, and I understand that most people don't like change, but I think we should remain open minded and when we decide to do something, we should do it wholeheartedly. :)
Then, the other thing from Tuesday. We met with Angela, our beautiful investigator who we haven't seen for 6 weeks because she was living 2 hours away. She told us that she wanted to be baptized!! We were so excited, and I really can't tell you how amazing she is. She just needs to tell her dad because her mom is okay with whatever decision she makes, but her dad is playing the "it's your decision.. But I will be disappointed if you choose one over the other." Why do parents do that anyways? :p Before you get too excited though, she is now just thinking about it again because of something that happened after our lesson. I will keep you guys in touch, but for now... Just keep her in your prayers.
On Wednesday, we had DDM in the morning. And my mind was blown by this week's life tip. It kind of has something to do with the character of Christ. So, there are 3 types of good things. The first is that when you do something, it feels good while you do it, but there aren't any positive consequences afterwards. (Like smelling a flower). The second is that it doesn't necessarily make you feel good as you do it, but the positive consequences come afterwards. (Like working out). The third category is something that does both. Feels good when you do it, and reaps positive consequences after. So, we tried to prove that being righteous is in the 3rd category of good. We all know that when we are righteous, we get blessings... So we won't argue that point. That is defined. :) Anyways, so to evaluate the first point, one would have to be righteous without reaping the rewards. The question becomes, would a person be righteous even if everyone including God hated them for it? Well, the perfect person (Jesus Christ) did. Saying God hated Jesus Christ is a bit extreme, but he didn't take away the cup of the atonement from Christ. This proves that Jesus Christ was a righteous man for the sake of being righteous and not for the fact that he would receive blessings. So, to become a more Christlike person, we must do what is right because it is right. We must change our motivation for doing good. The natural man says, "what's in it for me?" Whereas Christ would not respond that way. This means we can ask ourselves.. Why am I doing this?" Is it to do good or is it to receive blessings? MIND BLOWN. :)
Then I guess I shared my germs with Sorella Defranchi.. Oops! So, Wednesday was another sick day.
Haha.. So because the bus schedule is so unpredictable here, we have come to the conclusion that unless we are going to the church (when the bus is unavoidable) that we will only take buses when we see them as we are walking. This sometimes turns into running after the buses in a skirt and sandals. It is a real fun hobby, and I recommend everyone try it out someday. I'm pretty sure that is the only time I wish I wore pencil skirts everyday so my skirt wouldn't flop up every time I run. Oh well. :)
Also, random question: does adding more chocolate chips to a cookie recipe change the consistency of a cookie while it is cooking?
Thursday was like the most tiring day ever... We decided to do a gesso as the missionaries in Catania, so we found a piazza and we took a sheet and chalk and we drew some of the prophets from the bible, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, and Thomas S. Monson. I thought this was going to be really fun, and it was... sort of fun. I just wasn't aware of the fact that I would have to talk to people by myself in Italian. Luckily, but not luckily, most people would say they were too busy or say that they weren't interested, so I didn't have to say more than my original, "can I ask you a question?" So lots of rejection, and the people who did listen were patient with my Italian, but I made sure to say a prayer that night to give all the people I talked to another chance to come in contact with the gospel. ;) Haha.. It was a good experience. :) And we did it outside the Vincenzo Bellini Opera House which is super pretty, hence the picture.
Then when we got home from English course, I went to the kitchen to eat and I saw one. I saw a cockroach. But, come to find out, there was a group of cockroaches, adults and babies all over our kitchen cabinets. Eek! I survived though... And I am just really glad we discovered them now because if it had been after this transfer when I might have a new companion, I probably would just sit in a corner crying... Pathetic, but cockroaches are disgusting.
Something else really disgusting that happened this week is that the trash men in the not so great side of town where some of our less actives live went on strike. This means nobody came to pick up the trash and so the piles just grew and grew and grew and then sat in the hot sun and became extra stinky.. And it was nasty. I guess they went on strike because they don't get paid enough which happens quite often and so now I am seeing the benefits of having at least a minimum wage. And I don't know what the law is here in Italy, but it seems a lot of people don't get paid enough for the work they do.
Sunday, I had my first experience calling people on the phone. I wrote down what I was going to say beforehand, and my heart was beating so fast. I don't like talking on the phone to people in English, let alone in a language I have been speaking for 4 months. But, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The hard thing is that I understand more than I know how to reply, so if they asked a question that wasn't part of my script... Uh.... Here's my comp. She actually speaks Italian. ;) haha..
Something really eye opening that I did this week was picking out the different parts of my patriarchal blessing. Like who I am, promises, and warnings or things I need to do. It was a really cool way to see more in the blessing than I've seen before. The next time you read your patriarchal blessing, I recommend doing this. :)
In my district, we have been focusing on how we need to recognize our talents, so we can develop them, and so we can bless others with our talents, and so we can keep them like in the parable. We talked about how we develop them and there are several steps, but my favorite was practicing. Practicing is the hardest, but it is the most necessary. We talked about how the act of doing something, like playing the piano, doesn't change, but our ability to play changes. This made me ponder something else, so going with the first sentence in this email, I've been pondering the atonement lately. I am also at the end of Mosiah with Book of Mormon reading. I love chapter 24 because it talks about the people of the city of Helam who were under the bondage of the Lamanites. In verse 12, the people cried to the Lord to take away their burden, but the Lord responded by saying that he would deliver them, but not right away. However, he did ease the burden. I was thinking how sometimes, most of the time, the Lord does not change our circumstances when we have trials, but he does strengthen us so it easier to bear them up so we can't feel them. I've decided serving a mission is always going to be hard. But I do believe that the missionary will change and be given strength from the Lord to carry on even when everything seems to be falling apart. I was also reading a talk called, The Windows of Heaven, by David A. Bednar. One thing I really liked in that talk is that sometimes blessings come in ways that we don't expect, and we can overlook them. Also that God sometimes gives us something that we didn't ask for because he knows what we need more than we do. I am so grateful for the enabling power of the atonement that changes me into a better person that can do harder things than I ever thought I could.
I can't believe transfer calls are this week. In a week and a half, I am done being a greenie. Woohoo! Time is flying. I've been gone longer than a semester of school now, and it went so much faster than those 16 weeks at school. I love Italy and I love being a missionary even when it is hard. I love sharing my testimony with others. And I am grateful for all of the support. Thank you for all the prayers. I know that they have helped me in some way or another.
Well, I love you all. Have a fantastic week!
Love,
Sorella Flansberg
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