Week 21!

La mia famiglia e cari amici:

This week was bound to be a really good one as we are teaching so many
people right now who have a lot of potential. Along with all our less
actives/new converts, we barely found time to fit all our appointments
in including our time of travel, which is actually a lot. Speaking of
travel, I have become really grateful for walking. Because I walk so
much, I can also eat a lot. And the food here is so so good. I am also
grateful that Sorella Decker enjoys food as much as I do. But I also
hate walking because it takes forever, and a lot of our time is taken
up by it. But anyways, we were a bit stressed during weekly planning
last week because we had zone conference this week. And as amazing as
zone conference is, it takes up pretty much an entire day. But we
found the time to plan everything out, and it was going to be a really
good week. I just wish everyone else's schedules would work out the
way we plan. Haha.. :)

Zone conference. I am sure you all saw pictures already, but the
pictures don't do any justice for how good it was. I love zone
conferences. They always motivate me to be a better missionary. This
time we talked about good role plays and inspired questions. The best
thing I learned is that it isn't always the words in a question that
make the question inspired, but it is also the way the person asks the
question. When we ask questions with charity and love and with the
spirit, they become inspired.

On Wednesday, we were cooking lunch and our power went out. I guess we
had too many things on at once. And since that has never happened
before, we didn't know how to go about turning it back on. So we
called the anziani and thank goodness they knew or we would still be
living in the dark. Haha.. We are geniuses, and I now have the
knowledge how to turn it back on. :)

We were warned on Wednesday that there was going to be a 36 hour storm
starting at midnight that night, and it was supposedly a code red
storm.. But literally it rained for like 2 hours the next morning and
then nothing else. Although the sky looked absolutely sick. Sick as in
really cool. :) We were really grateful that it didn't rain that much
though because we already were squishing appointments together real
tight. Just more proof that weather reports here are not ideal.

We had a lesson with Gabriella on Thursday morning, and we were able
to finish teaching the restoration without a hitch. She also read like
all of the introduction pages to the Book of Mormon. That seriously
never happens. Then we invited her to be baptized, and she became all
excited and said yes. I love moments like that. The spirit is always
the strongest in those moments, and especially here in Italy.. It
becomes super surreal when they respond positively.

In English course, we talked about clothing and because we teach the
advanced class, we ended up talking about the nit-picky types of
clothing. Like all the types of shirt collars/lines. Then, one of the
men who stares at me a bit creepily asked what the tank tops are that
men wear around the house. In English, they are called wife beaters,
but we weren't about to tell him that. So, we just told him they are
called tank tops. Someday he will probably figure out that we lied.
Oops.

Also, that night while I was looking for a spiritual thought to share
with English course, I found something really cool on lds.org. It was
an article by family search called 52 questions for 52 weeks. So, they
put together 52 questions to ask yourself and then you are supposed to
write your answers down once a week until you have written out an
entire history about you after a year. I thought that was a super cool
idea, and it is something that I am sure grandchildren and great
grandchildren and great great grandchildren would love to read
someday. So hint hint... Look it up. And then do it. I will do it when
I get home, and then update it every so often since the questions
change over time. ;)

On Friday morning, we were really excited because we were going to
have a member present lesson. One of the 19 year old girls in the ward
here finally decided to serve a mission, so she asked if she could
help us out with a few of our lessons. We were like, "absolutely!!"
So, we called her Thursday night, she was miraculously available, and
Samuele and Teresa actually agreed to meet us at the church. It was
literally a miracle. Anyways, then Friday morning came, our bus was
late, Samuele and Teresa ran into a detour on the road and arrived
there like 5 minutes before they had to leave again, and so it ended
up failing big time, but at least we tried. We were a bit disappointed
that it all didn't work out, but then they told us that they have been
following the calendar for reading the Book of Mormon that we gave
them. And Sorella Decker and I *exaggeratedly* fell to the ground and
gave thanks to the Lord. But really.

Then, this week was the beginning of pranzos with members. The anziani
had the idea of meeting with more ward members so the ward mission
leader is trying to coordinate more meals for us. It is super nice,
because now we get to eat more delicious food. And get to know the
members better. Win win situation.

I also started to read conference talks in Italian for language study
with Sorella Decker since she actually wants to help me with learning
the language. It is really cool to read them, plus it helps me with
speaking Italian since we read them out loud. I just love conference
talks even from a few years ago. I can't wait to get to the super old
ones, but that will take awhile since I am going backwards.

Jennifer's new job offer did not go so well. Then things got hairy
scary last week with her. I won't go into details, but please pray for
her. She is still coming to church so it has nothing to do with that.
I am just really grateful that the ward members are taking care of
her. Because at this point, we are unable to get involved because we
are representatives of Christ and of the church.

We also had a lesson with Iole and Gesualdo. I can tell that my
Italian is progressing, because I was actually able to understand
almost all of the intellectual conversation that was taking place. I
understood the jokes.. And ahh. I was so happy. I just need to work on
expressing myself now that I understand most everything.

Angela came to church yesterday. We were so happy to see her and we
got to finally talk about what her parents said. She still wants to be
baptized and we are working towards that, but she needs to take time
to explain it all to her parents bit by bit. Slow and steady wins the
race. At least we are out of the "I don't know" stage. She came to
zone conference because the Clarks invited her, and all of the anziani
were staring at her with their jaws to the floor. But they had good
reason, I suppose. She is the Italian version of Rapunzel and she is
gorgeous. :)

Sorella Clark referred to me as her secret weapon this week. And I
guess I know my scriptures really well, at least from the Book of
Mormon. All I know is that in lessons, I try to use the scriptures
often because they teach better than I can and it is a great medium
for inviting the spirit in. And also, I listen to the promptings of
the spirit which is obviously easier to do when I teach in English.
I'm glad she thinks I am a good missionary though. I am doing my best.

So, you know how we all want some super human abilities someday? Well,
I read in Jesus the Christ that after the Resurrection, we will all be
super heroes. Haha.. We can be invisible, defy gravity or fly, and
walk through walls with our resurrected bodies. How cool is that? ;)

Alma 31 reminded me a lot about the Catholic Church at least with the
recited prayers and the going to church once a week. Although here, I
have also met the most people who are active Catholics but also the
most people who say they are Catholic, but don't know anything about
it. I just wish everyone would want to join the church, because there
is a lot missing from all the years of the dark ages.

Alma 41:8 was a scripture that touched me this week. It talks about
how Christ's plan is already set up, and already completed. All we
need to do is accept it and turn to Christ. The decrees of God are
unalterable and all we need is to walk in the path. The thing that hit
me, or (mi ho colpito) the most was that it doesn't matter where we
have been or what we have done, there is a path for us to get back on.
That path is always there. It doesn't disappear when we do something
really bad. It is always there. It is unalterable. The atonement is
truly for everyone.

Covenants have also been on my mind a lot. I'm getting into the Isaiah
chapters of the Book of Mormon in Italian, and I just love the
emphasis Isaiah puts on covenants. That God will never forget his
covenant people. He keeps his side of the promises we make if we keep
ours. For we will not be ashamed if we are with those who wait for
him. I am so grateful for the covenants I have made with my Heavenly
Father. I know that he loves me, and I know that he will help me along
the path back home. He gave me a savior to help me out, and I will
forever be a disciple of him who took upon him the sins of the world.
I know that he lives and that he truly is the light and life of the
world. And I will proclaim it to the ends of the world until the day I
die, and most likely even after that in the spirit world. ;)

Vi voglio tanto bene!

Con amore,
Sorella Flansberg