Dear people whom I love:
I'm sitting here on some stairs looking out at the beautiful sea in
Civitavecchia. It is this gorgeous little tourist town that is 20
minutes away from Ladispoli, the one where cruise ships stop. It's
basically Hawaii. And I am not complaining.
The week started with a miracle. On Monday, after p-day, we went to
find a less active who works at a veterinarian clinic. It's kind of a
show up and see if she has time kind of deal, so we went and she
didn't have time. You're probably thinking, what kind of miracle was
that? But wait for it... I felt a prompting to stop by and see another
less active. I was a little confused, because this less active never
lets us in after 5, and she usually isn't home, so I thought... "Why
would we go see Enriquetta?" But I followed the prompting, and lo and
behold, she was home and she let us in. And we had a beautiful lesson
with her (best lesson because it wasn't rushed and the spirit was so
strong) about the Book of Mormon and the strength we can receive by
reading it everyday. Everything I said was led by the spirit, and I
could feel it. It was one of the most unified lessons we've had in
this lovely trio.
And Tuesday after DDM, we began the scambio that was long awaited for.
I went to Rome 6 with Sorella Roberts, one of the sisters in my MTC
group, and her companion went to Ladispoli with my companions. We had
another sister from our group on a scambio with the other sister in
the house, so we had some time to reminisce on just how fast the
mission has gone. With Sorella Roberts, we planned to go find some
less actives, but none of them ended up being home, which gave us lots
of time to talk. And heaven knows I needed that. It was kind of nice
to hear that I'm not the only one who has struggled with things on the
mission. It is a universal thing. :) We had a lot of fun together. We
ended up getting gelato one night, because as the saying goes, "gelato
fixes everything". :)
On Thursday morning, we went to watch the Sunday afternoon session of
conference. It was amazing like all the rest of them. It was kind of
cool because both Elder Hallstrom, and Elder Kearon came and spoke to
the mission, and then they spoke in conference. I do have to say Elder
Kearon's talk about refugees hit home for me. I've seen all of what he
described first hand on the mission, and it reminded me of people I've
met like Jennifer and all the help the Bruno's gave to her. I know
that they have seen the blessings from that in their lives even though
it wasn't always easy or convenient to serve. I was going to pick out
the other talks I liked the most, but I couldn't. They all spoke to my
heart.
Friday morning, president asked us to come visit with him in Rome. So,
we all had personal interviews with him, and it was nice. He just
joked around a bit about the whole trio thing, and how we should all
walk in a line on the sidewalk, next to each other, link arms, and
play red rover with people and make them talk to us. Haha... And then
he gave us all some much needed advice on how to make the work grow in
Ladispoli. He also asked me why I was scared of him. I wouldn't
necessarily say I'm scared of him, but he does intimidate me a little
bit. He told me that his job is to be my friend, and Sorella Waddoups'
job is to break boxes. Haha... So I should be scared of her. ;)
WARNING: For all missionaries that read this... Please keep up to date
with your area book. I do have to say that I haven't been the best at
this since Sorella Condé left, and it wasn't until I started going
through when I realized that we had a lot to update. Sometimes when
the work is slow, you forget to add the little things that happen. But
no worries, we got all of it up to date and functioning again.
Friday night, we had a nice little lesson about prophets with the
Bendezu family. We played a little game with the kids. We blindfolded
one of them, and the other hid the Book of Mormon, and then we had the
blindfolded one try to find it. Obviously, it was a little hard. Then
we had the mom guide the blindfolded one to help him find it. When
they found it, I think they all had a new understanding of prophets.
Prophets guide us to find truth.
Saturday, we went to Civitavecchia to find a less active who we
weren't sure lived there, but it was the only city that had this
certain street name, so we went. And we talked to a lot of people on
the way. One gave us her phone number, one completely ignored us, one
tried to argue with us, and we gave one a Book of Mormon. But back to
the original missing less active. We arrived and started walking, and
as we continued walking, we were starting to get a little confused
because where the map said she lives, there was ocean, and more ocean.
We kind of joked about her living on a boat. In the end, we didn't
find her, but we did find our p-day destination and it is beautiful
here. There is also a cool fort that looks a bit like a giant castle.
Pictures will be attached.
This weekend, Friday - Sunday was the Carcioffi Festival in Ladispoli.
Carcioffi means artichokes, and everybody grows them here. It was this
huge festival covering all of the main roads in the city and going
everywhere. I wish it would have still been going on today, because it
looked so fun! There were so many people here from all over the place,
and I meant to take a picture... But I forgot. Since so many people
were there, we took advantage of the opportunity and did some corso
d'inglese (English course) finding. It wasn't very fun at first
because everybody rejected us... But then we got into the groove,
smiled a bit more, and people began to at least take the pass along
cards. One thing that people do here to say they don't want to talk to
us is wag their finger. I've come to hate that, and it stings more
than, "no, thank you, but I'm not interested." But hopefully in the
next few weeks, we'll have a few more students at English course since
that has been lacking lately, and then we can find new investigators
from that. :)
Other than that, testimony meeting on Sunday was on point. I liked
what someone said about Neill F. Marriott's talk. How when we love
somebody, we make space for them in our life. She then asked, "how
much space are we making in our lives for Christ?" Just a nice little
thought to ponder about. And then I really liked something that
Jeffrey R. Holland said. It might be out of order, but... "Keep
loving, keep trying, keep trusting, keep going, and keep
believing....The heavens are cheering you on." I just love the fact
that we will be judged according to the things we did, but also the
things that we had the earnest desire to do and that we kept trying to
do even if we kept failing.
I love being a missionary... And I love living in one of the most
beautiful places ever!
Con tanto amore,
Sorella Flansberg
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