Dear family and friends:
This week, I was reading about Ammon and his brethren teaching among
the Lamanites. And while I was reading, I wondered if Aaron and his
brethren ever felt like not successful missionaries compared to Ammon.
Ammon seemed to have much success with King Lamoni but Aaron and his
brethren were thrown in prison. Something that has been on my mind
lately is how to know if I'm a successful missionary. There is a great
paragraph in Preach My Gospel about it, but it is still difficult at
times to believe when I see other missionaries around me having what
the world calls success. But I really liked a lesson in the manual
from Howard W. Hunter called true greatness. It had some good
thoughts, like this:
"there is within each of us a giant struggling with celestial homesickness."
"we often allow unfair and improper comparisons to destroy our
happiness when they cause us to feel unfulfilled or inadequate or
unsuccessful. Sometimes, because of these feelings, we are led into
error and dwell on our failures while ignoring aspects of our lives
that may contain elements of true greatness"
"True greatness is never a result of a chance occurrence or a one-time
effort or achievement. Greatness requires the development of
character."
And... "We are each different and unique; we have each had different
starting points in the race of life; we each have a unique mixture of
talents and skills; we each have our own set of challenges and
constraints with which to contend. Therefore, our judgment of
ourselves and our achievements should not merely include the size or
magnitude and number of our accomplishments; it should also include
the conditions that have existed and the effect that our efforts have
had on others. We have an unlimited number of opportunities to do the
many simple and minor things that will ultimately make us great."
The number of baptisms someone has on the mission does not make the
missionary, and this past week, I've felt the spirit work through me,
so I know that the Lord is pleased.
We went to see Elena this week. We had a lesson planned that just a
few hours before wasn't sitting right with me. We wanted to review the
restoration with her, but I didn't want to teach the whole thing from
scratch because she's a less active. But we still needed to cover why
the restoration needed to happen. :) It ended up being a really great
lesson, and the spirit was strong, and it still amazes me how much one
can learn about the restoration and never have it be enough. Or
anything in the gospel really.
Then we had a lesson with Nicole. She is one of our investigators that
I don't think I've told you about yet. Probably because this is only
the 2nd time I've seen her. She is 15, and met the sisters through
English course. And she took all the lessons and wants to be baptized,
but the only problem is that her mom is not on the same page. So we're
going to see what we can do about that in the coming weeks. She is
really cute and has a sweet spirit about her. We were thinking about
setting a baptism date with her for the year 2019. Haha... I think it
would work. ;)
One night this week, we went train finding. This is when we get on a
train, sit down next to someone, tell them we're getting off at the
next stop, and teach them about the restoration. We got a few people
who were interested in English course, and actually had to get off at
one of the stops since the woman was sitting next to the window.
Haha.. It was fun, and better than doing finding out in the rain.
While walking home, Sorella Hunter and I decided crepes sounded good
again.. So we stopped in to get some after counting out the exact
number of coin we needed. When I paid, I handed the man the coins, he
looked at them, and said thank you with a weird look on his face. It
was funny, and afterwards we realized how desperate we were. Haha..
One day, we met this Canadian couple on the train. They were on a 52
day cruise that starts in England and ends in China. They did a 58 day
cruise one last year and at the end of this cruise, they will have
sailed for more than 700+ days. I can't even imagine being on the same
boat for 2 months. Or how much food I would eat. They also enlightened
us on the fact that diamond rings in Caribbean namely on St. Thomas
island are way cheaper than the US. They said that you can buy a
cruise there and the ring for the price of a ring in the US. They
would know, because her diamond on her ring was the size of a marble.
Literally. It was quite the rock.
I made cake for English course, and had leftovers so I gave some to
the bishopric as they were meeting. The bishop is always around when I
happen to make cake, so he just lucks out. I've been experimenting
with baking and cooking lately.
After English course, we went to get pizza. I tried to film them
making it, but they made it too fast. I guess it just gives us an
excuse to go back and get more. He owner, Angelo, (I wrote about him
last week) saw us holding Books of Mormon and we ended up giving him
one that night. The next night, the sisters (there was a scambio) went
to get pizza again, and they said that it looked like they read some
of it. Score!
Friday morning, we rode the train to Rome to begin our scambio. I went
to Rome 2 with Sorella Tingey. But the real story is what happened on
the train. We ran to catch it, and it was pretty full, but there was a
seat upstairs next to this guy. His name was Giovanni again... And he
is Italian, but works in Germany. He was visiting his family. We
started a conversation, the woman across the aisle joined in, and we
were given the opportunity to introduce the restoration and leave them
both with restoration pamphlets. Giovanni also liked us because we're
cute American girls, and gave us fresh lemons. He also lightly put his
hand on my waist when he stood up and "lost his balance". Sorella
Hunter and I have started to think that Sorella Tellez was our
protection from men. They never talked to us or made comments when she
was around.
We had a great scambio and we headed back the next morning. It was
raining, so that was a nice surprise. During the scambio, we taught
Natalia (Rome 2's new convert) and she is so fun to be around because
she has such a light. I find it so much easier to do finding in Rome
since they use public transportation more, but I know that Heavenly
Father is strengthening my weakness of talking to people by making it
harder for me. I've really had to hand my will over to him this past
week, and as a result, we saw miracles. :)
At the train station waiting for the other sisters, Sorella Tingey
bought a candy bar. It was 1€ but she only had a 20€. Little stores
here don't have change... Hardly ever, so the lady was like.. Sorry.
It doesn't work. (Non va.) So Sorella Tingey bartered with her for 97
cents. Haha... :)
We finally got to see this less active we've been trying to see for
the last 4 months on Saturday. Sorella van zwet finally let us come
see her. We had an appointment a few months ago, but it ended up that
we couldn't go and couldn't call her because we lost our phone. But
she forgave us and we made an appointment. But then I was freaking out
because we were going to be late because the trains don't run as much
on Saturdays. We accidentally forgot about that when we planned the
scambio. But I called her, and she just said we could come later.
Tender mercy... I thought we ruined our chance of ever seeing her for
good. It went well and her little dachshund fell in love with me. When
the animal likes you, the people automatically warm up to you more. :)
Because the train was late going home, we met this cute couple from
Texas. We didn't get the opportunity to talk much about the gospel.
But he mentioned how his doctor is Mormon back home. We also helped
them figure out train times in English. I think they were grateful for
us, and that we spoke English. Then when they go home, they'll
remember and get baptized. :)
We also met this super cute woman from Florida, originally from Cuba.
We talked to her for the entire train ride home. Just from listening,
she said several things that made us realize she doesn't agree with
the Catholic Church all the way. So before we got off, I told her that
"I think you should look up the missionaries when you get home to
Flordia, because I think you will really like what message they have
to share. Here's a card with our site on it." She was so excited that
it had a qr code and said she would look it up right then. Her name
was Marta, and she was another miracle.
Another night this week, we met Gigi. He is from Romania, and we found
him in a park on a bench watching his son play. We were sitting on
another bench because we were talking to a woman who left us a few
minutes before. And we awkwardly said hello over the seesaw that was
in between us. As we started talking, he kind of went on a tangent
about how people are evil and we are just waiting to be destroyed and
how after Christ, nothing happened again.. And how we are pretty much
just the scum of the earth. To his amazement, we were able to tell him
that actually something did happen after the death of Christ.
Afterwards, he said, "well, I hope what you said is true." And we were
like, "well, you can actually know for yourself if you read this
book." He said he would, and his son seemed pretty interested as well.
Sorella Hunter and I always seem to talk to people from different
countries. There isn't a problem with that, but usually every week, we
have to leave DDM with a few different copies of Books of Mormon in
different languages for all the different people we meet. We've talked
to people from Georgia, India, Romania, Ukraine, Albania, America, and
Cuba. Everyone at some point or another will have the opportunity to
hear the gospel. :)
On Sunday, we figured out we can use google translate to help Somma
understand the lessons better. It translates it into Punjabi and after
seeing all different crazy types of languages, I'm just counting my
blessings I got to learn a language with a normal alphabet.
Last night, we also met some cute women and their son/grandson. They
are practicing Catholics, but the grandmother said she would be
interested in coming to church one time to see what it is all about.
As we have done lots and lots of finding this week, Heavenly Father
has blessed us with at least one person every time who wants to listen
to us. He knows we are working hard and trying our best. And we are
continually seeing miracles from it.
Being a missionary is the best, hardest, most worthwhile thing I've
ever done. I love serving my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. :)
Love,
Sorella Flansberg
Missione Italiana di Roma
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