2017-04-12 Slow Week, But Not Really

It sort of felt like a slow week, but in retrospect, a fair amount got
done! We had a lesson with an investigator one day, another
investigator the next, a third investigator the next, a member that
same day, and then a zone conference the day after! On the which, we
got slammed with a bunch of questions about prophets (ok, awesome),
got put down by three middle-aged catholic women about the divinity of
the Catholic Church (ahhh...) followed by one of their atheist
husbands (aAaAHh!), spent 40 minutes watching a bunch of Italian
ragazzi play soccer while we waited for our new investigator, who we
later found sitting on a bench waiting for US (could have gone better,
but not complaining), got an awesome referral!, and did a role-play
training for zone conference! So yeah, love the mission! Tonight we
are doing missionary work with all of the YW/YM in the ward....hope it
goes well! Have a good week everyone!

Easter Eggs

Easter Shopping

Lots of Easter Candy at the stores

The Arno

Another Trip around Pisa

2017-04-05 Mostra

What a week! Much has happened and much is about to happen.

So a cool story, our president recently released new rulings that we
are allowed TWO cultural events per missionary (a cultural event being
something outside of the missionary norms that potentially takes place
at nighttime like an opera or ballet or something). So, with that
background information in mind, let's set the scene of a bus ride to a
member appointment. We are always on buses haha. We were sitting in an
area of four seats, two seats facing two seats. There was a
middle-aged Italian woman in the seat across from me. What she had in
her lap looked like a script for a play, with lines and everything.
So, we started talking to her about if she is an actress. She said yes
and we got her to explain the whole premise of this play and her role
in it. Well, it sounded AWESOME and so we asked her when it was. She
gave us the address and then we asked if we could get her number which
she enthusiastically gave us. Then she started noticing us and who we
are and we got to talking about the church! We explained a little bit
about the restoration, got off the bus together, our appointment with
members got bidoned so we called her up and taught her 20 minutes
after our bus conversation! We met on a bench next to a river and
taught her everything about the restoration. It was so, so cool,
because this is potentially the first time someone has understood the
gravity of the Book of Mormon on the first encounter with
missionaries. When we finished, asked her to read the Book of Mormon
and pray about it, and then we asked her, "what would it mean to you
if you found out that this book is true?" And she was like, "my life
would go into disaggio (distress). It would change everything." And I
was like, oh my gosh, she GETS it!! Haha. Like, I don't want to ruin
her life (this wouldn't), but I was glad she got the significance of
the libro di mormon.

Other than that, this week we went over to a member who was recently
widowed at the ripe old age of 50 :(. She is an angel and such an
example of faith. Anyways, she has this thing where she wants to learn
how to make a dish from every missionary who comes to Firenze. So I'd
been wanting to make her Creamy Poppyseed Chicken casserole for a
while (the red velvet cake mostly just confused them, as it does me,
because they kept asking why it's red, which has been a question that
has haunted me since I first encountered this odd species of cake) but
they don't sell cream of chicken here!! So I was trapped until, lo and
behold, my favorite member from my favorite city (I don't actually
have favorites) called me up from Pordenone and asked me if I wanted
anything from the American base!! Yes, cream of chicken!!
So, we went over to her house, let her tell us how to cook the rice
because South Americans are so picky about how their rice is cooked,
and fed her and her daughter and daughter's boyfriend creamy poppyseed
chicken, a personal favorite.
My heavens. It tasted like home. My heart felt a level of bliss one
can only imagine. It was almost like being hugged by my mom after 14
months. My level of satisfaction was surpassed only by Sorella
Larrain, who exclaimed without ceasing throughout the entire dinner, "
BUONO. Buono, sorelle. Quest'è buono. Mmm. Buono. Buono," until, and
even after, she had finished eating. She said it's the best American
food she's ever eaten! Take that, every other American missionary who
has ever come and ever will come to Firenze! Thank you, mom!

Lastly, something we're pretty excited about is this Mostra we want to
do which us like, any form of a sizable public exhibition for the sake
of stopping and talking to people and making ourselves known. So Pres
has been making a big push for us to be more creative with our finding
and a mostra is something I've always wanted to do but never have. We
are drawing on so many different talents for this, the biggest one
being an art student who is a member here! She's AMAZING. Natural
talent + years of training = she is actually a qualified professional
and she's going to do a chalk drawing of Jesus Christ for us in a
public square. We are so excited and I'll be sure to take pictures
when it happens! Hopefully we'll be able to get some members come and
sing/play so we can have some music too. Meanwhile we will be talking
to people about conquerors and peace, the main themes of the new
Easter video the church sent out! Everybody regardless of faith status
should watch it because it's so beautiful! Here it is!
Mormon.org
Have a good week everybody! I love you all! Let me know what your
thoughts are on the Easter video :)

Notice Thor's Hammer on the far right.

Siena 

Siena

2017-03-29 Transfers

Ah transfers!! Maybe my parents can post the pictures but I got paired up with a sister that I (mostly just jokingly) asked President if I could serve with several months ago. I met her in the MTC and has literally followed me to EVERY city in my mission, whether it be in my district or my zone. So funny. So far it's been too much fun and too miracle-y I'm so lucky I get to serve with one of my best friends in the mission. So so happy! 

So let's just take some time and talk about Sunday. Sundays are always crazy in the mission. Day of rest? What is that? Even pday isn't really because we're running around wearing our feet out soaking up all we can of this amazing country. But this Sunday was THE craziest Sunday of my life!

So, we had,

A sacrament meeting talk, (me), (found out on Saturday)
A primary lesson to teach, (found out on Saturday)

A lunch in church with ~20 non-members to celebrate a baptism
A talk during a baptism, (me), (found out on Saturday)

A lesson with a less-active

A lesson with a new investigator

Race home and pack for spending the night at the senior couple's place

All with a study time grand total of :30 between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Ah.

So all of that actually happened minus the less-active lesson. Sooo crazy!! Add on top of it our amazing investigator fasting without being asked and praying to be sustained (awkward moment when you legitimately just tried to spell that word, "sustegned") by the Spirit and having it actually happen. Then she asked us if we could pray together :') so we did and then we went to relief society together. She is such a rock. She will be baptized one day I know it. She can't right now because of her living situation but we have high hopes for her and the guy she's living with

The sacrament talk went well and so did the primary lesson that was on missionary work. I was asked to speak on how the Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ. An interesting find I made when studying is the connection one word makes between two verses in two different books. Allow me to elaborate; in the Book of Mormon, there is a chapter that quotes the prophet Isaiah that basically testifies of its own truthfulness. It is a prophesy of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Many Christians reject the possibility of more scripture because of certain verses in revelation that say not to add to or take away from the Bible, even though historians agree that revelations wasn't even the last book written in the Bible and that certain gospels were written afterwards. Anyways, both the Bible and the Book of Mormon is the word of God and this verse talks about that - 

2 Nefi 27:14 Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to bring forth the words of the book; and in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good will he establish his word; and wo be unto him that rejecteth the word of God!

So, God is saying that if He wants to establish His word with two witnesses/books then He will do it. But now, in the Bible, we get a new take on what it means to establish His word - 

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So Jesus Christ is the Word. So you could take the BOM verse again and rewrite it something along the lines of, 

Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to bring forth the words of the book; and in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good will he establish Jesus Christ; and wo be unto him that rejecteth Jesus Christ!

So the Bible and Book of Mormon together don't just establish the Word of God, like, words we use for writing, but they also serve to establish the testimony of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, His life, and His sacrifice for us. Such a cool topic.

The baptism was cool, it was a member's daughter and a bunch of family friends were there. We got to do a little group teaching at the end when all the non-members sort of bunched up and were talking about our church so we just kind of sidled up and were like, "yeah we're like that because we believe this!" Basically taught the whole restoration it was a pretty cool deal. Then one of these friends was driving home, saw us at the bus stop, and totally gave us a ride to the station to get to our appointment with our investigator! So cool.

That lesson with our investigator Maria was so awesome. She wanted to know why we don't pray to the Madonna and so I had the opportunity to study that topic all week. Basically the best answer I could come up with is that there is absolutely no scriptural support in favor of praying to anyone besides God...so we shared an explanation from a talk and then we brought up different prayers and parables of prayer from the scriptures and shared them with her. The Spirit was so strong and she prayed at the end of the lesson to God. I love first vocal prayers. None of them are wrong, they're all good. And she totally wants to see us again! So so stoked about this one. All in all it was a good week, I mean, this was just one day in the field! Here's to five more weeks of laughing too much and flopping into bed exhausted every night! I love the mission and plan on working hard all the way through these last four months. Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a good one!

2017-03-22 One Year on Italian Soil

On friday the 24, I'll have spent an entire year of my life on Italian soil. A YEAR. Crazy!

So the work here, all I can say is we're trying our hardest haha but we had to drop SIX investigators and none of the investigators we have left are super solid. But it's interesting, drops, because they seem so sad and so final but nothing's really the end. There's a quote I like about that, talking about the parable of the laborers in the vineyard,

"Like other parables, this one can teach several different and valuable principles. For present purposes its lesson is that the Master’s reward in the Final Judgment will not be based on how long we have labored in the vineyard. We do not obtain our heavenly reward by punching a time clock. What is essential is that our labors in the workplace of the Lord have caused us to become something. For some of us, this requires a longer time than for others. What is important in the end is what we have become by our labors. Many who come in the eleventh hour have been refined and prepared by the Lord in ways other than formal employment in the vineyard. These workers are like the prepared dry mix to which it is only necessary to “add water”--the perfecting ordinance of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. With that addition--even in the eleventh hour--these workers are in the same state of development and qualified to receive the same reward as those who have labored long in the vineyard.

This parable teaches us that we should never give up hope and loving associations with family members and friends whose fine qualities (see Moro. 7:5–14) evidence their progress toward what a loving Father would have them become. Similarly, the power of the Atonement and the principle of repentance show that we should never give up on loved ones who now seem to be making many wrong choices. (The Challenge to Become)"

So I just had to remind myself that even if these people won't meet with the missionaries anymore during this time, I don't regret the time we spent together or the energy I put into them. Honestly it makes me happy and I know that I helped them, even if they won't get baptized right now. Dropping Kate was so hard. She's this African lady who I LOVE. I LOVE her. When we got to the lesson, I turned to my companion and said, "non c'è la faccio," which means I can't do this. I was supposed to be the strong one because she had never dropped anyone like this before! But she guided us through the lesson and we were able to tell her that we love her and she understood that and we told her she could call us when she wanted to come to church or when she'd received an answer to her prayer. So hard. I cried in the elevator. But she's not the first person I've said goodbye to in the mission and she won't be the last. I feel like I will see her again someday though.

Anyways, three transfers left I don't believe it!! I love the mission! I love you! Have a good week!

(Below is the first part of her email, but it works best at the end with the pictures)

Still in Firenze and I LAUGHED when President called me. My new comp is Sorella Smedley!! She has been with me since the beginning, I LOVE her, and she's followed me around the whole mission. We joked about being STL's together. I never thought I'd even serve with her. So so funny. I'll send a bunch of pics to make the point of how funny this is.  So I'm excited. She's super funny, I love her humor. She's like a friend from home for me. She comes tomorrow. 

2017-03-15 Getting to Know You

Some amazing things happened this Sunday and I'm so stoked to see them
come to fruition throughout the week. Those experiences are amazing
but they're not the ones I want to share. I just wanted to say that we
just had a lesson with a girl, who's a member, and we asked her life
and about how she met the missionaries. This is just a normal girl,
about 24 but looks a little bit older, Peruvian, a few inches shorter
than me, not skinny but not fat, just like, a normal Peruvian girl on
the streets of Italy (there are a lot of Peruvians in Italy). But
talking to her was just a reminder to me of how NOBODY is just a face
on the street. She talked about her friends when she was 13 and how
one of them was Mormon and she always saw him with a Book of Mormon.
She talked about how her parents split up and her mom went into a
depression which left her to play the role of mom and dad at that same
time. She talked about how her relationship got much better with her
mom after she got baptized and how she's the only member of her
family. She talked about the shock of coming here with her 14-year old
brother and finding out that her dad had started a family here. Out of
all of this she talked about how she has felt her Heavenly Father's
arms around her through the trials since she got converted.
The thing I wanted to say out of all of this though is that I had this
impression after the lesson about Jesus Christ. He is our example
which means we're supposed to become more like Him. I think one of the
most amazing things about the mission is when people just bare their
souls to you and you get to teach them about their Heavenly Father's
love and how that love fixes everything. But I think when people let
you in on their lives and the things they've been through, you become
a little more like Christ. I believe that. Because Christ, in the
Garden of Gethsemane, came to know every single one of our lives
personally. For this pain He has infinite empathy towards us and this
is why He is our Advocate. He feels for us. So I think that when
people tell you about their lives, even though is nothing like atoning
for their suffering, you still sort of feel a little bit of their pain
and you emphasize with them. And that makes you a little bit like
Jesus Christ. And I think that that's so humbling.

So I guess the lesson to learn is get to know people. And if you can,
go on a mission! Because then everyone tells you their life story! But
if you can't, then get to know people to understand them. You'll feel
the Spirit and be able to feel closer to Jesus Christ a little more,
too.

2017-03-08 Member-Missionary Relationship

Here's a little story from yesterday:

We've been visiting members recently a lot and it's been good. So,
background: crazy stuff went down several transfers ago including a
6-man white-wash of Firenze two transfers before I got here. When I
got here, four of those original six remained. Unfortunately, a couple
things got even them off to a not-so-great start. So in pratica the
members here aren't too thrilled with us and (little) stuff has even
happened since I've been here. So we've been working on the
member-missionary relationship.

So today we finally got to visit with vescovo and his wife bc they're
really busy and it was such a forte lezione!! Davvero, this morning
when I was studying for it it was so guided. We invited them to share
their testimonies directly and clearly and it was the perfect
invitation for them. The lesson was brief, it was good teaching, it
was 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 and we were happy. And we gave them a little card at
the end just to say we're thankful for them and really want to work
hard here.

But wait, there's more!

So we were getting a car ride from his wife down to the bus stop
because they live far away from the city and his wife had to pick up
the kids from school. So we walk into the school to pick up her little
boy and I was like, "ah! Maybe we can meet one of Sorella Ferrini's
friends and get to know them," because we know she talks to her kids'
friends' parents about the church. So I went in with that mindset and
Lo and behold the little boy's English teacher I saluted her just
like, "ciao!" and she stopped subito and was like, "you're not
Italian!" Long story short we explained about the church and she
agreed to meet with us and once she's done moving houses.

It made me so happy not because I want members to think that any of us
missionaries as individuals are great but I know that she will talk
about this with her husband and it just makes me happy to know that
they might trust us more! We had another experience like that on the
bus because I've been trying to get back into talking to people on the
bus not just during scambio but always because *fake alert* otherwise
and it just so happened that on a 5-minute bus ride I decided to talk
to this lady and then when we got off the bus, I saw my companion was
with a member we are really close with!! Afterwards, Sorella Garcia
said that when she was talking to this member they both looked at me
and saw I was talking to someone and so then this member all the
sudden said to my companion that she has a friend that she would like
for us to teach.

I just know that missionaries are here to work. We are here to work
and not play around. I mean, have fun and be happy, but work. Members
have to see that we're working. When they do, they have trust in us. I
don't talk to people to be seen by people, I do it because I want to
because I love talking to people and sharing the gospel and I want to
do what I can to help members do missionary work. If helping them
trust the dedication of missionaries is a way to help them then I will
do it! But anyways I hope we get to teach some new people because I
really want to bring members to lessons we just don't have a lot of
people we're teaching right now.

We also talked to two boys about our age the other day in the park.
Let me just say I love young adults way more than adults. Young adults
are searching, they're intelligent, they're bright and they're open.
Old people are old and straight up tell you they're too old to change
and I hate that because no one is too old to change. Anyways, most
Italians are atheist, not catholic. That's a big misconception. Most
will say they are catholic but it's only because they were baptized
and it means nothing to them other than that they were baptized into
the culture of their parents. As far as I know, people don't even
really go to Christmas mass.

And our investigator Elizabeth came to church this Sunday!! I think
she really loved it, even though she had to endure me teaching gospel
principles lol. This week will be a good one, simps, potentials,
members, oh my!

2017-03-01 Funeral

Funeral
So, last Thursday my eyes were swimming. It was the funeral of a
dearly loved member from a dearly loved family in the ward. They are
from Peru. Two parents, two kids. Kids aged 20-22ish. It was the
husband/father that passed away. He has been battling cancer for eight
years, had already almost died, and had had two operations over the
years where they took out much of what was inside of him. The thing
that touched me the most was on Sunday though, on a lesson about
prayer, the wife was there and she had a comment. We had known for
about three days beforehand that Hugo had been rushed into the
hospital and that it looked serious this time, that he had almost no
hope.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who wondered what those days were like.
What it must have been like when Carmen got the news that this time,
we wouldn't make it. The race against time for their son to come home
from the mission to say goodbye to his dad and then head back out. If
their daughter would be devastated when she got off the plane from
Peru and realized that it was already too late. And what those last
moments must have been like, a husband and a wife taking comfort in
the belief that there is a life after death.
Well, during church Carmen told us what it was like. She told us how
he would often keep her up at night while he was sick and would ask
her what heaven would be like and if he was going to make it. She said
that those last days in the hospital she saw serenity on his face. He
had done his best, he had supported his trials, and he felt the
reassurance of the Spirit that he did what he was supposed to do. At
the funeral they sang a song that was so touching I'm crying now just
thinking about it. They sang about how the fight is over now and he
could go home.
Man, it just makes me think about how hard life is. It is hard.
Whether it be because of someone else's fault or our own, life is
hard. Hugo's life was very hard. Carmen's life has been very hard.
But I have never met two jokesters like them. We were always over at
their house and they would always make us food and joke with us. Of
course, there's more to life than food and lightheartedness but they
were also a couple of faith and hope.
I trust in the Lord to give me the trials I can support and the trials
I need to learn during this life. I hope with all my heart that I can
support them well so I can have that peace at the end of my life and
in the next life with the people I love.

We also had scambi miracles that I could write three more paragraphs
like meeting up with a less-active member and her non-member husband
and son who LOVED us, getting several people's numbers, and even just
helping each other out as sisters. We also had an awesome lesson with
our italian investigator couple and we met with a couple recently RM
sisters. We also had multiple people not show up to appointments. Beh,
è la missione. It's the mission and I love it and I'm grateful every
day that I made the choice to go on a mission! I love you all and hope
you have a good week.

Fratello Larrain and family

With Sorelle's from Pisa and Livorno

(No comment)

Investigator's cat

I guess this is still a thing.