Sister Arndt's Italy, Milan Mission: 2016-07-13 Torino Wrap Up

Ciao ciao, this is Sorella Arndt here, many of you have forgotten
about me already I'm sure but in any case I've almost done 1/3 of my
mission so I'll be back before you know it, it seems.

I'm almost 6 months in and I'm finally leaving my
first city although I wish I could have served my whole mission there,
truly. Torino is a hidden treasure. I feel super special to have been
one of the missionaries to serve there and really get to know the
city, but more than that, the people. I know it sounds cliché but it's
the people that are the most important thing. If I had to write a list
of the people I've come to love during this time, it would be
literally everyone who lives here even though one guy accidentally
spit on my mouth I love him especially, actually. If I had to write a
list of the people who've touched my life forever it would be
considerably shorter than a list of everyone who lives here, however
it would still be very very long. Is this making any sense? Basically
I just love the people here a lot and I can't imagine NOT coming to
Italy and NOT getting to know tons of people on the level that I've
come to get to know them.

Dang this is way too hard to put into words. Maybe I'll just tell a
couple stories and then sign out.

So we have an investigator who's intercom doesn't work, so when we
show up to her apartment we have to call her on her phone. Well one
time we showed up and called her and she didn't answer! But her
windows were open so we knew she was home. She lives on like, the 1.5
floor so her windows are reachable barely. So since we're pretty tight
with her we stepped up on the ledge and started yelling into her
windows "Mabel! Mabeeelllll! Mabel it's the sorellleee!" Nothing. We
waited and waited for like 15 minutes, yelling into her kitchen window
every now and then until we had finally give up hope. As a last
resort, I took a bunch of our Jesus cards and chucked them into her
kitchen window as like, an M.O. so she knew we came, and then we left.
As we were walking away, we hear Mabel yelling after us so we turn
around and see her head poking through the window. We were so happy
and turned around to go visit her and when she came to the door she
had a fistful of Jesus cards and was like, "is this you who be doin'
this?" Hahaha. She shook her head at me but we all laughed. Turned out
she was on the phone with her mom in Nigeria and lost track of time.
But, she doesn't know that we were this 👌🏼 close to giving each
other a boost up and just breaking into her house through the window
before we decided to leave instead.

That was the funniest story I could think of shoot, I feel like I can
do better than that. we laugh a lot but nothing too crazy has happened
to us recently that I could recount so that'll have to do. But another
quick story is just a lesson we had, it was with this Italian girl who
is 17, her friends are in our ward so we had our lesson in the members
house. We taught her the restoration with her two young girl friends
and there was just so much peace. At the end of that lesson, we all
kneeled together and her prayer was so beautiful. I have to
tell you that investigators pray way better than any member I've ever
met because they pray like how we should, like its a conversation. She
told God, without us telling her what she was feeling, that she was
grateful for the feeling of the Spirit and wants it to stay with her.
She said a lot of other just....just things that were really good. And
you just knew that she was getting her answer right in that moment and
it was so powerful. Because then when she ended the prayer she just
burst into tears. We just sat there on our knees in silence for a
minute or so while she cried and her friends hugged her, just saying
nothing and we just felt the Spirit so strong. After a while I told
her, "non mai dimenticare come ti senti in questo momento," which
means don't ever forget how you feel right now.

Well, I'll tell you one thing, getting really close to people
spiritually has opened me up to a whole new worlds of questions and
uncertainty. There's need to remember what we do know. I'm not willing
to throw away everything I've worked for because I have a doubt or a
question. That defeats the plan, because the plan is to progress. I
have encountered questions I never even imagined I would have to
during this time, have needed a fair amount of advice from older
missionaries, but at the end of the day if I can't answer their
questions then at least I know that God loves me. And He loves
everyone of you. He is our Father, He wants to help us. I know that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died for our sins so that
we can overcome our shortcomings so long as we try our best. I know
that Joseph Smith was really a prophet and he translated the Book of
Mormon because he didn't just make it all up. But I also know that as
human beings, and members of the church, we sure know a lot less than
we think we do. So be nice to everyone and be understanding and just
know that, even when you seem lost, if you just hang on to what you
know and try to keep adding to it and acting accordingly, everything
will work out okay in the end. Because He is merciful. And He loves
you.

Prossima fermata, Pordenone!

🇮🇹 Transfer 3, Sorella Lau 🇮🇹

Mom's note - Jill moved to Pordenone, Northeast of Venice, on 14 July 2016.