2016-10-26 Lots of Stairs

Jill did not send much of a blog, but because of the earthquakes in Italy she was able to send a couple of short emails.  So I am posting parts of those, and some pictures this time.  Earthquakes did not affect her area.

I RAN OUT OF TIME! You can say we're teaching two great investigators and a few part-member families. We have lots of good stuff lined up, it just needs to get rolling. Halloween is way cooler in the states. Genova is still gorgeous even if it rains a lot. Hoping to see a baptism with my greenie, maybe Sorella Surace. We have faith! And a great ward!

The mission let us email home because there was an earthquake or something. I'm fine and I haven't received any panicked emails from you guys.

See where the CARS are at down there? Yes, that's how many stairs we walked all at once. This is "what makes Genova special" summed up in one picture. My legs are smashed.

Hah!! We get to send you guys an email AGAIN!! I had to buy hydrogen peroxide for my companion whose head I let a feral cat scratch. I'm not a great "mother." Anyways, I didn't get killed in an earthquake. Happy Sunday:)

Sorellas of Genova

Sorellas di Genova & di Savona

Posing with hergreenie

Ocean in the background

Rocean (family joke)

Genova

2016-10-19 First Week in Genova

Ciao, tutti! This is for my first full week in Genova! 

So I love Genova. I had heard really good things about it before I even got here but then I got here and I was like, "oh my gosh, I didn't know." The members are so nice and there's seriously so much work...admittedly it was a rough start because I'm training and neither of us have been to this city before, so we had to ask other missionaries a billion questions and wait for ward councils to roll around and stuff like that, so it was slow but now we have TOO MUCH work so I guess you can't really win. The mission isn't perfect, surprise!

Anyways, I wanted to talk about a couple miracles today.....cioè actual miracles.

We actually had to read a talk for zone training and there was a part in it that I really loved, it said: "Consider this: What of Jesus’ ministry if He had performed additional miracles but without the transcending miracle of Gethsemane and Calvary? His other miracles brought blessed extensions of life and lessened suffering--for some. But how could these miracles possibly compare with the greatest miracle of the universal Resurrection? (see 1 Cor. 15:22). The multiplying of the loaves and fishes fed a hungry multitude. Even so, recipients were soon hungry again, while those who partake of the Bread of Life will never hunger again (see John 6:51, 58)." - Maxwell, Consecrate thy Performance

So the idea is that consecrating/sacrificing is great, but up to a certain point, it's fairly doable. Just like in sports, the real champions are the ones who keep going,  AFTER it hurts. It's easy to warm up your muscles, get your heart racing, and even work up a sweat. But what about when it hurts? When you push through the hurt is what elevates you from the average athletes to an elite.

It's like that in the gospel. We see the perfect example, of course, in Jesus Christ's life. Just like the quote said, his life was spectacular but the miracles are empty in comparison to his eternal atonement. When we push ourselves to the next step, we find that God blesses us exponentially more than we had been previously. For example, this week we have had so many days that were long and frankly kind of sad and then because we decided to stay out even though we were tired and had basically nothing to do, God threw a new potential or the chance to teach a lesson to us. So, so blessed. I know that personal sacrifice verso Dio ci aiuterà a diventare le persone che vuole Dio che diventiamo. Vi voglio bene! A presto!

Jill and Sorella Smedley.  Don't know who the third one is..

The Zone

Appointment got canceled.

The girl in the hat knows a missionary on Temple Square that Jill knows also.  Lessons to come.

Enjoying the fine Italian leathers.

2016-10-12 Genova!

Wow, so I am so happy! I have the best companion in the world and the best city in the world! 

Genova is one of the most gorgeous cities in Italy, so historic, and on the bay. It's really cold right now but during mid-day it's just the best thing ever. My greenie is from Canada! Canadese! She is so good, straight from the MTC so she's here to remind me about all the things I've gotten lazy about and I'm here to tell her that she doesn't have to wait for pday to do her laundry, and that focaccia is amazing.

We started this week with a fast because we wanted to find three new investigators, which is our "standard of excellence," but like, never happens. Well, due to an extraordinary series of events, we got already one new simp!! He's a young boy, friend of a member. We're going to read the Book of Mormon with him next week. We are really pushing ourselves and having fun while we're doing it. It makes me so happy to do missionary work like this, with all the pieces come together :)

Map showing where Jill is now

Genova

St. Lawrence Cathedral

Dinner

Jill in Genova

Which one is her greenie?  I have no idea.

2016-09-28 Mary's Baptism

Mary has been baptized! It was a beautiful ceremony! Me and my companion talked, all us four missionaries sang, our president was there, and we got her husband to come to church!! It was a beautiful baptism.

(Martha's note:  Jill did not write much this week, but sent pictures.  She is being transferred next week!)

Jill's favorite American family

Mary's Baptism 

Mary's Baptism with Anziani that baptized, Jill, and Sorella Barlow

Sorella Barlow, Mary, Jill

They all went shopping and "dressed" each other.

Anziani Green and Sorella Barlow

Jill and Anziani Young

Wow, these American (and British) youth are sooo cool.

Lake Barcis area

Lake Barcis

Lake Barcis

Lake Barcis

Playing on swings

And falling down

2016-09-21 Train Station Lesson

Here's a low-down of my week!

We taught a lesson....in a train station. Because it was raining and
we felt bad for our simp so we met him at the bus/train station
instead of him coming to us. We taught the lesson there because there
was coverage from the storm, but this meant that a massive, rolling,
screeching train pulled up right in front or behind us at least 5-6
times during the lesson. So our lesson was punctuated with regular,
length pauses while we waited for the train to pass but at least we
weren't wet!

Mary passed her baptismal interview!! Which we weren't worried about,
but still. While we waited for the anziani to show up to interview
her, we had The World's Longest Lesson Ever. We taught her about
tithing, we did a mock baptismal interview with her, we sang FOUR
ENTIRE hymns (so she could pick two for her baptism), and we read
nearly an entire chapter of the Book of Mormon out loud together. We
love Mary.

We also got to listen to Elder Holland. He came to Milano and talked
to the members there and then the missionaries got their own
conference with him. He talked to us about teaching Italians which, as
you can imagine, is highly useful information. He talked about a
couple verses in the New Testament and just tore them apart to get the
information we needed from them, it was really cool. I love doing that
with the scriptures. Talking to nicodemus:

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can
he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God.

So he talked about how we can teach people about the doctrine of our
church until we're blue in the face, but were battling centuries of
Catholic heritage and people who don't want to change religions. So
talking won't do anything. They need to be born again spiritually by
feeling the spirit and that's what the first one is talking about.
Seeing the kingdom is done by feeling the Spirit. Only then will
people have a desire to be born of water and of the Spirit (baptism
and confirmation). So then he encouraged us to basically do whatever
we need to do to help people feel the Spirit. Well, I love feeling the
Spirit so I'm okay with that.

Anyways, then we got caught in a rainstorm and got SOAKED. And then
when we got there, our appointment said she was busy and could we come
back on Thursday? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 okay

We also did some casa finding which almost never works, but we talked
to two people! One wouldn't actually let us in the house, but I got to
share a Book of Mormon scripture with him. The other was already
outside and had a cat so we got to talk to her because my family also
has cats.

Then there's this single military guy named Ross who finished his
assignment yesterday so he's on a plane right now to America after
living in Italy for four years. I think 1.5 is long! Anyways, to thank
him for always being the missionary's we went out and got pie at
probably the only place in Italy where you can buy pie. We went with
the elders, and one of our English class students named Marta, and a
family of Italian members.

Well there's only a couple weeks left of the transfer! Who knows
what's coming up? Winter is in the air, though (we kind of just
skipped fall). Got my tights and my scarf and my rain jacket and my
testimony so that's all you need I guess.

Have a good week! I love you guys!

Sorella Poletz

Sorella Teaque

District

Exhausting Work

Rainy Seaon

Military Base Rations?

Sorella Barlow

2016-09-14 A Week in the Life of a Missionary

Thursday! Thursday we got fantastic and terrible news. We have an
investigator named Meary, from Ghana. Her number was in our phone and
we called her probably about 5-6 weeks ago. The first time we met her,
her husband was there, too. Every lesson after that, he's been away.
After some time, Meary let us know that he's a drinker, a smoker, and
a liar. At first I was worried she was maybe being abused, I still
don't know, but at the end of the day it's really not good for Meary,
or anyone, to be married to someone like him. I was really afraid for
her. I wanted to get her and her daughter (7) out of that house, but
that idea was laughable. Where will she go? She has no work. She can't
support herself. She's better off with him than on the streets.
Spiritually, she's been progressing so great! She loves the Book of
Mormon, has come to church twice, and really has a testimony of this
church. But she has not accepted a baptism date because she needs to
be sure that this is true, because if she comes to our church she will
most likely lose all of her African friends in her current church and
that's a big sacrifice for anyone.
But today Meary told us that shes going to divorce her husband. She's
going to take her daughter and go back to Ghana and live with her
family there. Their house has no water and her husband, despite the
fact that he has income, "can't pay." She's done. She's leaving. She
just needs plane tickets. We gave her a baptism date for two weeks out
and she accepted. She has nothing to lose and she knows that this is
right.
We came back that afternoon with big bottles of water, and she BOWED
to us. Many times you hear stories of people loving their
missionaries. We are the missionaries who are loved now. It's
incredible, and we don't deserve it, but that's what the gospel of
Jesus Christ gives you is that incredible amount of gratitude. Because
it's true! It's amazing.

Friday was a weird day. Nothing went as planned and we kept almost
getting hit by cars. We organized our maps app so every single member,
less active, investigator, and potential is on our iPads now. Then we
had a lesson with Isaac, a Ghanaian, on the grass in the park. Then we
went to another Ghanaian members house to give her one of my MTC
language books since she can't come to Italian class. Then we had Ward
council at the end of the night, the first one I've been to in this
area, which was perfect because we were able to bring up the whole,
"Mary is leaving her husband and moving to Africa but wants to get
baptized first," thing.

Saturday we had a fantastic lesson with our favorite member family,
the Elwood's!! They're Americans. We've been over a few times and so
this time we were able to ask them to commit to some kind of
missionary work, and sister Elwood was already thinking about people
she could invite to church. Then we rode our bikes out to a hamlet and
taught Isaac the rest of the plan of salvation. Then we went over to
Meary's and asked her to really pray on what she wants, because the
ward will probably be able to help her, but she has to be sure of her
decision.
After that we had dinner with a member, Ross, who is a single military
guy who has been the elders best friend for the last 4 years. Now he's
moving back to America, Hill Air Force Base actually. Anyways, for the
last four years I would imagine, he's been trying to get the sisters
to go get dinner with the elders too so now that he's leaving, we gave
him what he wanted and went out for Indian food with Ross, Valentina,
and the elders and afterwards we got gelato, of course. He's a really
good guy and he has been a saving grace for the missionaries for a
long time, Pordenone is really going to miss him.

Sunday we had a crazy stake conference (crazy as in technical
difficulties and all the Americans got to listen to the whole first
hour in Italian). Then we went to an Italian members house and they
fed us spaghetti and ragù to die for! They are an older couple whose
less active son lives with them so we try to share stuff we think
he'll be willing to listen to.

Monday was a day full of cancelled appointments. We were going to have
FOUR solid appointments and then we ended the day with one. That's
okay, because our one is super special! It's Meary! She's getting
baptized! We're so excited! We had to DTR with a couple investigators
though (define the relationship). I sent them an email saying exactly
what our intentions are and if they don't want to listen to us
(because they keep making and cancelling appointments), that's fine.
(But if they do want to listen to us, that's better).

Tuesday we met with Meary again. I taught the law of chastity for the
second time on the mission and it went over just about as easily as
you'd expect for a 40-year-old married woman of God. So. Then for
family home evening that we do with the Italian ward, we did a
demonstration about the Holy Ghost with blindfolds, yogurt, and people
being spoon fed. We used Ross as our guinea pig, since he's about to
leave us. It went over even better than we had imagined. It was
hilarious and we bore really good testimonies after.

Sorry my blog posts have been so lame lately! It's hard to keep up
with email time, it slips away so fast! And sometimes I forget that
people actually read my blog so I should probably give you good people
something worth reading if you're going to take the time to read about
my week. So hopefully this makes up for some lame weeks and I hope you
have a fantastic week too! Love you guys!

2016-09-07 All Is Well

(Note: Jill did not really send anything last week to post, other than a few pictures that are down below.  This week is just a short note.)

Alls well in Pordenone! We had some power lessons last week with less
actives and I heard a convert missionary's testimony today so it has
been a testimony filled week! This blog post is so short and lame this
week! I'm sorry, maybe one day I'll write a blog post worth reading!

Jill and companion Sorella Barlow from England

Jill, Barlow, Green and Young

Young, Jill, Green.  Jill always has fun when there are a couple of crazy guys to hang with.

Went to a spa where fish eat your feet.

Jill at the spa

Not sure what this elder is doing holding a female leg...

Jill sent pic of this door earlier.  She had to explain that it was small.  Here she is by it to show how small.

Young, Barlow, Green

Sorellas

Jill and Barlow with daughter of investigator.