Verona, Italy - September 29, 2010

We have had some pretty awesome adventures this week. Last Thursday was our first time going to Trento. There are a pair of Anziani in Trento, it is a city up north, in the Alps, about an hour by train from Verona, and the members have been clamboring for Sorelle. They used to send Sorella to Trento, but not for about ten years, and the Anziani find a lot of single women investigators, which means they can't teach them without a member absolutely ever, and can never go into the house when they find them doing casa. So it is hard. So President has asked us, the Sorelle in Verona, to go up to Trento once a week because we are the closest Sorelle, so now we go to Trento every Thursday! Last Thursday was the first time, and it was so awesome. Completely gorgeous, absolutely incredible. We just head north right in between the Alps as they are beginning over in this part of Italy, and then you get to Trento and the city is literally tucked up right in the mountains, surrounded. It was such a beautiful city. The Elders up there are setting up our Thursdays for us, including members to feed us every time we come. Apparently the members are going crazy trying to take turns feeding us, it sounds weird. But this awesome lady, a convert of about ten years, fed us this really good pasta, and talked with us about her worries about her nonmember husband and daughter who has declared that she will stop going to church as soon as she turns 18, and my companion felt to share this incredibly perfect scripture and the member was so moved she was crying, I think Sorella Mullen was a little startled and didn't quite know how to react, especially in Italian, but she was awesome. It was a cool experience. We also ran into members on the street who were super excited to see us, and spent the morning doing finding work up there in Trento, we knocked some doors, and found people right away! We are very very excited to go back. Also, right at the end of the day, we had this really cool experience. We felt really strongly to talk to this guy on the street while we were walking to catch our train, so I called to him to turn and come talk with us, and he did. Turns out the elders in Trento had actually just invited him that very day earlier, and it was his very first day in Trento ever, but he said no to them because he is Muslim. So we talked with him for a few minutes, and he had said no again right off the bat when we started talking, but by the end of our conversation he accepted a pamphlet and said he would be happy to have the male missionaries call him. It was incredible! We felt really strongly to say certain things to him, and it was a really cool experience. Anyway, Trento is gorgeous, and we are going back tomorrow. Woohoo!

Also, last p-day after email we went down to centro, so my companion could check out all the big stuff in town, including the Romeo and Juliet stuff, and on our way we walked past the Disney store here, which of course has everything in Italian, and found out they were having a big sale on the Disney DVDs in Italian...so I bought two. haha! I now have Princess and the Frog and Monsters Inc. in Italian, to watch upon returning from here. Won't that be exciting!?

Also, our Mission President challenged us all to challenge all of our investigators to baptism by the third lesson, so my companion and I have been taking it really seriously, and we have seen some awesome miracles, for real. We met this woman last week and now she is planning on being baptized November 7! She is so cool and so wants to study and learn the gospel, and is so sweet and nice. We have another appointment with her tonight, and we are bringing her a baptismal calendar. And then, here is another cool story about our mermaid buddies (the 3 investigators). We were teaching just #1 this time a lesson, and it was really great and the spirit was super powerful and she really felt it too, but then #3 came out of the bath and was literally deliberately trying to destroy the spirit. Like, I am not exaggerating, she was consciously and literally doing just that. So I called her out on it, and told her we were trying to create a spirit of reverence and would she please respect that. It really didn't have any effect on her, but it hit #1 pretty hard; I think she really took it seriously that what we are doing with her is seriously important. But we still needed to do something because the spirit was being destroyed, so we decided to take them to the church building right then and there in the middle of the lesson to meet Sorella Wolfgramm, the president's wife, who was there for interviews that night and didn’t have anything scheduled, she was just waiting for her husband. We made them get dressed and walk up to the church with us, and #3 wanted to come to, so it was all four of us, and we get there and took them on a tour of the church and they loved it. Even #3. They wanted to know if we sing, and when they found out we do, they wanted us to sing for them, so we sang Joseph Smith's First prayer first verse in Italian and then English. Even #3 really felt the spirit and was so much more calm and respectful afterwards, and #1 really knows this is the true church of God. And then I pulled Sorella Wolfgramm aside while Sorella Mullen started leading them down to the baptismal font for the end of the tour, and told her we wanted her to invite them to baptism. And she did, and it was awesome, and now #1 is getting baptized on November 6! #3 is praying to find out if it is the right thing. I really love that advice from the president to invite everyone early, it really helps the investigators progress and understand why we are coming and we are seeing great miracles from following our mission president. It is super cool!

Also, I think I might have gone a little crazy on the mission...and here is why. I am reading all the scripture references in the white handbook to study it better, and under the section about your relationships with others, your companion, there is a reference for Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. I absolutely loved the reference, and thought it was so sweet, in fact, that I literally rewrote it all nice and pretty on colored paper, mounted it on another color, and put a flower sticker on it and put it on our front door. I. Did that. What? Sorella Mullen laughed at me, but really likes it anyway.

And that has been my week. I can't believe my birthday is next week, how weird is that? I will shortly be 23. hm. In Italy! yay!