[Email from 9/7/11]
Ciao!
Okay, first of all...to explain my subject from last week. When we do
house or do finding door to door, so many of the people respond by
saying they can't listen because they are taking a shower. It doesn't
exactly make sense to me because they aren't in the shower and if they
were taking a shower, why would they come to the door. I don'tknow.
I've just found that alot of the people here are too wimpy to flat out
say they aren't interested so they make up all these stories. Pretty
interesting and funny.
Mom, I got the package with the Australian Licorice. Not the other
one. It was good though. Slla. Foote and I already ate them all gone.
Pretty gross of us, but we just snack while we are planning and
studying. Ha I'm probably going to come home fat by the end of my
mission. I'm always hungry, but always eating. But thanks for the
package mom. I'm excitedly awaiting the next one.
I'm jealous you all got to go to the farm. I love the farm. I hope
grandpa is okay. I hope you sent them my love.
Shout out: Happy Birthday Eric Nicholas Anderson!! Don't party too hard!
Has BYU started already? If so, how's it going for my wonderful BYU friends?
Okay so this week...
We went to visit this 12 year old girl Giorgia. Her mom is a
less-active and her dad is Catholic. She isn't a member because her
dad doesn't want her to get baptized. It's sad because she is so ready
for it and wants it. She has a testimony and is working on the
Personal progress program, reads the scriptures and prays and is such
a good girl. But she respects her dad's wishes. Her mom doesn't come
to church becuase the husband intentionally plans family activities on
sundays to make the mom choose between her family or the lord. I've
found that there are alot of not so great men here. They make me
really want to make sure I marry someone who will support me and has
the same desire to follow Christ as me. So depressing.
We also made brownies for Giorgia and she scarfed them! She loves them
so much. But they don't have them here. So pretty much Italians love
the American missionaries because we make them brownies. If you could
maybe send boxes of brownies or a recipe for making them from scratch,
that would be great. Also I would like the recipe for Butterscotch
Bisquits. THanks!
Rita didn't come to church. She said she could only come if her
husband was gone because he wouldn't let her come to church. Another
selfish husband. I don't like that at all. So we assume her husband
didn't leave the house.
Clement: He is a less-active from Nigeria. His wife is also a
less-active, but she doesn't really have a testimony of much. But he
does, and he loves having us over and studying with us. They also have
a 17 year old son who the wife had baptized in the Catholic church
when he was little. So we went to visit Clement and decided to teach
him about the Apostasy. So we had two scriptures from the Bible chosen
and two from the BOM. We start talking to him about it and reading the
scriptures and one of them was 1 Nephi 13:28-29 which talks about the
Bible having some plain and precious truths removed. And Clement asked
us where in the scriptures does it talk about baptism by immersion. So
we showed him the scriptures about that and talk about that. He was
writing down the scriptures and we were a little curious but kept
talking about it. Then he told us that he really wants to sit down
with his son and talk to him about baptism by immersion into our
church. He said he had been wanting to talk to his son about it for
awhile but didn't know where the "evidence" was. So he was so happy
and excited that we could help him with that. He also came to church
on Sunday. Let's pray things go well with him and his son. It's
amazing how much the Lord directs us when we don't even realize it.
Sunday was pretty much a day of miracles for us. We went to church in
the morning and none of our investigators were showing up. At all. And
then this "eternal investigator" came. And then in walks this lady who
I had never seen before. Sorella Foote knew her though but didn't get
a chance to tell me who this lady was. But she came an hour into
church. Sat through Gospel Principles class and then walked out front
of the church. We were worried she would leave, but she was talking to
a ward member. Then he pulls us out of the chapel and explains to us
that this lady, Elisa, wants to get baptized and is curious how she
can go about doing that. So he told her that we were here just for
that. So she came and sat with us during sacrament meeting and right
after we met in a classroom and gave her "lesson 0" which is like a
summary of what we do. And we invited her to be baptized on October
8th and she accepted. She said it wouldn't make sense to not have a
goal for something like this. We then met with her again on Monday and
taught her about the Restoration. She isn't a very open person but you
could tell she felt the spirit. It was a very powerful lesson because
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon are the reason Elisa knows about
the church.
So background on Elisa. Sorella Foote told me that in like May or so,
her and her companion were visiting a less acitive and in walks Elisa.
And she sits in during the lesson and Slla. Foote said she felt like
something was being held in by these two women. So then the
less-active comes out and tells Elisa that she needs to tell the
missionaries what happened. So Elisa did. Elisa said she had a dream
of a young man named Fratello Joseph. And he kept telling her that she
needed to read this book. And he handed her a black book with gold
writing on the spine. And she she took the book and couldn't open it,
so she gave it to her friend (the less-active) and she could open it
and read it. Elisa didn't know at the time that her friend was a
mormon nor did she know anything about the Mormon church. So after she
told Slla foote and her companion this dream, they showed her a
picture of joseph smith and she said that was him. And they showed her
their triple combination book (which is black with gold writing) and
she said that is the exact book he gave her in the dream. But then
after this lesson, Elisa disappeared and the less-active wouldn't give
the missionaries her phone number or anything. She was gone...until
this last Sunday. And she came to church all by herself because she
woke up and said she felt prompted to come to church. And now she is
on date to be baptized! It's amazing. Seriously, all that the
missionaries did was pray and have faith that the Lord would lead her
back to the missionaries. And that's exactly what happened. The Lord
is so great!
That same Sunday, we got the opportunity to visit a less-active
member. She hasn't let the missionaries visit or talk with her for a
long long while, but for some reason, she let us come that day. We
went over and had a good conversation about anything and everything
and she just really started to love us. She even told us that she
knows how to make burritos and wants to make them for us sometime, We
shared one little verse with her and ended with a prayer and that was
the extent of our "lesson" because we wanted to build the friendship
and trust before preaching to her, especially given the background.
But now she is more open with us and willing to meet with us again.
She's so great and sweet, I have no idea why she would fall from the
church, but who knows. We'll reactivate her. But once again, the Lord
is so great in working on people's hearts to they will come back to
the gospel and as missionaries we get to see all of the first hand and
be involved. It's great priviledge.
Monday we had district meeting and then had lunch alltogether at a
chinese restaurant. It was actually really yummy. Definitely a rare
gem in Italy. But after that, we visited this lady Giusy for the first
time. We found her on the train and she is so great. She is our newest
investigator. She has a 3 year old daughter and just got married in
March because she said she felt wrong having a child and not being
married, so they got married. And now she said she feels like she is
still missing something in her life. She doesn't like to say she is
Catholic because she thinks alot of the things they do are wrong like
praying to the Saints. She also studied with the TJs and liked it but
they were still missing alot of things too. I love when people
recognize things like that. We are meeting with Giusy again tomorrow
and she seems to be one of the Elect. She even said she would like to
come to church this Sunday and she likes that she can bring her
daughter with her to church. Her daughter kept asking if they could go
to church right then. It was cute. Now I hope the husband is as
willing and ready too.
Now yesterday, Tuesday. Well Monday night I wasn't feeling good at
all. I was burning up and pretty week and dizzy. But we had
appoinments so we kept going. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling not
good at all. So I went back to bed. We were supposed to go to Rome to
visit Francesca in the hospital (she has cancer), but I was sick so we
called her and had to cancel. She said that's good because there is a
strike going on and so none of the public transportation things are
going. Apparently it's normal for Italy. So that was a huge blessing
and made me feel better about needing to stay in bed. Then we didn't
have any appointments planned for that afternoon until correlation
with the ward missionaries at 6:30. So there was another blessing.
After sleeping all day I felt better. We went to correlation and it
ended quite late. We were walking to a nearby pizza place for dinner
and ran into an investigator we hadn't seen for awhile. He is super
shy but super kind. He asked to treat us to dinner so we sad down and
ate with him. He said he walked past the church that night and saw it
was open and wnated to see if we were there but was too scared of
interrupting so he just kept walking about. He said seeing us and
eating with us that night really brightened up his whole day. It's so
great having experiences like that.
I'm still pretty tired after sleeping almost 24 hours straight, but I
feel alot better than I did before. At 3 we are going to see the
Trevi fountain and the Spansih steps. Pretty excited!
To explain my subject: Matthew and Patience moved to a new apartment.
Their old one didn't have any light bulbs and we would teach them by
the ligth of their TV. It was funny. So their new place has lightbulbs
and we teach in real light. So we commented on that and the subject is
Patience's response in her thick Nigerian accent and African attitude.
So funny!
It's still hot and I am still being eaten alive by mosquitos.
Love you all and thanks for your love and prayers,
Sorella Heiner
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment