It's almost Easter!!!!! I read a super good talk this morning, but I don't know what its called (we call it the God-Science talk) and its by Cleon Skouson. It's about the Atonement, and talks about intelligences and matter and how it's possible for us to return to live with God. Because of MERCY. I completely recommend to everyone to read it before Easter...its a little long but completely worth the time and it really makes you think and be grateful for the Atonement on a different level. I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ for each one of us, and that we can think about Him and His sacrifice for us a little more this week.
This week was better. I've been letting things affect my attitude more than I should in the past couple weeks, and as a result I was having some struggles. But I feel so much better lately and happy!! I'm grateful to be a missionary! It's intense sometimes and often you have no idea what you're doing, but I know when we keep trying the Lord blesses us.
We did some less active work this past week. We received a list from our bishop of maybe 8 names to try and visit. So on Thursday we armed ourselves with lots of little flyers about General Conference, tried to find these people on the list, and talked to everyone in our path to invite them to Conference! It was actually really fun, and definitely a change of pace from the norm which I was grateful for. We found a couple people that had moved from the list, and then we went to another and she told us to go back later than evening! We were so excited haha.
We had a really cool miracle last week that is continuing. So a couple weeks ago we were at our Albanian investigators house and her uncle was there and we read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon with them and talked about it together. We got his phone number, but we didn't call him to try and meet with him until Thursday. He answered, we set an appointment from Friday and we were excited because it meant a new investigator!!! And we hadn't gotten anyone new in awhile unfortunately. So we were at English course Thrusday night and this guy, Giuseppe, ended up coming during English course and we taught him afterwards! It was so cool that he came to us!! Good thing we were at the church though haha. Then Friday we taught him the Restoration. He came to a session on General Conference on Saturday. We met with him Monday and taught him the Plan of Salvation (for an hour and a half...it was a deep lesson haha but so good!!!). Tuesday we were at English course and he came again (without us asking!!) and we had another lesson with him! HOLY COW!!! Talk about desire! Giuseppe has lots of questions and he listens very intently. He says what he thinks about something, then we teach him the doctrine, then he repeats it back how we said it and agrees with it. He always says that it makes sense. Mamma mia. It's been a great experience for us to be able to see someone again who has so much desire to learn the lessons. I've been really really grateful for Giuseppe. We already asked him to be baptized, and while he didn't say yes he didn't say no either. He needs to pray if its true. But he's definitely feeling the spirit and he says all the time that if he didn't feel something inside of him compelling him to come to these lessons and study with us then he wouldn't be coming. FORTE!!! He is 63, believes in God a lot but is not practicing Catholic (like most people). I'm so impressed with his desire...seriously!!! People surprise you all the time.
Another cool experience. One of our new converts, Maria Pia who got baptized in January, is often depressed becuase she lives alone, is old, and her life is pretty lame. And she ALWAYS tells us about how sad and lonely she is, which is really really sad. So we go to see her at least one time aweek, lately 2, and yesterday morning I called her to confirm that we could come that afternoon. And she was crying, and I didn't really understand her, but she needed a ride somewhere. We ended up finding her a ride from someone in the ward, adn when we went to see her later than afternoon she was so happy and was calling us her angels and all this nice stuff. Because apparently that morning she knew she had to go to this appointment (it was important, for a legal thing, and she can't walk well becuase she has a foot problem so it was essential she got a ride, and her brother usually takes her but he was sick or somethign). So she was reading in the Book of Mormon, then she prayed and was crying to Hevenly Father to help her figure something out. And DURING her prayer we called her. It was so cool because she said over and over "This is such a testimony to me that God knows us and answers our prayers." How cool!!! It felt really cool to be used as an instrument in this way by Heavenly Father.
General Conference was awesome. I was grateful to be able to watch 3 sessions in English, and then I watched the last session in Italian. It was hard to pay attention the whole time honestly when I watched it in Italian, and I didn't understand enough obviously, but it was cool to experience that. I'm excited to read all the talks in the Liahona next month. They were soooooo good. I love General Conference!!!
Also, on Sunday morning us 4 sorelle went to a Catholic mass for Palm Sunday. It is one of the few Sundays where everyone goes to mass during the year, even the non'practicing Catholics. Everyone was carrying around these olive tree branches in representation of the palm branches. I thought a lot about Jerusalem and how it would be really cool to be there during Easter. I know that they do a big celebration for Palm Sunday, but I was not there during that time of year. The mass was very interesting. The Madonna (Mary - the mother of Jesus) is dressed in all black in the churches becuase she is sad and is looking for her son during the last week...or something to that effect. I actually don't understand the full significance of it, but she is dressed all in black and its interesting...
Ok thats it.
I also got to see Sorella Teichert!! We were in the same MTC group...roommates, same district, and same class with just us 4 sorelle. She got transfered to Taranto this past transfer and it's soooo fun to see her!!!
My water bottle collection :) About a week after new years I decided to start saving my water bottles. I finally threw them away a couple days ago, but here's my collection of bottles from the past 3 months haha. Remember, that is only from when we are inside our house!!
Happy Easter everyone!!! Hope everyone enjoyed General Conference. Love you all, have a great week, and remember that the Lord loves us and answers our prayers!!!!
Love, Sorella Sobeck
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