Sorella Sobeck in Rome: Ciao from Catania!

So my email is going to be short because I don't have much time, and I
just talked to you guys. :) I had a great time talking to everyone and
thanks for all you do for me! I appreciate the support and I love you
all. Its weird that I hit my 9 months in a couple weeks. Still a long
ways to go but it really is starting to get faster with time. I'm
grateful for the things I'm learning.

Catania is so cool. I loved Zone Conference yesterday, and it was
weird having to travel for it because in Bari we just walked 40
minutes to the church and that was it. Yesterday morning we drove 2
1/2 hours to get to Catania. After conference we chatted for a bit
with the other missionaries, gave some people rides to the station
with our car, and then we did some contacting int he streets of
Catania! Not gonna lie, it kind of made me miss Bari and the big city.
Finding is a lot different in Mistretta and the small cities. But it
was fun to go back for a couple hours and give a couple referrals to
the missionaries in Catania :)

In Zone Conference probably my favorite thing I heard was from
President Kelly about setting goals and doing all we can to reach
them. However, we have to take into account 3 things: Our work we do
to reach them, the will of the Lord, and the agency of others. I
really liked that, becuase its something I struggle with sometimes
that seemingly no one wants to listen to us speak here. I have to
remember that people have their agency sometimes...and be ok with it.
Easier said than done.

Today we went around the city a little bit. There's a piazza by the
Duomo where of course everything is just really old and looks really
cool. I love cool old stuff. :) Gotta love Italy for that reason,
because its everywhere. Especially in Sicily I feel. We're all super
dehydrated...haha it's going to be weird getting used to the
heat...haven't had to worry about that on my mission yet. I'm lucky
because Mistretta is a little cooler than everywhere else becuase its
on a mountain.

The work is moving along. We had some really cool experiences in
Reitano the past week. Reitano is really small (about 500 people!) and
right next to Mistretta. On Friday we went and had these plans to
teach all these awesome lessons to all our investigators there. And
then no one was home or no one had time or no one answered the phone.
DUMB. So we had LOTS of time. We ended up talking to this group of
people for awhile. There was one lady who we had already triedtalking
to earlier in the evening but was busy, and while we were talking with
this group she said she had time now. Once everyone left she said we
could talk to her more. So we talked to her (Maria) for awhile, about
the Atonement and how the gospel can help us in our lives because she
has depression, wants to stop smoking, has other health problems with
her eyes, and her andher husband are having problems. She's got a lot
of problems (like all people), and she seemed interested in what we
were saying. Needless to say, it was a really cool experience to
listen to her and bear my testimony that this gospel is TRUE and it
helps everyone despite where they are in life. They just have to let
it help them. We haven't seen this woman again (we're hoping she's not
trying to avoid us...that happens sometimes), but we're hoping we
helped her and can continue to help her.

The other cool experience was Sunday night right after I talked to the
fam. Honestly, talking to home is kind of distracting, so it was weird
to have to get back in the mentality to work again. So we went back to
Reitano and tried to see this lady who told us Thursday to come back
Sunday. So we did. She wasn't there. We were pretty bummed. So we
walked around some more trying to figure out what to do and everything
else wasn't working. So we decided to go check if this lady was home
again and then go do finding if she wasn't. So when we walked back to
her house, we ran into her in the street with her husband and 2 sons!
The husband never stays to listen. We've had one lesson with one son,
and the other I had never met before. But we asked them all to stay
and they did, so we had a great lesson about the gospel of Jesus
Christ with this family of 4! I love bearing my testimony of the
truthfulness of this gospel!!!!! I loved explaining to them that
baptism is a choice, adn shouldn't be something that happens when
we're a baby as a choice of our parents, especially when the only
reason is tradition and not becuase of belief. They liked that too.
Anyways, so it got me pumped to be a missionary becuase people NEED
this message!!!

Ok, so that wasn't really that short I guess, but I gotta go now. Hope
all is well.

For some reason its not letting me attatch the email group, so I don't
know if you want to do that Mom, or if not thats fine. You 4 got it at
least. Have a great week!

I love Italy! I love being a missionary right now! I love my family,
and am grateful for you all. Have an AWESOME WEEK!!!!

Love, Sorella Sobeck