Fai il 90%!

Quote that I love: Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it. It has really helped me keep a bigger perspective at certain points in my life, including during my mission, and I shared it with an investigator this week who is having a hard time and he loved it. It's amazing somethings what some simple words can do for an effect on someone.

This week...has returned a lot more to normal and I'm quite grateful. I love adventures...but I'm grateful to be back in Mistretta (after 2 1/2 weeks not at home) and with a working car (after 1 month with it being powerless....not fun haha). You really appreciate things you have when you don't have them anymore! I wish I could just remember to be grateful for everything I have in every moment, but I'm not perfect hahaha. But yes, its been great to be back in Mistretta...the members really missed having us around, and as a result we have gotten some great lunch/dinner appointments this week :)

Doing scambi with Sorella Spicq in Siracusa was so much fun! I really really like Siracusa, the little of it that I got to see. I forgot how much WALKING you really do it some cities...because our cities are smaller I've gotten lazier haha. I learned a lot from Sorella Spicq and she was so much fun to be with for just a few hours. And the next morning we had to go to Messina for some more legal stuff for Sorella Fuller, and once again without a car we had to take the train and be in Messina by 9am...so we had to wake up at 3:40am to walk 40 minutes to the station to take the train at 5am...another adventure hahaha. The Siracusa sorelle were such great sports about it, and then we took the train and got picked up by the Messina anziani and in this place Sorella Fuller had to go to this class thing and they wouldn't let me go in, so I was separated from my companion, just sitting in the hallways, BY MYSELF, for 3ish hours. SO WEIRD to be by myself!!!!! We had to call president and everything. It was weird and I was almost paranoid I guess hahaha just sitting by myelf. So I've gotten to do a nice little giro of Sicily lately - Catania - Siracusa - Messina - Palermo - MISTRETTA...mission traveler I am.

I made brownies for English Course last night, and when he found out who had made them one of our students told me with great conviction "Troverai un marito". Translation: You will find a husband. Thanks! I love English course!

We had district meeting this week in Cefalù - its the middle place for us and the anziani, so we decided to just wing it and go there for our meeting (where I got to give the training!), and we ended up sitting on a wall right by the sea. Il mare è troppo bello!!!! I love the sea and how beautiful it is. I'm so lucky that my mission is so stinkin beautiful! I love district meeting and getting support from other missionaries and hearing other perspective and about their successes and their hardships and just being friends with them.

I guess I don't really have too much to say about the work this week...becuase we didn't really do a whole ton of missionary work unfortunately. There was lots of time devoted to lots of other things, and so in our actual area not too much happened. Sadly several of our progressing investigators are no longer progressing, even though I still love them. Even though the missionary work has been slower though, I really feel like I've been learning some important lessons through the difficult moments lately. I'm also coming to understand that very often we have to RE-learn the same lessons many times...or at least I do...because I forget. A great lesson though: NON ARRENDERSI MAI. NEVER GIVE UP.

And all these things shall give us experience :) Even when the work is slow, Heavenly Father still loves me! :) He sure does take care of us and I'm so grateful for that. I know the church is true.

Transfer calls are Saturday, we'll see what happens. And then...GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! It's like Christmas for missionaries :) :) :)

Alright time to wrap up...we're in Palermo and we gotta drive back for appointments!!! Love you all, thanks for the support for real.

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Messina!

Messina!

I did the training again for DDM and I used the nail game

DDM in Cefalu' this week - the halfway point

Illenia is awesome!!

Paul was here!!!

Ciao from Siracusa!!! One of the great thigns about my mission is that I get to see some really cool places. Zone Conference was great yesterday at Catania...it was a little strange because President Kelly didn't come because he was sick..the first zone conference he hasn't gone to in his more than 2 years of service so far. Sorella Kelly came though and it was incredible to see the spirit working through her to give us the training that President would've give us if he were there. I love my mission president and his wife so much - they take such great care of us and the mission, they love us, they are proud of us, they help us, and they bring the spirit so much so they can teach us. I always learn so much from them, and through Sorella Kelly yesterday and the spirit I was able to hear many things that I needed to hear to help me. After Zone Conference it was kind of a mess becuase everyone needs to get a ride to the station and instead of the normal 4 cars that we have we were down to 2. Yep, our car is still out of commission, and it ended up being a pretty big stress figuring out how to even get to zone conference in the first place for us, I'm grateful that we got it all figured out and all went well. I am so grateful to have a car in Mistretta, becuase when it works it really is a huge blessing. We had to wait a lot time to get a ride to the station, and we ended up going on the bus to Siracusa with the Anziani who are serving there, so we could have a pday here today and do splits with the sorella tonight. I'm excited :) I will be with Sorella Spicq who is from France! Pday was awesome today hanging out with other missionaries and going around and seeing some cool touristy stuff in Siracusa...Paul preached here! I can't wait to make it up to Rome as well one day. This past week has been really crazy as we've worked on getting Sorella Fuller legal in Italy, the car problems, STILL living in the church (we've not been in Mistretta for more than 2 weeks now, except for one night to do laundry...we pretty much have most of our stuff in the church haha), investigators having problems, other investigators progressing, figuring out solutions to a bunch of problems, but still seeing miracles as a result. I thought missionary work would just be the missionary work part and not dealing with real life, but we've had some real life problems lately which have made me appreciate this time apart more than usual. The great thing about all the problems that we've been having is that hte work still moves onward! We have continued to see some cool miracles everyday in many many forms, and Heavenly Father has blessed us to be able to keep on top of the work in all of our cities even though we haven't been able to do much traveling. It has been huge for us to see that the work has not had to suffer as a result. I have a testimony of prayer! I know that we can ask questions to Heavenly Father and He can answer us in so many ways. I was having a particularly rough moment the other day when we were at the Questura (pretty much a legal place that deals with pretty much all immigration stuff), I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me read something in the Book of Mormon that would help me deal with stuff. I was reading a war chapter haha and I didn't know how I was going to find an answer there, but I did. Completely. God works in mysterious ways :) I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Sorella Kelly challenged all the missionaries to read the entire Book of Mormon before Christmas...in about 90 days more or less, becuase it took Joseph Smith less than 90 days to translate it. I'm going to take the challenge and I am so looking forward to just reading it cover to cover again and increasing my testimony even more. Sorry I don't have more time and I feel like this email is all over the place, but things are moving along and I'm grateful to have seen many answers to my prayers as of late. Heavenly Father helps those who ask for it, and gives us comfort when we pray for it and seek for it. And when we're happy, He rejoices with us :) I love you all!!!!!!!!! Love, Sorella Sobeck

DEVIL CAT

My bibbia bianca

Sorelle at Zone Conference

Reinacting what happened here many years ago...it was a place for hanging

Ampitheater

Pday group in Siracusa

Great and abominable church

Paul preached here!

Slla Spicq and I after a really short scambio

The power of a dedica‏

Ciao!

As usual, some great stuff and some not so great stuff happened this week. I guess I'll just start out with some sad news in the mission life of Sorella Sobeck...the fact that Giuseppe is not going to be baptized on Saturday, and I don't know when it will happen at this point. He has a work meeting and then he goes to Milan for 2 weeks, so we had to cancel his date and haven't been able to make a new one unfortunately. My testimony of having a baptismal date has gone up though...becuase when he had that goal he was making amazing progress, feeling the spirit really strong, having great experiences, etc. Once the date was out, the next lesson was kind of how they used to be...all over the place. It made me sad but I feel that the timing must be important, probably for his family to come around a little. But we'll see what happens. I really believe that a big reason I was sent to Mistretta was to help Giuseppe progress.

Other than that, some great awesome things happened too! We got an awesome new investigator, Stefano, who we met last Tuesday. We were doing some house and we decided to walk to the end of a street to see if anything was down there. Then we found Stefano working, got his number, and made an appointment to come on Thursday. We wanted to give him a Book of Mormon, and right before we went to see him I felt like we should write him a dedica in his BoM. A dedica is just a dedication to someone, something that Italians LOVE. They love anythign personalized. Sometimes we hesitate to write dedicas though because when we do, sometimes we never see that person again to give them the BoM unfortunately, and then what do you do with it? Anyways, so we wrote a decida to Stefano. When we gave him the BoM he said, "Thanks, I love reading!" And when he saw the dedica, he got really quiet, then he read it and told us "That is beautiful. No one has ever given me a book with a dedica". Man, something so simple made me feel the spirit really strong. We saw him again yesterday - he had read 13 chapters, went on the internet site, found and watched the Joseph Smith movie, and was very content. We taught him the first lesson, concentrating on the pattern of prophets and apostasy and the need for a Restoration of the truth and authority. He already believes Joseph Smith was a prophet and that th Book of Mormon is true. Seriously...this rarely happens. It really increases my testimony that PEOPLE ARE BEING PREPARED. THEY ARE READY. We just have to do the work to find them, and create environments where they can feel the spirit, and INVITE INVITE INVITE. We wanted to leave the Restoration film with him to watch as his commitment, but when he told us he already watched in online I was thinking "What are we going to leave for his impegno??" And I thought about inviting him to church. 20 seconds after I thought that, HE asked US about if we have a mass and what we do. Holy spirit guiding my thoughts. It's pretty cool.

Angela, the Romanian, came to church again on Sunday! Two weeks in a row! She is so great. We have had to focus a lot on the first lesson and the Book of Mormon. She is orthodox, so her thinking pattern is a little different than Catholics. We have to talk her through lots of stuff, but she is already gaining a testimony of prayer. It's probably one of my favorite things to hear investigators pray to Padre celeste (Heavenly Father). I'm a huge fan of Angela, who is making great progress.

We are still in the church, but have an appointment this afternoon to get our car fixed!!! So we've been sleeping at the church for 8 nights, and I'm super ready to go back to Mistretta though. And I'm SUPER excited to have the car working at full capacity again - especially since next week we're driving to Catania again for Zone Conference!

I found out some awesome exciting news lately from Bari. A woman that Sorella Ashman and I found our last week together, Julie who is from Africa and is pregnant, was baptized in July!!! I was so excited to hear about it - she really is so sweet and it makes me have so much more faith to see a result in the process of PLANTING SEEDS!!! Frequently we'll never know the results of our actions, but I'm so grateful to have found out about this baptism and that Bari is still on fire with having lots of baptisms! There are lots of prepared people in Italy :)

Alright, that about wraps up all the big stuff I think thats worth mentioning. We're working hard and seeing some great miracles happen. The transfer is already half over. Time is just passin by. Buona settimana a tutti, e vi voglio tanto bene :)

Oh and I also must write....GO COUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Aunt Donna - my comp is kind of from different places, but she has lived in Oregon and Washington, and now her family lives in St. George. Sounds like some crazy stuff is going on with the work on your street!

Aunt Kathy - That sounds like an awesome vacation for Glen! Yeah I'm in Sicily now, but we have transfers in a few weeks and who knows what will happen. Maybe I'll be up in Rome haha. Thanks for the email.

Uncle Phil - those Ibex are insane!!! I have no idea where that dam is haha but now I want to go see it!

Breakfast

DDM in Palermo

Yeah...fun analogies

Water bottle...fire extinguisher...Luigi "NO WE ARE NOT TJ'S!"

è già settembre‏

Times flyin. This week has had some pretty big highs and lows to be honest, but as always everything always works out even if you get a little stressed to get to that point :) Thats life in all aspects though, so nothing new for the mission. Sorella Fuller and I have been really tired this week, so today is a super chill pday :) :) :) Love those.

Guess what???? I'M LIVING IN THE CHURCH. No lies...let me explain. So, we've had some car problems as of late. We went to the car dealership last week to ask them to check what was going on, we made an appointment to come back the next week. So Monday we went back and they told us they had to order a part for us, and that it would probably take another week to get there. They told us to not drive very far distances. Well...thats kinda difficult when you live on a mountain and the place where your principal investigator and also the car dealership is is an hour away when you take the freeway and farther when not. So, we called some people. At first they wanted us to switch cars with the Messina anziani, but we didn't think that was necessary. So we got the idea to stay in the church...because it is literally an apartment. We called some more people, got permission, and now we are staying in Santo Stefano in the church, which is down the mountain completely (we're right by the sea and have a great view in the morning :) ), and I feel like I'm camping. It's pretty awesome because our church has a kitchen, bathroom, mattresses, etc. Perfectly fit for living there. So I feel pretty priviledged that I can say I got to have a sleepover in the church! We'll stay here until they tell us the car part comes in.

And this really is perfect. Because now while we're here, we save time driving (its now a lot closer to everywhere we have work), lots of gas money going up the mountain. We got 2 new investigators in Santo Stefano last week, and they BOTH came to church. MIRACLE. I've never had anyone come to church they're first week. It's always pretty stressful to get people into church here becuase it just takes a lot of organizing. But its so worth it. Angela is the Romanian badante (live-in caregiver pretty much for old people), and Nino is the neighbor/nephew of the old people she works for. They both came, and they brought the old lady with them, Maria, who is so cute and just like a child. We went to their house in teh morning so we could show them the way to the church, and while we were all a half hour late and they only stayed for maybe half hour, it really was great. They came to testimony meeting and got to hear some really great member testimonies. We're hoping that they'll come again this week. Pretty awesome. It was a great miracle for us to get them in church.

Giuseppe's baptism is still scheduled for next Saturday (!!!!!!!), though we might have to change it to the week after if he has work conflicts. But I am so grateful to have been able to work with him for the past 4 and a half months and to really see HOW MUCH HE'S CHANGED. Now he's the one asking us if we can read something together int eh Book of Mormon, volunteering to say the prayer, saying what he thinks and what he learned. It was not like that even a month and a half ago I feel. I feel like he is definitely ready for his baptism, and that he will continue to grow leaps and bounds. He shared with us an experience where he asked a personal question to Heavenly Father and he got an answer in return. And now he wants to act on that answer. It is music to my ears. Please pray for him in the next couple weeks, because even though he's ready it isn't going to be easy for him with all the opposition he has around him. I'm so excited for him and proud of him!

On my year mark on Friday we met with a kinda-ex investigator but he's more of on a break becuase he's super busy. Salvatore came to church one time (that was another miracle) a couple months ago, but since then its been hard to see him. Anyways, this lesson he was asking us a bunch of questions and we ended up talking a little bit about how we have a living prophet and how there are 12 apostles on the earth again, which he LOVED. He told us that he loves the things we're teaching him, he still reads the Book of Mormon everyday (whoo hooooo!!), and that if he were 20 or 30 years younger he would want to be a participant of this religion. Well, we felt prompted to invite him to be baptized for the 2nd time in his history. It went a lot better this time. He didn't exactly say yes, but he for sure didn't say no. He wants to go slow, but I felt so excited becuase its definitely a step in the right direction and he is still interested in our message. We were having doubts the past couple months if he was still interested. I love the spirit. Its important to make lesson plans, but sometimes you do something completely different and it ends up so much better!

And yes, I did eat a pizza for my year mark :)

We've been getting some rain and its been awesome! It's cooling down just a little bit, but especially in Mistretta I've been wearing sweaters in teh evening! So excited for that.

I love you all!!! The church is true! The Book of Mormon is true! This message helps every single person on this earth if they let it.

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Santo Stefano is right by the mare :)

I kinda hit a curb... :(

New district!

Giants parade in Mistretta

First night camping in the church! My greenie is awesome!

Ok basta. Have a great week! Happy september!