Sorella Sobeck in Rome: "In the name of Jesus!"

Oh hey all. Another full week. As always, life is good, life is crazy, and life is interesting!

We did a 2-day scambio this week. There are 4 sorelle in Roma 1 and 4 here in Roma 3, so 2 of us went there and 2 of them came here to do scambi (exchanges), and finally nothing happened to prevent scambi from happening when we planned it! I got to go to Roma 1 church and do scambi with Sorella Clark on Thursday and Sorella Christensen on Friday...learned a lot from both. It was so much fun to be with Slla Christensen becuase she took my place in Mistretta, so I got to catch up on all the small-branch drama and it was oh so fun!! With Sorella Clark I got to meet their new convert, Janus, who is 17 and Filippino and such a cute young guy. I love meeting new members. The great thing about the scambio was that it also made me love my collega even more! Sorella Openshaw and I work really well together and President told us we might be together for a third transfer (we'll find out for transfer calls on Saturday already - my last transfer...who else canNOT believe that???? AHHH). Scambio also made me love my ghetto area of Roma 3 even more than I already do :) I'm right where I'm supposed to be!

Saturday went absolutely not how we planned at all. One of those days. We were going to go far out of Rome with th eother sisters to see a member family, but we missed the bus becuase of various reasons (we weren't too happy about it either), and while we were disappointed about that we were able to get other things done that we needed to. Sometimes that is a really nice thing.

We met Daniela on Sunday! So, Daniele is the daughter of Sorella Tomei, who is a newly re'activated member. When I first got here the anziani were working with her, but they gave us to her with the referral of Daniela, her daughter, who was apparently interested in learning more about the church. It took us awhile to see Slla Tomei again becuase her phone number we had was wrong and its far away so we didn't want to go without an appointment, but one day we just went anways and we met Daniela. But...it was a DIFFERENT Daniela. Like 3 months later almost we have gotten it clarified that there are TWO Daniela's, and the one we had already met was her son's girlfriend hahaha. My gosh. The lightbulb turned on real bright when we figured out that one. But yes. We finally met the daughter Daniela and went to her house and met her kids and had a great little lesson and she very much wants to learn. She's adorable. Working with members and teaching their families is the greatest way to find people to teach! I'm really excited to see where things are going to go with Daniela and her family :)

We finally saw Dexter, the newer convert baptized in August, and after his lesson he came out with us and tried to find an inactive member with us. It was so great that he wanted to be involved and do work with us. Sadly the person wasn't home, and we didn't have more time after, so we introduced him to hot chocolate and went on our way.

Yesterday was Blessing's birthday and we went to Africa (aka - the refugee camp where she lives) and had a party with them and ate more African food. The joke of the week has been "In the name of Jesus"...the other sisters were at McDonald's last week after scambi and a Nigerian lady came up to them and they started talking and after a long story that I don't want to write all out (sorry), they said a prayer and they said her name in the prayer. Afterward she told them "WHY did you say my name? I do not need to you pray for me. I pray for others but you should not pray for me. I reject this prayer in the name of JESUS!" Ok...picture it all in an African accent that I will reinact for you all when I get home, but doesn't that just sound hilarious?? So when we were at Blessing's party yesterday they had some music on and there was this one song that seemed like a preacher saying all these things like "All these things are turning around for your good, in the name of Jesus!!" Legit.

Maybe this email was everywhere, but there ya go! Buona settimana a tutti! It's almost February!

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Andrea - I got your letter awhile ago and I'm in the process of writing you back. Thanks pal :) Love you!!!!

Fotos!!!