Sorella Sobeck in Rome: 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