"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!!!

This would be my district. Pday last week at Tivoli when it was freezing cold.

Blessing's birthday yesterday and we went to another party with lots of African food...we are becoming master fufu eaters

This is Billy. He's legit and has a really cool hat.

After 3 transfers together in Mistretta, we're still friends :) Fun to have Slla Comollo up in Roma.

Big FHE for Roma 3 investigators

Haha her chair broke

We love Anziano Davids!

Promoting the Ritz crackers

Villa Adriana

We must kiss the lucky eggs

Pday with Michele

Cool statues

BOBBY

Jamaican beanie with BOMBE

This week!

Ciao tutti!

For starters...Blessing got baptized!!! It was a pretty dramatic baptism, but it happened. She is a great example and her testimony after the baptism was really strong. She's already quoting from the Book of Mormon. "Now that I am a member of this church I can never go back to my old ways." :) Change...changing for the better is what life is all about and that is what the gospel does!!!! Picture below!!

This week we've unfortunately dropped almost all of our other investigators...mamma mia. We have 2 solid progressing investigators now, Dario and Daniel, both of who want to be baptized and we're trying to set dates with them. It's a really cool story about both of them:

Dario. He has been an ENglish course student for a few years. His dad, Michele, started coming consistently about the time I got here to ROma 3, and he came to all the church activities and even to church. He's a basic student, which the other sorelle teach, so they started teaching him, and me and Sorella Winward wanted to teach Dario who was our student in intermediate. Michele has been making AMAZING progress in the past months and comes to church every week and goes to baptisms at the other wards etc. He set a baptismal date just yesterday for February 3rd :) :) With Dario, he wasn't really moving fast at the beginning, but the past month or so he comes to church every week too and we always talk about baptism with him, his issue is the word of wisdom, but we asked him if he wants to get baptized and he said yes :) So we're working to set a date with him!!!! We love these 2 guys sooo much, and they love all 6 of us missionaries haha. It's like a big group effort really. We had an FHE with them last week with all of us, and another corso student, Giovanni, who also loves us but has no interest in joining the church. It was so great! Picture also below.

Daniel. He's from Sierra Leone in Africa and we love him! We found him on the bus about a month or so ago. We asked him to be baptized with a date his first lesson, and while he didn't say yes to the date and its been a bit rocky since then in some ways, we're a lot closer with him now and he wants to be baptized. He goes to another church and does some missionary efforts there, so he has only been to our church once. It's hard to argue against a good thing with someone. But after the baptism on Sunday I called him becuase he didn't come after he said he would, and he was really sad that he hadn't made it...and he said he had finally decided that he wanted to come to OUR church from now on :) It was a miracle phone call, and I really look forward to seeing his progress now!!! 

YAY FOR MIRACLES!!! We are excited to find lots of new investigators, and also have more time to meet with more members since we haven't had ANY time for that the past 2 months.

Missionary work is incredible!!! It's all about changing yourself and watching other people change too. ANd all for the better. IN Daniel's last lesson he was really worried about offending God because he's already been baptized twice in his life, and he doesn't want to make a mistake or do a bad thing. I told him "Daniel, we would never ask you to do a bad thing." It's all about moving forward in the faith and becoming members of Christ's church!!! Doctrine and Covenants 22 is a really good answer to that question about being rebaptized, which I found this morning. Yay scripture study!!

I love being a missionary! The work is true! I hope you will recognize more miracles in your life this week!!!!

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Andrea - I got your letter and I will be sending one back your way :) 

Finally the long awaited pictures!!!!!!!!! 

We went to Gandolf's castle!

Knocking on the Pope's summer house!

Cleaning the font...we look so tired!

Blessing's baptism!! MIRACLE :) :)

All 6 missionaries in Roma 3 with 3 of our investigators (Michele - red, Dario - back right, Giovanni - left of red) and our ward mission leader (Vincenzo - yellow)

Buon Befana!

Ok, so I didn't do anything for Befana, and I still don't really understand what it is or why they do it, but its a holiday here and its over now which means the holidays are over finally!!!!!

We are teaching a ton of Africans and its the best thing ever. It's actually been weird to teach in Italian when we do it haha because we've been teaching so much in English lately. Blessing is all ready to be baptized on Sunday (switched from Saturday)!!!!!!!! I'm sooooo excited and grateful that I've been able to be a part of this process. Teaching people and watching them progress increases my testimony so much of the gospel. I know its true. And I love when other people know its true too. Pray for Blessing!!!!!!!!!

We've been really busy and trying to find out how to fit everyone in that we need to see. Prayers are answered, sometimes in very sad ways though, because we ended up dropping several people who were not progressing. It is sad, but its amazing to see how the work evolves and goes forward. For some of these people its just not their time yet, but I believe it will be in the future.

I love new converts SO MUCH. Their faith is incredible. With Dexter we've gotten a lot closer with him lately. He had some problems but he really trusts us so we've been able to help him and realize that the Atonement is real. I'm SO GRATEFUL for that. It helps every single person who wants to use it. Dexter is realizing that and holding on to it. We also had a mini'lesson with Doris this week at the camp, and she is struggling with some health problems and hadn't been to church in a couple weeks. But she came on Sunday and I helped her fill out her tithing slip. Talk about faith. Talk about example. Love them.

I gave the training in district meeting on Monday and with everyone's participation it went really well. My district is a lot less tense now (last transfer there were many many problems but with transfers a lot of things are so much better now), and I gave a training about God has His way of doing things and it usually isn't man's way of doing things, but what are some things that we can do to change ourselves to do things His way? There are several scriptures to show it, but it was just a great little meeting. And afterwards my companion asked for a blessing from the anziani, and she asked Anziano Wolzl (he's from AUSTRIA and is a greenie and is awesome!!!). He did the blessing in German, but then wrote down a translation afterwards, and during the blessing even though we didn't understand a thing he was saying we all felt the spirit so strongly. The priesthood is real. The power of God is so strong! I love blessings.

I hope everyone has an amazing week full of miracles!!! Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Sobeck

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

When we had to come in early for New Years Eve, this is what we did inside :)

BUON ANNO!!

Can't believe its already the new year. I spent the whole year of 2012 in Italia as a missionary and it was great :) It was a great year and a year of many learning experiences - lots that I didn't want at all but all that helped me as a missionary but most especially as a person. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father knows me and what I need more than myself. I know that after my mission these experiences won't stop either...life is all about growth and its not about being easy but about becoming more accepting of the will of the Lord. Good thing He loves us a LOT and wants us to always come out on top. :)

I'm grateful to have a new transfer ahead of me! Sorella Openshaw and I are staying together and we are working hard together. We have a baptismal date for next Saturday for Blessing and it truly is a miracle. Our relationship with her is growing and her testimony is growing. She looks soooo happy every week when she comes to church and she loves the things we teach her. She has a ton of faith, like all Africans, and she knows she needs to act. On Saturday when we went to their house they fed us fufu...mamma mia...it was a fun experience haha. Theres lots of different kinds, but they made it with delicious cow intestines! I drank lots of juice... :) :)

Christmas was so much fun. On CHristmas Eve we were with a member who is from Utah actually and is just here working for a little bit. Andrea fed us baked potatoes with delicious chili on top and we were all about to explode from being so full. We had permission to be out until 10:30 on Christmas Eve, but when we left Andrea's house we realized that there were no buses running...so...we had to walk home from her house...we didn't get home until 11:15 hahaha walking in the ghetto - it was a bit scary and there were definitely some CRAZIES outside, but we made it home in once piece. We were praying reeeeally hard :) On Christmas we went with all the missionaries to the Perego's house outside of Rome - Ugo is Italian but served a mission in California and lived with his American wife, Jenna, in Utah for 10 years before they just barely moved back to Italy this year. They are AWESOME - Ugo is practically American by now and has the great sarcasm we all love and use. We watched a Bug's Life with their 5 kids, they gave us Root Beer/Dr. Pepper and DORITOS(!!!!!!), we watched the MoTab CHristmas program from a couple years ago with David Archeletta, ate lots of other delicious food including turkey, and we SKYPED WITH FAMILY!!! It was soooooo great to see my family and talk to them! I love them! We were at the Perego's all day long and they gave us a ride home which was wondeful, considering the night before haha. It was really great to have a couple days and just chill for Christmas. And then the next day on Pday we got to watch another movie and we watched Kung Fu Panda 2 and hung out in the church playing games all day - good times.

New Years was also really fun - we got to clean our apartments! Happy Holidays to us! We were getting down and dirty with all that black mold that decided to grow under our sink...fun times! And Roma on New Years at midnight beats any firework show I've ever seen for the 4th of July in America - there were about 20 firework shows around our apartment that random people just set off - we set our alarm to wake up a bit before midnight to celebrate the new year, but we didn't need that alarm haha because it was SO LOUD! We were on our balconey watching the fireworks for awhile.

THings are going really well with the work, even though its been really slow with appointments and such the past couple weeks with the holidays. We have some investigators that are making really really good progress and we're so excited to watch it!!! SOme of my favorite things about being a missionary are hearing a person pray for their first time with us and when they start reading the Book of Mormon everyday. Best feeling EVER! WE're so excited about Blessing and we have a couple other solid progressors that I look forward to seeing what happens with them.

Thats all I have time for today. Hope all is well, Happy 2013 to everyone!!! The church is true!!!

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Service at the Caritas

Xmas Eve at Andrea's

BUON NATALE!!

Our Christmas tree from the Chinese store

Christmas at the Perego's

Hahaha Acquaman 

Fufu