Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Last transfer calls.

I am changing companions for my last transfer. We got calls on Saturday and Slla Christianson is leaving and going to my home of Bari Poggiofranco! Sooo excited. Then Slla Openshaw is going to be with Slla Taylor (so we'll all still be in the same house just not comps), and my new companion is Slla Bradford. She's just going into her 4th transfer, so another young one, but it will be good to get a new collega to keep the change going and to remember to stay focused for these last 6 weeks. It's kinda freakin me out, and sometimes I will admit it is very hard to keep my mind here...but...it is possible and I WILL do it. :) I'm so very happy to be staying in Roma 3 though because I LOVE IT HERE. :)

This past week we've gone to visit different members and have had some good experiences with them. I love visiting members and hearing their testimonies and how they found the church. A cool thing about Italy is that most of these people are first-generation...they found the church themselves and now they're raising their families in the church. It's not like Utah and California where so many people have pioneer ancestory from the beginning...so I love hearing everyone's stories about how they found the missionaries.

Daniel is doing so good! He came to church on Sunday. He is being hit on all fronts by Satan - he lost his documents, doesn't really have a house, not much work if any, etc. So coming to church on Sunday was really hard for him, because he was pretty much ashamed, but he promised us he would come this week. Daniel is a man of his word too. So when we called him during Sunday school and he wasn't there yet, he said he was waiting for the bus and I was soooo happy. We had a lesson with him after church and he said it was so hard for him to come...so hard that he knelt down this morning and asked God for strength to come to church. I had major chills when he said that. He was so happy during sacrament meeting and afterwards we gave him the quit smoking plan which made him even happier. Man. And then he told us how much meeting us has changed his life and though the gospel was important to him before now everything has more meaning and is more important. Pretty much the words every missionary dreams about hearing from their investigators. We were soooo happy afterwards haha.

On Saturday we went to the Caritas again (the Catholic place that feeds homeless people) for service with some members of the ward. You meet some crazies there, but there are some really legit people who just don't have work or money right now. I met another Nigerian who has been in Roma for 8 years and knew the missionaries 8 years ago and has been to church and everything. But he had gone back to Nigeria and lost contact with them. His name is John and I enjoyed talking with him. People have incredible stories of legitimate survival. My companion, Slla Openshaw, also got proposed to by a Romanian man telling her that he would wait for her until the end of her mission and then would be her 2 children by the end of next year...yep.

Sadly Michele didn't get baptized on Sunday. Last week for his baptismal interview he didn't understand tithing, so it has to be postponed, and my testimony that baptismal dates are so important for progression has increased even more...now he still wants to get baptized but is struggling a bit. We had an FHE with Michele and Dario and the other sorelle with a member family and it went well. It was especially legit when Dario started quoting the Book of Mormon out of nowhere in the response to a question.

Yesterday was the busiest day of the busiest. We saw 2 members and had 3 lessons and also English course. Living in Roma...thats ridiculous haha. The members took up the whole day and thank goodness they gave us rides or we couldn't have done it. But our lessons - one was with an ex-simp we found int he area book and we had a little 20 minute lessons with her, then another 20 minute lesson with Alessio, who came to ENglish course for the first time last Thursday and started asking me a bunch of questions afterwards, and then HE called US to meet with us before corso on Tuesday...miracle! He's only 26 and such a curious kid. I love that! It's so exciting at the beginning states of investigator's journey with the church, becuase you just never know whats going to happen...interested or not? Will he/she progress or not? Will they pray and recognize an answer and ACT on it or not? We never know...its fun :) Someone gave us a Book of Mormon back this week and told us they were Catholic and not interested...example of NOT. Daniel is trying to quit smoking so he can live the Word of Wisdom and obey the commandments and get baptized...example of YES.

Life is good. Tonight the sisters from Cagliari are coming over becuase Slla Camp goes home this week and Slla Winward is staying with us ALL WEEK!!!!!!!! I am soooo excited to see my old collega again and have her in Roma 3 for the week.

Hope everyone has a good week and stays happy! Vi voglio bene!

Love, Sorella Sobeck

Good picture to remember Opi by


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