Sorella Sobeck in Rome: Object Lessons are of the Devil!

Oh hey, so the mission tour was really great, we got some inspired council from Elder Richards, and he flat out told us to stop using object lessons in lessons...it was a little shocking, but a little funny at the same time. He is VERY knowledgable of the scriptures and shared many great ones with us to help us to be more effective and diligent in missionary work. He also talked a little bit about how serving a mission really is for ourselves...we need to convert ourselves.

Everyone probably knows by now that the Pope resigned and I have been surprised to really not hear too much about it, but I'm sure its bigger than what I've heard. We've asked some people about it and have gotten interesting answers. We have an investigator who is a member of the Ba'ai (I cannot remember how to spell it!) faith and one of their prophecies is that when there is a black Pope it is a fulfilled prophecy that the Catholic church will die. One of the possible pope candidates is black! So weird.

Some INSANE things have happened this week. I'll tell you about Friday.

We did weekly planning in the morning and we had a couple appointments for the evening set up. Alessio, an English course student, called US and wanted to see us in the evening and said he was bringing a friend with him! Sweeeet miracle! We had Daniel scheduled for after. We're on the metro and Daniel calls to cancel on us...but we still had Alessio and his friend which was exciting. It turned out to be a difficult lesson, neither of them are interesting in learning about our church really, but they were really combatattive (is that a word?) and were trying to argue with us and convert us Cathlic. We were at Termini and this little cafe/bar place, and after they left we just sat there for a couple minutes, we talked out what happened, we were a little frustrated. It happens. And we didn't have any appointments after, and it was getting late anyways, and we were really hungry, so we decided to cheer us up that we would go eat some McDonalds (I'll probably never want to eat that again back in America!). We literally walk 10 feet from our table, and we see a guy and girl at a table, clasping hands and PRAYING together. We HAD to talk to them. So we waited til they finished (Slla Bradford pretended like she was making a phone call haha), and then we walked over to them to tell how wonderful we thought it was that they were praying. They asked us to sit down! They are Romanian, and are brother and sister - she lives here in Roma and he lives in Spain, but they speak English, so we listened to this guy talk to us for like half an hour about FAITH. It was seriously incredible. He knew we were Mormon, and said he had wanted to talk to the missionaries in Spain before but they had never stopped him (even when he would slow down on purpose and pretend to tie his shoe...wow!). We just got a gold referral for Spain!!! And the sister wants to meet with us too! That definitely cheered us up for sure. So then we went to McDonald's anyways. We start eating and this young boy sits down across from us and gives the most disgusted look at his sandwich because it had onions in it hahaha. He came with us the whole trenino ride to our street from Termini, talking with him for about an hour in English. He studies Chinese too! Also while we were waiting for the trenino with this kid, another guy who is half Norwegian and half Afghan asked us to watch this bag for him while he left - then he came back with a coke hahaha. It was just a hilarious night - started out rough but ended fantastic!

Some other really cool stuff that happened this week. I KNOW that Heavenly Father guides the paths of his missionaries! Even when you think you're lost and you wasted time going a longer way or you just walk the wrong way for a second, it puts you in the right place at the right moment. On Sunday night we were doing such...we took the longer route unintentionally and a girl walking by us said "Sisters!". She's from Mexico and couldn't find the church and wants to come and lives in our area. Perfect.

We had also gotten a referral from Roma 1, and we thought it was just a contact. We called her and made an appointment, she wanted a BoM in Spanish (she's from Peru), we meet with her at Termini the day after we called her and as she was speaking to us almost all in Spanish (which i can now understand some of!), we find out she is a baptized member of the church, has been in Italy for 3 years but didn't know where the church was until she met the Roma 1 missionaries and now she's going to come to our ward in Roma 3!

All these things happening....I love members of the church and FINDING them randomly! Things don't happen by accident!

We also have a 10 year old boy who wants to get baptized :) We are teaching Daniela, and she has 4 kids. The oldest one, Alessandro, is adorable, and he said a prayer for us the other day and he said that he can't wait to be baptized Mormon :) :) I hope I get to see it, but they all have to come to church the next 3 weeks in a row in order to be able to be baptized for the date we set with them. Vediamo. Speriamo bene! I love Daniela's family!!!!!!!!!!

It's been a long week but a really good week. I look forward to seeing what awesome things happen this week!

Vi voglio bene!!

Love, Sorella Sobeck