Lasagna Love

Ciao famiglia e amici!

This week was slightly unconventional....last monday we caught a train at 6:30am to go to Cagliari (cal-ya-ree) for zone conference!! We had zone conference on Tuesday.....

The Great Italy Rome Mission is now an online proselyting mission! What does that mean? Well, we are Facebook official! (Mom and dad, I guess it's time you join the bandwagon and create facebook accounts so you can keep up...) haha. We have had a lot of training on that and more to come, so we haven't started using it a lot in our work yet! But I know that it will be an awesome tool to help us out. Here are few stats to help you make sense of things:

- Out of the 400+ mission worldwide, ours is one of 87 using online proselyting!

- In the month of June, 1/3 of the world's population (2 billion people) used Facebook

- There are roughly 27 million people in our mission boundaries + all the people from back home.  We can reach all of them through Facebook!

Sardegna Zone

After zone conference I flew to Rome and took a train to Caserta! My birth city!! It was weird being back but so so amazing, it's hard to put into words. The best way I can explain it is like going home for less than 24 hours. Weird. I went to pick up my Permesso di Soggiorno so that I can legally live in Italy while I'm here doing missionary work! Unfortunately, it expires like November 12 so I will be doing the whole process over again. If you know, you know. 

While in Caserta, I got to spend the day with the sisters currently serving there! One was Sorella Lee, from my MTC group. I tried to meet up with friends that live there, but it was pretty last minute so not much worked out. We did get Napoli pizza, with Denis, one of my friends from the ward who now has his mission papers in!! I got to see the Williams (the senior couple serving on the American base) which was really great, too. We had a dinner appointment with one of the sorelle investigators who lives on the American base!! A nice american meal, barbecue and coleslaw :) 

With Denis who  will soon be serving a mission

In Caserta with Sorella Lee

Sorella Demann stayed in Cagliari the whole time:/ We got back to Sassari at around 6 pm on Thursday! Quite the week for sure! On the train ride home we met a couple guys that spoke english really really well, one of which lives in Sassari. They were really nice and fun to talk to so we are hoping they will come to english group!

And speaking of english group.......At the end of every class, we close with a spiritual thought and a prayer. Thursday for the spiritual thought we decided to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon and its importance in our lives, the happiness it brings to us. We told everyone there that they could also have this book and we would love to give them a copy! We got to gift NINE copies of the Book of Mormon that night. Definitely the biggest miracle we saw this week, I am so excited for english group tomorrow to follow up and talk with the people that (hopefully) read from it :)

We made our very own lasagna this week. It was delicious.

Quote of the week said by an Italian Anziano "you can always pray to know if colpa d'aria is true" 😂😂 said like a true Italian.

On Friday we decided to do some casa in casa near the church! There were 3 open buildings that we got to go in and knock all the doors. No one let us in their apartment, but we did have a few people tell us to come back! Whether or not they meant that is another thing.....but what they don't know is that we actually will come back hehehe :) Lots of seed planting going on here in Sassari it is so much fun, especially with the perfect weather we have been having lately! 

On Saturday we walked 9 miles. We walk at least 40 miles a week.

We had a lesson with Gift on Saturday!! She is our age and the absolute cutest African. She lives in a camp, and she doesn't have either of her parents or really any family for that matter. It is very sad but we are trying our best to help her and teach her! Teaching someone that doesn't know how to read and has never been to school is definitely challenging. For our lesson we cut out pictures of people or things that have to do with the Restoration and reviewed them like a million times. By the end, Gift was killing it. She is so smart and it is amazing to see how happy the gospel makes her :) 

As we were walking into centro last night, we heard drums... and Italian "festa". But it was a parade celebrating one of the Catholic saints apparently! It was really cool to watch and just be a part of the Italian culture for a few minutes :) 

Italy or Hogwarts?

Last night we were taking pictures of a really cute street we were walking down, when a group of little kids ran up to us asking why we were taking pictures of the street! Hahahah we tried to explain to them that it's a cute street and that streets aren't like this in america! They were mind blown. Sorella Demann and I had so much fun talking with these cute kids, they were partially mesmerized because we were American hahaha. We are so excited to hopefully see them again on that street or possibly in english group.

Today's pday featured a super en gamba ward member taking us to Castelsardo. Bellissima!! 

During my studies this week, I came across a talk from last general conference that I really loved called "Stand Up Inside and Be All In". Elder Sabin tells a story about some scouts he took on a campout. One of the scouts didn't sleep very well because he was cold, the fire went out, and he didn't want to use his sleeping bag because he didn't want to have to roll it back up. "he froze for hours because he was trying to save five minutes of work. We may think, 'How foolish! Who would ever do that?' Well, we do it all the time in much more dangerous ways. We are, in effect, refusing to unroll our spiritual sleeping bags when we don’t take the time to sincerely pray, study, and earnestly live the gospel each day; not only will the fire go out, but we will be unprotected and grow spiritually cold." I love this analogy that we can all apply to our lives! This week, let's unroll our spiritual sleeping bags and just do the simple things like praying and studying our scriptures. I know these things will bring us warmth and blessings.

Can't wait for general conference this week! I am hoping that the missionaries in our branch will get to watch in English, but I probably shouldn't get my hopes up. I am so excited though! Italian or English, the Spirit speaks to us in the same way. The gospel is universal and it's amazing! I am so thankful, so blessed to be one of the Lord's servants called to share His gospel with the people of Sassari. They are such a strength and light to me. I love all of you and hope to hear from you soon! Have a great week :)  More pictures below.

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Corso Giovanni Pascoli 25
Sassari, SS 07100
Italia

Bought Ray-Bans at the African market for $9

Best pizza in Italy is in Naples

My little friend

Miracoli ovunque❤

Buongiorno! (sorry this is a long one. feel free to just look at the pictures:) )

Wow this week has been crazy but awesome. I'll start by attempting to explain the biggest miracle of the week/my mission thus far. It's a little difficult to explain so bear with me. :)

OK. SO. 

On Tuesday the Anziani were at the church waiting for someone to show up to an appointment they had set up several days ago. At the same time, Sorella DeMann and I were at the Giardini, our favorite finding park, waiting on a contact that wanted to meet up, Cristina! As we were waiting, we noticed a mom and her 3 children playing on the playground. Sorella DeMann said, "Hey I think I've talked to that lady before maybe? If I'm thinking of the right person, she's from Brazil and doesn't speak Italian well. But she seemed really on top of things, and she seemed like a family oriented mom." 

So we looked in our phone under the name we thought.....there it was! Apparently they've tried to contact Diana before but she never answered. While we were waiting on Cristina to show up for the lesson, we call the Anziani, we didn't know what they would be doing but we thought it would be so cool to give Diana a portuguese Book of Mormon. Turns out they are at the church because the person they were trying to meet with didn't show up. They weren't doing anything at the time and they happened to find a portuguese Book of Mormon AT THE CHURCH?!?! What. They sprint to the bus stop and catch a bus all the way across town. 

Meanwhile...... Sorella DeMann and I are teaching Cristina about the restoration. She has been taught by missionaries before, so we just wanted to see how familiar she was with everything. It was a good lesson! She brought her cute baby boy, his name is Gesu (Jesus). Apparently it was his birthday and his cake was going to have Jesus, the Madona, and Padre Pio on it (if you know, you know). Right as the lesson was ending, the Anziani come sprinting into the park with a portuguese Book of Mormon!! 

Fortunately, Diana was still there so we walked up to talk to her, she said she remembered Sorella DeMann. And oh wow the look on her face when she opened the book and realized it was in portuguese. It was so powerful. She started reading it and as we were walking away, we kept turning around to see if she was still reading. She was! So many things came together so perfectly for us to be able to place the Book of Mormon with Diana that day. It is all the Lord and His timing, it truly is miraculous. 

Finding people to teach.

We have been doing lots of finding this week, trying to find new investigators. Just someone to share our message with. That being said, we did A LOT of "casa in casa" meaning door to door ringing citofono. You go down the list and if someone wants, they can buzz you in! Well, we got to one apartment complex and the door was unlocked so naturally we went in. Starting at the top floor working our way down knocking on everyone's doors. The funny thing about this is that some people have peepholes with covers. But if you're standing outside the door you can hear them uncover the peephole and look at you. So it's pretty hysterical when they do that and don't open the door hahahaha. Anyway. A family in the building let us into their apartment!! I think we were so in shock we didn't even know what to do when we were invited in hahaha. Sorella DeMann said that's only happened to her 1 other time since she's been here (almost 1 year). They were a cute family from Iran, we showed them the "Because of Him" video which always brings the spirit so strongly. It was cool to testify of Christ and see them feel something too. 

First day of school picture. Taken in front of the school. (It was the first day of school here.)

We did a gesso this week and it was kind of raining...not a lot just drizzling. It's funny how Italians love to point out weather things. So almost every person we were trying to stop didn't say anything but "it's raining" and kept walking hahahah. We found this hysterical for some reason. Once it stopped we had a little more success talking with people. There was a guy about our age who approached the anziani (<-- major plot twist..) and asked, "what do mormons believe" and they got to briefly explain to him! So cool.

There's an older lady in the branch, Sorella Fiori, it was her birthday on Saturday! So we decided to take her some flowers, she lives by herself. She lives out of the city and it was really an adventure getting there, including walking next to the guardrail, but we made it! She is the cutest, we got to wish her a happy birthday and share a little thought.

When we made it back to the city, we went to the Giardini (park) and saw a man sitting on a bench reading a book! Sorella DeMann and I talked over how to approach him....he likes to read so why not read the Book of Mormon, right?!? He told us that once he finished his book, he'll start the book of mormon :)

Dinner at the Bishop's home

Last night we went with the Anziani to dinner at the branch president's home, his family (5 kids) live in an actual house, very uncommon in Italy. Their kids are the cutest. Also I thought that Italian dinner was supposed to be small. Maybe it is. But what we had last night was nothing small. The first course was a heaping plate of pesto pasta (so yum) and a heaping plate of pasta carbonara (so yum). I would've been very full if the meal ended there. The meal did not end there. They brought out these huge meatballs. Oh wow they were delicious but no wayyyy could I eat all of that plus the potatoes and giant salad that were also on my plate. It was literally like a stereotypical missionary moment....I was sweating and trying to eat and swallow my food it was so much. Luckily I was sitting next to Anziano Dunn, if you saw him, you would know why this was lucky. He may or may not have helped out with my meatballs. No one will ever know for sure. Then we had a big piece of ice cream cake. Wow. We had to take the elevator up to our apartment when we got home and Sorella DeMann said, "that wasn't even bad...". Enough said.

On Friday we decided to venture to the other side of the city to Parco di Monserrato! Look it up, I'm sure there are pictures on google or something it is absolutely beautiful. It is undoubtedly a place where the spirit can be felt, just by entering. I can't fully explain. Unfortunately we timed it wrong and there wasn't anyone there except the gardener or worker man, Antonio. He told us when prime time was so we will definitely be going back there! We were debating whether we should talk to Antonio or not and we just figured why not. We told him we were showing a video, it's only 2 minutes, he said yes! So we showed him "Because of Him". It was amazing to see the changes that occured in his countenance in those 2 short minutes. When the video ended all he could say was "che bello", how beautiful. It was a moment that definitely brought tears to my eyes, standing in that beautiful, serene park so full of the spirit. How beautiful. How beautiful that Because of Him we can be happy, experience joy in this life and in the life to come. How beautiful that we can be forgiven of sin, have eternal families, and experience life in the fullest. How beautiful. I am so thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and this opportunity I have to be a missionary and share this beautiful message with the people of Sardegna. It is all because of Him. 

I love you all and hope that you have a good week!! xoxoxox

English course friends

Pizza after English course

Someone got a hold of my camera during English course.

Sorella DeMann eating a kebab.  My first kebab.
(Apparently, I only take pictures when I eat.)

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Corso Giovanni Pascoli 25
Sassari, SS 07100
Italia

Ciao

Hey family!! 

Rotary Club sign in Sassari?

I made it safely to Rome! Left Tuesday morning at 7am, got to Rome Wednesday at 8 am and went straight to work with the Rome 2 sorelle. I crashed their district meeting and we had a district lunch it was a lot of fun. I also got my transfer call to......Sassari! It's a city on the island of Sardinia. Flying into my new city was amazing- it is absolutely beautiful! 

My companion is Sorella DeMann, she was in my MTC district so we are super good friends, ah it is going to be a great transfer. We work so well together and definitely push each other, it's awesome. And she is so much fun, we are almost always laughing no matter what we are doing. 

Carley and her companion Sorella DeMann enjoying gelato

There is an actual church building here in Sassari, a mile walk from our house so not bad at all! And there is a small branch here, I am so excited to get to know everyone. Our district is us + 4 Anziani. 2 in our branch and 2 in a branch in a different city. 

The English course is pretty small here, but I think it may be because it's still summer and people are still on vacation. So hopefully we can do some more corso finding and get it full!! English course is always super fun though, we have a great time with that. 

We have 2 investigators, Joy and Gift, they're both African. Joy has a really cute 3 month old baby boy named Jeffery oh my he is so adorable I will have to get a picture. Too bad missionaries can't hold babies :/ Neither of our investigators can read very well so they aren't progressing a ton, but we taught them how to listen to the scriptures, we just aren't sure how much they actually understand. I got to help translate for them in relief society which was an adventure but really helps with learning the language. Anyways, It's kind of a difficult situation but they are so awesome and love the gospel. And while I'm thinking about it, there's an African refugee serving in our mission right now, I haven't met him yet but maybe I'll get to! They made a video about his story so I'll put in the link for y'all to maybe watch! 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865680242/Nigerian-refugee-survives-shooting-attack-rescue-at-sea-and-goes-on-a-Mormon-mission.html 

As for the rest of the work, it's struggling a little but I'm ready to get things rolling and I know that we will. We have been going through contact lists calling people and setting up appointments and doing lots of casa in casa (ringing citofoni) and are hoping to see something come of those efforts. Planting seeds :) 

We met some ragazzi (teenagers?) in the park the other day when we were doing finding there! They were super nice and very interested so we taught them the whole restoration, gave them copies of the Book of Mormon and exchanged phone numbers! That was on Friday. Then last night we called and texted trying to set up something to meet up this week and we got a text saying "You have the wrong number". Sorella Demann and I were heartbroken about this because they put their numbers in :( . But it's okay! I know that one day the time will be right for those ragazzi.

The missionaries here in Sassari have a great setup where every Saturday from 9:30-1 we help out at a Caritas! It's a place where people go that don't have food. So we sort through the food that is donated from local stores and shelve the good stuff. Help cut up fruit, prepare the meal, etc. And then lunch is from 11:45-12:45 we serve lunch and it was a lot of fun and a really good community service here. The people that run the caritas and the other volunteers are really good friends with the missionaries. It's a blast. I'm really looking forward to doing that every Saturday that I'm here in Sassari! 

Helping out at the caritas! Do you like the hats and aprons??

Church yesterday was nothing short of amazing. Being back in an Italian ward I've been thinking of it forever. I got to play some prelude music on the piano until the pianist got there and then I got to introduce myself and bear my testimony, in Italian of course. I shared a scripture, like the only scripture I have memorized in Italian, Alma 29:9, "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." 

The flight was long, jetlag is real, and my body is trying so hard to keep up with walking and working but it is, so good. The work is good and I absolutely love being a missionary. I know that Sassari is where I am supposed to be right now I am excited to further the Lord's work here!! The Church is true and I'm thankful for the happiness the gospel brings to my life. 

Love y'all and hope you have great week! Zone conference is next Tuesday and we are traveling down to Cagliari on Monday for that, like a 4 hour train ride, so not sure when I'll be able to email. 

Also I'm just now realizing how long this email is.... I'm sorry. Congrats if you made it to the end! Just so much happening and I'm loving life.

XOXO, Sorella Carley Neuberger

Pizza in a cone!  So cool!!

Gelato #2.  Can't get enough!