Gesù & Gelato: The best week of my mission.....so far

I am not exaggerating a single bit when I say that this past week was hands down the best week of my mission. So far. Because we are on a straight crescendo here in Statte! It is so beautiful and amazing and I still have no idea how I got lucky enough to witness it all.

One of the biggest miracles was our meeting with Anna di Giuseppe. We hadn't seen her in almost 2 weeks so we were starting to get kind of worried. But when we finally did have time for a lesson, we were geared up to break boxes and explain the importance of keeping commitments and coming to church. Plot twist: the first thing she said to us was "I know, I know, I need to come to church and I really want to! Especially because I still want to be baptized on March 10! So I asked at work if I could switch my Sunday shifts to Saturday and they let me do it!" So next week, Anna will be in church. She's already started inviting friends to her baptism!!

Other biggest miracle of the week: Antonella came to church. She has been an investigator since September or maybe even before, but yesterday she came to church for the very first time. Turns out that she and the bishop and the stake president's wife all grew up in Crispiano (one of the cities we cover) and went to school together! It turned out to be a beautiful testimony meeting and she had to pull out the tissues after bishop and his wife both bore their testimonies. She had to leave right after sacrament meeting, but we are beyond excited to meet with her this week and hear her thoughts on everything! We stopped by her house almost every day this week to read the Book of Mormon together dal inizio (from the beginning) and she LOVES it. Like she just eats it up and we will finish a chapter, look at her, and she keeps reading.

At the bakery with Giuseppe and Elvira.
(our adopted Italian parents)

And we started the same thing with Giuseppe and Elvira! Reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning and talking about it chapter by chapter. It has been really amazing to see how much they understand and comprehend!! That's something special about reading The Book of Mormon with Catholics or with people who know the Bible really well: is hey realize that the Book of Mormon is a lot easier to understand and so they understand absolutely everything. Honestly, I've been surprised with Giuseppe. After we read a chapter, we asked him what he understood and he gives us a perfect summary of everything we just read, complete with quotations and his own personal thoughts!! It's incredible. One night while we were at their panificio (bakery) reading The Book of Mormon in the back, we heard a voice from up front, someone entering the panificio, and it was none other than our bishop which it turns out that Giuseppe and Elvira are really good friends with him and just love him and know him pretty well. Bishop said to Giuseppe, "Oh I see you guys are reading the Book of Mormon! Well, that book changed my life." And that's been something that's really stuck with Giuseppe!

We also told Giuseppe and Elvira this week that they are our Italian parents, they really are. They take care of us, give us tons of food, and will sometimes call to see if we made it home safe at night it is so cute. They have a 25 year old son, but we are their adopted daughters! I just love them with my whole heart.

We met with Carmella this week again, this time she brought her 23 year old daughter, Sara who is AMAZING and our newest investigator. We are counting down the days until we meet with them again!

Our neighbor Ida came to church.

Ida came to church again yesterday! It was quite the miracle, with her being 85 years old and all, but the ward really seems to like her! As far as teaching her goes, it's pretty tough to keep her focused and actually understanding what we are saying and the points we try to make. But hey, we love her to death, our little Italian grandma.

Sorella Johnson is really good at following spiritual promptings, that's something I've really been learning from her. Well one day this week we were driving and we passed a girl and a few minutes later she said "we need to go back and talk to that girl" so we park the car and chase her down and show her a video and exchange phone numbers!!!!! COOL!

Someone shared this quote last week that I really love: "Set your goals—without goals you cannot measure your progress. But don’t become frustrated because there are no obvious victories. Remind yourself that striving can be more important than arriving. If you are striving for excellence—if you are trying your best day by day with the wisest use of your time and energy to reach realistic goals—you are a success." Marvin J. Ashton. Striving can be more important than arriving. How key is that in our everyday lives? We may not see immediate success or progress or results, but as long as we strive, eventually we will arrive.

Vi voglio un panzerotto di bene!!

XOXO