Happy birthday, Cade!
Sending love from the most beautiful island in the world....Sicily 😎.
Siracusa is definitely growing on me! It's been a long, hard couple of weeks trying to learn our way around, meet the members, and figure out where to do our finding. This week was full of casa in casa and nothing less. Sorella Hope and I are really giving our all to this city and we have faith that we will see the fruits of it....preferably sooner than later but hey, all in the Lord's timing.
Not too much to recount from this week but last Monday we had a really good FHE with the Conforto family, in the ward. The parents are super active but their 3 kids aren't. (One is 25 and the other 2 are like 18 year old twins). One of the twins, Riccardo, we have become really good friends with he and his girlfriend, Lucia (not a member). They come to English course and they've come to church the past 2 Sundays! It took me a minute to realize that Lucia wasn't a member because one of the first things she said to me was that she wants to serve a mission, so we just assumed that she was a member. But eventually we connected the dots and have made plans to start teaching her! Tonight we are going to meet with both Lucia and Riccardo and we'll see how it goes. It's been fun becoming friends with them and working with people our age! And Riccardo speaks pretty good English so that's been nice for Sorella Hope.
I don't know if I mentioned it before... But a couple weeks ago at a gesso I talked with a cute couple that owns a store here in Siracusa called BiDieci and gave them a copy of The Book of Mormon! Well, we were out in giro one day and happened to pass by the store without even realizing! The only way we did know that was the store was because the girl came running out to salute us! It was so sweet! We have passed by there a few times this week to get to know them, they haven't read anything out of The Book of Mormon yet, but she promised me when she took it that night that she wouldn't take it if she wasn't going to read it. We are hoping to pass by their store again this week.... trying to figure out when they are less busy so we can actually talk, and set up a time to meet with them and talk more! They have just been so friendly to us it's refreshing and wow I'm smiling right now just thinking about them.
I might have talked a little last week about Sorella Battaglia, a member in the ward, she invited us to come every week to her crocheting group at the church! It's been great getting to talk to all the ladies that come, they love teaching us how to crochet and then they are curious about why we are here, what we are doing, and want to know more about our beliefs and the differences between it and Catholicism, it is cool to have Sorella Battaglia there testifying and explaining things to her friends. This last week she explained about the temple opening up and Rome and we got to talk more about how that church is different from typical Catholic churches and it's only open to the public until it's dedicated. Anyways really cool to create friendships with these ladies and crochet and, of course, do missionary work :)
We have been breaking up our finding with some less active visits! This week we met Sorella Turrisi and her mom. They are both less active, the mom is bed ridden and pretty immobile and Sorella Turrisi has such a strong testimony but doesn't come to church because she doesn't want to leave her mom. They have a beautiful spirit in their home and so we are excited to continue adding to that and sharing our testimonies all together.
The Ragusa sorelle came for a scambio this week (we don't do an actual exchange of companions because that would take up way too much travel time) so instead we just had a siracusa blitz and went really hard on the casa in casa with a few people who told us we can return! Whether they meant it or not, we'll find out ;) Sorella Manning and I went to visit Sorella Sarcià, another less active in the ward, oh my she is so cute and has such a big personality! We loved getting to read the scriptures with her and her son lives in Australia so Sorella Hope and I will definitely be going back to help her rekindle her fire in the gospel.
We have also been trying to meet with ward members and getting to know them.... yesterday we had pranzo with a cute couple from Castellammare. She met the missionaries because they were doing casa in casa at her apartment building! So yeah I guess you could say that's giving us some hope to hang on to for sure :)
I'll quickly mention a really cool experience we had the other day in our finding. We got talking to a lady, told her we were doing a survey, and showed her the "Always There" video, then after asked how Christ had been there for her. Well, she was brutally honest with us and said that she thought He hadn't. Her daughter has been doing chemo for like 10 years and she had lots of other things to get off her chest (I guess something about us being missionaries makes random people comfortable and willing to open up and tell their life story) but we got to testify to her that God has a plan for us and that sometimes he gives the toughest battles to His strongest soldiers. He gives us difficulty because He knows we can overcome. And that's something that I too have been learning this week. It's not always easy but it's worth it! Reminds me of one of my favorite Book of Mormon scriptures 1 Nephi 3:7 "He shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them". I know that as we GO and DO the things He commands us He will provide a way for us to accomplish those things!
Love y'all! Buona settimana a tutti!
XOXO
Sending love from the most beautiful island in the world....Sicily 😎.
Siracusa is definitely growing on me! It's been a long, hard couple of weeks trying to learn our way around, meet the members, and figure out where to do our finding. This week was full of casa in casa and nothing less. Sorella Hope and I are really giving our all to this city and we have faith that we will see the fruits of it....preferably sooner than later but hey, all in the Lord's timing.
Not too much to recount from this week but last Monday we had a really good FHE with the Conforto family, in the ward. The parents are super active but their 3 kids aren't. (One is 25 and the other 2 are like 18 year old twins). One of the twins, Riccardo, we have become really good friends with he and his girlfriend, Lucia (not a member). They come to English course and they've come to church the past 2 Sundays! It took me a minute to realize that Lucia wasn't a member because one of the first things she said to me was that she wants to serve a mission, so we just assumed that she was a member. But eventually we connected the dots and have made plans to start teaching her! Tonight we are going to meet with both Lucia and Riccardo and we'll see how it goes. It's been fun becoming friends with them and working with people our age! And Riccardo speaks pretty good English so that's been nice for Sorella Hope.
I don't know if I mentioned it before... But a couple weeks ago at a gesso I talked with a cute couple that owns a store here in Siracusa called BiDieci and gave them a copy of The Book of Mormon! Well, we were out in giro one day and happened to pass by the store without even realizing! The only way we did know that was the store was because the girl came running out to salute us! It was so sweet! We have passed by there a few times this week to get to know them, they haven't read anything out of The Book of Mormon yet, but she promised me when she took it that night that she wouldn't take it if she wasn't going to read it. We are hoping to pass by their store again this week.... trying to figure out when they are less busy so we can actually talk, and set up a time to meet with them and talk more! They have just been so friendly to us it's refreshing and wow I'm smiling right now just thinking about them.
I might have talked a little last week about Sorella Battaglia, a member in the ward, she invited us to come every week to her crocheting group at the church! It's been great getting to talk to all the ladies that come, they love teaching us how to crochet and then they are curious about why we are here, what we are doing, and want to know more about our beliefs and the differences between it and Catholicism, it is cool to have Sorella Battaglia there testifying and explaining things to her friends. This last week she explained about the temple opening up and Rome and we got to talk more about how that church is different from typical Catholic churches and it's only open to the public until it's dedicated. Anyways really cool to create friendships with these ladies and crochet and, of course, do missionary work :)
We have been breaking up our finding with some less active visits! This week we met Sorella Turrisi and her mom. They are both less active, the mom is bed ridden and pretty immobile and Sorella Turrisi has such a strong testimony but doesn't come to church because she doesn't want to leave her mom. They have a beautiful spirit in their home and so we are excited to continue adding to that and sharing our testimonies all together.
The Ragusa sorelle came for a scambio this week (we don't do an actual exchange of companions because that would take up way too much travel time) so instead we just had a siracusa blitz and went really hard on the casa in casa with a few people who told us we can return! Whether they meant it or not, we'll find out ;) Sorella Manning and I went to visit Sorella Sarcià, another less active in the ward, oh my she is so cute and has such a big personality! We loved getting to read the scriptures with her and her son lives in Australia so Sorella Hope and I will definitely be going back to help her rekindle her fire in the gospel.
We have also been trying to meet with ward members and getting to know them.... yesterday we had pranzo with a cute couple from Castellammare. She met the missionaries because they were doing casa in casa at her apartment building! So yeah I guess you could say that's giving us some hope to hang on to for sure :)
I'll quickly mention a really cool experience we had the other day in our finding. We got talking to a lady, told her we were doing a survey, and showed her the "Always There" video, then after asked how Christ had been there for her. Well, she was brutally honest with us and said that she thought He hadn't. Her daughter has been doing chemo for like 10 years and she had lots of other things to get off her chest (I guess something about us being missionaries makes random people comfortable and willing to open up and tell their life story) but we got to testify to her that God has a plan for us and that sometimes he gives the toughest battles to His strongest soldiers. He gives us difficulty because He knows we can overcome. And that's something that I too have been learning this week. It's not always easy but it's worth it! Reminds me of one of my favorite Book of Mormon scriptures 1 Nephi 3:7 "He shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them". I know that as we GO and DO the things He commands us He will provide a way for us to accomplish those things!
Love y'all! Buona settimana a tutti!
XOXO
 |
| cute Sorella Sarcia |
 |
| Church yesterday with the YSA's |
