I'm pleased to introduce to my loyal readers....
Happy and Marvelous 2.0!!!
Their names are Faith and Daniel, and their 8 month old baby
boy is named Destiny. Here's the story.
My first day in Rome with Sorella Yanacallo we were on the
bus going to visit a member! On the bus was this really cute girl with a really
cute baby. Still heartbroken over leaving Siracusa, Happy, and Marvelous I
started talking to the baby. Then the girl. I found out her name is Faith and
she's from....Nigeria!!!! So I told her about my friends from Nigeria, showed
her picture evidence that I had eaten fufu among other African foods, and bam
we became instant friends.
She said she's Christian and goes to an African
church here in Rome (not for long hehehe) so we exchanged numbers and then this
week we met up with her! To make things even better, she brought her husband,
Daniel!!!!! We had planned on talking with them about the Restoration but a few
minutes into it Daniel blurts out "Wait I have a question I need to ask
you people. Where do the spirits of dead people go while they wait for the
judgement day?" Wow. I was floored by that, we quickly changed plans and
taught them about the Plan of Salvation! It was really great, they were
understanding, asking questions, amazing. Then at the end I asked what other
questions they had. Daniel responded "When are we meeting again?"
Well, isn't that the question every missionary prays to hear!!!! THEN Faith
came to church yesterday!!!! It took several buses and metros but she made it
with Destiny! Daniel couldn't come because he works in Napoli or something
along those lines. AND the church has set up this organization in Rome, The
Friendship Center, it's a big center where refugees can go and make friends,
they have lots of activities, teach English and Italian, etc. So we will be
taking Faith there this afternoon for women's day to eat lunch, paint nails,
ahhh missionary work is the best.
Okay and while we are on the subject of Happy and
Marvelous......Sorella Hope called me this week with some really exciting
news!!!!!!!!!!! Happy will be getting baptized on Saturday, the 14th!! She
finally got her answer and knows this is the right thing and wow I couldn't be
happier. And Marvelous is still praying for his answer! I am so so happy for
them and their cute family, ahhh missionary work is the best.
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| The temple! View from the info center. Picture taken with my phone. (It doesn't look real) |
I completely forgot it was 4th of July so last Monday night
when I did remember we started making phone calls like crazy trying to organize
some kind of something! (The ward in Siracusa was having a big ward party....
that's right, Italians celebrate American independence day😎).
We managed to get some English students who were down, a couple members too, so
with a small trip to LIDL for food, the Chinese store for balloons and other
red/white/blue randomness, we had a fun little festa at the church and played
games... we had a great turnout considering the late notice and everyone had a
great time!!
I have to add that although our English course is starting
to die out (everyone goes on vacation for the whole summer) the people that
come are AMAZING. There's this really cute family from....Ecuador!!! (How
perfect because that's where Sorella Yanacallo is from) and they all come!
Apparently the sisters gave them a copy of The Book of Mormon last transfer and
then on Saturday we will be going to their house so more to come!! Plus we have this cute older couple, Enzo and Bianca, that
just support everything! The ward had a little activity on Saturday morning and
we called last minute to invite them and they came! We gave them a copy of The
Book of Mormon this week!!!! Forza corso d'inglese
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| My cute comp ❤ |
I should probably mention that being comps with Sorella
Yanacallo is the best. Although it's hard sometimes because we communicate with
each other in a language that isn't either of our first language, we manage to
do just fine!! But now I know why she's here in Rome, there are TONS of people
that live here that are from South America. Just to give you a small example:
we had gospel principles class in Italian yesterday but it should've been done
in Spanish because there were like 3 of us in the class that didn't speak
spanish...everyone else did hahaha. And it's cool because we meet so many people
on the streets, on the metro, etc. that say "sorry, I only speak
spanish" and then Sorella Yanacallo just goes for it, so awesome. She is
so sweet and a really good missionary! I think her last comps have been
sheltering her hahah because this week after exchanging phone numbers with
someone she said "the first time I've done that myself!" She is so
awesome and really helping me. So yeah, we've met some really cool potentials
from Peru, Ecuador, all over.... the ones from Peru it's cool because I just
whip out my pictures from HEFY. It's also cool how similar Spanish is to
Italian..... surprisingly understandable!!
And speaking of people from Ecuador..... on Saturday we had
pranzo with the Zapata family! Remember Sorella Zapata, my Ecuadorian comp when
I was in Sassari? Well, her parents are in the Rome 2 ward and we had pranzo
with them! It was legit, we even had ceviche. So they were super cute and it
was a blast meeting them but also weird meeting the parents of your comp while
you're still out! And Sorella Zapata will come home while I'm in this ward
which is even weirder but so fun!!
Okay I have to throw in this random thing that I can finally
drink tap water.... hahaha I've spent so much money on water since being here
because I drink a ton but now we can drink the tap because it's cleaner in
Rome!! meno male!
Gioia. She's a 16 year old investigator we have that is so cute, I
met her for the first time this week! And she came to church yesterday and is
making great friends with the few young women that the ward has. Yesterday
afternoon, she called us kind of distraught and asked if we could come see her
but we were at the temple! Sorella Yanacallo said, hey we are at a place that
will bring you so much peace, you should come. She said "okay send me your
location and I'll be there as fast as I can!" Her dad drove her to the
temple and we just sat in the information center looking out those big windows
just soaking it in for a good while, you could see the peace gradually entering
her countenance. We got to talking about the temple, then her dad came inside
and he had TONS of questions which we answered best we could, but mainly he
just kept saying "Gioia and I are going to come back here in January to
see the inside! We will be here the first day!!" Wow! We talked with them
for a while and it turned out to be a really awesome experience so we are going
to try to meet up with Gioia, her mom, and her dad this week! Just need to work
around their work schedules🤞
As far as investigators and the work goes......well I guess
we technically have lots of investigators but not many of them are really
investigators. In the sense that they'd been taught a gospel principle, etc.
but haven't been seen again. Awk. So I hate to come into a new area and rest
everyone but we really need some new investigators!! Which leads us to lots of
finding! Here in Rome the best finding method is public transport which I'd
never done before so it's still pretty scary and intimidating. All my other
cities have been smaller and we never used public transport but here you can't
live without it. (still adjusting to all the chaos of Rome..... we go to bed
just so exhausted and then it feels like our alarm goes off 10 minutes later to
wake up) So if you have any public transport finding advice, hit me up. I've
been asking all the missionaries and gotten some good help so I'm pumped to amp
it up this week. Talking to random people as a missionary is something that's
been really hard for me, I had gotten over that fear (a little) with street
contacting and casa in casa, but now I feel like a greenie all over again! My
comp knows the language perfectly, she knows the city and I follow her around,
plus I am re-learning how to find hahaha. But hey, that's what the mission does
to ya. Comfort zones just don't exist and we are always learning and growing in
some way or another!
That being said, I want to share with y'all a quote that
really helped me out this week. Elder Uchtdorf says, "Our destiny is not
determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise
up, dust ourselves off, and move forward." So no matter how hard the days
may be, and sometimes we might feel like we are failing, that doesn't define
us. What matters is that we get up and try again! I know Heavenly Father loves
me and you too and that He recognizes our efforts and loves us even when some
days are hard! I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real, I've seen it
help me every day of my mission. I am so thankful to be a representative of Him
here in this beautiful country amongst the beautiful Italian people!
VI VOGLIO BENE!!
XOXO
Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Piazza Bortolo Belotti, 55/21
Roma, RM 00139
Italia
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Piazza Bortolo Belotti, 55/21
Roma, RM 00139
Italia
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| gelato + brioche = 😄 |
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| our city |
