GOALLLLLLL

Ciao a tutti!!! 

Wow this week was the best I've had here in Rome!!❤ couldn't tell you exactly why, it was just a good week, much needed. So I'll try and remember all of the miracles and crazy things that happened to make it such a fun week! 

One evening this week we put Sorella Decker's soccer talents to the test (not that I had any doubts). We were walking by a big soccer complex where a ton of people were playing and we watched for a minute then can up with a game plan. (Side note: this was all inspired by a story my mom sent me about one of the BYU women's soccer players while she was on her mission got to play with the team at Purdue and made friends with one of her teammates who eventually got baptized). So I'd been thinking nonstop about that and then when I saw Sorella Decker eyeing the soccer field, the wheels started churning and we concocted a plan. It took tons of courage on Sorella Decker's part, bless her heart. She called the goalie to the side and told him it was her dream to play soccer with Italians, and he was like "dai" (come on) so she went onto the field and I think everyone was probably seriously doubting her, little American girl and whatnot, hahah joke's on them. She explained that she's a missionary for our church and made a fair wager: "If I make a PK, you all will watch a short video (the Because of Him video)". She got no warm up shot, didn't even touch the ball, just went up and kicked it. Meanwhile I'm sitting on the side praying my heart out and catching the whole thing on video. She made it, without hesitation. It was beautiful. The even more beautiful part was all of the players giving the goalie a super hard time for looking like an idiot 😂😂. Only bummer was that they didn't think they were going to lose the bet so when she starting showing the video, they all went back to playing. But hey, it was a small try and now we are going to be on the hunt to share the gospel via soccer!! 

with Sorella Decker

Okay another exciting story, buckle up. 

We decided to do another heart attack this week, the Fiorillo family (they're the ones that are helping with Gioia!). So we show up at their apartment complex, tell the guy working the entrance who we were there for, and go inside. A few minutes later we found ourselves right in front of their door sitting on the ground with hearts and tape spread everywhere when a neighbor comes out and asks what we're doing. We explained (as if it wasn't obvious) and went back to work. Then we left. We stood outside their apartment complex for a minute trying to get directions to where were going next when all of a sudden like 8 or 10 carabinieri (not police, like state troopers) ran past us into the apartment complex. We were like "woah, wonder what happened!!!!" We finished looking at our directions and then started walking to our next destination. About 20 minutes later we get a phone call from Fratello Fiorillo "Hey sisters, were you at our house?" (They were out of town on vacation). We explained to him that yes, we were and explained what we went for and he said "yes, I know, the carabinieri sent me a picture". Moral of the story is that Italians get suspicious during the summer when everyone goes out of town and houses are empty and strangers show up. Even if those strangers are the sister missionaries. So they call the carabinieri. Oh and I guess Fratello Fiorillo called President and Sister Pickerd because then we got a call from them that started "sorelle, did you get arrested?" Hahahaha oh it was so funny because we didn't even talk to the carabinieri! Just a great adventure in the Italy Rome mission!!

We knocked into a member doing casa in casa near the temple! Turns out she's from up north but they bought a vacation house here to be close to the temple. Needless to say we were really confused for a second when she opened the door and cut us off mid-speel saying "yes I'm a member, come in!" It was a nice miracle for us that day getting to know her and share a thought! 

We had 2 great lessons with Gioia this week!

--  One we invited Veronica, a member who just got back from her mission! She's a convert and told her conversion story which really touched Gioia and helped her realize she too can be a convert at 16!

-- The second we explained the gospel of Jesus Christ and invited her to follow His example and be baptized!!! She will be praying about September 29 and that's what we will be working for so hopefully her answer comes sooner than later! She has such amazing faith and it's beautiful to see everything make perfect sense to her and watch her connect the dots!! Ah she's great. 

local market

We had a big zone finding session this week, we call it "la mietitura" meaning "the harvest". Basically we all stay in our areas but from 4-9 pm we attacked the streets, public transport, etc with a goal of OYMs (open your mouth), we ended up getting 542 as a zone! It is so much fun because every time you stop someone (OYM) you send a stop sign emoji to the zone group chat. It was great plus got us super pumped to go out and find the elect! Sorella Decker and I realized we have lots of improvements to make in our everyday finding and after putting this into practice the rest of the week things just went better and better. The coolest part of this night was that we were led to a little suburb of our area, still super close but neither of us had been there before. It was AMAZING, like a miracle and answer to prayer. The people on the street all stopped to talk to us, we met a cute mom and daughter, Cinzia and Melissa, who we had a nice long conversation with and left them with a copy of The Book of Mormon! We tried to meet up with them on Saturday but they had something come up which led us to doing a mini-mietitura  with some of the anziani in our district, we even had like a selfie photo challenge to make it more fun. And we met some more amazing people. Like Evelyn, her husband, and their 2 sons that were so sweet and wanting us to come teach them English!! We explained why we are here as missionaries and they were totally down!! Plus she even texted us right after we met to say thank you?!?!?!? What?!? We also met Gabriella on the bus, she's GANS age and spoke perfect English and we created a really good friendship plus invited her to FHE at the institute tonight!!!!!!! 🤞

We also spent some time this week organizing all of our potentials/contacts, etc and came up with a really good system. These calls led to tons of rejection over the phone, one lady Mercedes said "I'm in the hospital" and normally I would've said okay ciao, but I asked if we could come visit her. She didn't exactly send us the address so Sunday morning we set out looking for her. When we got close, we called to tell her we were looking for the right building and so she tried giving us directions and we eventually made it! Hard when you have no idea who you're looking for or where to find them! But we met Mercedes, she's a really cute mom and is from Peru. The person she was sharing her hospital room was named Gianna (also a cute mom, of 4 kids!) And she was from Ecuador. So we got to know both of them and then explained our purposed and shared the Grazie A Lui video to which they both agreed they felt physical chills. We bore testimony of the power of the Holy Ghost and of the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon and left them each with a copy, one in English one in Spanish! And we will see them again this week!!!!!! When we left the hospital Sorella Decker and I were in complete shock of the whole situation and also took a minute to think about the difference in their countenances when we arrived and how much happier they were when we left. Miracles and new friends💗💗💗

 

at the Pantheon with the district on pday

Quote from a talk I read this week that I really love: "Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved." Something I've learned recently is that challenges are going to come regardless, we can't avoid them. But, we can look at them as an opportunity to grow and learn what the Savior would have us learn to achieve greatness!! I am so incredibly thankful for my family here in Italy. I love the Italian people with everything I have and I am so beyond blessed to be serving them and the Lord here in the beautiful city of Rome! I love the gospel and I am thankful for the happiness and JOY that it brings into my life!! I know that true joy comes only through following the Savior. I love being a missionary!!!!!!!!💗💗 and I love you too. 

Have the best week! 

XOXO

yes, we ate the whole thing.

trevi fountain

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Piazza Bortolo Belotti, 55/21
Roma, RM 00139
Italia

Buon Ferragosto

piazza venezia

"Finding an italian to give a talk in August is like finding a missionary that's not from Utah" - our Bishop's opening line to his talk in sacrament meeting yesterday.  So that gives you a good idea of the difficulty we are facing right now! All of the italians go.......huh where do they even go? And it seems like every new person we meet is going on vacation the next week or the next two weeks. But sempre avanti, we are moving forward with faith, trusting in the Lord and His plan!

Wednesday was the legendary "Ferragosto". Legendary because missionaries in this mission give it such an interesting reputation.....basically it's the day when everyone takes the day off, everything is closed, and everyone goes to the beach. So naturally, we did deep cleaning that day! Oh and apparently the holiday behind Ferragosto is to celebrate the ascension of Mary into heaven. Catholics sure love Mary! Ah there's nothing you can do but love this culture!!
 
This week Sorella Decker and I made a goal to work with members, to call them (we have the ward list broken up between the 4 companionships that are in our ward) and get the ball rolling on member missionary work! Well, after calling through our list and still having nothing set up, we weren't sure what to do. The next morning we planned out our day with a great giro and then after we prayed to know it was the right thing, I told Sorella Decker "hey maybe we should do some kind of something for the members... maybe heart attack them?"and she said "I was thinking the exact same thing while we were running this morning!" It was really cool so we got right to work cutting out hearts and got to do a few heart attacks this week! One of the families, immediately upon seeing us at church yesterday said "Sorelle, thank you for the hearts! we would love to have you over to our house for lunch!" (when they get home from vacation in a few weeks) hahahahah we just had to laugh about that last part. Slowly but surely we are going to get things going here in Roma 2.

We spent a majority of our week hitting the metro and the streets and just finding people to talk to! Plus I did a scambio with Sorella Harmon this week and we saw tons of miracles together! So here are a few of the cool contacts from this week:

-- Isabel. She's from Brazil but has lived in Italy for 10 years because she's married to an Italian! She remembered seeing missionaries in Brazil and lived close to the church there! She told us she's not catholic and would love to learn more about our church! Well, I got to pull out The Book of Mormon there on the metro, we read the introduction together and exchanged numbers! Only bummer was that when we tried to call her she had blocked our number. But I still have faith because she was so elect! Pray for her!!

-- Aurora. GANS age. Also met on the metro, she told us she was going to the mall Porta di Roma and I asked if she'd see the temple nearby, she said yes! And then she talked about how she'd love to see inside. I pulled out my tablet and showed her some temple pictures I had downloaded and got to tell her a little about why temples are so special! So we definitely got her number! She lives in Ladispoli so hopefully we will be able to pass her off to the sorelle there.

-- Eugenie. She is from Africa I think and is an ex-nun, she left the nunnery because she knows families are part of God's plan and wants one of her own (sound familiar?)! Her first language is french so we are going to meet up with her hopefully next week (she's busy this week) and give her a copy of The Book of Mormon in french! She is really excited to learn more about the other testament of Jesus Christ!

-- THE KOREAN COUPLE. I think this might've been the highlight of my mission...... yesterday we were on the way home and there were 2 seats open in front of this cute asian couple, Sorella Decker and I sat down. I asked where they were from... "South Korea"! They're here in Rome on vacation. I tried not to jump out of my seat. But explained to them that my brother was in korea (they spoke pretty good english!) and they tried to teach me a little korean (already forgot). They asked us if we knew any place they could go that didn't have so many tourists. Sorella Decker like a genius whips out a temple card and tells them the address! What made it even more perfect was that they just had to stay on the bus and they'd get there! Plus I happened to have a picture of the Korean temple downloaded and showed them a picture of it, they wanted the address of that too, we gave it to them! Then I referred them to mormon.org and explained how they could type in their address and find the church building closest to them! (they live on the opposite side of the country from Seoul). Plus they have a cute 3 month old baby that they showed us pictures of. Wow miracles.

has a picnic by the Colosseum

We had a great lesson with Flavia this week, she explained more of her story to us and just has this great desire to be baptized so we are excited to maybe go a little bit deeper into the lessons with her and just study all together! We gave her a 7 day Book of Mormon challenge for this week and we are going to do it together! She's been reading some so we hope she'll make it a daily thing this week.

Gioia and Giulia are doing well! Unfortunately, they too are out of town and they don't even know when they'll be coming back. But we had a great lesson with them this week on the Plan of Salvation! They just ate it up. And then they came to english course the next day so we met before it started and they had remembered the whole plan of salvation! Plus we followed up on if they were reading The Book of Mormon and Giulia said no. So Gioia sat there and explained the first 14 chapters (everything she's read) and basically taught the lesson for us. It was incredible.

And lastly, the best moment of the week was our lesson with Lina. I couldn't tell you exactly why, but it was just something special. I feel this like super special connection and love for her and she's just the greatest. We watched the 20 minute restoration film with her and afterwards asked how she felt. She couldn't even put it into words but she did say that "everyone needs to see this video and feel this way". We got to bear powerful testimony to her that those feelings were of the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of our message! I was crying the spirit was so strong but also because it felt so amazing after spending the whole week finding and finding and finding to just have someone listen and understand and feel of the truthfulness for themselves. I can't explain it to you but it was something I definitely needed this week and Lina is someone I definitely need in my life. I love her, I love these crazy Italians!! Lina is going to Sicily for a couple of weeks on vacation. But she's bringing us back cannoli so we can't be too upset with her hehe.

Quote of the week "you didn't come this far to only come this far",
Hey there's always room for improvement and that's exactly why we are here! I love the gospel!! I love being a missionary!!

think on that one for a little.
Love yall!!!
Buona settimana!!
XOXO

 

walking by the colosseum

everyone needs a watermelon scooter

me and decker at the piazza venezia

national museum of modern art

gelato with Sorella Harmon

it is always time for gelato

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Piazza Bortolo Belotti, 55/21
Roma, RM 00139
Italia

Gioia, Gioia, Gioia, down in my heart❤

Another week has come and gone and I wish I could give you all of the details......but unfortunately our pday ends 4 hours short today so that we can do deep cleaning on Wednesday. Huh. So we are super crunched for time and have been in a straight rush/chaos all day, oh I should probably also include the fact that we we woke up extra early just to have more pday. Ha. The struggle. Plus we spent part of the week in a trio with Sorella Cook because Sorella Geertsen left! It was really sad saying goodbye to her because we have just really become such good friends, especially this last transfer. So after lots of tears and hugs she's back in America! (If you're reading this, I miss ya lots dude). 

with my new comp Sorella Decker

Comunque, it was a great week except for the fact that my cute comp Sorella Yanacallo left me for Palermo!!! But I got an awesome replacement, Sorella Decker! Not going to lie it's been a while since I've had an American companion and I am just really loving it. She's from McKinney, Texas and went to Utah State before the mission but wants to transfer to BYU to play on their soccer team (which means she's insanely good at soccer). Anyways this transfer is off to a great start and there will be tons of growth these next 6 weeks, I'm looking forward to it! We are just ready to push each other to our limits so it'll be great. 

I'll start by giving you a thorough update on Gioia! 

We had a lesson with her on Tuesday, went to her house and taught she and her mom a thorough and very powerful restoration lesson. It was cool to see Gioia help us teach her mom the parts she remembered from the video!! 

THEN

Sorella Decker's first night here we went with Gioia to the Fiorillo family (some members of the ward) and they made really close friendships with Gioia, and she opened up about a lot of her problems, trials. It was an amazing experience and thing to witness, just them all bonding-- exactly how it's supposed to go! They helped us reiterate the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it can help heal us!

AND THEN 

The Rome 5 anziani had a baptism on Saturday night and we invited Gioia. She showed up an hour before it started!!!! It was the perfect opportunity to stand in front of the font, we watched the video of the baptism of Jesus, and then bore testimony about the importance of following Christ and being baptized! She really enjoyed the baptism and even helped sing in the musical number we did with the Rome 5 sorelle!!!!!! And after she told us she couldn't believe how similar the baptism was to that of Jesus. ❤

PLUS MORE

with Giulia and Gioia

Gioia came to church 30 minutes early yesterday, stayed for all 3 hours! After sacrament meeting I asked her how she felt, she said "better". ❤ The Sunday school and young women's classes were so perfect, I won't go into detail mainly because I have 0 time but we are so happy with the way things are going! This morning she texted us to set up an appointment to come teach she and her mom this evening! Wow!! So the plan is to invite her to be baptized....stay tuned!! 

I was also able to meet lots of cool people on the metro and bus this week and exchange numbers with them! Wish I could go into detail but such a blessing!! As far as the Gioia I met on the metro last week, she is on vacation until September (like most) so more to come on that fra un mese!

Oh almost forgot! WE WENT STICKERBOARDING THIS WEEK! On Saturday night we had a district stickerboarding event, it was a blast and we got to talk to so many people!!!! Thank you Chase for the idea!! 

 

stickerboarding with the district

Other than that, we also had MLC and ZLC this week! 

And to close, if you've ever wanted to know why I'm here in Italy as a missionary, keep reading.

"Why have these great missionaries and others like them been willing to sacrifice the comforts of home, family, loved ones, and sweethearts to answer the call to serve? It’s because they have a testimony of Jesus Christ. And when they know Him there is no bed too short or too hard, no climate too hot or too cold, no food too different or language so strange that they are unwilling to serve Him. No sacrifice is too great to serve the Master, who sacrificed His all to provide the way for His brothers and sisters to return home to their Heavenly Father. And because they are faithful to their callings, thousands will revere their names throughout the eternities. I testify there is no more majestic call than to be in the full-time service of our Redeemer, to help to bring our Heavenly Father’s children to the knowledge of Him who has made eternal life possible."

Couldn't have said it better myself. I know that Jesus is the Christ, and that He died for us and lives again. I am so thankful every day for my call to be a missionary and to help my Italian brothers and sisters come to a knowledge of the Savior. 

Love yall!!!!! 

with Letizia

gelato and brioche at Guttilla

XOXO

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Piazza Bortolo Belotti, 55/21
Roma, RM 00139
Italia

Buongiorno da Sassari!!

Buongiorno da Sassari!!

Plane ride to Sassari

That's right, I'm back in Sassari for the day to pick up my permesso card. Still feels surreal that I'm here.... it's like a dream but I just love this city with my whole heart and miss it lots!! And maybe it's just in my head but I swear it's cooler here and there's a nice breeze coming off the coast. Che bello! 

I didn't get to see Gift, she was busy, but I did get to talk to her on the phone and she is just so happy!! ❤ She's super active in the ward and the sorelle even told me one of the families in the ward is going to try and adopt her!!!! Did get to see Pietro and he's doing great, still coming to church lots! Due to lots of travel and time spent at the Questura, this one might be shorter I'll try to remember what I can from this week!! 

Gioia, our cute 16 year old investigator, got back from her vacation and was dying to see us! She even texted to ask when we were meeting up! We had quite the adventure getting out to her house (she lives kind of far) and the metro was momentarily shut down (right at the moment we needed it!) So after about 4 buses, and a lot more time than we were expecting, we made it! We asked her if she'd been reading The Book of Mormon to which she responded by opening her copy and pulling her bookmark out to tell us about the 4 chapters she'd read!! We brought the restoration DVD and watched it on their TV and then afterwards got to testify of the importance of the modern-day restoration of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Her dad was there too and we gifted him a copy of The Book of Mormon!!

We did some metro finding this week and I had one of the coolest experiences of my mission! When the metro pulls up usually I just get on at the doors that open in front of me (kind of like spinning the wheel of fortune hahaha.. which doors will open in front of me today and who's gonna be the lucky winner on that car?) Well this particular day when the metro was pulling up I saw the back of a girls head and just felt like I needed to get on her car. So I walked down a ways, sat down right next to her, and struck up a conversation. That being said, there's definitely an art to public transport finding that I have yet to master which is: start the convo in a way that seems normal to them, make friends, talk about the gospel + establish missionary purpose. All in a really short amount of time. No pressure! I sat down next to this girl, her name is Gioia, she spoke perfect English (even did an exchange in Kentucky!), is from Rome, and is just really really awesome. The best part was that we became friends AND I pretty much taught the whole restoration (luckily Sorella Yanacallo was close by because I was not getting off until she got off, so we completely missed our stop 😂). It was really really incredible, I don't know what else to say. Gioia is really awesome and I just have a great feeling about it all! We have messaged some on whatsapp and hopefully will be able to set something up for this week! Anyways this was a big step in helping me overcome my public transport finding fears... piano piano! 

And speaking of public transport, well, going along with my goal of opening my mouth when we find ourselves using them, we met a girl named Rachele on the bus! We didn't talk for long before she got off, but she asked for our number! Plot twist! Hopefully an update to come on that! 

with Flavia

We had a lesson with Flavia this week too!!!! She is so cute and so so spiritually strong. She told us about her experiences at FSY and we bonded over that (you'll understand if you understand my love for EFY) and she shared a really powerful testimony with us! 

Highlight of my week was getting to do a scambio with Sorella Oveson, wow she is one incredible missionary.. I learned so much from her. We did some casa in casa in this huge neighborhood zone kind of near the temple! We were on our way our of an apartment building after knocking the whole thing and ran into a girl named Ilaria on the way out! We talked with her and got to exchange phone numbers!! 

We had another cool experience this week.. after getting lost on the scambio and not being able to find the bus stop to get back for English group (still learning this city!)...... so we just started walking to the only bus stop we new in the area. We started talking to a couple of the people waiting at the stop... the lady I spoke with was from....Equador!! I couldn't believe it!! I started talking with her about the Book of Mormon and the crazier part is that before we left the apartment that afternoon Sorella Oveson asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon to bring with her but then she saw the spanish one on the table right by the door and said, eh I'll just bring this one. We laughed about it then, but when we met Susanna, we knew that was no coincidence. It was really special getting to leave her with a copy in Spanish! Can't wait for her to meet Sorella Yanacallo! 

Okay second highlight of the week (actually, tie for first) Lina!!!!! I don't know if I mentioned Lina in a past email but I met her at the bus stop a couple weeks ago and we just became best friends, she reminds me SO much of my grandma and she is just so cute. We have been calling her every couple days to catch up, see how she's doing, this week we finally got to meet up! We met at the church and you could just tell when she walked into the chapel that she could feel the spirit, feel something different. Sorella Yanacallo and I had a power lesson on the Restoration, it was really spiritual and Lina was feeling it too. It's moments like these that make all the rejection worth it! Finding someone who will listen and then getting to look them in the eyes and bear testimony, it's powerful and really special. We gifted Lina The Book of Mormon at the end and you could tell she just felt really honored and excited to read it. Sorella Yanacallo said something to Lina that day that's been on constant replay in my mind since. She said "Lina, you can read this book and that's great. Or you can read this book prayerfully and it will change your life." It kind of made me reflect on my study of The Book of Mormon, am I studying prayerfully? I am so thankful for The Book of Mormon in my life, I know that it is another testament of Jesus Christ and an infinite source of peace!!  Oh and Lina took us to her favorite gelateria afterwards, it totally reminded me of grandma, we walked in and all the workers knew her, she knew their names, it was great. 

gelato with Lina

 I read a talk this week by President Monson called "Yellow Canaries with Grey on Their Wings" from April 1973 and it is very touching! If you get a minute I'd recommend reading the whole thing, but as for now I'll share with you my favorite part:

 "Can we not appreciate that our very business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves? To break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our todays, to bear our trials more beautifully than we ever dreamed we could, to give as we have never given, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than ever—this is the true idea: to get ahead of ourselves." I know I was definitely in need of this reminder this week. We're here on this earth to learn, grow, and better OURSELVES. That's what this life is all about! We tend to get caught up in outdoing the people around us that we forget about breaking our own personal records and doing our personal best. There is so much peace in knowing that we are children of a Heavenly Father who loves us and recognizes our efforts! He knows we are doing our best and giving our all, and that's all He asks. I am so thankful for Him and His infinite mercy and grace! I hope that this week y'all will make an effort to PR. Get ahead of yourself. Love yall!! 

Transfer calls tonight,

XOXO

working on a stickerboard
(trying something Chase does in the Korea Seoul South Mission)

gesso in the rain

temple in the background

goodbye to Geersten

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Le Sorelle Missionarie
Piazza Bortolo Belotti, 55/21
Roma, RM 00139
Italia