Gesù & Gelato: 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