Pescara🐡🐠🐟

Sorry it's short this week! We had a super fun pday visiting Citta Sant'Angelo! (also forgot to mention that last week's pics were from the Vatican)

 

Citta Sant'Angelo

I really thought I was going to finish my mission in Rome 2, but God has other plans!! Now I'm living in Pescara!! Which means I've hit 6 of the 7 zones in the mission! And this is my 6th city, 12th transfer...... mamma mia basically by this point I have packing down to a science! 

Saying goodbye to everyone in Rome 2 was really sad.....especially because things were just getting really good and we were really establishing a good relationship with the members! Speaking of which...

senso unico=one way= The Book of Mormon

We visited with the Salerno family on Tuesday (we were in a trio Monday-Thursday because Sorella Silva's companion finished her mission) to follow up on the Book of Mormon challenge! They are doing it, so we did that day's challenge together and had them teach us the plan of salvation. Then we bore testimony that we know God has prepared people in their lives that need the plan of salvation! We invited them to pray to know who those people are and when the time is right. And then we asked them if they had anyone we could pray for and wrote down their names (this has been a game changer in gaining member trust! plus something to follow up on next time you see them!). Okay fast forward to the next morning. We were walking to the bus stop and the phone rings. It's Fratello Salerno. He says "Ciao Sorelle, thank you for bringing the missionary spirit into our home last night. It really touched my heart and has inspired me to be more missionary minded and share the gospel more frequently. A repairman came over this morning to work on our hot water heater and we started talking, then next thing I knew I was giving him a copy of The Book of Mormon and inviting him to do the challenge, too." Plus he thanked us several more times. So when that phone call ended I had to pick my jaw up off the ground.. but I have a testimony of member missionary work! I hate to admit that before I really didn't. This last transfer has helped me recognize the importance of that and I'm excited to get to work her in Pescara. 

Sorella Zapata came home from her mission, she's in the Rome 2 ward and was getting released at the church after english group. It was so weird!!!!! But so good to see her!! Then her family and friends, the ward showed up for her homecoming. So crazy!! Never thought I would be at a companion's homecoming while still a missionary! 

the Van Tassell family

Did some service this week, cut Veronica's hair! I'm going to miss her!!

Also said goodbye to the Van Tassell family, they have been so incredible to us! We even got to have dinner with them... TACOS! Oh wow I couldn't tell you the last time I had tacos. Gotta love americans! 

I had to say goodbye to Lina, too. That one was really hard! We had a beautiful lesson with her about the Plan of Salvation and she even asked to take the cards home to study! It was amazing to see her change just during the course of the lesson from "well I hope there is something after this life" to "wow, I'm going to pray to make sure this is all true". It was a tender lesson for me, I shared with Lina how the plan of salvation has brought me comfort. I told her about how my grandma passed away while I was here in Italy, something I wasn't expecting to happen. But, because of this plan that God made for our happiness, I have no doubt I will see her again! Then I just started crying and said "that's why you're so special to me Lina, you remind me so much of my grandma." And she said "Perfect, you can be my newest granddaughter!" And we cried and hugged and said goodbye, one that I know won't be permanent. 

with my new comp Sorella Guymon

Then after a beautiful 3 hour bus ride through the mountains, we arrived in Pescara! My new companion is Sorella Guymon, she is from California and went to BYU before the mission. Funny story actually, she worked at chick-fil-a at the cougareat. She asked me if I went to BYU and I said yes. Then she said "I thought you looked familiar... did you eat at chick-fil-a a lot?" hahahahah wow I'm glad we can now bond over our love for chick-fil-a! She is in her 6th transfer and has spent all of those transfers in the same district! 3 in L'aquila and this is her 3rd in Pescara. She is SO cute and sweet and we are going to do a great work together!! 

Basically we unpacked and then the next day went back to Rome because I had MLC! MLC is always really inspiring and we are going to have some great changes come to the mission that I'm really excited for! Plus it's always great to be trained by Presidente and Sorella Pickerd! We even had a short devo at the temple and watched the sun set!

So yesterday was our first full day in Pescara and it was nothing short of amazing.

dinner with Di Luca family

The ward is incredibile. Going to church yesterday was like a big welcoming hug and coming home. I have never felt so much love from ward members in my life! I am so blessed to be serving amongst them and can not wait to get to know them!! We had dinner with the Di Luca family on Saturday night, they took us to a Napoli pizzeria so I guess you could say we are off to a great start! Can't wait to get to work this week!

Scripture of the week: "and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" 2 Nephi 30. I read that this week and was so uplifted knowing that I am playing a small part in helping that knowledge fill the world! And so are you! And if you aren't... you can! I want to invite you to at least pray this week for 1 person with whom you can share the gospel! It doesn't have to be a lesson, just a testimony. Or a facebook post. Come volete!!!!!! It's all true, yall. This work is the best and there's nothing I'd rather be doing. I know God lives and so does His son Jesus Christ! And I know that they love us so much.

Have the best week!

Ci sentiamo!!!

XOXO

with Sorella Johnson at MLC training

Italy Rome Temple

pictures of Pescara

yummy brownies

with Sorella Zapata who is home from her mission

with Veronica Valle

at district meeting

Sorella Carley Neuberger
Vecchi M.L. , Pieri A.
Via Arapietra 61/5
Pescara, PE 65124
Italia

Temple run

with Maryori and Cindy

So happy to inform you that this week was equally amazing as last!! The weeks here in Rome just keep getting better and better.  Plot twist: I'll start with the good stuff.😎

Cindy and Maryori. I seriously think we would see them every single day if they didn't live so far away! It's like a 1.5 hour trip to get there but gives us a great chance to do finding on the metro, train, and bus. Comunque they are just so cute and loving and it just feels like family when we are with them. Makes it easy to teach because we are comfortable. We all laugh together, make jokes, share our testimonies and I just really look forward to our visits with them. On Tuesday, we taught Maryori about the Plan of Salvation and it was probably the most perfect/fluid plan of salvation lesson of my mission. Not because of anything we said or did, but because it was received so well by Maryori! She understood, everything just seemed to make sense to her, and then at the end she taught it back to us word for word. And when we went back last night, she had studied 2 Nephi 9, just as we had invited her to!  Also featured at our visit last night: William, Cindy's Italian boyfriend who came to church with them last week and who also happens to be super interested in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! So to start, we had Maryori teach him about the Plan of salvation!! She did it beautifully and then we segued into our planned lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, endure to the end). We watched the Baptism of Jesus video and the spirit in the room after was absolutely tangible and incredible. I asked what they thought and William was pretty speechless and just got out a "wow". We concluded the lesson inviting Maryori to be baptized on October 20! She accepted!!!!! And Cindy was just squealing she was so happy and excited!! Then William asked us some questions about baptisms for the dead and so we read some of the 'families and temples' pamphlet and then he started talking about how beautiful it would be to have an eternal family and an eternal marriage and that's the most important thing to him!!!!!!!! Plus he said the closing prayer and was just really grateful that we've met and that he has this chance to turn his life around! So I'm sorry for that really long paragraph but I love these 3 so much and feel so much joy for them.❤

with William, Cindy, and Maryori

Other good news of the week: Gioia. Although she is still out of town for like the third week in a row and we are going to have to move her baptism back, we used technology to our advantage this week to keep in touch with her!! Her grandpa passed away and she went to be with him beforehand and is still with family in Salerno. We have been sending her the 21 day BOM challenge every night (along with several of our other friends!) and she is loving it. We did a videochat lesson with her via Facebook and it was so perfect!!!!! We caught up, read The Book of Mormon together, and read a few quotes we had prepared on receiving peace and how we can only receive it if we allow Christ to help us! Then she told us that her grandma would love those quotes so she went to go get her grandma, came back, and we all read the quotes again! Her grandma was really touched. Then Gioia suggested we say a prayer altogether with her grandma! And when her grandma left, Gioia told us that every night she shares the BOM challenge with her! She's such a good missionary! So we are looking forward to her coming back to Rome, hopefully this week!!

Stella is good but super busy with exams so we didn't get to see her this week! She is going to university and studying medicine to become a pediatrician!

And do you remember Faith from the beginning of last transfer? Well, she moved to a different part of Rome that happened to be conveniently near.....Ostia!! So we told the Ostia sorelle about her and now they are teaching her when she's not busy with her baby and trying to get her documents!!!!!!!! It's really a miracle because she lived way too far away for us to visit but now she lives close to the Ostia sorelle!

Lina, my grandma friend, just got back from her vacation to Sicily and we are going to be seeing her on Wednesday!!!!! I seriously can't wait to see her. I still call her almost every day to talk to her because she's seriously my nonna and I really love her.

Flavia is doing great, we went to institute with her on Friday it was a blast and she is done working so we are going to be resuming our weekly lessons with her before institute on Fridays!!!!!!

We saw tons of public transport miracles this week while traveling to our divers appointments and got to meet some really cool people. One in particular really stood out to me. We were sitting on the bus on the way to visit a member and there was a lady in the back part of the bus and I just felt a really distinct prompting to get up and go sit next to her. Normally I would never do that because how weird is that?! I'm already sitting down and then to get up and move seats while everyone watches hahaha but I'm a missionary which means I'm used to awkward. So I went and sat by her. Rosa. She was from Mexico and she was really open to just talking. Then we started talking about the Bible and she said that to her it seems like the Bible is missing some pieces and doesn't make complete sense! So of course I whipped out The Book of Mormon and didn't hesitate to explain it to her, gift it to her, and exchange numbers before getting off at our stop! miracoli.

Temple in the distance.  Sunrise in the morning

One of the highlights of the week was getting up early Saturday morning and going for a temple run! Meno male Sorella Decker enjoys running as much as I do. And meno male we live so close to the temple to be able to do that! It was a beautiful run, being out earlier than the chaos and just enjoying the peace. And the sun was just about to come up on the temple!

Spiritual highlight of the week was having Bishop Waddell come yesterday. He was here for our stake conference but also he did a little fireside with the Rome missionaries and it was absolutely amazing. He is such a powerful and inspiring speaker! One of the things he said that has been on my mind is "convenient and covenant are never in the same sentence". So my invite for you this week is to actively strive to keep your covenants, whatever they may be! We promise at baptism to represent Christ in all times, all things, and all places. Sometimes it may not be convenient, but it will always be worth it.

I love you and I love serving here in Roma 2. Hopefully I will get to stay one more transfer (we get calls tonight)!

Buona settimana a tutti!

XOXO 

--

Sorella Carley Neuberger

Italy Rome Mission

Lots of pictures of the vatican below:

view from the top of the Vatican

The temple doesn't look real sometimes.

Temple and a rainbow

Best week of my mission so far (+ we found a family!! or 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

At this point I've probably overused that subject title. Oh well. There's no other way to say it-- this week was incredible! And now that it's September, the ball is rolling. Things have been picking up and we are working harder than ever.

First, I'll give you an update on Stella. (the girl from Greece)

We were sitting in sacrament meeting yesterday, probably a little too zoned out during the talks, and in walks... Stella? I did a double take, then nudged Sorella Decker so hard, we sat there in shock! The best part? She stayed all 3 hours. Wow. After sacrament meeting she said she got chills during the hymns. After all 3 hours she was blown away by how nice everyone was and even the people that didn't speak english came up to introduce themselves! Even better: Veronica (the member that just got back from her mission in England) made best friends with her and invited her to the GANS activities this week! 

Remember Gianna from a few weeks ago? We met her at the hospital? Well, we've been going back every Sunday morning to visit with her and bring her a message of hope! She is such cute mom and is patiently waiting for the doctors to find a cure to her rare muscle disorder. Yesterday she reported she had read 10 chapters in The Book of Mormon and loves how she feels when she reads it! She is a woman of great faith and courage and we are so lucky to know her. She tells us she really looks forward to Sunday mornings now and the light we bring to her hopsital room when we come to visit.

the sorella in the Rome West Zone

Remember Evelyn from a few weeks ago? We met Evelyn, Alessandro, Nicholas, and Luca while doing our mini-mietitura. We stopped them to tell them about english group and they were super interested in learning english. Well, we met up on Saturday morning, they came to the church and we planned on teaching them a little english and sharing a spiritual thought. The second they walked in, they bombarded us with questions of every sort! They wanted to know all about our church, how it works, how our missions work, etc! Mamma mia it was absolutely incredible. Evelyn told us "I don't ever stop and talk to people on the street. But I just really trust you girls for some reason. You have such a peace about you and that's why we wanted to meet up today." So we did end up teaching their boys like 2 english words but the rest of our time together was spent explaining the restoration of Christ's gospel in this dispensation! When we presented The Book of Mormon and gifted it to them, they said they'll read it voluntarily! When they left Alessandro told us they'd be kind of busy this week with a house they're trying to buy but he said "don't think that we won't be seeing each other again soon or that we are avoiding you". When they left Sorella Decker and I hugged and cried for a little, just in awe. Heavenly Father has prepared so many people for His gospel, we just have to find them! I have such a strong testimony of that!! 

Here's another example, in case you're missing the point I'm trying to make. 

There once was a lady named Cindy Rodriguez. Cindy is from the Dominican Republic. Cindy drives by the Italy Rome temple and decides to go inside the information center. She talks with the senior couple that was there. The senior couple gives us Cindy's phone number. We call Cindy and set up an appointment. Turns out Cindy is a member of the church and has been living in Italy for 2 years. She has been less active and didn't know the church (and missionaries) exist here in Rome! She figured everyone was catholic. (so do we.) Now this is where things get good. Cindy has an 11 year old daughter named Marjorie! Marjorie has yet to be baptized and Cindy wants her to learn the lessons and progress towards baptism. Not only does Cindy want that, Marjorie wants it too! She was so excited to get her very own copy of The Book of Mormon!  The only problem is that Cindy and Marjorie live far away from the church (like 1.5 hours using public transport). The solution was that....the Zapata family (from Ecuador) gave them a ride! AH it just worked out too beautifully. They had a lovely time in church and met tons of the members, including all of the south american members! It was amazing to see and ah wow. Yesterday was easily the best Sunday of my mission. 

with Maria

And another cool experience from this week happened when we decided to venture out to Villa Ada, a park! It was rough at first, we didn't know how to go about talking to people so we just started inviting everyone in sight to the temple information center! After lots of rejection and wanting to go somewhere else, we met Maria!! She had a really cute dog and invited us to walk with her. She really wanted to talk and walk and so we did just that, made great friends with her and just talked about everything under the sun. She was really nice and confident and just has a huge personality. Then her dog got tired so she invited us to come back to her house with her and drop her dog off and go to a different park! While we were waiting for her to come back outside I "read the Book of Mormon" in italian. Meaning I opened to Alma 32 and started reading verse 28 right when Maria came back so that I could ask her the meaning of a word in the verse. To which she responded perfectly "read the whole sentence". I read all of verse 28 hehehe ... furbi siamo. Then she changed the subject. To which I said, "Have you ever seen or heard of this book, The Book of Mormon?" She said no, then changed the subject again. When we got to the other park she told us she had to go back home. So we told her we wanted to gift her this book that has changed our lives. She was touched and told us to write her a dedica inside. I wrote "We know this book will bring you peace...." and she just broke down. Her walls came down and she cried and we just hugged. Maria said "ragazze, I really need peace right now." Then she asked when we could see each other again :) 

Y'all, the church is true and the work is SO good. I know that God is looking out for me and that He loves me and YOU. He loves Stella, Gianna, Alessandro, Evelyn, Cindy, Marjorie, and Maria. I know it because I have the special experience to feel that love. What a blessing.  In case you didn't know, I love being a missionary.

Yesterday we started the 21 day Book of Mormon challenge! Not to read the whole book in 21 days but to read specific verses for 21 days in a row because after 21 days it'll become habit! I'll attach the pdf for you lovlies and we can do it together! Email me about your experiences! Share the challenge with a friend! It's going to be great! 

Love yall!!

XOXO

 

putting in the sign for the temple

with my companion Sorella Decker

Rome West zone

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

Greek miracle

Has it been a week already?!??! time is flying.....

Not sure what exactly to update yall on, our week was filled with tons of finding. But hey! It's September!!!! Which theoretically means everyone is back in town and stays in town! We're excited to start calling through of our list of people that told us they'd be back in September.

The highlight of my week was a scambio I got to do with Sorella Silva! Oh wow she is the most amazing missionary I have ever seen.....she's incredible. She's just so naturally good with people, I was blown away! I learned a ton from her! And, as it goes with every scambio, we saw some really cool miracles!

gelato with equador family

For starters, at english group on Thursday night, we taught the advanced group. For advanced group you pretty much talk for an hour and correct their english when needed. So we were talking about fears and then out of the blue one of the students asks "So what is the difference between you mormons and us catholics anyways?" We bounced back from the initial shock of that question pretty quickly and jumped right into teaching about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ! It was really incredible and we spent the whole class explaining to them in english while they asked questions. We even concluded by giving each of them a copy of The Book of Mormon and inviting them to read it!! 

In other english course news, the Equador family is back from their vacation!!!!! Ah I love them so much. They took us to gelato on Thursday after class for my birthday! 

AND another student made a cake for everyone on Thursday for my birthday! How fun!! 

As far as my actual birthday on Wednesday, it was good! We had district meeting then we all went to lunch and I invited Gioia to come with us, it was a blast. We have really become like sisters! And then the rest of the day we had correlation and zone conference planning so nothing too exciting. 

fried chicken for my birthday dinner

BUT the Knies couple (one of the couples that works in the mission office) had us over for dinner and that was really a miracle for me! When they initally invited us over I don't think they realized it was my birthday but it was something I really needed that night. I'm super grateful for them and that we got to spend that night with not just americans but southerners who made us fried chicken and american brownies!!!!!! Blessed. 

Back to the rest of our scambio miracles! Sorry, got sidetracked there for a sec. 

Friday morning we decided to go to a park we'd never been to before but we just felt really good about it. Parco Talenti. On the bus ride there we met an awesome girl named Rama, we probably only talked to her for a few seconds but long enough to exchange numbers and she messaged us right after saying, "I'm so glad we met and are going to be friends!" 

Then we got to the park and there were some really awesome people there. Right when we walked in we noticed a lady sitting in a big patch of grass with her dog. We walked up started playing with her dog and sat down with them and just talked! We got to tell her (Antonella) about The Book of Mormon and left her with a copy! She was really incredible. We were supposed to meet up yesterday but she got called into work so hopefully next week we will be able to meet up again!

We talked to several other cute moms and I won't bore you with the details but it was a miracle park! 

Gioia came to lunch with us and the district

Gioia is still doing great! We taught her about the Word of Wisdom this week and it was a really special lesson! She went to see her grandpa again this weekend and couldn't come to church. Please keep him in your prayers because he is in very critical condition in the hospital!

Another huge miracle of the week was Stella. We met her on the street, tried stopping her to do our survey and she responded by saying "I don't speak italian" in perfect english! So we talked to her for a little, she's 21, from Greece, and SO cute!!!!!!!!!!! THEN! We met up with her on Saturday night, she came to the church for a lesson, we watched the restoration video together (dad please insert link here to the 20 minute restoration video). After it was over we asked her what she thought. She responded by putting her hand to her heart and saying "Give me a minute, please". It was amazing to see the spirit touch her! The only bummer of the lesson was that we forgot to bring her a copy of The Book of Mormon in english!! We searched the whole church before the lesson and couldn't find any! We wondered why it worked out that way and then on our way home we saw the Balzotti couple (an office couple) and told them about Stella, our Greek miracle! And they told us they had a copy of The Book of Mormon in Greek if we wanted it! Funny how it all worked out so perfectly, because we didn't even think about getting her a copy in Greek!!!!!! We are excited to give it to her this week! 

Stella is really excited to come to church, she hasn't found a church here that she likes and is really interested to see how ours works! 

And our week ended on a beautiful note, we spent last night working the information center at the Italy Rome Temple. Wow God is so good and He loves us so much. 

In preparation for the training we are giving at zone conference this week, I reread one of my all-time favorite general conference talks "Songs Sung and Unsung" by Elder Holland. I want to share with yall my favorite quote from it:

"Heavenly Father delights to have us sing in our own voice, not someone else’s. Believe in yourself, and believe in Him. Don’t demean your worth or denigrate your contribution. Above all, don’t abandon your role in the chorus. Why? Because you are unique; you are irreplaceable. The loss of even one voice diminishes every other singer in this great mortal choir of ours."

Can I just take a minute to tell you I have such a strong testimony of this!!!! We so frequently find ourselves looking around and comparing ourselves with those in front of us but it is so reassuring to know that we don't have to be them! Nor do we need to even try to be anything but our best selves. YOU have such an important role in His choir. This is something I've been reminding myself recently that each of us is equally valuable to our Heavenly Father and that He designed a perfect plan in which each of us are unique. I know that He loves me and I know that He loves you too! And I know that He loves the people of Rome, Italy as I have been able to feel that so strongly this week. I'm so lucky to be here serving them and helping them come closer to Him! 

Con amore,

Sorella Neuberger

XOXO

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