Salve
Hope everyone enjoyed general conference weekend as much as we did!!
Although I'm looking forward to going back and listening to it all again in
English haha!
As far as general conference miracles, we had a handful!
To start: Nancy, Daniela, and fam.
So I told y'all last week about Daniela. (she, her mom, and her sister are
english course students). Well on Monday night we went by to see Daniela and
turns out the family had prepared dinner for us! We got to stay and get to know
them better, they have been friends of the church for the while. And the dad,
Santiago used to be a member back in Equador!! (they're from equador and
cousins with Sofia). We invited them to come to general conference and when
Saturday night rolled around, Nancy and Daniela came! They brought Daniela's
sister too!! We were super pumped and went inside to watch conference. A good
way into the conference, I started thinking about Santiago. He told us the
reason he can't come to english group is because he works pretty late into the
night. So I figured it was the same situation for general conference. Next
thing I knew, he walks into the chapel!! I did a double take and it took me a
second to connect the dots and realize it was Santiago, even wearing a white
shirt! THEIR WHOLE FAMILY CAME. General conference really does bring miracles!
Plus Saturday morning we had a beautiful lesson with Daniela. We decided to
watch The Restoration and it couldn't have gone better... she really
understood!! At the end she talked about how she always thought prophets were
some faraway thing but now she realizes they are real people and sometimes they
have doubts too! And she said the same thing about God, sometimes she thinks He
is so far away, but she has noticed through prayer that He is always close she
just has to ask! We asked if God had answered her prayers and she said that
she'd had the opportunity to serve some classmates throughout the week and
thought that might be an answer-- God allowing her to serve! She's still
looking, but mamma mia che brava questa ragazza! She just really gets it and
it's cool to see how religion is starting to fill in the gaps in her life that
she didn't know she had! We invited her to do the 21 day Book of Mormon
challenge and she said "lo faro!"
Sofia came to ALL of the sessions of general conference, at the church!!!!
(not very many people come to the church for conference, guess it's probably
the same in america). She loved it. We had a lesson with her on Thursday and
talked about the importance of following the prophet and how we can come to
conference with questions and find the answers through their words! She said
"wow I didn't know it worked like that! or that you could do that!"
So she was really excited to listen to everything they had to say to her :)
 |
| Sorella Guymon picking pomegranates |
We had another lesson with her during the week, while I was on scambio with
Sorella Neff! We talked about the importance of missionary work and sharing the
gospel with our family and friends, set up her
lds.org
account, and showed her how to send the missionaries to her friends using the
referral manager on
lds.org!
She got really excited and said she would talk with her mom. The next day we
got a phone call from Sofia, she told us that her mom accepted the invite to
have the missionaries come teach her! Now just gotta get that referral sent
off....!
Laura came to general conference yesterday too!! She is still doing the 21
day challenge and texting us her daily updates! If you didn't know, you'd think
she was a member... she is such good friends with all of them and just does her
own thing, she is so great!! And we are about to go have a lesson with her..
one of the days of the 21 day challenge references infant baptisms and she
didn't understand it (she's catholic.....) hahaha so we are going to have a
nice discussion about the age of accountability!
We had a lesson with Izlane this week, she is one of our investigators, I
got to meet her for the first time and she is a really cute, young mom! She is
originally from Morocco and doesn't have a Christian background so right now we
are working on teaching her about who Jesus Christ is and how she can have a
relationship with Him! She is praying, plus we invited her to do the 21 day
challenge quindi speriamo bene!
Another person we are working with is Enrica, she's a recent convert of more
than a year preparing to go to the temple! So we are going to teach her the
temple prep lessons and help her get ready!! She is so excited. This week we
talked about The Plan of Salvation, just kind of taught it to her which turned
out to be good because she had lots of questions that we were able to talk
through! Plus she just really opened up to us in general. We left her with the
invite to read the plan of salvation pamphlet. The next day we got a text from
her, she had read the plan of salvation pamphlet and wanted another one to give
to a friend she felt prompted need to read it!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!
We ate pranzo with Sorella Ciccone this week, she is the only member in her
family and the young womens president and SO cute!!!! When we got to her house,
her daughter in law was there and ate with us! Her name is Manuel and is really
cute too! I think she's an ex-investigator so we invited her to do the 21 day
challenge and Sorella Ciccone is going to help her with it!
 |
| a view of the mountains near by |
Funny moment of the week: doing casa and casa, rang a citofono, got the
response (in english) "oh, the mormons! come on in, I'd like to talk to
you guys"........... Sorella Guymon said "If anything it'll be a good
story for the journal". She wasn't wrong. It turned out to be a super
evangelist man that had definitely done his homework on The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The cherry on top was when, after looking over
both his shoulders to make sure no one heard, he started singing "follow
the prophet" hahahahah rip.
Finding miracle of the week: we were in centro going hard on our finding and
then walked past this guy who kind of double taked when he saw us then pointed
to our nametags and asked who we were!!!!!!! WHAT?! He stopped us! Plot twist.
So we were just so taken by suprise we didn't even know what to say but
hoepfully we said something right! The question we were asking that night was
"according to you, what is a prophet?" so we asked him, talked about
general conference, he said he was really interested in coming! His name is
Iaro, he's from Russia, we exchanged numbers and sent him the information!
Unfortunately he wasn't able to make it but we are hoping to stay in contact
with him this week!
Public transport miracle of the week: met Anita and her cute kids! Funny how
public transport finding is a lot more enjoyable outside of Rome haha no idea
why. But we got to talking, she is from Nigeria but has lived in italy for like
15 years. I showed her pictures of the african food i've eaten (fufu, jalaf
rice, etc) thank, Happy! Thats something with Nigerians, your credibility with
them goes way up if you have picture evidence you've eaten fufu! Hahahah! I
told them about how we do an english group if they know anyone that wants to
learn! Then I started talking with them about the church, The Book of Mormon,
tried to give her the Italian copy I had but she wanted an english one. We
exchanged numbers then got off the bus. Then......they came to english group!!!
All 3 of them! Anita speaks english perfectly (her 1st language) but she wants
to help her kids learn. It was amazing because one of the first things she said
to me was "Do you remember that book you were trying to give me in
Italian? My son was so sad I didn't take it because he wanted to read it!"
So we gave Anita an english copy and her son (I think he's like 10 or 12 years
old) an italian copy and he was reading it throughout english course!!!!
PS english course is still my favorite part of the week. I love teaching
english group so much, the students are always such a blast and ah it's a good
time. This week we taught them head, shoulders, knees, and toes and then
tricked them on Simon Says! Such a blast!!
 |
| making sand castles |
Other random miracle of the week: we were at the church Saturday morning
waiting for Daniela to get there and someone knocked on the door. We got up to
see who it was and it was an older man who was passing by, saw the gate was
open, and was wondering if he could see the inside of our church! So we gave
him a little tour and he asked "When do you meet here?" We told him
we would be having general conference that evening if he wanted to come back.
He said "yes, and do you have anything I can read to learn more about your
church and religion?" so we were more than happy to hook him up with a lil
something to read ;) THEN He came to general conference that night! And the next morning! He came to 2
sessions of general conference and the anziani are going to meet up with him
tonight to teach him! Miracoli!!
There were so many great things said this conference but I wanted to share
just a tiny thought with yall.... Elder Uchtdorf mentioned the promise in
Doctrine and Covenants 88:63 "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto
you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you" If we strive to grow closer to Christ, He
will draw near unto us! It's a promise! I know that's something I will be
working on after this amazing general conference! I invite you to do the same.
And now that conference is over.......we can go to the beach! It's like a 10
minute walk from our house and so we went today for pday and built sand
castles---- so much fun! I love Pescara!!!!!!!!!!!
Congrats if you made it to the end.
Love you!!!
XOXO
Sorella Carley Neuberger
Vecchi M.L. , Pieri A.
Via Arapietra 61/5
Pescara, PE 65124
Italia
 |
| Sister Guymon can do it all. Making sushi. |
 |
| lasagna |
