Gesù & Gelato: Rome Zone Conference

Buongiorno carissimi miei!

Primo di tutto, vorrei augurare Amanda per suo matrimonio! Auguri! E buona vita haha. Mi manchi.

Not a ton to update y'all on this week, we spent a couple days in Rome for zone conference! It was my last zone conference because next transfer we will having mission conference and Elder DeFeo is coming!! Woooo an italian! So zone conference was probably the best zone conference I've been to, the spirit was present and strong. We had some good discussions on the doctrine of Christ and how we can give our all to His work!

Rome East Zone

with Bianca

While we were in Rome, Sorella Guymon and I went to the Rome 2 english group, it was so good to see everyone!! Unfortunately, Ecuador fam wasn't there but I did get to see Enzo and Bianca and everyone else- ah it was so much fun!!!!! I miss them! Plus Sorella Decker gave me an update on Maryori-- she's still on date to be baptized NEXT WEEKEND! October 20! And apparently is doing super well :))))) PLUS Gioia is going to get baptized November 10!!!!!!! Holy cow what a blessing to go back and hear such a good update, I am so lucky to have helped teach these beautiful people and I'm so excited to hear that they are progressing so perfectly!

So.

First, Mattia.

Last week while we were doing street contacting, we met a really nice lady named Mattia. She was really open to hearing what we had to say (even though she's a Jehovah's witness) and gave us directions to her house and told us to pass by to talk more!! So this week we decided to stop by and see if she was home. She let us in and we got to talk with her about the restoration of the church Christ established when He lived on the earth! And we introduced The Book of Mormon and invited her to read the introduction and pray about it, which she promised she would do! Mattia is definitely a talker and knows the Bible super well, but I'm excited to see where things go with her!

Second, Paola.

She's been a friend of the church for a while because she is coworkers with a member! Well, she came with Enrica to a session of general conference last week and we got to set up an appointment with her, which ended up going perfectly! She even pulled out a notebook and asked to take notes hahaha. We had a really good discussion on the restoration and she really respected everything we said, gave us a chance to talk (rare in any social situation in Italy), and accepted the invite to pray regarding the truthfulness of our message! Plus she came to church yesterday and set up her own appointment with us again this week :)))))))

We had a lot of good finding this week, some good conversations, even met a lady named Rossana who is interested in coming to tour the church! So we are excited to hopefully meet up with her and show her around! And at church on Sunday we had a member refer us to her esthetician (she did missionary work while getting her nails done) she talked with her about The Book of Mormon and instead of giving it to her, told her that we would bring it! So we got to stop by and give her a copy, she was really excited to start reading it and although she was busy we are hoping to go back this week.

We got the chance to do some service this week, Tessy, one of the members in the ward, was setting up for a wedding and we got to help her out for a little bit! THEN.. we stopped by the wedding and it was crazy! Nigerians are the best!!

And now for the happiest part of our week..

Daniela.

This girl is a straight miracle, I don't know how else to put it. She came to the lesson on Saturday and had been doing the 21 day challenge but had a question about what the plan of salvation was. Which happened to be the most perfect question she could've posed because we had planned a lesson on the plan of salvation!!!! And she just ate it up. At the end she taught it back to us word for word, with detail and wow. You could just see things clicking for her. We invited her, when she gets her answer regarding the truthfulness of what she's been taught, to be baptized on December 1st and she said, well of course, that seems like the right thing to do if I know it's true! AHHHHH!! THEN.. she came to church on Sunday!!! With her mom Nancy! I am seriously so beyond excited to see what else God has in store for this family and I'm incredibly blessed to be a part of it.

In hopes of getting the members of our ward on board with missionary work, we have started calling through the ward list and talking to all of the members on Sundays trying to set things up... on Saturday we passed by a family and got to have a cool spiritual thought with them. We gave each of them a piece of paper and and we all took 5 minutes to write letters to our decendents (things most important to us/what we want them to know). Then we pretended that Sorella Guymon was the ancestor, we each handed her our letter, and she took all the letters and without reading them, ripped them in half. It definitely left quite the impact! Then we read 2 Nephi 25:26 We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." We talked about the importance of The Book of Mormon and the sacrifices made by ancient prophets so that we could have this counsel today! We had them share their testimonies of The Book of Mormon and then invited them to pray as a family to know their friends that need this book in their lives. We left them with a copy and had them tape their letters back together as a reminder of the thought!

I know that The Book of Mormon is true and that it contains the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through it we can grow closer to Him and learn His ways. I am thankful to be here sharing this other testament of Christ with the people of Pescara!

Vi voglio bene!!

XOXO

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