Gesù & Gelato: Non è per caso (The best week of my life + we gave away how many BOMs??????)

Yeah, I would say that's a pretty accurate description of my week! Best week of my life so far. I can't even put into words how much I am just loving my mission. My heart is so full and there is no better feeling than coming home at the end of every day knowing you gave your all to share your testimony with each person on the street. Can you imagine? Think about how much Jesus Christ has done for you and how much that knowledge has changed your life, and then imagine going out day after day with the sole purpose of helping others experience those same things!!!! This is the most incredible calling in the world and I have never been happier, or experienced more joy in my life.

That being said, you're probably wanting to know what we did this week that was so special. Well, from an outsider's perspective it may have seemed like a really hard week. We probably had 1 or 2 lessons and spent the whole rest of the week finding. On top of that, I think it rained every day. But, we hit the streets hard and with faith. And when they say that your testimony grows by sharing it, they aren't lying. This week I couldn't even begin to count how many times a day I got to share my testimony, and I have never experienced so much growth!

Sorella Liddiard and I are getting creative with our finding to make it fun and let me tell you, it was nothing short of that!! We are picking a "question of the day", we pray about it, study it, then ask it to everyone we see that day! It's been a blast so far.. also really eye-opening to the knowledge that we have as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One day the question was "Why did God send us here to the earth?" And although to us this question may seem to have an easy answer, it was instead matched with an impressive amount of silence. Just building my testimony and gratitude more for the plan of salvation and surety that we are here for a reason and each of us has a purpose on the earth!!

So in doing our question finding, we got to meet tons of really cool people. I'll tell you about 2.

First- Dalila. She's a cute GANS aged girl we met on the most random street.. we asked her "What is the most special gift you've received from God?" And I don't remember exactly what she said but I do remember her having a beautiful answer and just being unbelievably nice....... usually we would talk about Jesus Christ being a special gift from God but for some reason with her I felt like we should talk about The Book of Mormon. So we did. And we got to bear our testimony about the blessings it has brought us to which she responded "you know what? I really could use a little serenity right about now." She took the book, gave us her phone number, and we are so excited to meet up again! We know we will see her again because when we met it was raining and she literally just gave us her umbrella!!!!!!

Second- Giovanna. I don't even remember what question we asked her, but she told us she had met missionaries before! We asked if she had a copy of The Book of Mormon and she said no, so we had that priveledge! So stay tuned on her too!

Then last night on top of these 2, we got so many other amazing contacts that we will hopefully be able to meet with this week! I won't go into detail about all of them because I know you want to hear about the fun stuff going on like...

-- Halloween!! Not super celebrated here but we decided to steal Chase's idea of bringing candy to the kids in the ward! We chose a couple families, cut out tons of ghosts, bats, pumpkins, hearts, and decorated their doors, left a note, and left some candy!!

--- the day after Halloween aka All Saints day, it's a big festa and so is November 2! Apparently it's also Day of the Dead in South America (we pumpkin attacked Nancy's door and) she called to thank us and invite us to a festa they were having to celebrate their Ecuadorian holiday! So we went for a little and got to eat their traditional bread things filled with jelly and frosting faces! Sorry I don't remember what they're called 😂

-- There was a chocolate festival in centro this week! It lasted for about 4 days. That consisted of us getting cannoli like 4 days in row. (Our justification is that they were Sicilian cannoli and those can only be found in Sicily. Or at this festival apparently.)

-- we had a small Halloween party after English group on Thursday which was also a blast getting to know the students better. I had a heart to heart with Nancy and just was pretty straight up with her about why we are here as missionaries and how we want to help her!! I asked her why she comes to our church every week. She said "it's because I like the topics and the talks given". And so then I asked "So what do you think that means?" She kinda got the point and then I pulled Sofia over to help me out and she bore her testimony about how she just really feels at home in the church. It was a really special experience and we just really want to teach Nancy and her whole family so please pray!!!

Also, speaking of Nancy and her family...

Daniela.

Is doing well! I completely forgot to give an update on her last week. She stayed the weekend in Ancona, went to church there, and we got to have a Skype lesson with her about the word of wisdom that went really well!! We had an awesome fasting lesson planned for Saturday and then we were wanting to invite her to fast with us for a clear answer to her prayers but unfortunately she couldn't make it. So hopefully she was just busy and we will get to do the lesson later this week!

Roberta was out of town this week so we didn't get to meet up with her.

So the question finding has really been a hit for the Pescara B Sorelle. So much that last night we decided to write out all of our questions from the week, put them in a bag, and then ask people to draw a question out of the bag!! It was so much fun and definitely exciting for us not knowing which question they would pick. It was beautiful getting to see how the questions they did pick matched up perfectly with who they were or their circumstances. (If you have any question ideas, respond to this email!) There was one couple in particular that, although I don't remember which question they chose, asked the difference between our church and the Catholic church (we get this question a lot, shocker right?). We started explaining The Book of Mormon but then they were like "besides that!" So we jumped right in and just taught the restoration to them right there on the street, first vision and everything. It was beautiful and so powerful. I could honestly feel the spirit testifying of the truth through me and in that moment I knew that they knew it was true. I can't begin to explain how incredible that experience was for me. And although afterward that couple still claimed uninterest, it's something I'll remember.

Chocolate candies made into flowers

Plus to make our Sunday even more incredible, we decided to move our gesso to Centro (right move #1) then, because it was Sorella Stutz's first gesso we kind of suggested making the topic The Book of Mormon (right move #2). Hands down the best gesso of my mission so far. I say 'so far' because I know the ones to follow are going to be even better! But we wrote on the sheet "Have you ever seen this book?" And then did a border of all the languages we had in our houses combined. There were some crazy ones. But this is my favorite gesso to do because it's just very to the point and helps us find the elect! Within about 30 minutes I had given away 3 copies of the Book of Mormon!!! Some of the people were even atheist but intrigued! Plus there was another lady I stopped, we have her a copy in Ukranian!! We went until we handed out all of the Italian copies we brought with us (not enough) and then handed out a few in other languages and tried to stop all the Asians we saw haha. It was an incredible night, I couldn't stop smiling on the way home. This work is SO good. So so good.

This week I wanted to share with y'all Words of Mormon 1:7 "And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will."

I know that the God has a purpose and a plan to everything. For each of us. Nothing is by chance! Or as the Italians say "non è per caso". This is a phrase that came up a lot this week.. we even met a lady on the street that said "hey I just met the the other sorelle and they gave me the exact same card! Non è per caso." And on the day when we asked the question "Why did God send us here to the earth?" I couldn't stop thinking "non è per caso". I know that His plan is greater than us all and I'm so grateful to have a small part in it and to be able to help the Italians understand their part. I love the gospel, I love my Savior, Jesus Christ and I'm thankful for His atonement. I love being a missionary! There is nothing that could make life better than it is right now. (Well, except another chocolate festival 😂)

Love you all!!!!! Ci sentiamo!

XOXO