Gesù & Gelato: Photo Booth

This one's coming at ya live from the Indian restaurant in pescara hahaha don't ask questions. Let's just say there are only like 2 places open during pranzo and today we are experiencing a culture very different from that of the Italian! At last the food is good in both.

And speaking of the Italian culture.... We definitely learned a lot about it this week. We had an appointment with Adelchi this week, a man we met at a gesso a couple weeks ago! He's the one with the cute family and we gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon. Well, after much difficulty we found their house and basically he roasted us for a long time and we didn't get to say anything. I'd argue that now I'm fairly informed on Catholic saints, miracles performed by nuns, and lots of other crazy stuff that I can't remember because my brain was just on overload after that incontro! He was really nice and not argumentative, just not interested in changing! We tried!!

As for an update on the other people we met from last week...... We went back to the family in Chieti and they told us maybe another time. We went back to the 11 kids family and the mom was pretty much the female version of Adelchi (see above paragraph).

The highlight of our week was when Daniela texted us on Tuesday telling us she wants to try out the fasting thing and wanting us to join! So we got to fast together- it was really special! Plus we had a lesson that night and taught her about the law of chastity and she was really in agreement. Then we got to do a practice interview with her and scheduled her baptismal interview for Saturday! The only bad part was that when Saturday rolled around she didn't show up to the lesson or interview 😭. Or church the next day. So we are kind of confused and really sad! Especially since we haven't heard from her since! So please keep her in your prayers.

Another huge miracle of the week was Manuela! She's proof that being obedient brings blessings! We left the church at 6pm and right as we were leaving we met her on the street! We asked her if she'd ever seen The Book of Mormon. She said no. We explained it to her and bore our testimonies and she was so excited to have her own copy and meet up again!!!!!❤

Another similar miracle was Antonella. We met her asking the same question and she couldn't believe we just wanted to give her the book right there on the street! She was like "so we're going to meet up and read this together, right?" And we are going to meet with her tomorrow morning!!!!!!

We had a ward party on Saturday night, a cultural festival! It was so much fun! Sorella Liddiard and I spent a while making sugar cookies and frosting and a cute photo booth. And we invited every single contact in our phone. (Our phone blew up after with all the responses we got😂). But it was worth it because 1 family came!! And Nancy came too! And Laura!! Basically there was a presentation on all of the different nationalities of our ward. But since the majority of the ward is Italian there were also presentations of different regions of Italy, they read things in their different dialects, it was funny and pretty entertaining. The grand finale of the presentation was.....USA! Best for last. The pictures they put up were of a donut, hamburger, fries, American pizza, and a suburban. Hahaha they didn't get it wrong. All of us missionaries sang a pretty arrangement of I am a Child of God (I played the piano) and closed by sharing a scripture (don't remember which) and bore our testimonies on the fact that, no matter our background, we are all children of God and He loves us!

Coolest thing that happened this week happened when we were bus finding. We hopped on the bus and it was pretty full, but there was a seat next to Sorella Liddiard. Normally we don't sit together on the transport to maximize the people we talk with, but I just felt like I should go sit next to her. The second I sat down, I realized why. The 2 girls across from us were staring at us, so I asked if they spoke English. They said no, but that's okay because we got the conversation started. They were really cute sisters, one of them named Susanna, 16 years old. And since the "have you ever seen this book?" thing seemed to be working out so well for us, we decided to give it another shot. It didn't fail. In fact, it worked really well, Susanna couldn't believe we wanted to just give the book to her! Then she had to get off the bus (not before we exchanged numbers though, 😉). And just a few hours after initially meeting her, she texted us saying "hey it's Susanna, the girl from the bus! Thank you so much for the book, it's beautiful!" What?!?! We couldn't believe it because usually it's us sending the text that says "hey it's the girl from the bus" hahaha. And then less than 24 hours after meeting her on the bus, she came to have a lesson with us in the church! She had read the whole pamphlet that we left in the book and loved it. She even told us her mom couldn't believe she chose that pamphlet over her phone!!!! This girl is amazing and has so much energy and just loves church and Jesus. She just really has everything figured out and it's really impressive for her age. She said "most kids my age just say they're atheist because it's the cool trend and it's the easier way. But I know that following Christ is going to be the easier way when things get hard!" She's amazing!!!!! We get to see her again tomorrow!

And I think that's pretty much it for my week! Just loving every minute here in the Great Italy Rome Mission. Yesterday was an amazing Sunday in church, just really spiritually uplifting. There were some amazing talks on prayer and then in gospel principles we talked about The Creation! We read Alma 30:44 "...all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." I know that this is true! We meet so many people every day that are atheist and it's hard to hear that over and over again when everything that surrounds us is evidence that God is real and that He loves us so much. I invite you to take a minute this week to appreciate the beauty that surrounds you because God created it just for you so that you could be happy. 🌻🌼🌻

Un abbraccio forte!

XOXO