"Missionary work is hard and sometimes it breaks your heart"

Well this week was transfers which was absolute madness, and we didn't get as much work done as I would have liked. As much as I love scambios (I think those are called exchanges in English) and zone conferences, and district meetings, sometimes I wish we could spend less time doing them and more time just really getting into the work, but this is the Lord's errand and not mine so I will continue to do it His way. Which is probably for the best because, my companion just got called as sister training leader which means I am probably going to be spending a lot of time out of Siracusa this transfer so that she can do scambio's with other sisters in the zone, which will mean a lot of bus rides, which is fine because I definitely have not thrown up on a bus in the last month.... {she didn't share that 'throw up' story for the blog, but it wasn't one of her better days}.
Besides the chaos of transfers this week has been spectacular. English course has grown into something we can no longer control, and we may have to start teaching 3 or even 4 classes a week. While that may seem like its detracting from the work, our last two baptisms have come from English course, and all but one of the investigators being taught now are from English course. English course is a golden, golden finding idea. Speaking of which there are not doors in Italy, only apartment buildings that you have to be buzzed into so the tried and true method of door to door finding is non existent for us, so if anyone has any really great finding ideas from their missions I would love to hear about them. Ok back to English course. We just got a new sister fresh from the MTC, so I have left my comfort zone of my 100 percent in English advanced course and I am now teaching basic. While I'm sad and a little bit intimidated to leave my class, I think it's right. I feel that I have offered them everything I can (in a spiritual sense), and that I have nothing else to help them progress. I hope that Sister Price can give them what I cannot, and that's the reason that we do transfers because sometimes the Lord gives his children a missionary that can spark their faith and plant a seed, and a completely different missionary to harvest it.
We are still teaching Angelo, our plant stand man, and for the most part he is really receptive. We read Moroni 10 3-5 together and he absolutely loved it, but it kind of backfired and he now thinks that his heart is not sincere enough for him to pray. If anyone has suggestions on how to resolve that, please tell me, because I am at a loss.
I know that I usually keep these emails fairly light but I read a talk this week that made me think that maybe by doing that I am cheating my family, friends, and myself, so this week I learned for about the 100th time, that missionary work is hard and sometimes it breaks your heart. I have an English course student who is always very very responsive, and shares beautiful insights during the spiritual thought, and is reading the Book of Mormon. This week I asked her if she would like to learn more about the gospel, and as we were talking, my companion and I ended up giving her a kind of impromptu lesson, and during this lesson she revealed that she does not believe in religion. She believes that it is something man invented to give them comfort, and a sense of moral direction, but there is no truth behind it at all, and then she backed it up with some very logical reasoning. Reasoning that I had never heard before, and by the time I got home, my faith was thoroughly shaken, and the only thing that I could convince myself was that I didn't care if the gospel was true or not. My life was better for it and I was going to continue living it, and I got on my knees and I prayed and for the first time in my life, I felt nothing. The following morning I got down on my knees, and again I felt nothing, and I was furious, because here I was promising people that if they just reached out to their Heavenly Father he would respond to them, and here I was a missionary, taking the greatest act of faith I can imagine having taken, having left my family and friends, my country, and my language for 1 year and a half just to serve him, and I felt nothing? So I started reading in Third Nephi, mainly because it was personal study, and I was too upset to focus on my investigators, and I read a verse. I can't remember where it was but it said something along the lines of 'I was going to write the words that they said but the Lord forbade it, saying that he wanted to try his children's faith', and I realized these experiences happen so that we can grow, and through a lot more personal study I realized that if we can be strong during these moments of doubt our testimony will become firm and unshakable, so I would just like to share with you all, that I know that this gospel is true, and because it's true does not mean it is easy. If it were easy we wouldn't grow and the whole point of this life would be defeated. You will sacrifice more than you can possibly imagine, by remaining faithful to the gospel of Christ, but every painful step of it is more than worth it. Even if I didn't have the promises of eternal life, the joy I have gained in this life would be worth it.

She also sent several pictures this week! It is so exciting for me to see the growth she is experiencing already and we have only just passed the 90 day mark this week.

These first two are with her first companion and trainer Sorella Baker.

Getting her first in country haircut.

Silly photos are a must.

I am not sure who the other sorella is.

Time for lunch.

So just a quick observation from the mom. She has a beautiful smile, however, she has always been very self conscious of smiling and letting her teeth show. I have very few pictures of her genuinely smiling. I have noticed that so many of her pictures from her mission include smiles where she is showing her teeth. That leads me to believe she is becoming more comfortable with who she is and not worrying as much about what others think. I can see her confidence growing and that makes me really happy. I am grateful she can't see the blog until she gets home. If I brought this up to her, she might start smiling with her mouth closed again. I love the new smile!