I realized that the Lord has blessed me so much that I have only increased my debt

I have no idea how to start this email. I have tried like five different ways, and been unsuccessful every time so I'm giving up on being witty and I'm just going to tell you what happened. We made it to zone conference. I gave an addestramento by myself. I talked about how important it is to treat people individually when inviting people to be baptized. I wrote the conversion story of both of my parents and then had every member of my district write the conversion story of their parents, and then had the missionaries practice inviting that person with their individual needs to be baptized. I'm not sure what kind of affect it had on the other missionaries, but it really, really touched me, to know that what we do has long term affects and that every person has individual needs.

Then we got into a car with a member from Cagliari and drove really, really fast until we got to Sassari. I almost threw up on poor Sorella Tapia. She handled it really well. Then we got to the baptism 2 minutes before it started, took photos, and sat down. Then I gave a talk, then finally Simona was baptized, and it was flawless, and beautiful and it made every horrible agonizing stress of the whole day worth it. On Saturday there was a ward sports activity, which was very stressful for most of the missionaries, but my activity was canceled so I just walked around socializing with Alessandro and his mother. I really enjoyed it. I was super impressed with the branch at the ward activity.

Up until this point they have been kind of indifferent to Alessandro, but on Tuesday we had a lesson for him in a plant shop that one of our members owns (it's where all of the ward hangs out so we were able to have two members there!!) and the spirit was really strong. Afterwards we talked to the two members a lot about Alessandro, and they talked to other members about how great he is (people talk a lot in branches!) and on Saturday everyone in the branch did an amazing job of fellowshipping him. I walked in the kitchen at one point to get a glass of water and there were ten members sitting around him watching him eat a piece of Lasagnia, which was really confusing, but they had asked him to be a judge nella gara gastrinomica (food race literally) which made him feel so special. He recognized our pan so he tried to rig it so that we would win, he told me after, which I thought was great.

The last three or four weeks of my life has been very, very stressful and full of pressure and tiring. Specifically Sundays. This Sunday on the other hand was beautiful and simple and so relaxing. I got to church, and I didn't have to give the lesson, in gospel principles, I was able to just sit and enjoy it. Then I went to Sacrament and found someone sitting with both Alessandro and Simona, which meant that for the first time in months I didn't have to take care of anyone during sacrament. I wasn't pulling a child out from under a chair so that his mom could focus on the speaker (Michaelangelo from Taranto) or explaining to Alessandro the principles of the Sacrament, or showing someone how a hymnal work, I was just sitting and watching and it was beautiful. It was the primary presentation which was hugely irreverent like always, and 3 members were standing up filming it, but I loved every second of it.

I'm a little worried that Alessandro isn't going to pass the baptismal interview this week. He doesn't have a great grasp on the restoration; more specifically he doesn't care about the restoration. He could not care less if this is the only true church on the earth. He gets that it's the best church, and that he feels the spirit the strongest here, and he has made huge changes in his life to prepare for baptism he even believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet, he just doesn't have a super high level of comprehension when it comes to the restoration. I was talking to Anziano Quaresima about it this week (my district leader) and he challenged me to read a few scriptures to decide for myself if Alessandro is ready. I read the scripture in Mosiah, and I just felt so strongly that I had never met anyone in my whole mission that was more prepared to do those things than Alessandro, so we are going to do our very, very best to make him understand this week, and then we are going to trust the Lord, He could really, really use all of your prayers.

Also last night during district finding, which is actually apartment finding which we do every Sunday night, we met a man from Senegal and he was speaking to us in French. Sorella Tapia, Sorella Sartena and I all studied French in the past, and he has lived in Italy long enough to understand Italian so he was speaking to us in French and we were answering in Italian, and I understood EVERYTHING! And about half way through the conversation I was able to start answering in a very basic French so it's still in there! I had just been telling Sorella Tapia that the biggest sacrifice of my mission was the fact that I had lost all of my French, and then the next day the Lord gave me an opportunity to realize that I hadn't really sacrificed anything, my mission has only been a blessing, I have only gained from it. When I first started my mission I thought that I was giving so much to the Lord, and now I realized that the Lord has blessed me so much that I have only increased my debt.

She sent a few pictures this week (Finally!!! I have only been nagging her for months now about this)