I LOVE ROME!!!

Hey Everybody!!!
This week has been amazing!!! I love Rome. It is amazing to live in a place full of such a variety of people. Sometimes I feel like I have been blessed to serve a mission not only in Rome Italy, but in the Philippines, and Peru as well. Leaving Rome will be really hard for me, because I really feel close to this ward and these people. I know Rome Italy will always feel a little bit like home, whether or not I ever figure out how to fully speak this crazy language.

So this week started with a wonderful Gans (young single adult or YSA) FHE (family home evening) that two of our investigators came to. One of whom is married with two children but we get really flexible on the definition of a gans (YSA) when we are working with investigators. Then we had a wonderful DDM (district meeting which is a meeting where all the missionaries in an area get together to brainstorm about investigators, and working with the members etc.) where Anziano Nickle (our district leader) gave a powerful lesson on finding. So Sorella Worsham and I spent a lot of the week focusing on really doing our best to find people the Lord has prepared for us.

Finding is really hard. It's really easy to slip out of the habit of doing it well. It's interesting the two things that I thought I would be really good at as a missionary are finding and less active work, but those are probably my two weakest areas. We also spent a lot of this week trying to pass by and track down less actives but it seems like they are never home, don't want to see us, or have moved. I have been praying for them and the ability to help them a lot this week, as has the ward but the Lord's timing isn't always our timing. Part of the problem might be that the word for sheep and the word for sinner are really similar in Italian so instead of praying for the sheep that are lost I was praying for the sinners that are lost. Hopefully now that that is cleared up maybe we will have more success.

Our main family that we are working with, agreed to pray for a baptismal date last night. It has been wonderful to see them make this change in their life. Every time I see them in church or hear them bear their testimony it makes every difficult thing that has happened so far worth it. Also Elizabeth has started asking if we know missionaries in Peru that can help her family, because she wants them to have the same tranquility that she has now.

Our English course is on chapter 5 in the Book of Mormon. This Thursday Sorella Worsham had to go to ward council, and so Sorella Ghio and I taught English course on the opposite sides of the room (so we were still in sight and sound) but I was teaching the intermediate class by myself, and we did the spiritual thought over chapter 4, and then I closed and ended class but forgot to assign them to read chapter 5. As they were getting up to leave Jessica, asked me what they were supposed to read this week. I was really excited to see her take that kind of initiative.

I'm also working on memorizing all of the scripture masteries in Italian. I made a calendar for the rest of my mission, and I am making great progress and it's helping me so much with the language. I have the Book of Mormon flash cards from the seminary teacher in Siracusa, but if anyone knew how to get a hold of them for the other books it would be amazing.

I also realized that a huge part of the reason that we serve missions is to help us become better members and build stronger testimonies (I know that is super obvious, but I internalized it this week) and the reason we serve for a year and a half or two years is because we need time to really build these habits. The reason that EFY usually doesn't change people is because it is only a week long, and real change takes time. So if you don't have the opportunity to serve a mission I want to invite you to really make scripture reading a part of your daily life, and I promise it will change you piano piano (little by little) but it will change you.