Last email of the year!!!

CHEEYOW FAM-E-LEEUH!

I just told Sorella Walton "this is the last email of the year!" and she said "oh baby." Yep. That's my companion.

Well I feel like I don't really have anything to say to you all this email seeing as how I just got to talk to you all on the phone on Sunday! Basically everyone that I talked to before I called told me to tell you that they send their regards and say hello and all of that. We were at Giuseppe's house (the new convert with two teenage kids) and it was taking us forever to figure out how to work the dang phone card, but he was the one that finally got me connected and he was so excited to hand the phone over to me when he heard you (mom) answer and say hello! You'll be happy to know that I'm feeling much better and of course I got my voice back on Monday. Of course.

As a quick review of the week for those of you who I didn't talk to on the phone, I was sick! I had a really bad sore throat that progressed to just me being boogery and having a headache and also losing my voice. It was real cute. And, this is new news, Sor Walton saw how much fun I was having being sick that she decided she just couldn't take it any longer! So on Monday she decided to wake up with a sore throat, too. Pretty much all day yesterday we spent drinking juice, herbal tea, and warm milk with honey (ALL the Italians we talked to told us to do that) and coughing (followed typically by a moan of pain or declaration of "ow"). Surprisingly, though, being out in the cold air really helped clear up my sinuses! So, tender mercy, I guess!

Also, zone conference in Milano last Friday! I finally got to see Anz Dunshee, who was one of the missionaries in Siena when I was there last year. After I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting last year, he came up to me and said "when are you turning in your mission papers?? you're coming to Italy for sure!" And he was right. But I had no way of telling him until he saw me at zone conference! Funny, huh? A few missionaries were cast as participants in our reenactment of the nativity scene as part of our Christmas "celebration" at zone conf, and yours truly got cast as a angel! I was type-cast, I know. What can I say ;)

So a note about Alina, our new investigator! One of the things we talked about as part of our training at zone conf was inviting investigators to be baptized during the first lesson. Yeah. Really. Anyway, the goal of it is just to let people know that our purpose as missionaries is to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ, help them to gain a testimony and then help them be baptized and the idea is that if people don't understand that we want to help them be baptized then our visits and lessons with them are fine and dandy but have no purpose. Anyway, we asked Alina to read the Book of Mormon and when she decides for herself that the Book of Mormon is true if she would be baptized into our church and she said yes! She'll be gone for vacation for the next two weeks, but we made her a little bookmark with a reading chart on it so that she can keep up reading while she's gone. She is just so great and I've probably already written too much about her that people are getting bored of my email already, but I can't help it! She is so great! As I was talking with her the other day I just caught a vision of her divine potential and how much confidence and hope and happiness she will gain as she continues on this path of trying to be more like the Savior and it was just so exciting. I even dreamt last night that I was at home and Alina came over and was waiting for me to finish getting ready so that I could take her to church. Crazy!

Another crazy thing is that I've been set apart as a missionary for four months!! Four!!! Hokey Smokes! I can't believe it! Every day I think about the missionary that I want to be - what things I want to accomplish as a missionary, in terms of how I teach and contact people and what influence I have on my companions and members in the ward. There's so much that I want to do and be as a missionary and every day I just want to be better and do better and work harder. I have so much work to do to get to that point! But, as I was discussing with Sor W the other day, if I was the missionary that I want to be, the missionary I've envisioned, right now, I might as well go home because all the hard work would be done. So! Every day is just another opportunity to be who I want to be. I believe so strongly that you shouldn't just "be who you are" but that you should "be who you WANT to be". I mean, who just wants to be who they are right now for the rest of their life? How boring would that be! You've got to become!

I was thinking about the email I sent the other week about referrals, and the one thing I was thinking about that basically sums up what I wanted to say was that referrals ARE NOT investigators. Finding investigators is a missionary's job, but referrals can be anybody's job. Anyway.

I was also thinking about how part of the reason we go out as missionaries is to share with others the happiness we've found through the gospel. But really, we don't want people to find our happiness. We want them to find their own happiness! And the way you find it is through living the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don't want to convert them to our God, we want to convert them to THEIR God. He just happens to be the same God. But in terms of happiness, the gospel of Jesus Christ is where we can find happiness - by living our lives in such a way that we know God is pleased with us and is able to give us blessings - but the actual "happiness" is different for everyone. I mean, just because sleeping outside in a tent in the wood and eating sticks and not showering makes someone else happy does NOT mean that that is what makes me happy, but that doesn't mean that we don't both appreciate the wonder of God's creations. We just find happiness in them in different ways.

Also, quick plug for my companion (and no, I don't write this just because I know her mom has checked out my blog! While we're acknowledging this fact, though, Hi Sorella Walton's mom!!!!), Sorella Walton is so great! I've been learning so much from her as my trainer and we've really gotten to be good friends, sometimes to a fault. She dropped food on her skirt at our dinner appointment the other night at Giuseppe's house and it made us both laugh so hard I couldn't even breathe (also because I was sick and coughing). She's been good to get me thinking about what I've learned so far as a missionary and what I want to accomplish and how I can go about doing it. I just wanted to add that just so that you all know that I really am learning so much about myself and the gospel and this work. I don't really know how much I've changed in these past four months, and particularly in these past two months, but I think some things are moving around in me - becoming more secure, more solid - and just becoming a better, more focused person.

Hokay. Well. Basically I'm out of time. Merry late Christmas everyone! Oh, and shout-out to the Vashaws and Auntie Kim who sent me Christmas cards! Apparently my pleas for mail are being heard ;) Sometimes I think about how many prayers are offered in behalf of missionaries and then think about the miracles we as missionaries see each day and can't help but see the correlation between the two, even if those offering the prayers don't. It's the prayers of the faithful that keep the work going, that keep US going. Thank you. Thank you so much. We cannot do this work without you. It's your church, too.

A very very happy new year to you all!

Mucho love,
Sorella Soh