CIAO CARISSIMI!!!
Okay, so remember how last week was really rough? And remember how you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith?
I do.
So to start off this email...HOLY MIRACLES, BATMAN!!!!!! The past two days have been INSANE. I still can't get over what happened to us last night. Absolutely insane. Perhaps we should chat about it. Yes. Quite.
Well to set things up, we had a zone training in Alessandria on Monday with all of the missionaries in our zone (the Torino zone). Alessandria is the name/base of our stake. Why is Torino not our stake? I don't know. Yeah. Nope. Anyway, we have quite a few missionaries in our zone and we were all in Alessandria. We had a really great training about planning and trying to get 20 lessons every week (Elder Perry promised us that if we get 20 lessons consistently every week, our number of baptisms will double. It's already proven to be true in our mission). And then we watched a talk Elder Holland gave at an MTC devotional in Jan 2011 about being a successful missionary and stuff. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! It was SUCH a good training - I came out of it super pumped to start putting into practice the things we learned. Usually I leave feeling like I still have so much to work on, but this time I was just PUMPED! And since we were all out of our cities, the zone leaders decided that the sisters in our zone would just go straight from our training meeting into a scambio (exchange), so we were blessed to have the Savona Sorelle come and blitz Torino (both of them come to our city instead of one of them coming to Torino and one of us going to Savona). So they came on Monday night, did the scambio with us on Tuesday, and then this morning we went to the Egyptian museum and then put them on a train back to Savona.
So. About these miracles yesterday. I was with Sorella Burgoyne (who is in her last transfer) and Sor Bunker was with Sor Jones (from Kaysville, and who knows Sarah!!!!). I think I could write a novel about my scambio with Sor Burgoyne because I learned so much, but let's cut right to the chase. Miracles. Okay. So after lunch all of our appointments bailed on us, so we decided to go find a less-active woman whose name and address we got from a member. She wasn't home, but we talked to a woman who lives in her palazzo (stairwell), and found out she works until really late, usually. So we are in her neighborhood and decide to go talk to some people. We find this park and sit down on a bench next to a younger woman and start talking to her. It is incredible how people will just open up to us if we ask the right questions. I can't even remember if this woman told us her name, but I do know that she told us she didn't believe in God. And then how she stopped believing in God after her brother was killed in a car accident but the other two people in the car were totally fine. And how her brother's girlfriend was pregnant but he didn't know and so now he has a three year old daughter he never even knew about. I couldn't believe how she just opened up to us like that. She wouldn't take our number or anything, but Sor Burgoyne and I were both able to bear testimony about how she'll see her brother again someday. Incredible.
But that's not the mondo, blow-yo'-mind miracle that even I still can't believe happened. Here's how it goes: so this area we were in last night was a place in Torino that I'd never been to, so we looked at a map and decided to go down to a big park. So we bike down there and come to find out it's basically just a field of grass and there are ZERO people there. Dang. (OH! I forgot to mention about how we missed our turn and ended up at a different park and Sor Burgoyne decided that we should talk to people there anyway and we ended up talking to a woman who had already been given a Book of Mormon by Elders in the past and then another woman who has a strange brother's-wife's-daughter's-cousin relationship with a family in our ward, who we just so happened to visit last week and who are so great). So anyway, we are at this empty park, but I had started to recognize some of the street names and realized that we were in a neighborhood that Sor Bunker and I had decided we wanted to try and do some finding work in while we were doing our weekly planning last week. So I said "well, let's just go do some casa here because we'd already planned on it" so we go. So we bike a little closer when an idea pops into my mind to maybe pass by some people on our ward list that we hadn't been able to contact that live in that area. So I look at our ward list and find the address of this woman that one of the ladies in our ward told us we should try. Sor Bunker had tried to call this woman a few weeks ago, but they man she talked to on the phone said she had the wrong number. But I felt like we should try and go by anyway. It was about 6pm at this point. So we find her palazzo and lock up our bikes and the door is open. So we decided to just walk in and knock all the doors in the palazzo while we were there. We ended up talking to an old lady who let us into her house and talked to us about the church for a pretty good while. Well, mostly she talked, and she wasn't interested, but she told us about how missionaries used to come visit a woman on the third floor all the time and that we should go talk to her (which was our plan in the first place). She also told us that we should go talk to her brother on the 6th floor because he likes to "combattere / fight or argue with" people about religious things. Anyway, by the time we are out of this woman's house it's about 7:30pm, and we have a choice to either go talk to this brother on the 6th floor or stop by the less-active woman on the 3rd floor (who we don't even know if she's home or if she lives there or whatever). We thought about just stopping and talking to the brother on the 6th floor and then heading to the 3rd floor, but I felt like we needed to make this woman our priority so I said "well let's just go try the 3rd floor first, and if she's not home or whatever we can come back to the 6th floor and talk to this guy". So that's what we do. We were standing in front of her door and I was a little nervous because I had no idea what would happen or what we would even say to whoever answered the door, but we took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. We were met by a woman who opened the door and said "SORELLE!!!" and welcomed us in with open arms. It was this less-active woman!!! She immediately started telling us all about how it had been ages since Sorelle had been there and how her sons live in this apartment but she moved and lives and works somewhere else. So naturally we ask her where she moved. And what does she say? SAVONA. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!??! Are you KIDDING me???? My scambio companion is FROM SAVONA, and they just replaced the Elders there two weeks ago. Are you serious? This woman said that she had wanted to go to church, but didn't know where the church was in Savona. So Sor Burgoyne whips out a pass along card with their number on it. This woman is so excited to see us. She has us sit down and then she says "Can you stay and eat dinner with us? It's been so long since we've had a Family Home Evening with the sorelle!" ARE YOU KIDDING ME, YES. Yes. So they set two extra plates at the table and we eat dinner with them. And then she tells us that she works and lives in Savona and is only in Torino for the day to visit her three grown sons who live in this apartment together - she got there at noon and was planning on leaving the next day at about 2. Um. Same story with Sor Burgoyne. And she gave Sor Burgoyne her cell phone number and said "hey, maybe we can ride the train back together!". Yeah. OH! And they had a nonmember friend and his 12 yr old daugher at dinner and we talked to them about the Book of Mormon and they both wanted Restoration pamplets from us at the end. Yeah. That was yesterday. My mind is still blown. Absolutely unreal. I mean, that doesn't happen!!! Miraculous things: 1) woman from Savona and missionary from Savona on scambio 2) this woman was HOME the day we decided to pass by 3) SHE WAS HAPPY TO SEE US and they FED us 4) if she hadn't been home we wouldn't have even been able to come in to the house and talk with this nonmember friend 5) we didn't even plan on stopping by - it just popped into my head 6) I can't even keep listing the miraculous things because there are too many and I am out of time.
Yeah. Holy miracle week.
Notes: -mom, I wouldn't be opposed to getting a can or two of Spam in my next package...
-the only Italian sister missionary in Temple Square that I know of just got her two-transfer reassignment to the Birmingham mission. Her mom is in Torino 1 and I saw her on Friday at a RS activity. She was so excited to hear that I was from AL. So, look out for a Sister Narduzzi in one of the Birmingham wards!
-we're having a sisters-only training meeting in Milan next Tuesday. I am SO. EXCITED. It's going to be so amazing.
Okay yeah, I'm way over time today. BUT MIRACLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE GOSPEL IS TRUE AND GOD HEARS AND ANSWERS PRAYERS!!!!! In a BIG way. BIG BIG BIG. Awesome.
TONS of amore from Torino aka the place of miracles,
Sorella Soh
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