Well. I don't even know where to start. I have about 10329472398 things I want to share this week and only about 30 minutes to do so. Rut-row, raggy. But I'll do my best.
First things first, shout out this week to Somers who sent me a letter! Just got it last week. Also shout outs to Nana and Megan A. who also wrote to me. You are awesome. I'm working on getting back to you all :)
Mom, about the photo book you sent - you may need to contact Sorella Bunker's mom and get one made for Sor B because I show mine to EVERYONE. Everyone. I carry it with me all the time. I love it!!!! Everyone else is probably tired of it, but that doesn't keep me from showing it to everyone and their dog. Sometimes I even show our Christmas card pic to people we meet and teach on the street.
This week has been insane. Sunday was incredible, but to understand why, I have to back up to last week and our scambio. Sorella Bunker was with Sorella Jones and they had a big miracle contact with a guy named Antonio. Sor B wrote about it in her email back home, so I'll just cut and paste what she emailed:
"Tuesday we did a Scambio, and the Savonna Sorelle came up to Torino to help us out here for a day. I was with Sorella Jones from Kaysville, Utah and she is crazy great, she literally talks to everyone. A great example for me, but she also really reminded me that it is only what the Lord thinks that counts. (Which does not mean that I do not want to receive letters of news and encouragement, because I still love those). And then this happened, the Scambio Miracle of awesomeness: According to the wisdom of a few particular missionaries during our nightly planning we envisioned the person we wanted to talk with during our finding time the next day. He would be an older man, sitting on a park bench, who had just lost his job. Well whilst doing some parco we almost picked one man but last minute decided to go talk to the other man on the park bench across the pond. After asking "Come Sta?" the first thing he said was not that well because he did not have a job. We began talking and he was completely open and interested in everything. His mother died recently so we talked a bit about families being eternal and temples and everything, and he said he definitely believes he will see his mother again. Then we talked about Joseph Smith and after sharing the first vision, he said he felt really good right then and he believed it could be possible, then he asked us what he needed to do? Umm meet with us, then be baptized please. Miracle indeed! What he is going to do is meet with us and I am so excited! Hopefully you will hear more about him in the future. I really think good things will happen with this. Sorella Soh also had a miracle finding a Less Active Member who was just visiting for the day and then ended up teaching her and her two nonmember friends who still live in Torino. She goes much more into detail in her letter. Oh also I stopped a woman in the street and she actually opened up to us and gave us her number as well.
It is the start of a good week to come and we really are going to keep working hard in Torino to make this Transfer everything that it can be. It is exhausting that is for sure, but good. We cannot do anything with the spirit and the help of the Lord!"
So yeah. That happened Tuesday. On Friday we met with him again in the park and had a great lesson with him about the Restoration and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. As we were walking away, I looked back and saw him still sitting on the park bench with the BoM open on his lap, reading it. No way. So then fast forward to Sunday afternoon when we met with him again, this time in the church with our ward mission leader. He tells us that he's sorry that he's only read until 1 Nefi 15. What?! That's a ton!!! And then he starts telling our ward mission leader all about how he was just sitting in the park when the sorelle came up to him and started talking to him and about how he just felt something and how he feels something when he talks to us and reads the BoM and he just knows that it's all true. Yeah. Golden. And then we start teaching him about the Plan of Salvation. Mamma Mia. I cannot explain to you what it was like to be explaining the Plan of Salvation to this man and see the look on his face - he was looking at me so intently and just drinking in every word I said. It was unreal. Sor B and I kept looking at each other during the lesson with expressions of like "this can't be happening!" because he was totally feeling the Spirit and kept saying things that made it so evident that he was feeling the Spirit and that what we were saying was exactly what he's been looking for. So. Obviously. We asked the big question. Actually, Sor B asked it. She said (and I translate): "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God?" and what did he say?
"YES."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ANTONIO IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He said yes and then started telling our ward mission leader again all about how he just knows all this is true even though he's never heard any of it before. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I didn't think people like this actually existed!!! BUT THEY DO AND WE FOUND ONE!!!! We fixed a date for April 21st!!!!! The transfer ends the next day, so there's a 99% chance that I'll be transferred and won't be there for the actual baptism, but HE IS GETTING BAPTIZED. We are so excited and happy for Antonio and know his life is just going to change and the miracles and blessings are just going to come a'tumblin' down on him!!! Now we just have to start teaching his wife.... :)
Yeah. So basically our week was awesome. Also yesterday we had our big Sorelle only training in Milano and it was so great! I've finally met all of the Sorelle in our mission, including Sorella Arume, who is from Kauai and who I have heard ALL about from the members here because Torino was her first city, too. I'm attaching a pic of all the Sorelle together! Even Sorella Wolfgramm (President's wife) is hidden in the back. The banner we're holding is our "title of liberty", so to speak, about our mission goal of getting 20 lessons every week. The next picture is of me and Sorella Bishop, who is the shortest sister in our mission. And guess who is the tallest sister in the mission? Oh right. That would be me. Sor Bishop is standing on the ledge in front of the pulpit in the chapel and I am still just barely taller than her. Yeah. I told her we are probably going to be companions some day because we'd just look so funny together that everyone would want to talk to us! And then the last picture is a three-generation training picture! Me and my trainer and my trainee! Ohhhh it was oh-so-good to be able to talk to Sorella Walton again - I LOVE HER. Lots of crazy things are happening in Varese (investigators being dropped, lots of finding work) and so we spent our entire lunch time (30 min) talking to each other and the time went by so quick we forgot about eating and only had about 3 minutes to scarf down a sandwich before we were back in our meeting. The good news, though, is that we're having zone conference in Milano in two weeks and both our zones will be together so we'll see each other again in two weeks, and then probably the week after that at transfers. It was so helpful to be able to get some "motherly advice" from her.
Okay. I have no time left, but I HAVE to share the coolest, craziest miracle that happened to me last week with a member. So we had an appointment to go visit a woman in our ward who is awesome. She's in the Stake RS presidency and has helped us a TON with one of our other investigators (coming to lessons, texting this investigator). She served her mission in Catania 20 years ago. Anyway, we were seeing her on Friday, so on Thursday night during our planning session we had to decide what to teach her. I asked Sor B "what should we teach her?" and we threw around some ideas. Then I asked "what does she NEED?" and that's when I took my glasses off, covered my eyes and cleared my head. I kept saying over and over in my head "what does she need? what does she need?" and then the word "love" casually passed through my mind. That's it. So after a few seconds of silence I turned to Sor B and said "we need to talk about love. I don't know what that means, but that's all I've got". So we decided that we'd study about love the next morning so that we'd be prepared to say something about love to this member. As I was praying that night, I was kinda thinking about what we would say about love and I thought "charity". So okay. My thoughts: "Love and charity. That's what we're going to talk about. Whatever that means." So then we get to the appointment Friday afternoon and I start off by telling this member "so last night we were thinking about what kind of message we wanted to share with you. Because we didn't want to share something cliché, but at the same time we didn't want to talk about anything too crazy about how long it takes to get to Kolob or whatever" at which point she jumped in and said "well, you know, sometimes the best lessons are the simple ones about love and charity." Yeah. That's about the same time my jaw dropped a little bit. Sor B was like "Um, actually, that's exactly what we planned to talk about today" and everyone was kind of stupefied about it. Then the member was like "inspiration!!! I've actually been thinking a lot about this topic lately and I know I need to be better at it." I was like "um, seriously?? Did that really just happen???" Yeah. It did happen. I couldn't believe it, and I still can't even wrap my mind around it, but yeah. It happened.
So. Torino. City of Miracles. The gospel is true. Try it and see. Love you all.
Sorella Soh
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