Saturday, August 31, 2013

Life's Wonderful!

Dear Family, 

Today I'm feeling very grateful for the gospel and for the church. We attended the funeral today of the father of a less active family we've been working with. He, his wife, and daughter are members but because the rest of his family isn't his funeral was at a different church. The cerimony was nice, but there was something missing. I thought back on the other funerals I've been to and remember that dispite the sorrow, there wasn't a heavy atmosphere, but one of peace and hope. I'm grateful for the perspective and knowledge that I've been blessed to have. 

This week has been wonderful. We've seen lots and lots of miracles. One of which is my Italian! Grazie a Sorella Bringas, my Italian has improved immensely. I'm now at the point where I'm finding myself speak without thinking and it feels natural. Several members have commented on the improvement. I didn't realize how horrendous my italian was when I showed up here. I thought it was pretty good, at least much better than it had been in Genova. perspective, perspective. 

Our plates are full with balancing everything we need to do and everyone we need to see. As my language abilities grow, so does my understanding of missionary work and the gospel. It really is amazing how perfect God's plan is. I feel so blessed that I'm able to share this knowledge with everyone I meet. 

I love you all. Have a fantastic week!
Sorella Pace

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

5 Months!

Dear Family, 

Five months ago yesterday I entered the MTC and began my mission. It's hard to believe it's already been that long and that half of that time was spent here in Savona. I feel so blessed for the experiences that I've had and the things I've learned. 

This past week we started teaching a man from Africa so the lessons were in English. hahaha. I can talk to Sorella Hanson in english without much problem, but to teach the restoration was hard! I kept on finding myself slip and use italian phrases. We both spoke slowly and with pauses as we tried to think of the words in english. It probably hasn't helped that we've been speaking almost completely italian with Sorella Bringas. But I am so grateful for that. I'm finally starting to feel semi comfortable talking to people on the street in italian. 

It's the end of August which in Italy is Ferie and Everyone's gone on vacation. Luckily most of the branch left after church on Sunday so it wasn't like when we were in Pistoia a couple years ago. Finding members to come to lessons however has been difficult. We have literally called every single active member and several inactive to come to specific lessons with us without much success. Everyone is gone, working, or there's a family that's moving out of the city to a small town over half an hour away. Because of the distance they'll only come to Savona on Sundays for chruch. They've been a huge help to us the past two months and we're sad to see them go. 

Yesterday our amazing investigator came back from vacation! We've been teaching him for about a month and I've never taught anyone like him. Since we're still without a branch president, we like to hunt for ''our new branch president'' when ever we're finding. About a month ago Sorella Hanson found this man during a scambio and we think we've found him. He has such a desire to change his life and eats up the gospel. It really is a joy to teach him. Anyway, he left on vacation for ten days leaving us a little worried since this is a critical time for him as he's trying to live the word of wisdom and prepare for baptism. But on Monday he texted us to let us know he was back in town and we could meet whenever we wanted! So last night we had a lesson and it went pretty well. Now we're just praying he'll be able to live the word of wisdom in time to be baptized in a couple of weeks. 

I love you all! Have a marvelous week!

Sorella Pace

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Back in Three

Dear Family,

This week we're back in three with Sorella Bringas! Which means I've
been speaking straight Italian for the past week. It's been one of
those trials chuck full of blessings. My italian is improving so much.
Sometimes my brain is fried and I can't think, understand, or speak by
the end of the day. But as the days pass, it becomes easier and I find
myself instictively using Italian. I think my grammer is still pretty
scary, but I'm starting to get some of the verb tenses down.

Our greatest miracle this week was with one of our simpatizzanti this
past Monday! He's the only simp. remaining from before we arrived in
Savona and we have a standing appointment with him for 'fhe' every
Monday night at the home of a member family. I think that in the two
months we've been here in Savona we've maybe missed only one Monday
with him. But in all that time, he has refused a baptism date. We have
talked about baptism ALOT. And he knows he needs to, and he even wants
to, but he won't accept a date. Two weeks ago, we had the whole heavy
metal music experience, but he still wouldn't accept a date. So we let
it sit for a week and then this Monday, we finally finished teaching
all of the commandments. We brought up baptism again and his answer
was the same as always. 'I want to get baptized, but I don't want a
date.' We were trying to figure out why, when suddenly the member
spoke up and bore a Powerful testimony. All three of us felt chills.
And then he finally said, 'Okay!' All the emphasis on member
missionary work is true. We can't do it without you. I love hearing
about every and all missionary experiences you're having at home.

Vi voglio tantissimo bene!

Sorella Pace

Monday, August 12, 2013

Missionary Stories

Caro Famiglia, 

Well we finally fixed our bikes, so we were able to use them yesterday! The funny thing is that Sorella Bringas returns today, and since we only have two bikes we'll be on feet for the rest of this transfer. But since we had our bikes yesterday, we decided to really use them and go find a less active in a small town up in the mountains. It was steep, it was hot, it was humid, and our bikes aren't really that great so it was hard. But after an hour we finally found this tiny town and started asking for directions. It turns out, that there are two little towns with almost the exact same name and we of course went to the wrong one. The write town was in the complete opposite direction along the coast. In the end all we were able to do was give out a few pass-a-long cards and head back to Savona. 

Then that afternoon we had an appointment out of town with a member. Most of our strong members don't actually live right in Savona. We usually take the bus, but we decided to save the money and take the bikes! We had a great lesson and left with more than enough time to return to the church for an appointment that evening with one of our amazing progressing investigators. We wanted to be sure to arrive on time because he hadn't been answering the phone for four or five days and we were feeling more than a little worried. But we had a while, so we stopped and talked to a lady on the street. It turned out that she was having a really hard day, so we ended up talking with her for much longer than planned. When we ended, we realized that we only had twenty minutes to get to the church, and the bike ride would take thirty to forty mintues! We took off peddling as fast as we could and praying as hard as we could. By the time we arrived at the church we could barely walk because our legs felt like jelly, but we were only five minutes late. Unfortunately, he wasn't there yet, so we collapsed on the chairs and just breathed. Five minutes later, our investigator walked in the door! I don' t think I've ever been so happy in my life. 

We meet people everyday with a huge variety of problems. I never realized how blessed my life was until I really saw how hard life can be. And yet I'm here working hard everyday to bring people hope that dispite all the hardship, dispite all the sorrow, we can have joy. Now and forever. I remember in the months before I left talking with Mom and Dad about the Plan of Salvation and how people really don't understand it. But when we do come to understand, everything makes sense. Every commandment, every doctrine, every trial clicks into place and we see our full eternal potential. When people see and understand the Plan, their lives change and their desires change. 

I love you all! 
Sorella Pace

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Investigators

Dear Family, 

This past week has been amazing! We've been blessed with amazing investigators who are really making progress!
We've had an investigator from before we arrived in Savona that we've been working with the whole last transfer. He loves reading the scriptures and has a testimony and knows that he needs to get baptized, but he's been unwilling to accept a baptism date. He kept on telling us that he has ''things to fix'' but wouldn't tell us what. So this Monday we decided to teach again about baptism and really find out why he won't accept a date. We talked about the importance of baptism for a while and were asking a lot of questions, but I could tell that there was something specific he wasn't telling us and he was trying hard to avoid the subject. But finally the truth came out. We held our breaths, prayed that it wasn't something too bad, and then listened as he told us that he couldn' t be baptized because he listens to heavy metal music! You can not believe the relief I felt at that moment! It definitely wasn't the response I had expected. We told him that he could still be baptized even though he listens to heavy metal and the relief was visible on his face! 

We also have two other investigators who have baptism dates! We've been working with a man for the past week and a half and he's amazing. Sorella Hanson and Sorella Heupel found him when we had a blitz the other week and set up an appointment. We taught him the first lesson and invited him to church and he came and stayed for all three hours! That night we taught him the Plan and he loved it. He really thinks about what we're telling him and you can see when something makes sense. We invited him to be baptized with a date and he didn't accept it then, but he was willing to pray about it. So by our third meeting with him last night, he had read to 1 Ne. 8 and accepted baptism! He's praying, and they're prayers straight from his heart. 

We've been wanting to see the Missionary Broadcast for the past couple of weeks. Most of the wards and branches here have watched it during church, but since we don't have a branch president we haven't. We're talking to people to try to organize to watch it one Sunday, and no one had even heard about it. So our zone leader told us to just take some time and watch it ourselves, which I was content to do so that we could watch in English and I could understand everything. So last week after a lesson fell through we headed over to the church to watch it. But... the speakers on the computer are really old and don't work. So we're still trying to figure out how to see it. Last Monday we had district meeting in San Remo and we always have about an hour after district meeting ends before we can catch a train back to Savona (it's about a two hour train ride) so we were able to watch the first 45 minutes at their church building and it was soo good!!! We had heard a little about what it was about, but there were lots of things that we just hadn't heard. It's crazy to think how much missionary work is developing around the world!

I feel so blessed to be apart of this work. My understanding and love of the gospel increases everyday, and I am blessed to be able to share that knowledge with everyone I meet!

I love you all, have a wonderful week!

Sorella Pace


Karen's zone with Presidente and Sorella Dibb