Trasferimenti

Cara Famiglia,

Well it's that time of the transfer again and Monday during lunch we recieved a call from Presidente Dibb. There isn't anything that gets your heart battering quite like that. Luckly, I get to stay here in Pordenone! But Sorella Pond's going to open Busto Arsizio to sorelle as well as train a brand new missionary. She's kind of nervous :)

My new companion is Alyson Carter. And that's all I know about her. So I'll let you know more next week. We're leaving this afternoon to travel to Verona (three hours in train) where we'll spend the night with the sorelle there. Then in the morning Sorella Pond will head to Milano and I'll stay in Verona until the Sorella Carter arrives. It should be fun. I'm going to miss Sorella Pond a ton. She's absolutely amazing and I've been so blessed to spend the past three transfers with her. 

In other news... We have a bap date! And she's the cutest little 84 year old Italian lady! I never thought I'd see that happen, but she's amazing. She's the aunt of a member and the missionaries have visited her slightly over the past year. When I first started working with her, the missionaries hadn't seen her for a couple of months. So we went, and she told us that she was Catholic, would remain Catholic, but we were nice and she liked listening to us so we could keep visiting her. Which we did because it meant so much to her nephew. We were seeing her everyother week and then her nephew started bringing her in church every week. I had the thought one day that maybe we should ask L. to be baptized! Then her nephew talked to me at church and said that maybe she was now ready to be baptized. Our next lesson with her the nephew wasn't there and we wanted him there for the invite. As we were talking she shocked me by saying,  "until yesterday I was Christian." I was trying to immagine L. becoming Budhist so I asked her what she was today and she said "forse potrei diventare mormona." (maybe I could become Mormon). 

Last Friday we taught her the Plan of Salvation and asked her to be baptized April 5 and she accepted! 

Keep up the missionary work at home! And keep thinking about those family mission plans! 

Vi voglio tantissimo bene!

Sorella Pace

A Family Mission Plan

Cara Famiglia, 

Today we finally have blue skys and the sun. This morning we went to visit a cute little nona (grandma) in the ward who taught us how to make a fun little cake, showed us all of the tablecloths in her house, and told us how to run a household when we're grown up and married. It was very fun, and the cake delicious. It's her standard cake that she makes us every time we come, and then she sits there saying, "mangi! mangi!" (eat eat) until we've eaten the entire thing. Then she usually finds us some other treat to supplement the cake. Her husband is an inactive who doesn't want to hear much about the church, and while he still hasn't stayed for a spiritual thought, we're slowing building a relationship with him. He's stayed for a couple prayers and jokes around with us now, so we're calling that progress. As we left Sorella V. told us to visit her again soon and next time she'll teach us how to make homemade pasta. Yum!

Monday night however, we were completely soaked. It was rainy, we were on bikes, on the streets, we were wet, we were cold, and we ended up riding our bikes to a neighborhood where we've rarely been to do some casa. We started with a large apartment building and after ringing a couple of citofoni we were let in the building. After a few minutes of knocking doors, a lady in her late 20s opened the door and let us in. We started teaching the Restoration and it was an amazing lesson. After a couple minutes, her date showed up at the door, and she sent him away until we left. She told us that she was very content to meet us, and that us knocking on her door was a sign. We're excited to see her again tomorrow!

One last thing, we're asking all our members to create a family mission plan! So, if you haven't created one yet, Do it! And then send me a copy. It doesn't have to be a big huge thing, fit it on a notecard, and have a couple simple everyday things as well as some bigger bolder things. Take an FHE, read one of the amazing talks on missionary work (we've been using one from a couple years ago, Creating a Gospel Sharing Home by Anz. Ballard), and then create your plan! 

I love you all! Have a marvelous week!

Sorella Pace

Water Water Water

Dear Family, 

68 Sorelle in a Mid-Mission Crisis. 

The sister training leaders came for a scambi last Friday and Saturday. And that is one of the things we talked about. There are apparently 68 sorelle around my age in the mission and we're all reaching (or reached) our halfway point and kind of freaking out. And deeply analysing our missionary work. Somehow the realization that we were not alone calmed Sorella Pond and I down a lot. 

I think I can add to that: 68 Soaking sorelle in a mid-mission crisis. 

It's a little wet out. 

It has been for a week straight. 

And will be for the perceivable future... 

I think the river will over flow soon. 

In interviews last Friday Presidente Dibb said to stay healthy because it will be rainy for the next four months. 

But we are completely happy because our meno attiva came to church!!! For the first time in years! we were able to give her a tour of the newish wonderful Pordenone meeting house and it was amazing. The first time we met her we realized that she was someone who is ready to come back to church, she just needs some help getting there. It's amazing. And she came to church!

And then yesterday we stopped by another less active who's incredibly solitary and wont meet with us. But we were by her house and the bus was in twenty minutes, so we passed by to tell her we love her over the citofono and she told us that just this once we could come up into her house and talk to her! We were there for over 45 minutes and she completely opened up and talked to us and admitted she needed help and invited us to come back again! 

We were late for the rest of our appointments that night but it was completly worth it. 

Dispite the weather missionary work is going strong. 

I love you all! Don't worry Mom, I'm eating my share of chocolate as well. We made a chocolate cake (the joys of boxed cake from the base) for the sorelle last week and it did not last over a day. 

Sorella Pond and I rediscovered the joy of Pace salsa a couple weeks ago thanks to an American member. We downed a jar very quickly and were trying to figure out how to live without it, but luckily last night another family from the Military ward saved us with a second jar. 

Have a wonderful week, keep up with the missionary work at home! Tell the sisters there hello. 

Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Pace

P-Day

Dear Family, 

Thank you for all your letters and thoughts this week on the Spirit, seeds, and missionary work. It was exactly what I needed. 

So I'm a day late writting email because yesterday we were cleaning. One of our less-actives in the Military Ward is moving back to the states. The movers moved out all her stuff earlier in the week leaving her with Wednesday to clean the house and all of the appliances- to military grade perfection. It's a big job so we received permission to switch our P-day this week and help her clean. 

We have two new investigators this week! We've been calling a potential since we met her before Christmas and we were finally able to see her! We taught her a wonderful restoration lesson. We're hoping to set a baptism date with her this tomorrow when the Sister Training Leaders come from Mestre for a scambi. Tomorrow we're also having interviews with Presidente Dibb so it's a pretty busy week. 

I love you all!

Sorella Pace

Be Not Weary in Well Doing

Dear Family, 

Thanks for the soup recipies! I can't wait to try some out. 

So this week I discovered a scripture in D&C 64:33-34 ''Pertanto, non stancatevi di far bene, poiché state ponendo le fondamenta di una grande opera. E ciò che è grande procede da piccole cose. Ecco, il Signore richiede il cuore e una mente ben disposta; e coloro che sono ben disposti e obbediente mangeranno le buone cose della terra di Sion in questi ultimi giorni.'' Sorry I didn't feel like looking it up in English. But look it up, because it's a really good scripture. ''Be not weary in well-doing.'' I've been thinking about this scripture a lot the past couple of days and how I can better apply it to my work as a missionary. I love the knowledge that there is nothing better that I could be doing with my life right now than serving a mission. I'm in the work of 'well-doing' and I love it with all my heart. There are times when you meet someone on the street. They may not be interested in hearing about the gospel, but you're given a glimpse of the love that our Heavenly Father feels for that persone and it's an amazing moment. And then you're sitting on a park bench or on a staircase with an investigator or less active that you've been working with for months and they bear a powerful testimony of the gospel or the Book of Mormon and you feel God's love so strongly. It's amazing, it's a miracle each time. 

I love you all!!!!

Have a wonderful week!

Sorella Pace

So last week for p-day we went to Venice again!

Me and Sant Marco

Me and Sorella Pond

Me right where I have a picture with Melanie and Julie, only now its three years later and winter and I have a nametag.

Member Missionaries

Dearest Family, 

Member missionary work is the best. There's a family in the American Ward and the husband is a convert and he is always talking about the gospel with everyone. We've never really talked to him about it because we split the ward members with the anziani and this family was in their half of the ward, but the other week we reorganized the split, so the Douberly family is now ours. We were pretty excited. So we called him up Saturday night to ask if he knew anyone we could meet. He was super excited and set up a dinner appointment with us for the next night and promised that someone would be there. 

I think that lesson was one of the most amazing I've ever seen. There is such a power when members bear their sincere testimonies to their friends.

Sorella Pond and I have been talking lately about how we can improve our work with members and that experience really boosted that desire. 

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Sorella Pace

ITALY LOVES ME!!!

So we were just walking around Pordenone, talking to everyone we saw, when we found this!

I just love my name!!

Pordenone

Dear Family,

Cool Story! So way back before Christmas, we recieved a call from this man, who said he had found our pass-a-long card with a picture of Christ lying on the street  and he wanted a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. Suffice it to say that that has never happened, and I was completely shocked. But I tried to set up an appointment, he said to call him on Saturday, and for the day, we left it at that. Saturday came, I called, and the phone wasn't reachable. A few days later I called again and the phone wasn't reachable. This continued until we gave him one last call, and gave up trying. Well, a couple days later he called us back trying to figure out who we were. Sorella Pond talked to him and was able to set up an appointment to meet in centro and give him the DVD. We learned that he lived out in a small town a little ways away, so we came up with the wonderful plan of convincing him to accept a visit from the Capi Zona who have a car. 

The meeting went pretty well. He had done his research on the church, had mostly found only good things, and was curious to learn more. We explained that while Finding Faith in Christ was a very good DVD, to learn more about the church he needed to read the Book of Mormon and meet with the missionaries. He thought he had a Book of Mormon at home somewhere and said he would look at it, but didn't want to hear more yet. We decided to wait a couple days and give him a call. 

Then last Saturday, after a hard lesson, we were walking home and the Capi called. They told us that they had been in a jewlery shop talking to the owner about the church, and all he wanted to do was argue. They were doing their best to explain when suddenly the one other person in the store started defending them. They eventually left and started talking to this man, who explained that he had met with us a couple days before, he was reading the Book of Mormon, and he was willing to meet with them. In the words of an anziano, ''I think [he] just got slapped in the face with the need to meet with the missionaries.'' 

Sometimes when we hand out materials on the street I wonder if anything ever happens to them. Then miracles happen and people like this man call us or we see a card randomly hanging in someone's home. It's pretty great knowing that we're doing the work of the Lord. 

In other news, Sorella Pond and I are staying in Pordenone another transfer! Since this is her forth transfer here, she'll probably be leaving after this, which means I'll probably be staying atleast one more after that. Which means I'll be here for four months as well! 

Vi voglio bene! As always, I love hearing about your missionary work at home! It sounds like you're having some amazing experiences.

Love, 

Sorella Pace

Christmas Day! With a member!

Us!

The District

The Zone