Baptism Invites

Dear Family, 

Wow! It sounds like you've been having a wonderful weekend together! I was excited to get on internet today to see how it's been going. 

Our week has been pretty amazing. I think I mentioned last week that Anziano Teschera told us to invite everyone to baptism, even random people on the street. Then for district meeting on Monday, the anziani from Udine gave a training on giving bap invites. At the end they had a do a role play with a preset (where we tell them at the start that we'll be asking them at the end to be baptized, so start thinking about it), a quick restoration lesson, and a baptism invite. A few months ago we President Dibb had us practice giving the restoration in five minutes, so we quickly whipped out our role play in around five minutes. After we finished, the elder we were teaching (who was in the companionship who gave the training) said, 'that was really good. But when we planned this roleplay, we wanted you to be able to do it faster. Try to do it in two minutes.' I was a little flabbergasted. Two minutes for the preset, lesson, and invite?? So we tried. It was a little more choppy and unclear, but I think we were able to do so in about three minutes. 

Then they invited us to try to invite five people to baptism each day this week. Wow! That scared me too. 

 

Yesterday we had three lessons planned where we could invite four people to baptism. So we knew we needed to find atleast one other person on the street to invite. The baptism invite has always terrified me a little. It just seems so big, and maybe they'll be offended or think we're only there to convert them, or never want to see us again, or... the list never ends. I must admit, I wasn't completely on board with the five baptismal invite a day thing. 

So we started a little finding time in the park yesterday and started talking with a man. Sorella Pond was amazing. She immediately went into explaining our purpose as misionaries giving a perfect lead in to a baptism invite, but as always, he got distracted on some little thing and so we established the fact that we were from America, he was from Congo. ect ect. But I knew I had to quickly get back to the invite. So I acted with faith and asked him to be baptized. Without skipping a beat he replied, ''well, I think I should probably know something about your church first. Can we set up an appointment or something?'' 

I think Heavenly Father knew I needed a miracle to go with my first of these baptism invites, but now I'm repented, converted, and will never look at the baptism invite in the same way again. We're still waiting for a yes, but we've yet to have a negative response. I'm impressed. 

I love you all! Have a marvelous week!

Love, 

Sorella Pace

Missionary Efforts

Cara Famiglia, 

This week has been wonderful! We've been doing a lot of finding work, but are pressing forward with faith. Keep up with your missionary efforts at home. I know the missionaries there really appreciate it. 

We had a blitz Friday and Saturday from the Mestre Sorelle. It was fun to work with them and be a 'junior companion' for a day. All of our appointments Friday night were cancelled, so we ended up doing casa for a while before corellation meeting. And we had a lot of success! We would have been able to teach three different lessons, but they were all male without a woman at home, so we GEMed the Anziani with some great referrals. 

Yesterday we had a big multiple Zone Conference in Verona with Elder Teschera, the Area Seventy for Europe. So Tuesday night we traveled to Vicenza to stay the night with the sorelle there, and then continued on to Verona in the morning. It was amazing and exactly what I needed. I've been feeling a bit in a rut lately and while I'm happy with the progress I've made and that I'm a good missionary, I feel like that progress has slowed down and I've just been floating. Yesterday was the perfect wakeup call I needed. One of the things that Anziano Teschera talked about was making sure that we as the messagers are in sync with the message. He talked about making sure that we're continually changing, improving, and repenting to bring ourselves more in harmony with the gospel. So I've been thinking about the little things that I can change inorder to be a more effective missionary. One of the principles I've loved studying on the mission is repentance and the idea of changing to match God's will. It means changing more than our behaviors and actions. It means changing our thoughts, our beliefs, our hearts. It's changing our entire being. And that's what I love about the gospel. It's a gospel of change. Through Gesù Cristo, we can change and improve our lives. 

I love you all, and pray that all's well at home. Have a wonderful weekend with Melanie and Steve at home!!!

Love, 

Sorella Pace

Perdenone Week 2

Dear Family, 

Well, two weeks in Pordenone are almost up and I'm settling in to the city. I'm loving it and my comp. Sorella Pond is wonderful, she's a hard worker but super fun at the same time. 

We're also working to get to know the ward better. We just created a new ward mission plan so we're going around and presenting it to all the members. We also hosted an FHE Monday night where we carved pumpkins! Sorella Pond and I didn't really feel like buying pumpkins ourselves, so we took a page from family history and carved pineapples. I'll send some pictures. 

Tomorrow we're having a trunk or treat at the church with the American ward which should be fun. Today I had a pumpkin gelato. It was pretty good. I think it would have been better however with a nice dark chocolate instead of the chocolate pear walnut flavor that I also got, but it was fun to try. 

While I'm on the food subject, Yesterday the stake president's wife made us broccoli pizza. It was delicious! I don't think I would have ever put broccoli on a pizza, but I loved it. 

The work is going well. We ended up giving lots of our invesitgators to the Anziani when they showed up, so we're currently doing a lot of finding. But we're full of faith that we'll find ourselves a lot of new simps. 

We have a wonderful less active from Ghana that we're working with. We meet him twice a week in the park and each time we sing several hymns together. I love it! 

Today we traveled to Venice and went to Murano, where they blow glass. We were able to watch them make a couple pieces. On the train ride over we could see the Alps. It was beautiful. 

I LOVE hearing about everyone's missionary experiences and thoughts. There is nothing better than sharing the gospel. It just fills your whole soul. 

I love you all, Have a marvelous week!

Sorella Pace

A glass maker, unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of them blowing the glass

The Sorelle! Minus me. My companion Sorella Pond is the one closest to the camera and then Sorelle Nelson and Hunter are companions.

Venice

My pineapple!

Sorella Pond with her pineapple

Perdenone

Cara Famiglia, 

I've said my final goodbyes to Savona and am now in Pordenone! Thursday was a long day of trains. We woke up at five in the morning to make our train to Genova where I left Sorella Bringas and travelled to Milan with Sorelle Lemos and Eaton. At Milan I was able to see almost all of my MTC district for the first time in six months! It was great! Then I hopped on another train with Sorella Nelson and headed to Pordenone. 

It's a bit of a change to go from speaking almost only Italian to speaking a ton of English. Not only am I now with three american sisters, we're really close to an American Air Force base, and about 99% of our investigators are from Africa so we teach in English. 

Pordenone has two wards, one Italian, one American. We work exclusively with the Italian ward, and then the other sisters and a set of anziani work half and half with the americans. There's also a senior couple here who have the same call that Grandma and Grandpa Okeson had in San Diego working on the base. 

I had my first casa success ever! I have knocked on lots and lots of doors with nothing to show for it besides maybe a phone number. But, Last night we started ringing citifoni and a lady let us come in to talk to her. So we headed up the stairs to her apartment and talked to her at the door for a minute before she let us in to share a message. 

I'm doing great- happily eating PBnJs and rejoicing in the fact that we have a bishop and ward council. 

I love you all! 

Sorella Pace

Drumroll...

...And the big news is that I'm transfered! After four wonderful months here in Savona, tomorrow morning I'll hop on the train, travel across Italia way over to the complete opposite side where I'll get off in Pordenone. Wow. Sorella Bringas tells me that Pordenone is perfect for me cause it's cold. It will be a bit of a shock leaving the sea and the climate here, but I'm excited. Hopefully I'll see lots of snow this winter. Also, I've heard that there's an English branch there because there's a military base. 

My new companion is Sorella Pond. I don't really know anything about her yet, but I think she's a transfer behind me in the mission. I'll be living in four again which will be a bit of a change, especially since I've been asked to be the apartment coordinator. So basically I just have to make sure that everyone has time to shower and organize meals, but that means I'll be the oldest missionary in the apartment. Crazy! I'm still just beginning my mission. I arrived here just the other day right????

Saying goodbye to Savona is much more difficult than it was to say goodbye to Genova. Probably something to do with the time spent, and the ability to talk and understand the members. I'm also pretty sad that I won't be able to see our baptism in two weeks. But I'm excited to see a new city, a new companion, and a new part of the country! 

I've seen a lot of miracles here in Savona. I've also seen a lot of rough stuff. But wouldn't trade it for anything because I have learned so much. Especially this transfer. The mission truly is incredible. Everything happens so fast and you grow a bucketload each time. Investigators spring up like a flame and then disappear into the shadows. Others remain for a while and slowly fall away. Then there are the ones that make progress at their own pace until they're finally ready to be baptized. Our investigator getting baptized in a week and a half has known the church for three years. I've watched his progress the past few months and it's been amazing. I'm so proud of him and know he has a bright future ahead. 

Thanks for the letters and support. You're all in my prayers each night. 

Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Pace

The Sorella of Geneva Zone

Missionaries of Genova and Savona

I don't know if I'll have a bike in Pordenone. If not, my skirts will shout for joy! and maybe it will finally be worth my while to try and clean of the brake stains

Karen with Sorella Bringa, her companion