It's been such a wonderful week, so grateful to be out serving here in Messina!!
Some highlights -made brownies for all the people in our apartment and delivered them -watched part of meet the Mormons with our investigator Michela and she LOVED it -started teaching the sister of a member, at the beginning of the lesson she was very closed and mad at God because of things that have happened in her life but by the end she seemed so at peace and could feel the spirit -we're teaching this caregiver who works at a nursing home and one day we go and teach her and the cute signorina she takes care of (92 years old). As we we're teaching the plan of salvation and life after this life the old woman just started laughing and laughing--we thought she was going to have a heart attack! Haha and she said this is the best thing I have ever heard, I will live again! -teaching the Zahaitu and Cosenza family and both are progressing :) -there's a little bookshelf in the street outside our apartment and anyone can leave/take a book! So we left a Book of Mormon with our number and when we returned a couple hours later it was gone:) Let's hope for a miracle! We picked up 4 new investigators this week! People who I think have a lot of potential and have been very willing to listen to our message! One of them being this woman named Mariangela-she was found in the area book and had been taught back in 2008, so we decided to call her back up and see if she was interested! Well we went over to her house on Saturday and the lesson went so well! She is a lawyer, they have 2 children and her husband is a religion professor so you can imagine some of the questions he had for us :) Anyways, we taught the restoration and the Spirit was strong and the husband said we must come over to dinner this next week and he will have a whole new set of questions! As we were leaving, they have this dog, (the biggest dog I have ever seen), and it's tied up to the railing of the stairs and the husband is like "don't worry he's a nice dog, he only bites Mormons." All of a sudden the dog growls and jumps up on his back two legs onto my companion (literally the size of a bear) and the whole stair railing looked like it was going to come flying off! Hahah it was a bit scary. Fratello Impollonia-I have really just gained such a great appreciation and love for this member! He is in his 70s, has 4 children who have all gone inactive and written anti Mormon books, and because of that some members in our ward are struggling with their testimonies. He is the 2nd counselor in the bishopric, he is over genealogy, he is our Ward mission leader, and he cleans the church every week. His wife gets angry with him cause he spends so much time doing things for other people and for the church haha. I have never seen someone so humble and so dedicated to their church callings, it's been so humbling for me to see. Almost every time we walk into the church, without fail, he is in the computer room doing genealogy or shuffling around the church and cleaning:) At correlation last week he offered to give all of our investigators rides to church! You can tell he is just so heart broken his children have all left the church, but he is doing all he can to set a Christlike example for them. Every member a missionary! "Let there be cultivated an awareness in every member’s heart of his own potential for bringing others to a knowledge of the truth. Let him work at it. Let him pray with great earnestness about it." President Gordon B Hinckley :) Yesterday as we were walking to the church this man on the street yelled "Sisters!" Haha I was shocked to hear English, we went over to talk to him and I was so awkward and started saying some words in Italian haha. Anyways, turns out he was from New York, and they were visiting his wife's family here in Sicily! He proceeded to tell us 4 of his children had served missions in Rome and Greece and also told us that he wasn't active in the church anymore. I felt so strongly to invite him to Conference and he said they couldn't but he promised they would watch it on the Internet when they got home and he was just so sincere. I hope you all loved General Conference as much as I did! We were only able to watch the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions so I am excited to read the rest of the talks later:) I honestly felt that every talk was so inspired and they all supported one another! We watched Saturday morning with a new convert Stefania and she said she had never felt the Spirit so strong before, and I could agree it was such a beautiful spiritual experience! We watched it in Italian, and I remember feeling at times that I didn't understand everything but the Spirit helped me understand things I needed to hear! A little tender mercy from this last week-Angela, a less active from Bari who started coming back to church right before I left emailed me and told me she had talked to bishop to prepare for a MISSION! She said that there are people out there who need to hear her testimony of the Savior, and she is doing all she can to prepare:) I think my heart was about to burst I'm SO happy!!!!! I just know with my heart that this church is true! Those of you who haven't found that confirmation I promise you if you pray God will give you answers and you will find more happiness and clarity and light in your life than you can imagine. I know this because I see it in every moment of my life and in those people who act on our message! The gospel changes lives! Xoxo Sorella Taylor
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January 2017
Crystal's current area is Passo Corese, Italy.
Her address is: Via Giacomo Matteotti, 187 02032 Passo Corese RI Italy |