Ok so this week has been incredible....one of the best weeks since coming here to Rome! We have seen so many miracles we started writing them on sticky notes and posting them all over our house and there's not even enough room to put them everywhere....:) Well this time has been a little nuts with the earthquake and everything...my poor companion woke up in the middle of the night with me talking/laughing in my sleep, normal, haha and then all of a sudden her bed was moving all around our room...all this happening while I was sleeping. Anyway, we've seen a lot of miracles with all this happening...a lot more people willing to listen to us and our message and we're finding some beautiful opportunities to go serve and be HIS hands. My favorite experience was with sweet Vasilika....
We went over there last night and unfortunately she hasn't been progressing as quickly as we would like and her husband just came back from Albania so we weren't sure if we would be able to keep teaching them with him there. As soon as Vasilika saw us she hugged us and told us how much she needed us and our message...her cousin just passed away in the earthquake and left behind his wife and 2 children. We were able to teach the plan of salvation and her husband for the first time was quiet, listened, and asked some of the most amazing questions during the lesson. It was so incredible the spirit that we felt testifying to them that we can truly live with those we love most and see them again...Vasilika just began to weep and we could all feel the Spirit had really touched her, it was so beautiful. I know Gods plan is perfect and I can't wait to find more people this week to share it with. Gianni is absolutely the biggest miracle...I am so grateful we ran into him that night. So he's Catholic, but is not really practicing...believes in God and Christ but is not d'accordo with a lot of things that Catholic Church does. Teaching him the restoration was one of the greatest moments in my mission. After testifying of Joseph Smith and the LDM he looked at us, grabbed our hands and said with tears in his eyes "so you're telling me I have been living my whole life not having this knowledge of the restored truth?" He sat there in silence for a little and then said "thank you for sharing with me the most beautiful thing that I didn't even know existed." After giving him a reading in the Book of Mormon we came to find out he had read almost all of 1 Nephi, he told us he couldn't put the book down after starting. He came to church yesterday and said he has never felt "more at home with a family that he doesn't have." The members already adore him! He is preparing for baptism for the end of this month, this has been one of the most beautiful things to see:) One night we had a few minutes left before we needed to be home so we told ourselves we would talk to the first person we saw...so we did and he yelled at us and told us to "get out of Passo Corese" haha, so we just smiled and turned around and there behind us was this sweet man telling us to come over! His names Celso, he's from Bolivia and is working here while his wife and family are still in Bolivia. We taught him the restoration and it went amazing...we gave him a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon and when we came back to piazza a couple days later we saw him sitting there reading the Book of Mormon!! He came to church yesterday and loved it, the Garcia family from Argentina just completely took him in and loves him! Pray that he will be ready for his baptism the end of this month!!! Funny story....again about vomit sorry....we pranzoed with the cute Bruno couple yesterday after church...after eating way too much tiramisu, we were driving home and taking way too many winding streets and my poor collega told me she didn't feel very good...seconds later she opened the window and threw up, everywhere...haha and the best part about it was she was laughing through the whole thing!!! Best collega ever. I guess my stomach has become a bit accustomed ;) Well I love being a missionary I sure know this church is true and I love my Savior Jesus Christ and love wearing His name every day!!! Have a beautiful week! Xoxox Sorella Taylor
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It's been a rad week over here in Passo Corese:) so many miracles happening every day!
This week we had the chance to go to Roma and have a leadership conference with president and all the leaders around the mission it was pretty incredible! I learned so much and just loved being surrounded by so many amazing examples and missionaries, plus celebrating 1 year at a burger place with my dear Sorella Holiday and president afterwards! Anyways during the conference as we were talking about the work one of the missionaries on skype started talking about one of their less actives who had recently just come back to church for the first time in a while...Sorella Pickard began to cry and then President Pickard began to explain that he had baptized that man. The Spirit was strong in the room and really was a testimony to me how we all are contributing to this work and no effort is wasted...maybe some of these seeds we are planting right now will begin to flourish 40 years from now, it's all in Gods timing and we just need to put our trust in that! One night we were out finding in fiano Romano and this sweet man walking his dog came up to us and asked us what it was that made us so happy! He said he's seen people smile before but that our smiles were different and that it was as if we were glowing...it was so much more beautiful in Italian and we asked him if we could share with him what it is that makes us so happy and we are meeting with him tonight! When we called him last night to confirm the lesson he said "let's meet at the gelateria so we get to experience two of the most precious things...gelato and the word of God!" I have a great feeling about this Gianni:) This last week we were at correlation with our amazing ward mission leader and as we were talking about the work he stopped us and said "I have a sensation I need to share this with you." He began to talk about how he had been in the Switzerland temple this past week and received revelation that we are going to see so many miracles and baptisms in this ward in the next little while if we get all the help of the members and work together! He began to cry and it was just so sweet for me to see how much this one member cared about the hastening of this work! I love these members so much. Weeks ago we had talked to this sweet lady and her husband in the park and she loved hearing our message....sadly however she wouldn't let us come over to continue meeting. This last Saturday at the Mostra I saw her sitting in the park again, this time alone and looking so much more sad! She talked to me and said her husband was just diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she feels so alone and doesn't know what her purpose right now is in life. Pina began to get emotional and asked us if we would come over this week....again...it's all in Gods timing:) Stefania is our golden simpatizzante right now...she's going through some pretty intense family issues right now and they actually just lost their home..and this last week she called us and said she knows we met for a reason in this moment and that our message and the libra di Mormon is the only thing that can help her right now. We had a beautiful lesson on Christs Atonement and how He will never EVER abandon us. Okay funny story.....also a bit graphic...we were teaching great Giuseppe at a cafe this last week and as we were talking we hear some strange noises coming from the woman sitting down next to us...she had in front of her a mound of pastries and coffee. Giuseppe looks over and asked her if she was okay and as she tried to respond throw up just started going everywhere, out of her nose and mouth into the newspaper she was holding. I immediately began to feel nauseous myself and we had to conclude our lesson...just another reason why anziani should teach all men, so we don't have to teach them in a cafe when women are throwing up their cornetti next to us. Anyways Giuseppe is doing awesome, we had a bbq at his place with 3 members this past Saturday and it went really well...all the members bore their testimonies and the spirit was so powerful! Yay member missionaries! It really is amazing to me how much the work is growing here and how many people God is placing in our path right now. I love being a missionary so much....this has been the best year of my life. I love being able to feel Gods love for His children and seeing people become so happy through Christ! Have a happy week tutti! Ciaooooo Sorella Taylor This week was so beautiful!!!!! I am absolutely soooo happy to be here right now!!!!
Well, it's August and today is Ferragosto so there's absolutely no one here, including members, neighbors, investigators, TUTTI so we have just hit the streets tracting and doing casa!!! And one thing that Sorella Frogley and I read this week from an apostle is that when you knock on someone's door and they look at you through the peep hole or window make eye contact with them and SMILE and they should be able to see Christ through you and your eyes. And that just got us so excited. I am just so honored this week to be wearing HIS name and to be reminded how I need to be living my life every day. Definitely have a long way to go but what better knowledge than knowing we can change EVERY single day through HIM? And we have the opportunity to share this message that is more important, more special and more beautiful than any other message with everyone! We tried our best this week to help others see Him through us and to hear this message and we saw so many miracles that I wish I could tell you all about!!!!! We had the opportunity to go see the beautiful family of Vasilika! This time the father was out of town so we just taught the mother and her daughter Teuta the restoration and the Spirit was just incredible. As we were teaching them Vasilika stopped us and said something to Teuta in Albanian and then turned back to us and told us that specifically she and her daughter are searching for the truth and they want to be baptized. She said that she believes the Book of Mormon to be the word of God but they will pray anyways just to receive that spiritual confirmation! It was amazing! Our only obstacle in this situation is the father--he is very orthodox and isn't too accepting of this message. But nothing's going to stop us from trying our best:) We will just trust in Gods timing! One of my favorite moments from this week was when we got to go do a gesso in centro with the anziani and the senior couple and some members! We got a million pass along cards and Books of Mormon and opuscoli (pamphlets) ready and tried to stop every person who passed by. It was so great and so fun to be working with the members and watching them share their powerful testimonies! I felt strongly prompted to stop this girl who walked past and at first she put up her hand to stop me and said "I'm atheist I want nothing to do with this." And then I said we just have a small message that is for everyone! And she stopped, turned around and let me share a small message about the restoration. At the end she just said "thank you for sharing that with me....it was so pure! I felt something." Even though she wouldn't accept meeting again she promised me she would search our website! I couldn't help but feel the strongest love for that girl in that moment and a happiness that maybe in a small sense Heavenly Father feels when one of His children comes closer to Him. I love this work!!!!! :) We brought Franca, amazing new convert with us to our lesson with our new investigator Giuseppe (met him on the street) and as soon as they saw each other they just hugged each other and laughed! Turns out they have been best pals since they were little kids and we had no idea!!! We taught him the restoration and Giuseppe just got so discouraged and said "I have read the Book of Mormon and prayed for years and years and never received an answer" and Franca gets up out of her chair, runs over to him grabs his face, kisses his cheeks and starts yelling "keep praying, keep praying!" Haha, got to love those member in the present lessons:) Anyways, afterwards she got his number, set up a dinner were all having this week together and told him she would be at his house next Sunday to pick him up for church! We were just speechless, she's been a member for a year and is incredible!!! I'm so grateful to be here working with these saints!! We're going to see a lot of good things happening soon!!!! Have a beautiful week! VI VOGLIO BENE SORELLA Taylor This week was awesome. It's so hot I feel like we are walking waterfalls! Haha, but on the upside people feel bad for us and let us in and feed us gelato! Well, we met our first investigator on the train who is not going out of town for August so that was a huuuuge miracle! She's SO cool and really been prepared to hear our message. She's orthodox, 22, was born in Romania but has lived here her whole life....anyways, I am so happy for Stefania she's so accepting and willing to act on our message and so ready. We taught her the restoration and it just amazes me how we can meet someone one day and know nothing about them and then pray about them, study for them and teach them and God helps us understand their needs and gives us the exact words to say that will touch their hearts. During the lesson we explained to her how Christ suffered for her individually and she stopped us and said she had never thought about that in her entire life. She read a scripture about the atonement in the libro di mormon and just began to cry! It was really beautiful, it was like God was speaking to her in that scripture. She prayed for the very first time in her life and it was so special.
Funny story this week....mama Gigante has 4 cats and 2 dogs. She called us and told us we needed to do some service for her so we hurried over and get there and she has pinned down her massive dog on top of the table and hands us a razor and scissors....haha we shaved her dog! It was the weirdest thing I have ever done...but mama Gigante was sure happy! We then pranzoed with her after...and the amount of hair in our food.....hahahaha, bad memory good story! We met with Snow this last week and she told us how she went onto Mormon.org and watched all the peoples stories from China, and what really stood out to her was how many people talked about how they KNOW this church was true and how it had changed their lives completely. She said that she too wants to KNOW that this is true and wants to continue to have these feelings for the rest of her life that she has had since meeting with us. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and we got her a bunch of Liahona's in Chinese and she just thinks it's the greatest thing! She's traveling to China for a couple weeks so let's just pray she receives a confirmation while she's away:) The other night we were walking around this park in Monterontondo and both had a feeling to stop this girl and all her friends. We went up and talked to her and turns out she had just moved here from Rome and had just recently started taking the lessons with the Anziani before she moved here! Wow, huge miracle. We're biking with her today for Pday and then teaching her tonight....speriamo beneeeee! Being here in this area I've just been so overwhelmed with feeling Gods love for everyone of us and how aware He truly is! Yesterday, I was fasting and praying about something and really had been searching for some answers and last night after visiting these members the wife decided to walk us home!! As we were walking she just started talking and saying all these things that were clearly an answer to my prayers. I can't even explain it but it was everything I needed to hear and everything I have been searching for the past little bit....I was just so grateful to feel and know that God was aware of me and loves me enough to send someone my way to answer my prayer. In that moment I was just like wow, God knows us and our situations perfectly and is anxious to run to us and help us!! HE LOVES US more than we can comprehend!!! Let's go be an answer to someone else's prayers:) Sorella Taylor This week has been special! I am really happy to be here...one thing that has really hit me being here in Passo Corese is just understanding that this is His work and being more patient in His timing.
This week I really gained such a huge appreciation for the members and their help with us doing missionary work. We prayed about and then went and visited 5 members this week and each one gave us a referral of a family we can go and visit with them. Never in my mission have I seen such dedicated, faithful and humble members. One of my favorite experiences was with cute Franca. She has been baptized just over a year and picked us up one morning to go teach her friend and this family. Unfortunately, when we got to the families house they didn't answer and Franca was so sad. She then turned to us and said "well, God wants us to see someone else Sorelle. What are your backup plans?" She then came with us and taught this cute couple from Africa and bore the most beautiful testimony about her conversion story. The spirit was so strong. The other day on the bus coming home this cute college aged girl turned to us and started speaking in English. She's Italian, 20, has studied English for a long time and speaks perfectly! We exchanged numbers and she said she would love to meet up with us...that night she texted us and said it was a "miracolo meraviglioso" that we met her on the bus and that she really needed to talk to us that night. We are teaching her the restoration tonight--we can't wait! I am also so grateful for all the work the sorelle have done in our area in the past. We called up a former investigator from the area book this last week and she told us she and her husband would love to have us over for dinner Saturday night. Such a BEAUTIFUL experience. An orthodox family of 5 from Albania who are so sweet and loving. They live up in the mountains and have a huge olive orchard and do all their groceries from their backyard:) I know they weren't ready a year ago when the other sorelle were teaching them but they have been so prepared and I think we will see a beautiful miracle with them! We also called an old former investigator that Heavenly Father has been preparing for a long time now. We saw her last week and she had read all of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. She told us she wants so badly to know this is true and is just waiting for her response. We will continue to try and help her understand how she is receiving an answer, but she is preparing for baptism for September. Pray for cute Ada! Snow is still doing wonderful, unfortunately she's going out of town with her husband for a few weeks but we hope that she continues to pray and read. We got to do a scambio with the sorelle in Pescara this last week, it is about 3 1/2 hours away and it is beautiful! The sorelle are so incredible I love being able to do scambios because I am learning so much from them. There are these refugees who live close to our house in Passo. They are always outside not doing very much so we decided to give them a Book of Mormon in French. When we came back a few days later and saw them they were still reading and had read about 1/3 of the book. They took out Google translation on their phones and started typing...they wrote "this book made us feel alive! This book makes us happy." That was such a sweet moment for me this last week....I too know that this book can make us feel alive! And that through Christ we truly do find life:) I love this gospel, I love being a missionary and representative of Jesus Christ. Don't ever be afraid to share what you know! There are so many people around us waiting to hear what you believe. I know this church is true! 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 |