WHAT A WEEK! It was a never ending flow of adventures. I have so so so much to say, but can't describe it with justice. I have no idea where to start either.
So Vasilika.....we are now to the point where we are teaching both parents and all three children and we saw the beautiful hand of God in every moment with them this week...it has been absolutely incredible. We have been going there with Bishops wife and she has connected so well with them, including her kids have completely befriended their kids at church!!! We are having family night with them this week and I just can't wait. I have never really taught a whole family this constant in my entire mission and it has been such a beautiful experience.....the fact that they are all reading the Book of Mormon together makes my heart want to burst of joy!!!! What's incredible for me to see is how every time we meet with them they tell us all the changes they have been making in their life to be more in harmony with this message, the blessings they are seeing and happiness they feel...they are truly repenting, changing and becoming converted to this gospel and Christ and there is a beautiful spirit in their home! The kids are praying for the first time and developing that solid relationship with God...and learning how He talks with them. Wow. This family is going to enter the waters of baptism I can just feel it:) it has been an incredible experience. Us sorelle just learned this week we have been living with mold for all this time, hahaha. Bishop came and cleaned our whole house, well 3 of the 4 rooms. He cleaned them with a mold killer that resembles bleach. It was so strong.....strong like we walk in our house and can slowly feel our brain cells dying. This begged the question of where we were going to sleep that night. (Bishop said it was only going to take one night) There was no way we were going to sleep at a members house because that would just have been really stressful. Us being the sisters we are decided....hmmmm, outside looks good:) We might as well just camp for a night (on our balcony). We go to bed only to wake up at 3:11 to RAIN. We take the mattresses in, the next morning we laughed about it all, hahaha. We started our studying and bishop come to finish the job. After 20 minutes he comes and tells us it is going to TAKE A WEEK to finish, which means we get to camp for a week....The second night it rained at 5:30, it was not worth it to move, so we just slept in the rain. Night three, last night, it didn't rain and we were such happy campers. This whole experience is quite entertaining. :) We thought we might go pass by adorable Sorella Garcia, we had some time one night and when she saw us she was like sorelle you were inspired to come over, my joints have really been hurting today and I need someone to go walk my dog!!! We were so happy she was going to let us give a hand, little did we know her dog Luna is furbo, (clever!). As soon as we walked out the door she slid out of her leash and escaped going 100 mph I swear, haha. We both panicked because it was a really busy street and so we chased and chased and chased after her, she was running through people's yards, knocking over things, headed for the pool, Sorella Garcia had seen the whole thing from the window...so she came out and eventually we got hold of il cane cattivo....(the wicked dog!) We had a pretty good laugh after that, and got to know all her neighbors really well through the whole fiasco:) Last time the sorelle get to walk the dog...all we wanted to do was help relieve Sorella Garcia from some of her joint pain...instead. I feel like I have focused a lot on all the funny and entertaining things of the mission, but this week has been so full of miracles for us. We went and saw an investigator of the anzianis that they passed to us, her name's Louisa from Peru and she is amazing!! Her daughter is an active member in Peru and wants so badly for her mom to join :) Anyways, this week we went over to do a service at her house and move all this wood and the son and his little family (who have always avoided the missionaries) were so touched that we wanted to help them and invited us over for lunch and asked us soooo many questions about the church--it was incredible! The wife began to talk about her experience she had with cancer this last year and began to cry...we testified of Gods plan for us and the Spirit was just pounding in my heart! It's amazing how these peoples hearts were softened because of a simple service. I absolutely love love love being a missionary...I am so happy and beyond excited to be re energized and learn so much from the mission conference this week in Rome. This week one of the elders in our mission called and asked me if I could do the musical number with him. He ask me if I sing soprano, and I told him I sing alto. Then he says, "great, well at mission conference we need you to sing soprano and I know you'll be happy to do it." Haha, so I guess I will be singing at the conf, and I am feeling bad for all these missionaries, General authorities and our mission president...... I am just so grateful this week for the simple knowledge of how we can strengthen our testimony...it's ours and no one else can take it from us. We will talk to so many people in the street about the gospel who can try and prove us wrong and tell us what we're saying isn't true...but as soon as we bear our testimonies the atmosphere always changes and those people can't tell us that what we truly KNOW isn't real....I KNOW this church is true. I know God loves us and gave us His perfect son Jesus Christ and I KNOW he is our Savior and is ready to help us in any and every moment. I KNOW this gospel has been restored. I KNOW THIS WORK IS OF GOD! :) Buona settimana carissimi, Sorella Taylor
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It's been such a beautiful week to be una missionaria di Gesù Cristo! Satan threw a whirlwind of temptations and trials at our investigators this week and unfortunately we weren't able to see as many of them as we would like to...and because we had more time God helped us use that time to find some people who have been SO prepared. And we were blessed to just add so many more people to our teaching pool! This work is so guided by il Signore it amazes me everyday!!!
So many good things where to start....Vasilika and her family are doing amazing! We went over there this last week and for the first time the 15 year old son as well wanted to listen to us and he asked SO many questions and was so interested. At the end he asked us how he could become a missionary as well to go around and share this message with everyone. HA! :) we told him of course he needs to be baptized in this chiesa first and he asked us everything he needs to do before to prepare. When he and Vasilika walked into church on Sunday I almost fell out of my seat, it's the first time they have come! They absolutely loved church, testimony meeting was incredibly spiritual yesterday, and in Relief Society the lesson was beautiful and all about the family and Vasilika just sat there and cried! We had the wonderful opportunity of having President and Sorella Pickard and they were so sweet with our investigators in church and afterwards President took us into a room and said "I felt such a special spirit about this family." He then went through all the Albanian members he knows in Rome and is working to find some who can help us during our lessons! Such a beautiful experience! This week we saw this woman sitting on a bench and asked her some religious questions and she didn't seem too interested but allowed us to sit down and share a message with her! We began to teach her the restoration and as soon as the Spirit came it was amazing how much her attitude changed...she asked so many wonderful questions and thought it was beautiful and was so d'accordo with the Book of Mormon. By the end of the lesson she told us to give her one month...and that she wanted to take this time to read and study and pray about the Book of Mormon with sincerity (obviously we're not going to let her get away from us for a month:)), but she was so sincere and I could just feel her intent was so strong. As we walked past the park a little while later she was sitting there...reading the Book of Mormon:) I LOVE IT! Today for p day we had the opportunity to go see the temple site!! At first I was a little bit heart broken because I just miss the temple so much but then I was just so full of love and gratitude that all these people right now have the opportunity to prepare themselves so they can go and do the most beautiful and important work there is to do here! We are teaching 2 part member families in our ward right now and I KNOW that both of these husbands will be baptized in the near future, they are absolutely incredible and so prepared and I know that these wives will be able to take their sweet husbands and be sealed for eternity with their families! I am so grateful to be a part of this work, I love it with all my cuore!!!!! Okay funny story of the week...my dear collega of course went out of her way to go talk to all these Ragazzi about English course! And instead of saying "facciamo un CORSO di inglese gratuito" she said "facciamo un CORPO d'inglese gratuito" (we do an English body for free) hahaha. I think it was a "you had to be there" experience but the ragazzis faces were priceless. Well that's a wrap for this week tutti!!!! I have never been happier in my entire life and am so grateful for the blessings I see in my life everyday!!!! I have learned so many things on my mission but I think one of the biggest things I have come to learn is how aware our Heavenly Father is of us and how GREAT and perfect and sweet His love is...with a full awareness of our weaknesses and shortcomings He loves us the same. When we fall He is there to pick us right back up and get us going again!! God is so good to us!!! Have a beautiful week I love you all!! Sorella Taylor 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 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 Buongiorno a tutti!
We saw such a beautiful miracle this week. We headed to final romano and started doing casa and weren't having much success, then noticed we had forgot to say a prayer! So, we prayed and turned down this little street and when we went to ring the last house a cute little woman started talking to us in English on the ci tofono! She let us in and turns out she's this cute lady from China! Her names Hang Xue (Snow) and we sat around her table outside on the porch. The first time I have ever been let into a house doing casa! We just happened to have a restoration pamphlet in Chinese, don't ask me why, and it was such a beautiful lesson. When we were talking about Gods love for her she started to tell a story when her mother got very sick and she had felt like God had forgotten about her and she felt she couldn't feel His love for her anymore. She began to cry and said she could feel His love in that very moment. We taught her how to pray and she said the most beautiful prayer, even though it was in Chinese and I couldn't understand, I could feel in a small sense how happy Heavenly Father was that she was finally talking with Him. She is preparing for baptism and came to church this Sunday and absolutely loved it--a lot of the members speak English and were really able to make her feel loved! So grateful. One night we were going to meet a family up in a park in Monterontondo! We decided we would go early and do some finding in that park...and little did we know there were so many people waiting to hear our message! We were able to teach 5 different people the restoration and get return appointments for all of them! We asked a lady if we could share a message with her and she said "I'll give you 1 minute!" After sharing our testimonies she invited us to sit down and teach her. During the lesson she began to get emotional and explained how her mother had just passed away. She thanked us for the peace we had brought her, and we told her it wasn't us but our Heavenly Father who led us to her. I hope to see progress with her, she's special:) When we went to meet this family later they had sneakily sent some testimoni di Geova (Jehovah's Witnesses) to try and argue with us. We were way too happy after teaching all those amazing people the restoration that we couldn't stop smiling and we just left them with our testimonies, and they were silent as we shared our testimony! It was pretty neat--I hope we planted a seed. By the way, they were Romanian. I feel like I am in Romania Daniel! We have been teaching more Romanians than Italians lately, haha. President Uchtdorf came and visited the mission last week and President Pickard told us a few things he talked about with him that were specific to our mission. He explained how the Lord is restoring His church in Italy, and the temple may not be ready this year but WE will be ready this year! He encouraged all of us to invite everyone to come to church and "Come and See." That night, we decided to put this into practice so we went up and talked to this woman and her son. We invited her to come to church and she said "That's strange, a member of your church who I work with invited me this morning to go to church!" The members here are so incredible, I love them!!! We exchanged numbers and are going to see her and her family this week. I had a such a beautiful experience being with Leticia and Marcello. *(Leticia lived with Steve's family when she was in High school.) They came and picked us up and took us to lunch close by our house and we had a wonderful time together. They are amazing, Christlike people. I am so grateful for that time we had with them, I will never forget it. I was asked to speak in church yesterday about the happiness my mission has brought me....I could have gone on and on. I am SO HAPPY to be a missionary. It's the most beautiful thing...my mission has changed since I have tried to let God change me. I know as we turn ourselves over to God He can make more out of our lives than we can do by ourself! He will change us:) In the words of president Pickard, "Be patient with yourself. Rome wasn't built in a day!" I know my Savior lives and loves us enough to help us change! Have a beautiful week! Vi voglio un mondo di bene. Sorella Taylor Wow this week has been a dream!!! It all started out saying a sad bye to Messina and taking the 8 hour train ride to Rome on Thursday, stopping in Napoli and, of course getting, a Napoli pizza🍕Then once getting into Rome meeting my adorable new greenie! Sorella Frogley, she's from Idaho and has a heart of gold! I love her a ton. We all slept at the villa with president and his wife so that was nuts, and then we had a training the next morning with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders. For the first time in my mission I saw people from my MTC group! Probably the happiest reunion seeing Sorella Holiday, we couldn't stop hugging haha. Also, Sorella Nelson and I are stls together (served with her in Bari) so we're super happy. The conference was amazing and I learned a lot. Something that a missionary talked about is how we need to "be Him to them" and that phrase hasn't left my head since I heard it!
I just got transferred to a little city called Passo Corese about an hour away from Rome, Sorella Frogley and I are opening up this city, haven't been sisters here in a few transfers. It's literally one tiny little street in the green beautiful mountains and the people are so cute:) it's a dream! We have walked down Main Street probably 15 times now and knocked on every door and talked to every street owner and every person possible....there's usually about 10 people outside everyday:) There was no work when we got here, but God is blessing us so much and we've already found some people who have a lot of potential. I will have to admit the first couple days here were really hard...I had no idea where to start but that's the beautiful part about this whole situation is that we literally have to rely on the Lord in EVERY single moment because we don't know what in the world were doing. And, wow, God has sent some blessings straight from heaven and I'm happy as ever! I have learned more in the past 3 days and come closer to God more than ever. Going to church yesterday was so awesome. We all meet in a hotel, there's about 60 members, lots of young families and returned missionaries with solid testimonies. Such a beautiful sight and a little overwhelming to see a ward that functions so well! It's a huge blessing! One of my favorite members from yesterday is Sorella Gigante (sister gigantic). I am so used to being in Sicily that when I met her I hugged her and gave her a big kiss on the cheek and then kinda froze realizing that the people up here might not be as open as the Sicilians, haha! But she immediately grabbed me and gave me a huge kiss right back and wouldn't leave my side. Bishop and his wife immediately invited us to come over for pranzo....I was so humbled hearing their story. They're from Bari and last year felt strongly prompted to move up north here in Rome, and that he would be able to find work. He immediately found work, was called to be the bishop, and then shortly after he went to the temple with his family in London for a week and lost his job. They are being patient and understand that Heavenly Father needs them here right now and it's so beautiful to see their faith. Yesterday we went through and called every single investigator in the area book to see if they still had interest. Most have moved, lost interest or didn't respond. One sweet African woman responded and said we could come stop by and once we arrived at her house we saw the police taking her out of her house and she was crying and very upset. It was so hard for me to see and I was getting so discouraged, wondering why I felt prompted to pass by her house and really wondering how we were going to get this work moving. We both said a prayer and headed to a little square in the city where there were two boys. We talked to them and it turns out one of them had read the entire Book of Mormon 2 years ago but didn't feel in his heart that it was true. We asked him if he thought that maybe God gave him those 2 years to search for his answer and continue to grow and maybe he's ready now and he stopped for a while and thought and then said YES. As we were talking to him, this cute 20 year old girl walked up to us, out of no where (I kid you not this town has a population of about 200 people) and she said "FINALLY there are missionaries!" "I took the lessons with the sisters in the past, and then just moved here 2 months ago and need to meet with you." We exchanged numbers and are going to meet with her tomorrow! As we turned around to go walk home we walk past this house and a family was eating dinner outside. The father stood up and yelled to us to tell us that he had a Book of Mormon and wants us to come over and share a message with them, we are seeing them tonight. As we turn the corner from their house there were 3 girls walking down the street and we asked them if we could teach them and we taught them the restoration and gave them all book of Mormons and they are all incredible...as we were walking home my eyes were so full of tears, Satan had tried to discourage us but we didn't let him and look at the miracles we saw! I read this scripture this morning and felt that God was speaking to me... D&C 100 4 Therefore, I, the Lord, have suffered you to come unto this place; for thus it was expedient in me for the salvation of souls. 5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men; 6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say. I AM SO HAPPY. this work is so real. This gospel is beautiful and true and I can't wait to find more people who God is preparing. Have a happy week! Sorella Taylor Well it's been a week for the books! I'm going to miss this island❤️We got transfer calls Saturday, I'm opening up a new city and getting another greenie and will be the sister training leader there. I'm going to Rome 5 which is the country side, we live in the mountains and I guess it's about an hour away from downtown Rome so it should be awesome! There haven't been sisters in this area for months so we will be starting brand new! Should be a ventura:) I think the thing I'm
most scared for is we're getting a car...hahahha! Not just because I haven't driven in a year...but because it's Rome. My heart is a bit broken, I'm leaving Messina. But I know that Heavenly Father knows what He's doing and where He needs me. I'm really excited!!! We got permission from President for Samantha to come with us and do a scambio with the Sorelle there...the very first lesson the Sorelle had planned for us was on missionary work and Sam bore the most beautiful testimony. She received an answer to her prayers and is going on a mission! She opened her papers this week and we go to help her start them:) She will be the only missionary in the branch right now. I'M SO HAPPY FOR HER! One goal that I made at the very beginning of my mission was to find an eternal family!!! And, my whole time here in Messina I have been praying to find a family that is ready and willing to listen to us. On Friday night we had a couple of minutes to spare so we headed downtown and went and walked up to the first family we saw sitting on the bench. They told us to sit down and share this special message with them! We taught them the restoration and it was INCREDIBLE. There are just some lessons that you have with people on the street who have open hearts and are willing to listen and because of this the Spirit will testify to them. I just felt a spirit to strong and couldn't help but picture this family all dressed in white going to the temple. Again, God had just led us directly to this sweet Fam. I don't know what will happen with them but I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to teach them. This week we had some friends come and move in....it's COCKROACH season:) hahaha! Someone send me something because we don't know how to get rid of them. By the way thanks for all the birthday wishes. I love you all and had one of the best birthdays ever, surrounded by so many people that I LOVE DEARLY. Not to mention that for breakfast Sorella Crandell bought me granita; then Sorella Fortunate made me a pistachio and fragola gelato cake; and then Nino bought me a torta that said "buon compleanno cirstel"; and then at our ward service project/bbq Sorella Crisafulli made me a cake and they all sang to me! I am so full of love for these people, they are my family. Sorell Crandell gave me a ring that says "miracle Messina" and it could not describe the past 4 months here any better....we have seen the hand of God in every moment of our work. We have seen people change their lives! And all of this is thanks to our Savior and his atonement. He is ready to run to us we just need too reach out and let Him in! I will never forget the experiences I have had here in Messina, these people have touched my heart forever. I know that God knows better than me and can see further down the street than I can...and I can't wait for the miracles to be seen up in Roma:) Vi voglio un sacco di bene 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 |