Mini Missionaries

Going to ROME today!  I'm taking the bus in about 40 min so I don't have much time to update today. 

heading back to Rome (for a permesso and maybe a gelato)

I'm reallllly excited because Slla Wiltbank said she made appointments with all my favorite people for the one day that I'll be there. Can't wait. 

I've been mad at all the elders that got to go up for the conference and then brag to me about getting to see everyone. 

This week was a really great week. I'm starting to really feel at home in Siracusa and the work is starting to pick up.  We saw a lot of miracles this week.  Still no new investigators... but a lot of good changes are happening.  

The phrase "the church is the same everywhere you go" doesn't always apply to Sicilia, but we are seeing a lot of small miracles. 

Visualize

So I've been frustrated about finding new investigators and Anziano Gardenhire gave me some really great advice that I applied this week.  

He said, "Before you go to bed and right when you wake up, take some time to sit and pray and imagine the person you are supposed to find that day.  Then when you go out, you know who you'll be looking for."  

So I decided "Hey, why not?"  

Recognize

So the night before I had this image of a lady in her 40s, shorter than me, and standing by herself... not much to go by.. but that morning we were walking to the church from a less active's house and I saw her!  

So I stopped her to ask her a question and the first thing she said was "Hey, are you the Mormons who do that free English course? I've been wanting to come, but I wasn't sure how it worked".  So we stopped and chatted for a while and she said she is coming to English course tomorrow. 

Spirit Animal

In English course we usually do some introductory questions.. This week was "What is your spirit animal?".. best question to ask the creepy Italian men that come to basic course... especially the Buddhist man with a bald head and a long rat tail. 

Mini Mission

Saturday we did a MINI MISSION with the youth. I was really annoyed with Anziano Davids because he told all the youth to be at the church at 6:30 am because he wanted them to do a FULL day as a missionary.. 

...but that also meant that with 4 sister missionaries, we had to wake up REALLY early to all take showers and get ready to go to be AT the church at 6:30... where I was SURE no youth would actually show up until 7:00 at the earliest. 

Cheery

And on top of that, the day before I got two huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet, making it really painful to walk.  

But despite my pessimism the day before, the Lord gave me strength to get up at 5:00 am and still be cheery the whole day walking on bubble blisters... and how grateful I was for that power he gave us, because it was such a beautiful day. full of miracles. 

The youth came and the girls all did yoga together, then the elders brought cornetti (pastry) for breakfast and we did personal/companionship study in the church. 

In the morning I was with Naomi, who is one of the other sisters' investigators.. her parents are members, but her mom is inactive and won't let them get baptized until they can convince her they have a testimony.  The sisters have been working with her a lot and we have all been praying that she can get baptized.  

YES

So she came with me in the morning to go to an appointment with this sweet, old women with MS who is one of our eternal investigators named Anna Maria.  We decided to teach the Restoration again and Naomi shared the part about the Book of Mormon.  At the end I felt prompted to invite her to baptism, and she said YES! 

...as long as she didn't have to do it naked. Yes, please keep your clothes on Anna Maria. 

We were really excited because after 5+ years of being an investigator, she has a baptismal date!  

Selling It

At lunch we all came to the church to eat pizza and the spirit was so sweet as everyone shared their experiences from that morning and told their best rejection stories.. 

"I'd cut my head off for Saint Lucia" or 

"Hey, are you selling drugs? ohh wait.. Jesus Christ!  I'M SORRY I DIDN'T REALIZE" or just the plain old finger wag. 

We went out again in the afternoon and switched up the companionships.  It was funny because the girl I was with kept turning corners because she would see people from school and get embarrassed, ha. 

sweetest thing

At the end we had a sweet testimony meeting and ending it with a baptism for one of the primary kids. It was the sweetest baptism I had ever seen.  

After he got the Gift of the Holy Ghost, he stood and hugged his dad for a full minute, not exaggerating.  

They showed some of the bible videos because a lot of them were filmed here in Sicilia and they used members from the ward as actors. (Link to Bible Videos: HERE)

By Chance

ALSO yesterday we ran into LUCA again. The potential from last week who we gave a Book of Mormon to. Totally by chancce.. I mean NOT by chance.  

They came to Siracusa again to celebrate a friend's birthday.  They wanted to go to Catania, but the friend chose Oritiga instead.  So it was great because we got to talk to them again and I got to answer some more of his questions.  

We set up an appointment for before English course on Tuesday.  We won't actually be there because I'll be coming back from Rome, but the anziani are taking care of it.

Doing their best "Sorella O'Connor" pose.

Lots of Miracles.

got to go,

love you ALL.

With Love from Siracusa,

Sorella O'Connor 

(Email Sent - April 29, 2014)