With Love From Rome: Happiness

I was a bit selfish today and took a lot of my time reading and responding to my emails. I love getting emails from my friends at home and on missions. Thanks for the updates.

YAY Tanner is getting married :) So happy for him.

YAY Bekah's baby is here :):):)

SEND ME MORE PHOTOS OF THE BABIES. I LOVE THEM.

I am excited to be an "auntie" and play with all of them when I get back.

Also I've been thinking all week how I was with Zoe a year ago when she met her husband in the ice cream aisle and how that is the perfect "first-time-we met" story. And how I said, "Watch, you are going to marry him and get to tell everyone you met your husband in the ice cream aisle." You're welcome Zoe.

SO THIS WEEK:

We met an African lady dressed in a bright teal spandex jumpsuit who asked us to come preach to her on the bus. So that was cool.

Tuesday we did some finding in this cute park (I love park finding). There was a bus/metro strike so it took us forever to get there and we only had like 10 min to do finding before we had to leave. I stopped the first people we saw and it was this cute young couple.

Happiness

We pulled out the happiness survey:

"How many times have you smiled today?"

"What makes you happy?"

"We are here with a message about eternal happiness through the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Anyway, so this guy is SUPER interested. He starts telling us that he has been going through a trial of faith because he goes to church and realizes that they aren't teaching what the bible says... So we exchanged numbers and he says, "So can I come to church on Sunday?".. miracles. serious miracles.

He didn't come. But I'm not giving up hope. They are getting married in the Rome temple,

I can just feel it.

Hope

Speaking of which, they are HOPING the temple will be done in 18 months. They shipped in a ton of Americans to figure out why the Italians aren't getting it done fast enough (pranzo hours.. that's why).

getting the temple spires

So that means more people for me to translate for in Relief Society, but I secretly love it because they spoil us like grandmas do.

We have been teaching the niece of one of the members and giving her some private English lessons. So, this week we were teaching her about the Restoration and Sorella Foster was just about to get to the part about Joseph Smith--It was so cute because Sorella Foster says, "and then a miracle happened..." and Marina gets really close and whispers, "What was it?" all intently. Then Sorella Foster tells her the story of the First Vision. super spiritual power.

Hospitality

Also we went to visit one of my favorite families, the Iakaniani family, and she made us a cake in the shape of a bear. We have the best members here in Rome 2 and 6. (our wards names)

Hey, Hello

We found another new potential just by smiling. hah. Typical sister missionary story, right? We were walking down the street and I was just smiling and saying "hello" to everyone that passed. I realized we wrote down the house number wrong and we needed to go back to the other end of the street.

So we started walking back and one of the guys that we said "good morning" to was at the stoplight and he started asking us questions. We were able to give him a Book of Mormon and he asked about church and asked if he could come and we got his number!

Seriously we are finding people out of no where. This has NEVER happened to me. Last night at the bus stop this guy says,

"Hey, so do you guys have one of those books from Joseph Smith?"

and I'm like "Excuse me?! You know about Joseph Smith?!"

He tells us that he has friends in England who are Mormons. He is from Romania, so we got his number so we could bring him a copy in Romanian. We have NEVER had this much success in finding people that will even listen, let alone give us a chance to explain more. So we are super blessed.

His Love

Also things are going well with Giorgia. She came to church yesterday and we had a great lesson with her this week. As we were studying, I had the overwhelming impression that we needed to explain the atonement to her and how much Jesus Christ loves her and how he suffered for her personally in the garden of Gethsemane.

It was really powerful. She won't be ready for her baptism this week, but she is making progress. It was a really good chance to find out where she is at and how we can prepare her.

How It Works

So it's been a good week. Since the wards split we have been doing a big less-active search as well. Yesterday we went to look for someone, but her name wasn't written on the citofono.

How it works in Italy is that every apartment building has a set of doorbells on the outside, so you have to ring the doorbell to get let in. Then sometimes you have be let in again to get past the gate INSIDE and then again AT there door. When you ring outside, there is a little speaker where they ask who it is... but sometimes they don't ask and just buzz you in.

Heavy Breathing

So after this less-active wasn't there, Sorella Foster and I felt impressed to do the rest of the apartment building. (We are trying not to do casa because we don't see much success with it.)

Anyway, we go up to the top floor where this person let us in without saying anything... We are waiting at the door and I hear this noise.. that sounds like Darth Vader... and it's coming from inside the house.. getting closer and closer to the door.

So Sorella Foster hits the button to the elevator because we are both freaked out.. and the noise is getting louder and louder as we wait for this elevator and it arrives JUST as we hear this loud creepy oxygen tank type thing RIGHT at the door. We run in the elevator trying not to scream as I'm saying "HIT THE BUTTON! GET US OUT OF HERE!"... the joys of casa.

So yeah, it's been a good week. We get transfer calls this week.

I HOPE I'M STAYING IN ROME 2 because I love it.

Sorella O'Connor