Last Week

I don't even know what really happened this week.. I feel like I was writing to you all yesterday.. the days pass like minutes. 

In a nut shell:

Pday Picnic
Monday I saw Carol!!! She is going to the temple this week so it was my last pday to spend with her.. We all went to Villa Borghese for a picnic and I just held onto her the whole time.   I'm thinking of kidnapping her and bringing her to Utah.

picnic at the Villa Borghese

giant bug bites

Eataly

Then we went to EATALY because Sorella Price has never been and we just walked down the aisles in amazement... she gets me. 

Mission Mom
Tuesday.. ddm. Sorella Steurer held me in her arms and told me everything was going to be okay.  She is my mission mom.  

Sister Steurer at the cemetery for American Soldiers (from their blog)

Anziano Di Caro came to DDM to do a zone leader addestramento.. so we just sat next to each other and made fun of each other the whole time and disrupted the spirit.. #ooops 

Then we taught Claudio the Restoration.. again... and he told us how he is tweeting at 50 year old actresses in California telling them he wants to marry them. We also got to teach Valentina!!  She is my favorite. 

Wednesday we got really lost on the bus.  We met with Eva.  I only do finding in English in Rome because Italians either want to practice their English or else the metro is full of tourists coming back from the beach. 

Scambio Vickers
WE DID A SCAMBIO with Rome 3 which means I got to be with SORELLA VICKERS in Rome 3... I love being with Sorella Vickers.. 

Also because she is so beautiful, guys offer to buy us free stuff and she says "no" but I say "yes"... so we got free juice.  

We had a meal appointment where I ate pizza with flowers and hairy anchovies on top. We (accidentally) stayed up too late talking about Siracusa and telling old funny jokes. It was the best. 

Thursday me and Vickers went out finding and I had a throw down (a non-contentious throw down) with this Catholic priest guy... where he ended up agreeing with all of the points of the Restoration until I told him we had to leave and he had to think of an argument really fast.. so we gave him a Book of Mormon and wrote his name in it (so he had to take it) and told him to read and pray about it. 

"We don't need other churches"

Lo Spirito
We also met this sweet lady from Romania whom we invited to English course and then Sorella Vickers handed her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and she said as soon as she touched it she got the shivers... LO SPIRITO SANTO.  So it was a good day.  

Then we went back to Ostia and did English course and taught Claudio and Valentina again.  Anziano Zemp taught "slang" in English course and then started calling all the girls "babe"... sometimes elders just don't know. 

FRIDAY we planned all morning for the baptism. did finding. got two no show appointments.. did more finding.. and practiced the song for the baptism. 

teaching sumo wrestlers

Saturday we did finding.. because we had more no show appointments (which is really frustrating because we COULD plan appointments but you can't just call minute of and say, "HEY ARE YOU FREE NOW?!") 

book of the less actives

Don't Make Us Beg
So then I called Giuliano and BEGGED him to meet with us because he canceled twice that week.  We had a beautiful lesson with him about faith and we read Mathew 14 together about enduring in faith. It was really inspired.  Then he bought us zeppole. 

Valentina
Sunday we announced Valentina's baptism for Aug 2nd!!! WAHOOO! 

I feel so lucky to see a baptism my last Saturday of my mission.. even though I know I did NOTHING for her.. She came into the lessons already with a desire to be baptized and a testimony of the Book of Mormon.. and THAT'S why the prophet tells us to do MEMBER missionary work. So get on it guys.   But she is really incredible.  

Feel the Spirit...please
Also we had a cute English course student come to church.  Her name is Jasmin and so we were all on our toes because the first time someone comes to church you have to pray for 3 hours straight that the members don't say anything weird... 

Well sometimes you wonder if God hears those prayers because the first hour they talked about "follow up" from Elder Ballard's talk mixed with why we shouldn't call ourselves "Mormon" because people will think we have more than one wife and we don't.  

The second hour was the Word of Wisdom and the teacher made a reference to Muslims and how they have their law of health too etc. etc. etc... and the third hour was missionary work and some complex story from the war chapters in the Book of Mormon.  But hey.. she said she wants to come back.. 

So the Lord does answer the prayers that say "Heavenly Father, at least if they are saying weird things LET HER FEEL THE SPIRIT"... 

Beautiful
Then we went to the African camp but the person we went to visit wasn't home so we helped these two little boys at the camp to become friends again because they were fighting. 

Then went to a member's house and she took us down the street to her husband's panino truck on the beach and we sat at the table talking to the people who were drinking beer and working there and we watched the sunset and ate watermelon and it was beautiful. 

Last week.. so weird. I still don't believe it. I'll get on next week because my comp still has to do email. 

I love you all and I'm excited to see you! 

With love from Rome,

Sorella O'Connor

(Email Sent - July 28, 2014)