was zone conference. and woooaaahhh it was good!!
president kelly (whom sorella taylor "accidentally" called heavenly
father the other day...yeah we think our mish prez is pretty great...) said a
line that i think is really great for all of us to hear. he shared a story
about the doctor that got the nobel prize or something for inventing and
successfully completing the first kidney transplant. the guy (or doctor rather)
was a gem. one of his colleagues explained that the root of his greatness come
from his love for a good challenge. on his desk was this
quote..."obstacles are opportunities" and booooooy of boy did i learn
that this week.
began ,my first scambio (exchange...or when you trade
companions for 24 hours). sorella taylor stayed in bari with sorella comollo
and sorella preston (whom i knew before the mission. she was my roommates
visiting teacher and a 100% gem of a girl...and still is actually) came back
to taranto with me! she came into the mtc 6 weeks after me so she is still
training. two greenies taking over taranto...woo!
friday
i was SO scared! SOOOO scared! because i was in
charge...and i still feel like a little baby crawling around taranto. but i
decided to take president kelly's advice and chose to LOVE the obstacle that was
presented. so i woke up in the happiest most determined mood ever to strike
anyone, ready to take on the world! it is a good thing too because the first
person we ran into was another missionary...a 80 something year old testimoni
di geova....yeah! she was telling us how wrong we are and how bad she feels for
us...but we found some common ground and left (me with my copy of the torre and
her with a plan of salvation pamphlet) as good friends! then a miracle
came...and they just went ahead and kept on coming for the rest of the day! so
rewind about three days. sorella taylor and i are passing out some christmas
cards and we get to the 5th person on our list and canNOT find the address
anywhere. we searched for 2 hours...and found nothing. so friday morning i told
heavenly father our plans and said that i really wanted to find that girl on
our list today and that we needed his help. before we knew it, there we
were...we found the house in about 10 minutes. we climbed the stairs of this
palazzo and couldn't find the last name anywhere!! so sorella preston and i
decided that we would just do some "house" (knocking on doors...classic
missionary activity) until we found this sister, claudia. we knock on a door
and it swings right open. the woman on the other side was so happy to see us
and told us to come right on in. keep in mind that the usual response to a door
approach is a quick no and the door slams shut. i was caught off guard...i
tried to explain who we were and why we are here but i also didn't want to
ignore this once in a lifetime moment of getting invited in without saying a
word. after i did our intro this lady did hers. turns out we found claudia. she
said "i knew it was you at the door because i was just praying for you to
come and now you're here!" she said a great prayer and we decided to read
a scripture that we had chosen that morning just in case we needed one. turns
out the one we picked (john 17:3) is her favorite scripture! basically the
whole morning was a living ensign story. way cool!
that night we had an appointment with a member at her
house. we have never been there and if you know me at all you know that i get
lost like it is my hobby. this has not changed in the mission. however...for
this one day that heavenly father knew i was on my own (since sorella preston
has never been to taranto) and i was scared and easily confused with street
names, he decided to help me out and we found her house (that for some reason
wasn't on any of our maps and nobody knew where it was) in about 15 minutes.
this is HIS work. and when we do it HIS way, we have HIS help and i have never
been so sure of anything else in my whole life. scambio...what a cool
experience!!
saturday
we did some "strada" with a new member/ward
missionary, andrea. he was in heaven. missionary fever! we talked to some
friends on the street and andrea was a very much needed extra spirit. now we
can't get away from this kid! haha he calls us every day to ask if he can do
more work with us! yay!!
sorella taylor and i decided to become door to door pros.
so we have just been "casa"ing it up like crazy! saturday especially.
no luck...in fact i have never met so many angry italians in one night in my
whole life. haha but that is just the way things work sometimes...when you want
something, heavenly father makes you work for it! but oh how sweet is the
reward. (see above for an example).
sunday
we have a friend here that is terrified about the end of
the world. he has been convinced that the end is the 21st and he doesn't know
what to do. so sorella taylor and i planned a little lesson for him and his
family about the second coming. (best companionship study ever...the end of the
world...that is good stuff). we were able to share a lot of those things with
their family and we even got to chat with their 16 year old beautiful daughter
about the temple and it was a GRRRRRReat night!
monday
i met my new favorite catholics. it is hard to
choose...there are so many around here. but these guys...they are great. we
went to visit a family that lives a ways a way but by the time we got there the
parents where leaving and dropping the kids off to their grandparents house. we
invited ourselves over and BAM we met luigi and anna...the greatest catholics
that we have ever met. we shared a message with this awesome visual with paper
folding and ripping and magic and they LOVED it. you will too when i show you
one day. plus she gave us the best chocolate that i have ever had the pleasure
of eating. whoa. i need to eat some more of that when we get home. we talked
about some differences between our church and theirs. interesting. alls i have
to say is that i know without a doubt that jesus christ's church, the same one
that he began when he was on the earth, has been restored in its fullness, with
all of the promises, blessings, and goodness, through a living prophet of god.
and i am all kinds of grateful for it.
tuesday
we did some service and we spread the word.
today we are in lecce but now i gots to go. sorry that we
don't have picture this week but i did learn the longest italian word for you
so maybe that will make up for it...
precipitevolissimevolmente
it means to fall down really fast.
haha!!
guys BUON NATALE!!!!!
i love you all so much and i hope you have a perfect
christmas full of love and gratitude for he that died so that we may live!!
all of my love
sorella wightman
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