cakes, potato jackets, and mexican food.

mamma gigante with her favorite sorelle!!

ciao amori mie! come state???!
guys. what a great week, right? good ol' conference. i miss it already.
let me explain why my week was just a gooooooooooood time.

thursday
-we have this investigator. her life would make a great mafia movie. italians, you know how they do. anyway i will have to tell you why in person ... you never want to toy around with the mafia, even via missionary email.
-we have this other investigator, rita, my favorite. we planned a really simple lesson to invite her to come through the door that leads to eternal life and happiness. we brought a member to come with. so we invited her (actually sorella jackson did ... and it was awesome since she was practicing how to do so in italian all week and then she did it like a champ!) and then it was silent for what felt like 3 days. we just stared at her. she was looking down, shaking her head, she laughed, then cried then looked up, started to answer and then the member said "you don't have to decide right now!!" i could've died. so she agreed and said she didn't have to decide right then. we gathered ourselves (aka i prayed and said sorry for wanting to strangle a child of god) and tried again when the spirit wasn't right. 3 days later the SAME THING HAPPENED! haha! so she didn't ever accept it BUT she said the greatest thing. she said "sorelle don't think that i haven't thought about it. i think about it all of the the time. and i WANT it. i want it like i want to eat a big beautiful delicious cake. it is like you placed this cake right in front of me, but before i eat it i need to know the ingredients." aw! so she has decided to pray about the date and let us know when she would like to "eat the cake." my daycare skills are kicking in and we have planned this great lesson to go along with this parable that she created ... but you are just going to have to wait until next week to see how it goes :)

friday
- we planned and knocked on a lot of doors.
-our neighbors dog died. i was really sad actually. even though it bit sorella wiltbank once, we are quite fond of the ONLY dog that didn't bark at us. our neighbor was devastated. so we went to the florist and bought some flowers. we quickly learned that that is an american thing, buying flowers for those who mourn. ha! everyone was way weirded out by us, but i explained then they loved it. plus we got to talk to them about the gospel ... which is so much better than flowers for sad people.

saturday
-we were invited to pre-conference lunch by a lady in our ward who lived in london. she made us an "italy meets london" lunch. we had a cheese platter, pasta, "jacket potatoes" (which is basically a baked potato with chili on it, but we humored her and pretended we had never seen a thing like it ... not even at wendy's), and a prune upside down cake. haha! good times.
-THEN WE WATCHED CONFERENCE! i made a deal with sorella jackson that if she would stick it out and watch conference with the ward in italian then i would find a way for us to watch it in english on pday. weird that this time around i WANT to watch it in italian. remember last conference when i prayed and worked so hard to baptize a female english speaking person to be my companion during conference so i could watch it in english? times have changed. plus it is kind of fun to hear a member in our branch, the stake president and ugo perego speak at conference haha! we watched the relief society meeting (us foreign folk have to watch it a week late) and i loved president monson's talk. i noticed that they seemed to talk a lot about the sacrament and the word "reassurance". also i cried all through the musical number "more holiness give me" as i realized that the lyrics of the hymn are the word for word explanations for a mission. i will include the lyrics so you can remember how you learned all of those things on your missions too:

More holiness give me,

More strivings within,

More patience in suff'ring,

More sorrow for sin,

More faith in my Savior,

More sense of his care,

More joy in his service,

More purpose in prayer.

More gratitude give me,

More trust in the Lord,

More pride in his glory,

More hope in his word,

More tears for his sorrows,

More pain at his grief,

More meekness in trial,

More praise for relief.

More purity give me,

More strength to o'ercome,

More freedom from earth-stains,

More longing for home.

More fit for the kingdom,

More used would I be,

More blessed and holy--

More, Savior, like thee.

my favorite talk from the morning session was elder dube, a)because he is an awesome african and b) because he responded to some of my fears. and i loved it all. also elder uchtdorf. i wish he could come and be our third mission companion.

sunday
-we watched conference! i really loved elder christofferson's talk since he described what a woman should be and therefore described my mamma (faith, courage, empathy, and refinement. do good and be good). i loved president monson's talk (più vento più forte sono gli alberi). but my favie was probably elder ballard. and not just because we were referenced in his talk! i especially loved the lines:
"it's impossible to fail when we do our best on the lord's errand" and "if every member reaches out to just one person, the blessings will be by the thousands" (or something along that line).

SO i thought i would help us all think of way to "reach out":

1. make religious conversations a normal and comfortable part of your day. nothing weird. just "my day was so good; god must really love us!"
2. when people ask, tell them what you did that weekend, and don't leave out church. go into detail about church just like you would about the movies you saw and the parties you went to and the fun you had.
3. get involved in the community.
4. call the missionaries and ask how you can help!
5. utilize facebook, instagram, blogs, pinterest (is that still a thing?), and other cool techno things that i don't know about (sorella jackson was telling me about some thing called "snap chat" or something that scared me so bad! the real world can be a scary place) as missionary tools. don't be annoying and don't be afraid.
6. keep a book of mormon with your testimony written inside in your car and be ready to give it away.
7. invite people to your house and let them feel the spirit.
8. be worthy of the spirit.
9. be happy ... nobody wants to join a church full of complainers or sad people.
10. PRAY FOR MISSIONARY OPPORTUNITIES! i have already started doing that for you, family. so look for them!

i know that as you look for opportunities to naturally and comfortably share with others the JOY that the gospel has given you, that that joy will grow. i know because it is happening to me. i have never been so happy in my whole life. all thanks to jesus christ.

monday
-we worked our butts off in order to be worthy of all the really nice and REALLY humbling things said about us missionaries in conference. and the blessings just fell from heaven.

tuesday
-remember noel? the man from the congo that we met when mittens and wiltbank and i first arrived? then we lost contact with him? then wiltbank and i found him "by coincidence" knocking on doors one day? so back in the day, noel and his wife brigette weren't really progressing. they let us come over whenever we wanted but they never prayed, or read, or came to church. but we keep being led back to them. now, however, they offer the opening and closing prayers, always asking questions about what they read in the bom or about joseph smith in their prayers. they are way more open minded. they are asking their boss for sundays off. and it is just great. they were all sad because they couldn't make it to conference so we watched a talk on their computer with them. we meant to watch elder uchtdorf's talk.
-we saw baldo. he rocks. and he made us mexican food and offered to take us to the mall to buy italian boots.

today
-our branch president downloaded all of the conference in english for us, to thank us for supporting the ward and sacrificing english conference for them. nice guy. so we will finish up here, go shopping, then just soak up all of the conference goodness. we only got to watch 2 sessions in italian so we have a busy day ahead!

well that is literally every single thing i thought, saw, did, tasted, and experienced. haha! i am a details person. but hey, you deserve to know how perfect italy is.

i LOVE YOU ALL!!!

sorella wightman

You would laugh if you saw me right now.

Today is such a silly day. I'll go into detail in a minute. Also sorry in advance for the shortness of the weekly saga. It is for a good reason.

Let me just say there is no greater way to start a week than with a private meeting with Anziano Ballard on a rainy roman morning surrounded by missionaries. Guys ... dream life. But lots if other good thing happened before and since so let me get myself in order here.

Sorella Jackson is just killing me with great scripture finds lately. My favorite one this week was Hebrews 12:1-2 which I have officially made the scripture if my final moments of missionhood. Run patiently the race set before us. Ooooo so good!! So when we found that gem we were determined to share it (since you know how things only get better when shared (i.e. the gospel). All day long we listened for the cue to read that baby but it never came. We ended the evening with baldo, taking about truth and the Holy Ghost. After we finished the lesson and dinner they started telling us how President Criscione was having a tough day, dealing with issues from the branch. Jacks and I just looked at each other and nodded ... cue received. As we read the verse to him he just cried and cried. All he said was ... "how did you know??" Aw.

Saturday morning we went to the Relief Society activity. They were doing a "trade market" meaning everyone brought there junk and swapped amongst each other. But that wasn't even the best part, neither was the food, neither was the fact that we met the old mission president and his wife the Acersons who are famous in rome (they were here before the Kelly's) ... although all that was good, the BEST part was that our investigator came and loved every single second if it. The second best part was the rolls that Sorella Acerson made. I forgot how much I really love soft bread soaked in melted butter. That evening we had an appointment in the hardest city to get to. I got us all prepared with plan a, plan b, plan c, and of course none if those plans were sufficient. But God's grace was (haha what a lame missionary sense if humor I have acquired). A member in the branch came and rescued us after our appointment fell through and we missed the last bus home. That night was a night of firsts for both Jackson and I. We saw Rome at night! We caught an 8 o'clock train for Rome because we were invited to come sleep at the mission home!!! It was like a big mission sleepover since all the Rome Napoli and Sardegna zones were packed up tight in the beautiful villa. We even had a little family prayer altogether. Cuties. We were up bright and early at 4am and in our way to meet Anziano Ballard for a private secret missionary meeting. Oh gosh it was so wonderful. That Anziano Ballard he is something else. He talked about being happy and loving where we are even if the work is hard. He said a million great things but I will share one: this is the Lord's time and I'm not going to waste a minute of it because I understand Gethsemane. I loved that because I really have learned that the secret to happiness is diligence and obedience but also that the atonement of Christ fills in for the rest. As long as we do the very best that we know how, we qualify ourselves for divine help. All thanks to what happened in the garden if Gethsemane. He challenged us to talk to at least ten people a day (but emphasized youth) and promised an increase in not only baptisms but more stakes in Rome, led by our converts. Wha??!! Yeah cool. And his talk for the conference was beautiful. You can watch it online, and if you do you might see a familiar face :) He said this great line: when the Lord gives a temple he raises his expectations. 

Monday was good Times. Also Tuesday. We met a girl, an Italian one, named Louisiana, and had some good fish and member visits.

Flash forward to right now ... my fingers are so so sleepy from typing this email on an iPhone while sitting outside Villa Borghese waiting for Whitney to finish her tour, then we will go get gelato. Haha! We ran into the couple missionaries that work in the office (the Steurer's, my favorites) and the Acersons. We told them that we were waiting for my cousin but we needed to still write home so they said "use our iPhones to write home!" So here we are. I am learning that my texting muscles are LONG GONE. I just saw Whit for about 5 minutes because she had a scheduled tour. She gave me the best kind of shirts there are ... ROYAL STRONG AND TRUE (white and blue). Which I will gladly wear Saturday night as my boys fight the mighty fight. Go Cougars! Before I go I have to answer mom's questions: My companion is Calli Jackson from Kanab, Utah. She is 19. She studied medical lab science (yike) at BYU for a year. She studied Italian before coming so she was in the MTC for 10 DAYS!!! What?! Speaking of amazing people that I serve with Sorella Wiltbank's mom sent me a twin silky nightgown like Sorella Wiltbank had that I coveted every single day. I can die happy now. Seriously I just frolic around the house in it and feel as light as a feather. Wish I could send pictures but I will double them up next week. MOM I love you. Don't feel sad. I gave Whitney a special hug to bring back with her and some other Roman goodies. Also mom please send the other goods that she is bringing (a letter and a mini colosseum thing) to Dwane and Susan Roberts of Springville, Utah. Maybe buy them a free dinner for a big thank you for all they did for me. I love you. The church is true!!! Forza Roma.