1/9

this is probably one of the weirdest weeks of my mission.....

1. i have been sick for the entire week. and no amount of italian medicine is helping... just gotta wait it out... its cold.

2. my companion, sorella comollo, sprained her ankle, so we have been doing splits the entire week because she couldnt walk for a couple days. 

3. experienced the italian holiday, The Befana. she is a witch (santa's wife) who flies on her broom to bring kids candy or coal in their stockings on the 6th of Jan. every year. that was a new one. we even met a lady dressed up on the street giving out candy and coal to everyone she saw. haha it was hilarious. yes... i got coal..... 

4. president and sorella kelly came to our ward on sunday, had interviews with all of us after church and made the decision to switch our companions. so me and sorella ivory are back together AGAIN and sorella comollo is with sorella ehorn. so that is the best thing thats ever happened to me. considering that i LOVE sorella ivory and we work SUPER effectively together cause we can just tell what each other is thinking. its really the greatest... so i get to be with her for her last transfer. its... the.... best.........

5. some investagators (antonio and lorenza) took us to see this live nativity. it was the COOLEST thing i have ever seen. you walk through it and it takes like 30 minutes. and there are all these people dressed up and it literally was like you were in ancient jerusalem! it was so awesome. there were tons of live animals and everything. there were like shops where people were actually making candels or frying bread or making pottery or blankets. it was so cool. cant even describe it. and the baby 'Jesus' was born on the 18th of december so he was still this tiny new born infant.  was way cool...

6. i dont know if you remember our old investagator Anna? that broke my heart? cause she is so wonderful and knows its true and love us and taught us how to make yummy italian food and played sicilian songs for me on her guitar and then moved to sicily. SHE IS STARTING TO MEET WITH THE MISSIONARIES AGAIN!!! i dont think you understand how much me and sorella ivory prayed for her...... listen........ this is just a miracle........ anyway haha........ i love anna!!!! 

7. there has been some tension in our house because of this whole switch back. and sorella ivory and i know the area and these other sisters dont really... and they are just stressed about their work. and we prayed about what we could do about this.... to make everything work and be better and just FUNCTION. and........... we both recieved this answer, that we both didnt want to accept at first, but we had to follow what God told us....... SO. we gave ALL OUR WORK to the other sisters. all except antonio and raffaella. (because they would kill us if we passed them off.. literally.) so.... we are building from ground zero. and the other sisters are going to take this head on. its an experiment. but we know heavenly father will bless us for doing what he told us to do. also, we are going to have to give up our pride about numbers haha... since theyre about to go down the drain..... but thats fine... so....... these next 4 weeks will be interesting.. (and full of 'finding'.....) but it'll be good...

8. i had a really cool experience at the beginning of this week when i was still with comollo. it is so crazy just how precisely God planned all this out. 

so we have this investagator, paola. i think i have told you about her.. (''will i still resurrect if i explode when i die?'') yeah. she's fun. so we wanted to meet with her in the church so we could watch 'the restoration' with her. (theres a tv) so we set up the appointment and right before, she calls us and tells us she is sick so she cant come to the church. now, i usually answer the phone, but for some reason i gave it to comollo to answer. i also am a pushover. sorella comollo is not. so sorella comollo convinces her to let us come over to her house and watch it on her tv (we didnt know she had one at first.) 

following me? so we go over to her house and put the dvd in the player but cant find the remote to switch the language to italian. we search everywhere, for like 15 minutes.. cant find it. finally her 23 year old daughter, Ilaria comes home, helps us look for the remote and finds it finally, when she is about to leave, i invite her to stay and watch the film with us. (she never stays for lessons) and she AGREED. so she stays and watches the entire restoration with us and we all feel the spirit so strong and at the end i bare my testimony to both of them, but especially to Ilaria, telling her how important she is to God and that he loves her and that our ability to pray is a testimony of the love that God has for us. and at a point when i was telling her these things, i had to check myself to make sure i was speaking in italian, and not english, because the words were coming so easily to me. like i wasnt speaking them alone. i started crying when i was telling her this because i could just feel Gods love for her and i saw tears in her eyes as well.. 

it was such a beautiful experience. i know that God was speaking through me to tell this girl that she was loved by him. that she was important and special. it was very sweet and something i will always remember..

i also know that God is the head of this work. its not my work, or president kellys work or president monsons work. its Gods. he is leading it and moving it forward. if it wasnt his work, it would fail. 

this gospel is my joy.... 

keep it real. keep reading those scripts, fam. :) they're true. 

love you all

sorella sudweeks

pics:

-sorella ivory and i with the befana

-live nativity

-me, ivory and lorenza