5 Dec 2007

Happy December everybody!

I love December and everyone is preparing for Christmas.....I realized that out of the last 4 Christmas's, 3 of them will have been spent in Italy! I'm lucky, I know. : ) Although there will be no skiing in the alps this year...I look forward to it! We sing Christmas songs every comp study, share christmas traditions and are slowly decorating the apartment! Heard you've got some snow there in Utah? It doesn't snow in Oristano but looks like we might be having a "white christmas" (haha) anyways because one of the africans, Useni, has set the goal to be baptized on the 22nd. He just needs to stop smoking still and then he'll be set!

So yeah, we had transfer calls on Monday. I talked to President Acerson and he said "how's it going sister Boynton? How's Oristano." I said, "great president, we're just keepin on keepin on!" Then he said, "okay, well I'm going to ask you to keep on keepin on then and have you stay in Oristano." Big surprise....next transfer starts next week and Sorella Harvery and I will continue to work here in Oristano! We're excited.

We had a great week. We meet with some inactives and had some really good lessons with them. We got to teach an inactives husband who is a non-member. He's pretty catholic. He's from Hungry and is huge! He also has longer hair and a beard and mustache. After the appointment both Sister Harvery and I agreed that he looked like Jesus! Haha! Pretty funny to look over and be teaching him about how Jesus Christ set up his church on the earth!

We had a Reflief Society night on Saturday. Sorella Angius (the pres.) invited her mother, sister, and her sister's friend to come. The topic she had chosen was "the second coming" yeah, not really the best topic to talk about with investigators. The discussion got pretty heated because we were talking about one of the signs being the restoration of the church and to explain that you have to explain the apostasy. So finally the friend made the connection that her baptism in the catholic church wasn't valid, which is always kind of a blow to people. Anyways, crazy times! We ended with a nice refreshment and all went happily on our way.

On monday I also heard some really great news. I don't know if you remember but when I was in Livorno we were working with an excommunicated women named Marlene. Sister Bruno and I were working with her and the other sister and I continued working with her always with the hope that she would be re-baptized. So on Monday at our district meeting, Sister Bruno and I freaked out with joy when we heard that Marlene in Livorno was going to be re-baptized in a week! That was the best news I heard all week! Marlene is getting baptized! I love that woman! I hope to hear more about how that goes!

Yesterday we saw some small miracles.....we finally were able to teach crazy inactive Maria Boeri. We've visited with her a number of times and she would never let us share anything spiritual. So this time we decided to bring the restoration video. She had been a little sick so I said great. "just stay on the couch and we'll tranquilly (whoa, that's italian coming out!) watch this video." So we did and it was great. The spirit was there and we were able to bare testimony of the restoration of the church through Joseph Smith. Awesome. We left subito after so she could just be left with the spirit.

We also were doing house yesterday and this women who must have had a stroke earlier in life, (one side of her body couldn't really move, including her mouth,) answered the door. She said she didn't want to hear our message but let us in anyway. We just talked and then she got curious and asked us what we made us different...of course a missionaries favorite question to answer! We were able to teach a whole first lesson. It was awsome and we left her with a Book of Mormon. She wasn't sure about a return visit but hopefully we can at least go check back with her.

Cool things are happening and I'm so grateful to be a missionary at this time in my life. I know that there's nothing better that I could be doing with my time during this short year and a half. I can't believe I only have 3 transfers left so that means I have to take it up a notch and really give it my all!

Here's a little shoutout to Mom... I was reading this talk this morning and read..."She was small in stature, yet I stand on her shoulders everyday. Her influence will ever be with me. I cannot honor her properly by what I say but only how I live." It was Richard Hinckley talking about his mom, sister hinckley! May 2006 ensign!

Love you all, you're the best.

Sorella Boynton