Ciao a tutti ancora una volta!
Time's ticking but miracles just keep on happening. This week has been really incredible.
Last wednesday we had fun playing in the park with our district and some members. We played some soccer and some american football. We could tell that we were all out of shape because the next day we were all aching and sore! It was sunny and beautiful and that was the last day that it actually WAS sunny and beautiful because ever since then it has been cold and rainy! I'm one who likes the rain but when you have to be out in it all day it gets a little tiring!
Thursday we had interviews with president Acerson, good as always, and then did finding work. We also found this inactive lady that no one has been able to find and are excited to go back and start working with her. It's amazing how we found her because we didn't have a house number but we decided to walk down the street anyway. We checked some palazzi for her last name and didn't see it and so we kept on walking not knowing how long the street would go. Then I looked up in the air and saw this big billboard thing over a building advertising a company. The company had the same last name of this women. So jokingly I told my comp to look at that name on the billboard. We both laughed but walked over there nonetheless and found that her name WAS on the citof and that she lives there! Pretty crazy story. It's these little crazy "coincidences" that always show me how much Heavenly Father loves everyone and how he's using us to reach out to them.
Friday was planning and more finding work. We met a really cool lady that night on the street who we gave a Book of Mormon too and hope to visit with her again.
Saturday was kind of crazy. Here's a really long story made short... hopefully. The Elders somehow invited our investigator Yana to an appointment that they were having with Ivan, a recent convert. They mentioned they were having this appointment and invited us to come. Obviously we wanted to come, hello, she's our investigator! They taught a first lesson which was really good for Yana to hear again and then theytotally sprung an invite to be baptized on the 12 of April. It was good and all but we were just totally suprised because they hadn't mentioned anything to us! Anyways, Yana said she'd think about it and it was kinda left like that. We talked to the anziani and told them it was cool and all what they did but that it would have been cooler if they would have at least checked with us first! What they didn't know is that we were already planning on inviting her to be baptized the next monday! to be continued... Sunday was Easter! Church was great and Yana was there all 3 hours. It was funny because by the end of church there were only about 20 people left because they had all left to go to friends and families houses for easter. We got invited to go eat with a sister, sorella Capuano. She's awesome and one of the couselors in the RS. We had some good pasta and meat and then ate some traditional Colomba, an italian bread/cake thing that they eat for easter. After the appointment, for some reason we didn't have umbrellas and we were going home and we got totally drenched! When we left Sorella Capuano's house it wasn't raining but then 2 minutes after it downpoared! We tried to find shelter but there wasn't much and so we look like a pair of wet dogs. : ) We had planned to go do some chalk as a district but it was rainy. We decided to go sing to inactives as a district instead so that was fun and they enjoyed it.
Monday was crazy. We had our weekly district meeting in the morning and had a really good training by one of the younger elders. It was really good. Then we had to go out and had some time to do some finding work before our appointment with Yana. The Monday after easter sunday in Italy is another holiday where everyone goes out as families or stays at home. It was still raining and so that limited our options for finding. We decided to try to do some house even though we knew people might not be too happy about it. We started ringing people's bells outside and while we were doing that a family was exiting the building. Like I've done NUMBERLESS times on my mission we took advantage of the open door (all missionaries know it's better to talk to people face to face at the door!) and went in to get to people's front doors. We were heading up the stairs and this mom of the family that had exited came charging in was chasing us up the stairs! She was saying, "where are you going, you are trying to escape!," and she was saying it as if we were robbers or something. I poked my head into the stairwell and said, "look lady, we are missionaries!" Then she went spouting off in Italian so quick that the only word I could pick out was "carabinieri." Yikes, that's when I got really scared. She was threating to call the cops on us! We had all our documents and stuff so we knew that if they were to come they couldn't do anything so that's where we found our comfort. We could hear the lady oustide freaking out and were just praying that the carabinieri wouldn't come. We didn't want to go out and face her because we knew we would just totally get chewn out (i don't thin "chewn" is a word but i think you'll understand.lol). So we just said a prayer and continued to knock the rest of the doors. When we got to the bottom the family was gone and we went on our way to our appointment with Yana! Phew, there was a brief moment where we thought we might be going to jail there! haha.
And the most exciting part of the week....if you can believe it... it does get better than the house experience! YANA IS GETTING BAPTIZED! Yay. We had a really good appointment with her mom and her on Monday night. We got there and asked how things were going and then Yana started to cry and her mom explained to us how her friends were pestering her about her belief in the church and God etc. Yana was really upset and it made us sooo sad to see this. It's so amazing to see how the adversary works so hard to get these people who are finding the truth to have doubts and fall away. We reassured her that everything would be all right. Her Mom, Tanya is amazing and was just bearing her testimony of faith and how our faith and testimonies help us against situations like that. We started in with the lesson and at the beginning didn't know if the baptismal invite was going to work but the lesson was inspired and we had planned to talk about faith. We read together in Alma and helped her understand. Baptism eventually came up and she wanted to know what being a member of the church entailed. We explained a little and when we explained about the commandments she ran upstairs and got a pen and paper and wanted to right them all down! We told her we'd eventually teach her all of them, although a lot of the she already knows thanks to her mom. At the end of the lesson we told her we thought she was ready to be baptized at an earlier date than the elders had told her and that we had prayed and felt good about her being baptized on the 5th of April! We told her that she had to make the choice and feel good about it as well. She said the closing prayer and told Heavenly Father that if he wanted her to be baptized on the 5 of april that she would do it! After the prayer we all just sat in silence for a bit and then asked her how she felt and she said she wanted to be baptized on the 5th! We expressed our excitment and now we've got a baptism to prepare!
This work is amazing and the miracles never stop coming. Thanks for all your prayers and love!
Love ya,
Sorella Boynton
