Hey Family! How's it going?
So for the past two days we did a companion exchange. It was great fun! I was with Sorella Casalino, this is her first transfer in the mission, we were in Bergamo. She is Italian but her family moved when she was 7 years old to the United States. So she speaks both Italian and English. She is really great. She is an amazing missionary! This was the best companion exchange I've ever had. She was just fantastic! I'm not sure why, but she kind of reminds me of Nancy. She gave me a lot of ideas for how to be a better missionary. I love new missionaries, they can really teach us, the old ones, a lot. I'm really grateful for her and all that she taught me.
Ok, here is a summary of how are companion exchange went:
Monday night we went and saw a member, then we did some finding work, door to door. No one wanted to listen to us, but someone did want to call the police on us and someone else did get afraid of us. We walked home and we just have to ring our district leader when we get home. We got home, I tried to ring, but nothing happened. We planned and the district leader tried calling us and we tried answering but we couldn't. This went on from about 9:30 - 10:30, with the district leader, the elders in the other ward, the zone leaders in Como, and our ward mission leader callin us like every minute. We could see who was trying to call us but we couldn't answer. We even tried going to our neighbors to use their phone, but no one answered. Finally, our ward mission leader came to our house because the elders were worried. They said that they and our ward mission leader, Brother Carlo, called us and a man answered. So crazy! So Brother Carlo came over and saw that we were alright. And he called the elders and let them know we were alright. In the morning our alram didn't even go off on the phone, but I had waken up 10 minutes early and then my Sorella Casalino woke up when I went into the other room. After studies, we went on our quest to find the Tim store, our phone company. It only took us and hour and a half to find it, which, if we knew where it was, it would have only taken us 20 minutes to find it, where we received help from everyone, including a local police man who wants to come to church! We walked backwards and forwards and into the wrong store, finally to the right store, where Sorella Casalino saw that the phone was charged (we had charged it all night long, but it didn't charge, or it didn't show that it had charged). The lady at the store said that our phone was online and that it was ok. We tried calling and....it worked!! We walked home, walking all over Bergamo to find Esselunga to buy some food for lunch. We had lunch - wow! real food for the first time in days! Language study and then a nap - I know, I shoudn't have done it, but I had to. Sorella Casalino kept falling asleep during language study so I told her to sleep while I get ready. Then I moved the chair and she thought someone was screaming, she comes into the study room and says, "Sorella! Did you hear someone screaming?!?" It was kind of funny. More casa, this man told us that he doesn't need to know the purpose of this life. Missionary meeting was great. Lesson with Ruben and Agustina and their awesome kids: Ruben, Clarissa, and Jonathan. It felt so great for the whole family to be there. Everytime they see this kinder treat, they will think of the church. We used this type of kinder treat to help us with the Restoration. They really enjoyed it. We invited them to read and think about Moroni 10 and to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. We had them write it down and we said that we would do it too. I must do it tonight. It really does help my personal faith to grow when I do the same things or something similar to what we are committing the investigators/members/less actives to do. I have seen my faith change for the better thanks to this simple practice. I like thinking it of an attitude of, "Let's do this together." It really does work. I love it so much. This was my FAVORITE companion exchange; it really was so amazing.
Last Friday, we had Zone Conference in good ol' Milano, my home, and I was able to realize and understand, thanks to Presidente Dunaway, that it is super hard to be a member here in Italy. It's really hard. There are so many things I want to do to help these members stay active and to help those lost sheep come back. I love the talk by Elder Perry from last conference about the lost shepherd. When I come home, I don't want to be missing in action, I want to help those be rescued.
Well, in Interviews, President is going to interview me for school! Last week I emailed him the endorsement papers. I have one more essay and hope to send at least a draft to Becky today.
I must write Presidente now, but I just had so much to tell all of you and I just can't type as fast as I would like to : )
I love you all! Keep the faith!!!
Vi voglio bene!!!
Con amore,
Sorella DeVocht
