Serving An 18 Month LDS Mission

In the LDS church, when a girl turns 21 she has the opportunity to choose to serve an 18 month, self-funded mission. I have wanted to go on a mission since I was a little girl. My parents both served a mission in Rome in the 1970's. In 2001-2002, my sister Letty served as a missionary in Hong Kong and my brother Algot in the Philippines. As soon as I turned 21 I submitted my papers. The Prophet and 12 Apostles determine through inspiration which of the more than 300 missions worldwide each missionary will be assigned. I was overjoyed when I opened my mission call and discovered that I was called to Rome, Italy! I feel immensely blessed and I feel that God has been preparing me to serve the Italian people. Each week, while I am on my mission, I will send my sister Letty an email and pictures to post on the blog. I won't see this blog till I come home, so I will be unable to directly respond to your comments until then. However, the sidebar will always have a current street address for me, and I promise I will respond to your letters! If you would rather write via email, just email your letter to my sister and she will print it out and send it me with her weekly snail mail!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Letter #17 from Bari, Italy

Dear family and friends,
 
I know that I will be skyping you tomorrow at 9am your time so today I wanted to attach a ton of pictures. I was all ready to go, but then my computer popped up with a virus warning and I don't want to plug anything into this computer!! So you have to wait a little longer until you get to see pictures of me! But I will send them!
 
Sorella Foster is loving Bari and I am loving showing it to her! And introducing her to all these wonderful people. We get a long very well. We are almost creepily the same person. We have differences, but we like the same books, the same TV shows, the same movies. We drive in the car belting out Guys and Dolls and Oliver. She knows so many musicals and she likes me to tell her all the plots of the ones she doesnt know!!! Or rather she humors me!! But I dont care!! We have so much fun! And we also get work done. She is very kind and very sincere. I love her simplicity and honesty! and it is really easy to make her laugh! In short, she is an agreeable person.
 
Marina, one of our investigators left for Ireland to pass the holidays with her daughter. But before she left she and her husband invited us to their home. It was the same day of transfers and it was crazy. I kept on wanting to cancel but when I called I never could!! So we ended up going at 8:50am and it was good that we did. Because without my knowing they had prepared tons of food for all 4 of us sisters! And if we had not come it would have really hurt their feelings. As it turned out we only had 20 minutes but I am glad we went. We were able to talk more with the husband, Onofrio. He is super kind and quiet like Marina and our goal is to teach them together! 
 
We have been visiting a lot of members, and this Sunday we helped the family we had lunch with form a family mission plan!! I got lots of ideas from an email I got from Letty a few months ago. And Sorella Foster thought of making a 3 week challenge. With a task they need to do every week. This week they are preparing and making a list together of who they want invite to come closer to Christ and to know our church better. The first week they need to bear their testimony about a simple thing to each person on the list. 2nd week they will invite them to their house to play games or eat cena and get to know their family. 3rd week they will invite them again and also invite the missionaries! I think this is going to work a lot of miracles. Because I have learned from my mission - the more specific the goal, the more God can use us as His instruments. He will put people in our path because we have chosen and specified which path we will take and we are committed to take this path! I know God can do anything, but when we make goals and act, it grows us and our testimonies. He could do it without us but He chooses to help others grow their faith and their commitment!
 
I will see you tomorrow!! I love you all so much! I am excited! :)
 
Love,
Sorella preston

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