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!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Letter #5 and Pictures from Cosenza, Italy

Hello everyone,
Tomorrow is Zone Conference and I am so excited!! I feel like it is Christmas. We get tons of new proselyting materials, the May Liahona and all the General Conference talks. I love it!!

This week has been wonderful!! For the whole month of May Cosenza has been under 20 degrees Celsius and has had a lot of rainy days. I LOVE IT!! I love the rain usually, and it saved me. Now I have one less month of hot. It is started to warm up now but it is still not at its peak. I feel very blessed. I think God must have done this just for me because He knows I would DIE with that heat!

This past week we went to go visit a lot of members and get to know them better. Saturday we took an hour and a half bus ride to Castrovillari, un Paese (I dont know how to say that in English and I feel stupid) in the Province of Cosenza. There used to be a branch in Castrovillari but they shut it down 4 years ago. No one was coming. There was one family that was really keeping everything going and then the Mother (The matriarch of the family) had a really bad fall. It resulted in a coma and brain damage. After this they shut it (the branch) down. Now that one active family drives every Sunday for an hour to get to church and then goes back. They only have 5 seats in their car so they have to take turns on who can come each Sunday. No one really goes up to visit them - so we planned this trip.

Once we arrived in Castrovillari we took another 20 min bus ride to Saracena (their actual town). Then we had some time to talk with them and meet the mother, she has all her memory back pretty much, they just need to wake her up, help her eat, and use the bathroom. Her husband is now 82 so they are getting up in years. They are the greatest family. I can see how this trial has really built their faith and their trust in God. They have had to really sacrifice for the Lord and they are being blessed for it!

We had wanted to go visit less actives in Castrovillari but there was no time because the last bus to come home was at 5:30 pm. But it was still a good day! Our members are really great. They have a had a lot of trials but they have grown from them. and the Lord has compensated them.

Yesterday we had the best experience. There is one of our relatively new members (about a year and a half) and she has been having a hard time. She has been really depressed recently. But she is my hero because during all of this time she has kept coming to church, doing her calling. She comes to activities and she came to the baptism we had 3 weeks ago. She realizes that if she is ever going to get out of this slump she needs the support of the members.

This Monday at FHE she was really down. We talked about prayer and she admitted that recently she has not been praying because she does not want to because she feels so depressed. The conversation moved on but I was trying to think of how to help her. She knows what she should do and what she needs to do, read the scriptures and pray every day. But because she is so depressed she has no desire to do these things. Then the idea came! She needs something small that she can do everyday. Something set up so that it does not require too much effort. I decided we needed to make her a happy thought journal.

I talked about it with my companion and she agreed. We found all of the scriptures that are our happy thoughts. Scriptures that bring us joy or comfort or help us feel God's love. We got about 40 of them. Then in a little quaderno we wrote a reference on each page. She then can read one each day, say a prayer and write down her thoughts and how she feels. We took it to her yesterday! And she lit up. She promised us that she would do it everyday. In tears she turned to me and said, "I don't know what's wrong. I am sorry you met me like this. I am normally happy and fun to be around!" I assured her that God had sent us to Cosenza at this specific time when she was Not Happy and having this difficulty so that we could help her!

I know that God places people in our lives at specific moments so that we can help them and serve them and vice versa. God is very close and is very interested in our lives. I love you all so much and I am glad that I can call you all Family. You each have taught me very important things at different times in my life and I want to thank you for that!

Dad in advance, Happy Father's Day!! I almost forgot because in Italy they celebrate it in February. I was very confused that Sunday! :) I was thinking why are the Primary children singing and giving their father's paper ties they had designed. Then I learned it was the Festa del Papa.
Us at the Famiglia Lopez for Lunch this Sunday
Me and Sorella Lopez
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