December 10, 2008

Hi everyone!
How are you all doing? Things are great here in Italia. Everything's all decorated for Christmas. We live right by Centro (downtown) so there are tons of lights everywhere! I love it! Also, I found out I live really close to a castle! We were looking for one of our contacts the other day, and we turned a corner, and all the sudden there was a huge castle in front of us! There's a museum there, so I think we're going to try to go some P-day.
So I was thinking about when I come back after my mission. I know you had talked about coming for the Temple dedication, but I have a proposal. When I come back for the Temple, I will probably just be staying in the Rome area doing Temple stuff. So what if I just went when the Temple is dedicated, and the family comes back a different time? I think it would be more fun to have a more relaxed trip and be able to visit the cities other than Rome and meet the people I worked with. Let me know what you think.
This week has been great! We had 2 meal appointments with members of the branch. (That reminds me, are you guys going to do the Book of Mormon challenge I asked you about last week?) Anyways, one was with the Margheritti family, who reminds me so much of mom and dad. You would love them! Sister Margheritti is super bubbly and loving. She always gives us free stuff at her store when we go there, and she always knows all the branch gossip. Yesterday we went visiting teaching with her, and she took us out to lunch after at a delicious focacceria! President Margheritti has a sense of humor a lot like dad's. He's really funny and loves to tease me. They have a 17 year old daughter, who Bryce would think is super cute. And Gizmo would love their puppy!
The other appointment was with the Gianelli family, who is also amazing! They have 3 kids, 2 girls ages 16 and 8, and a 14 year old boy. They are tons of fun! The 16 year old girl is going to start helping us teach english class. They invited us over for Christmas to their house in the country. I'm so excited! At lunch, the 14 year old boy spilled the bottle of olive oil all over my skirt. It came out, so it was no problem, but he was so worried! I've seen him a couple times since then at the church, and he has apologized about 100 times. He's a cute kid.
I got "fired" as the branch pianist. The guy who's normally the pianist came back from out of town, and guess what? He's completely blind! He knows all of the hymns by heart, including the introduction and how many verses each hymn has. He's so cool!
Last week we once again had a bunch of appointments fall through one night. So we decided to do house in this one area and ended up getting some amazing contacts! We were on a street that goes up a hill, and an older lady walked by and we said hi to her. She stopped walking and asked if she knew us. Then she saw our name tags, and recognized us as missionaries. She said that her son is taking the lessons from the elders. We talked to her for a while, and helped her walk home. She had a really hard time walking up the hill, and we found out later from the elders that she has collapsed a couple times walking home, and she was really worried about how she was going to make it home that night. She kept telling us that we were angels sent from Jesus, and we're all she'll talk about with the elders. It's so amazing how the Lord's hand is always in our lives. We had no real reason to be in that area at that time, but Heavenly Father knows His children. He knew that this woman needed someone to help her walk home, and we were blessed enough to be there. There have been so many little miracles like that, when one thing doesn't work out, but Heavenly Father gets us exactly where we need to be to see the people that need us.
We had an appointment with Joanna this week, but a friend was in town and she forgot to call us to reschedule. So we showed up to her house, and she wasn't home, but her 16 year old step-daughter was. She invited us in and asked us a tons of questions and was super interested in the Restoration and Joseph Smith! She asked if she can start coming when we teach Joanna, and asked if we can start coming by more often. It was a great experience!
Monday morning we met with Jennifer, who is also incredible! I don't remember if I told you about her last week, but she took the lessons 2 years ago but didn't feel ready to commit. She recognized that if she was going to join the church, it was a lifelong commitment, and she didn't feel ready at the time. But she has a friend who comes to english class, so she got our number and called us out of the blue! When we met with her Monday, she said that she feels ready this time and wants to pursue this. She said that she wants to have an eternal family someday and raise her kids in the church. We showed her the baptismal font, and she stared at it for a long time, and said, "I need to read the Book of Mormon again and pray before I do this, but I think this is right." It was such an amazing experience! And Kyle, I feel like it happened at least in part because of when you prayed that I would be able to find a golden investigator. So thank you!
I love you all so much! Thanks for all the love, support and prayers. They mean a lot to me. So do the letters and packages! :)
Vi voglio bene! Buone Feste!
Sorella Hawkey