February 18, 2009

Hi!
Another great week in La Spezia! Yesterday my birthday was a lot of fun! Sorella Mura came in our room yesterday morning right at 6:30 singing happy birthday and yelling at me to get up and open my presents. I went into the room where my presents were, and she had hid them! She made me go on a scavenger hunt all over the house to find them. It was fun! She made me french toast while I was on my treasure hunt. Then for lunch, she took me out to a pizzeria and to gelato. It was delicious! Yesterday for our district meeting, the elders made me peanut butter cookies that spelled happy birthday. It was cute. Sometimes the elders can actually be nice to the sisters!
We have 3 new investigators this week! I'm really excited! That's more than we had my whole first transfer. 2 of them are good friends from Santo Domingo, Ada and Carmen. They are both amazing! They loved the Book of Mormon and asked amazing questions. I'm really excited to work with both of them. Carmen made us Dominican food, which was so good! They're both super cute and a lot of fun!
Our other new investigator is Jennifer, who is finally officially an investigator! She's the one who took the lessons 2 years ago but didn't feel ready to get baptized, and then called us a few months ago because she felt ready. Anyways, she's amazing! She has amazing insights in the Gospel and has a strong testimony. She is so ready for the Gospel! She keeps asking us what more she can do. She even asked us the other day what it took to go on a mission, and said that she'd love to serve a mission someday! She'd be a great missionary! Keep her in your prayers!
Monday night we visited a family from our english class. The mom and 2 sons come every week. They have been to some of the branch parties here, and a couple weeks ago when we watched The Restoration after english class, they all said that they know our church is true. So we went to visit them. Daniella, the mom, kept saying how great our church is, and how horrible her church is. Then the 16 year old son, Gian Luca, said, "Mom, if you know their church is true, just have faith and start going to their church!" He's an awesome kid! We have an appointment with them next week, so maybe we can start teaching them. I'm praying a lot for this family. They're a beautiful family, and would be such great members!
Last week we were on our way home from an appointment, and were getting on the bus. I was walking to get a seat while the bus was driving away from the stop, and I looked out the window and saw my companion still outside running after the bus! I yelled at the bus driver to stop, and he just looked at me like he was annoyed at my request. Finally he looked out the window, too, and saw Sorella Mura, and he finally stopped. It was pretty funny! We were in a city that she had never been to before, so if we had gotten split up, it would have been an adventure!
Monday we had interviews with President. He's so amazing! He always says exactly what I need to hear. Next Tuesday we have the whole mission conference with Elder Oaks. I'm really excited! President told me that he's really nervous to have to give a talk in front of an apostle. But everyone's really excited for this opportunity to meet an apostle of God and to learn from him.
We had zone conference last week, which was awesome! Our assistants always give amazing lessons. This one was about fear and doubts. We talked a lot about the mindsets that people, including us, have about serving a mission in Italy, and how important it is to not believe those mindsets, but to have faith. They gave 3 ways to overcome our fears and doubts in order to witness true miracles. First was to pray for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. I've learned so much about the importance of that in my life. Especially being on a mission. I'm not doing my work, I'm doing His, and I need His help to find His children. The only way for a person to be converted is through the Spirit. Without the Spirit, it just comes down to everyone's different interpretations of the scriptures, and there's no way to "prove" which religion is true. If you think about it, we do make pretty outrageous claims! We tell people that the Bible is incomplete, but we don't have proof. We tell them that the pope doesn't have authority, which we also don't have proof of. And then we tell them that a 14 year old farm boy saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, but there were no witnesses. And that he translated the Book of Mormon from the golden plates, but the golden plates aren't even here as proof of that, because an angel took them. It really is an unbelievable story unless you have the Spirit.
The next step was to pray for more faith. With faith, you truly can work miracles. Doubt is the opposite of faith, and doesn't come from our Heavenly Father. It is so essential to have faith in the Gospel, and have faith that there are people waiting for the Gospel. The mindsets of European missions really are damaging to this work, and it's hard to overcome those. The 3rd step was to pray to see all the people as Heavenly Father sees them. Sometimes it's so hard to go out and talk to people that I don't know, in a language that I'm not fluent in. It's so easy to make excuses. But when I truly see other people as children of God, I have a desire to share the Gospel with them, to help them find our Heavenly Father and have the opportunity to return again to Him someday.
This Gospel is so amazing! I'm so incredibly grateful for this opportunity to serve my Heavenly Father's children in this beautiful country. I am so grateful for the chance to come closer to my Savior every day, to come to truly know Him and feel Him in my life.
Vi voglio tantissimo bene!
Sorella Hawkey