September 9, 2009

Ciao a tutti!
This past week I celebrated a year as a missionary! I can't believe how fast it goes. I'm not ready for it to end. I love these people so much and Italy feels like home to me. The people here are and forever will be part of my family.
Nertil continues to be amazing. Sunday we watched Legacy with him and a family in the branch. He loved it. He loves the stories of the Pioneers and the sacrifices they made. We ordered a triple combination for him, and he is so excited to start reading Doctrine and Covenants. He continues to do missionary work everywhere he goes and is just plain wonderful.
Kelly is doing great. His work schedule has been crazy this week, so we haven't really met with him very much, but he still wants to get baptized! He comes to every appointment with a list of questions for us based on what he's read. He's great.
Everyone else is doing well. They're all really busy lately, so it's been hard to meet with them, but this week looks like it will be better. Monday we had an amazing zone conference. The zone leaders gave a great training on 3 small things that make a huge difference, not only for missionaries and investigators, but for everyone. Those things are prayer, scripture study and going to church. Those three things are so simple, yet so important. But it needs to be more than just going through the motions. We need to make every prayer, every time we read the scriptures and every time we go to church a spiritual experience. Prayer is such an amazing gift we've been given. We can actually communicate with Heavenly Father, the Creator of the universe. And He wants to hear from us! Instead of just rushing through our prayers, we need to take the time to truly communicate with our Father in Heaven. I've learned a lot about that on my mission. I love to think of prayer as a communication, because it's not just us giving Heavenly Father a list of things we want, but it's also listening to the things He tells us and hearing and feeling His response. Also, I have a firm testimony that the more specific we are in our prayers, the more specific He is in His responses. For example, there was one verb tense that I was having the hardest time using in Italian. I pray every day for the gift of tongues, but one day decided to pray specifically for help with that verb tense. I had been struggling to learn this tense for about 6 months, but once I asked for specific help, I learned it within that same day. And ever since I can use it without problem.
Scripture study is also so important. But more than skimming, we need to feast upon the words of Christ. We need to visualize what is happening, apply the things in our lives and truly learn the words of the scriptures. There is such great power in the scriptures! Church is also essential. I know that as I go to church every week and try to have a spiritual experience, I always do. It's such a great opportunity to go to church every week, to partake of the sacrament and to draw closer to our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful for this wonderful work that I have the privilege to play a part in.
Buona settimana!
Sorella Hawkey