October 28, 2009

Ciao!

Another week of adventures! Last week during PDay we were walking around centro. I was looking at a little shop and Sister Nelson was waiting for me. She stood over by a lady and started talking to her. Eventually Sister Nelson asked this lady if she had ever met missionaries before. This lady, Susan, said no. Then I came up, and we started talking to her about the purpose of life and why we’re here. We asked her if we could meet sometime to explain the answers to the questions she has. She said yes, and then asked if we could meet at our church and then gave us the address to the church. We were wondering how she knew the address, when 5 minutes ago she said she had never met missionaries, so we asked her. She said that she is actually a member and was baptized 3 years ago! We had an appointment with her yesterday. She wants to come back to church and start living the Gospel again! She’s such a sweet lady. I seriously am always so amazed at how the Lord puts His children where they need him. What are the odds of us running into this lady in a huge city? The Lord’s hand is always in our lives. He can works miracles when we’re willing to be the instrument.
Susan is doing so much better! We finally were able to have a lesson with her. She readily accepts all commandments and knows that they’re for our good. I love the faith Nigerians have! They love God so much and will do anything to obey Him! Since we talked about her needing to be married, she set an appointment to get the proper documents, since she’s not an Italian citizen, and is planning on getting married in the next few weeks. She’s great! I’m excited to see her baptism soon.
Agnese is doing well. She was super busy last week, so we didn’t get to see her. But we talk to her every day and she is doing ok. She’s still praying to know about November 15th as her baptismal date!
Friday we had an amazing zone conference, where I finally got to see Elder Holland’s conference talk. (Here in Italy we don’t get to watch the Sunday evening session of conference) I also got to see Sister Millis, who’s also here on the island! We talked a lot about the condition of our hearts and how it affects everything else. We also talked about the condition of our minds and how much what we think about affects everything. Elder Reschke an example of his dad, who recently ran a marathon. After awhile, his dad started getting really tired and had a cramp in his leg. He was starting to get discouraged and wonder if he could even make it. After awhile of this, he realized that that mentality was getting him nowhere. So then he started thinking about his family and the people on the sidelines cheering him on. He went through what each member of his family might say to him if they were beside him. His conditions didn’t change at all, but the condition of his mind did, and that made all the difference.

Hope you all have a great week! Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawkey