December 3, 2009

Ciao!

We had a great Thanksgiving here on the island, with much to be thankful for. Our investigators are doing great and we had a baptism in the branch on Sunday!
This week we met with Caterina (well, both Caterinas. We have two of them, as well as two Susans. It gets highly confusing!) She is so sweet! She's an older lady who has had so many trials in her life. She wants to believe, but has a really hard time having faith. She is so sweet, though, and loves taking care of us. This week she did finally tell us that she has some sort of a desire to change for the better. We're excited to see how things work out with her.
The other Caterina came to church with less-active Susan on Sunday. She hated church. But then they came to the baptism, and I don't really know what happened, but she then met with us the next day and was really into the Gospel and the message we shared, and she wants to come to church again next week. She is great, as is Susan. They are such a funny pair of friends- complete opposites- but they're so good for each other. Neither of them have any family or friends here and now they're helping each other in the Gospel.
Ilaria, Alfredo and Maurizio are so amazing! They came to church again this week and as usual fully participated and asked great questions. They were a little late because of the bus, but they kept apologizing and promising that they'd be on time next week. They're so cute! We had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation, which they loved. We're going to give them a baptismal invite this week. We're so excited!
We had another lesson with Isabella this week. She is amazing! She's only 21 (we thought she was way older) and is so prepared for the Gospel. We taught her the restoration. She also asks great questions and promised to come to church this next week. She has such a sincere desire to know the truthfulness of this message.
Yesterday we had a great zone conference that was mostly about the Savior. We watched a clip from the movie The Nativity where the wise men and the shepherds come to see the Christ child. They are all staring at Him in awe, and Mary says something to the effect of "He is for all mankind. He is a gift for us all." Jesus Christ truly did come to the world for US. He did it because of His immense love for us. His atoning sacrifice is a gift for each and every one of us. It is only through Him that we can have salvation. I love this holiday season so much! There's nothing else I'd rather be doing right now than testifying of Him every day. I am forever in debt to my Savior, but I am trying to do my little part each day to show my gratitude by bringing souls unto Him.

Have a great week! Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawkey

PS My companion started running out of things to say in her emails, so she asked everyone to send her questions to answer. She's received some really good ones, so I thought I'd send the same invite to you all- send me questions so I have more to say in my emails!