Christmas in Italy!

BUON NATALE!

Christmas morning

        It was so awesome to skype with you guys! I pretty much just laughed the whole time! Thanks for getting skype worked out so I could talk to EVERYONE at one time. All the other missionaries were jealous! Haha. Love you guys! Hey tell me what Dallan said during his Skype call. And how did Chantel and Mckay visit him? Haven't they read the white handbook :) haha

        Well Christmas was awesome this year! Sad to be away from my family, but I still got to talk to them and Sorella Felice and I had a great time. We got to sleep in, watch two movies, and spend a lot of time getting fed by members. It was fun to relax, but when Friday came around and we started working again...it actually felt really good! I even missed finding a bit! Love being a missionary. 

Dinner with the members!

A member has this in their house

          So the great thing about this time of year...is that all the members are having parties and this year...they decided to invite us missionaries! We went to this one party and everyone seemed kind of nervous to see all us six missionaries, but we started talking to them and soon became friends. the member came up to us after and told us about how her friends raved about how great we were and want us to come back! Slowly, slowly we are breaking down walls!  

 

My Italian best friend

          This Sunday I was asked to give a talk in church. We decided to see this as a great excuse to invite EVERYONE to church. I was once told that to get people to do something...you have to make it seem really cool. So we talked to all our friends, potentials, investigators and told them how I have been given the HUGE honor to talk in church in front of everyone and how this is a huge deal and they should put everything on hold and come see me speak. It kind of worked! A couple more people came to church! And we had a lot more questions and people seemed more interested in coming! Piano. Piano. Anyway I gave a talk on testimony and invited everyone to share their testimonies with other people. It was easier than I thought it would be...the language is coming very easily now! 

Birthday party! The mom is Sandra!

 

 

Our dear Sandra! 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay so we have this one investigator named Sandra. She is the mom of a recent convert...she's kind of scary and mysterious (she was the investigator of the Elders but they were too scared so they gave her to us), but we love her anyway.  A week ago we invited her to come to this church event, she came, and then she asked if she could come to church the next day! She came and she also came yesterday to see me speak! Her son had a Birthday this week so we had a little party in the church for him and she was so excited that we did that. We gave her a BOM and we have an appointment this week to read it with her so hopefully everything goes well. Lei e bravissima! 

Till next week!

Vi voglio un mondo bene! 

sorella Knudsen

Merry Christmas!

 -This week has been great and crazy! Last P-day we got to go to Castello Sardo which is this beautiful city by the sea with a huge castle on top. It was the most beautifulest thing I have ever seen. Wow I am so lucky to be here! 

 

I've turned into a mean old Italian lady here.

REPENT YE ITALIANS! PENTITEVI ITALIANI

Castle Sardo

 -This week we got a little creative with our finding techniques and stopped by the cemetery to comfort people and tell them the plan of salvation. It didn't really work too well...no one wanted to be bugged. We did have this great conversation with this one lady and we asked for her phone number she said she didn't have it memorized (that's normal, no one knows their numbers here haha) and left her phone at home...when all of the sudden it went off! Hahaha! So funny. And she was so embarrassed...”oh I thought I didn't have it!”

-We have this investigator family who lives right above us named the Dore family. They are awesome! The dad is death, but reads lips so well that it's not a problem. We go visit them all the time and they make us food. They are great. If only they will come to church.

Dore Family

-Speaking of church...so for most Italians...they go to church for Christmas and Easter and that's it. People don't like the idea of having to go to church every week. But guess what this means! A ton of our in-actives came to church! It was awesome! Everyone gave them a huge warm welcome and I think a lot of them realized what they were missing and want to come back again!

-This week I had a scambio with the sisters here...and guess who I was with...Sorella Mistura!!! My cute little Italian mom! Except it was kind of a fail. We were a supposed to meet the sisters in the middle of the island, switch, and then I come back to Sassari with Mistura...but they really didn't think it through and there was no train coming back to Sassari that night so I got to go to Cagliari! Without any stuff haha! But I'm sure it was meant to be because we saw so many miracles with them and they let me borrow a lot of items.  

-Also we had zone conference! And I got one of your packages! I had my companion open it and wrap it up for Christmas so I don't know what it is yet. I probably won't get the other package for six weeks...haha oh well. Also, I got something from the Stewarts...slla Felice opened it and said it was so cute that it had to be wrapped and put under the tree. Idk what it is...but thank you so much Stewarts!

Zone conference

  Christmas party with the ward. Us and the Elders that I serve with!

 -Also. I changed my name. Knudsen is just too hard for Italians to say...One time in Pescara this member went on this huge rant on how ugly my name is. So I made a new name tag with...CANUZZEN. So I am now Sorella Canuzzen. It's the strangest thing because...EVERYONE can say my name now! I might actually be known among these people! Yeah! Haha! I'll probably switch back and forth so people can see how you say it and how it's written.

Wow Chantel is married!!!!!!! Thank you for the pictures! I wish I was there, but it's okay. I'm glad everything well! You need to send me more pictures and details! :)  Well I am so excited to talk to you guys on Christmas!!! I hope everything will work out!!! BUON NATALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

                                                          Love Sorella Knudsen

Busy Week and Christmas Fun.

Wow so many events happened this week!

-Anyway I am way excited for Christmas here! It will be sad not to be home, but the ward here has given us so much stuff and has filled up our schedules with meals. It's going to be so awesome and I'm going to get so fat--of really great Italian food! 

I love oranges!

-This week we got to go Caroling! Which was awesome and a ton of people came up and asked who we were. 

-Okay for my whole mission I have been trying to find some service to do...but I can never really find any! No one wants help. BUT this week one of the neighbors invited us over to help them with their ceiling. So I stood on a tall latter and nailed the ceiling...and I did I good job. You should be proud, dad. 

-This week we had an English course party and it was a huge success! We had a ton of members and students come and they all had so much fun together! I have a feeling that soon some of our students are going to become investigators!

-Sassari put on a religion conference thing this week where they invited a few religions to come and speak and tell how they are helping their youth. We had one of our members speak and told about missionaries. It was so awesome to be one of those missionaries that he talked about and have some people come up to us after and ask in amazement why we left our families and homes to do that. Well let me tell you... :)

-I LOVE SASSARI!!! It is so awesome being here. It's not too cold and there's no snow (which I'm kind of a little sad about but that's better for finding so I'm happy). This city is not too big...but it has parties and festivals and street markets every single night! We've seen bands walking through the streets, huge concerts in the square, etc. It is awesome here. It's awesome doing finding--because there are people EVERYWHERE. I love this cute old city. 

-We're teaching this cute Philippiana lady who wants to be baptized! But won't ever come to church because she works every Sunday. But she's hilarious and says things like... "Save the American potatoe." "Take the book, leave the boyfriends!" and we honestly have no idea why she says these things! 

-And the best for last: Angelo!! I don't remember if I already told you about him, but here's the story again. He called us wanting to do English, but he can't come when we have English course so we arranged to have private lessons. He asked us a few questions about our church and then we explained everything and he seemed so interested! Our second lesson we watched The Restoration and he told us all these questions that he has. We taught him the right way to study and to pray to help him get an answer to know if the BOM is true. We invited him to be baptized, he said he will if he knows this is true! Maybe this doesn't seem like something, but I just feel like he is so sincere and really looking to find the truth. If he studies and prays like how we taught him...I know he will get an answer! Slla Felice and I have a ton of faith for him. Hopefully he stays strong, but he seems great! 

Well that's all for this week! I love being a missionary and serving people all day long and inviting other to learn more about Christ!! This gospel is true! Good luck with the wedding!!!!!!! Love you all!!!!

  

             4 great members and delicious pizza! 

Living in Sassari

Sorella Felice and I

Okay I have so many things to say and I don't know how to organize it so today you get bullet points of random thoughts :)

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY JORDAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give him a big kiss from me hahaha. Has Jordan stopped growing yet or will I come home to a 7 foot tall brother? 

-By the way mom, so far on my mission I have never felt scared for my life. So you don't have to worry. Also I found out that a huge storm hit Pescara and it was very serious. Whoo I just missed that one! 

-So crazy that Chantel is getting married!!!!!!!! Wow. Also, I feel weird that you have a life size picture of me...please treat me well and don't let anyone take any inappropriate pictures of me. I'm still a missionary after all. 

-Will you send me some actual pictures of Kayden so I can stare at him all day or show these Italians? 

-I finally got to meet some of our investigators this week (we have more, but I guess they're on vacation...?). Anyway one's name is Antonella and she's great. She's 60 years old, but does not seem like it at all. She told us how she doesn't think that the Catholic church should have idols and be kissing pictures of the Madonna. We told her she's right. Now we're helping her have a testimony of the BOM. I love meeting people who pay attention to that voice that tells them when something is wrong and when something is right. 

These are huge candles which are in every chapel and I guess once a year they bring them all out and have a parade. Man I hope I get to be there.

-Okay so this week I was wearing a skirt with two layers and I guess the bottom layer got all messed up and it made my skirt look weird in the back or something. Anyway I was on a bus when this old lady noticed it and tried to fix it, but couldn't...and then all of a sudden five old ladies had their hands up my skirt to fix it. And I'm just standing on the bus like.. "Whoa what is going on?!?!" This is why I love Italians...there's absolutely no boundaries hahaha. Luckily I had good tights on underneath. 

A less active and I...with the fluffiest cat ever

-Sorella Felice's family has a tradition every year where they have "Candle time" every night. Candle time is when you turn on some candle and do something Christmasy like singing or drinking hot chocolate or telling a story. So every night here we do it! We've listen to Christmas music, made a tree, decorated the tree, and we eat a lot of Christmas sweets :). 

Our cute Christmas tree

Decorating our Christmas tree

-The members here are so great and take care of us so well. One guy asked if he could buy us our water and bring it to our house so that we wouldn't have to carry it. Also so I guess it is a VERY BAD thing to go outside when your hair is wet. Sorella Felice wore her hair in a bun for church and it was a little bit wet...and our relief society got way upset. They told her she was going to get way sick and we need to blow dry her hair. We told them we didn't have a blow dryer and suddenly everyone was talking about what they're going to have to do...because the sister missionaries have to have blow dryers. Then we got a call today and a member delivered us a blow dryer and told us we need to keep them better updated on what we need. Now we know to never leave the house with your wet hair (it's not THAT cold here yet). Haha love these people! What great members!!

-People here are crazy. Like seriously a lot more crazier than Pescara. Plus this town is smaller...so we get to know all the crazies real well haha. No mom they're not dangerous crazies, they just do weird things...I think all these people have been messed up by taking drugs and alcohol.   It's sad. But just a little bit entertaining...there's the guy who dances in the street, the guy who tells us he's seen Christ, the guy who shuffles, etc. I have a huge testimony of the word of wisdom, because seriously people are lost without it. 

-Hey so I got information about skyping and basically I can skype Christmas Eve, Christmas day, or the 26th whenever I want. So far we don't have any set plans (although we have a Philippians investigator who told us "you come to my house, we bake pig, we make Christmas." I'm excited hahah) so let me know when you want to skype and give me a couple times (you have to choose times between 9am and 9pm FOR ME) next week and I'll let you know which one! Thanks! Excited!

Me laughing at our English course students as we blind folded them haha

-Okay now for a little spiritual thought. I LOVE serving in Italy. And I love how hard it is and how we get rejected all day long. I used to really hate finding and I would try to do anything to not have to do finding, but here in Sassari...there's not a ton of options. So this week we've done a lot of finding. Then I found this talk by Holland from a talk named "missionaries and the atonement", which completely changed my attitude. Here's my favorite quote from it: 

"The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword--you are standing with the best life this world has even known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have a reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living son of the Living God knows all about your sorrow and afflictions. The only way to Salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him, the way, the truth and the life."

Aw I love it!!! Here is this mission I have gotten to know my Savior more than ever. Everything that I am going through in this mission...the Savior went through more. I love the fact that I get to bear my testimony of Christ all day long and if people reject me...that's okay because Christ knows what it is like to be rejected too. I am so grateful to what he did and I am so grateful for the mission to learn about Christ and try to do my best to thank him for the gift he gave me. 

Good luck with everything!!! Love Sorella Knudsen!!!

Sassari

Wow!  BECCA HAD HER BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My little nephew is so cute!!!!!!!! Aw dying. I might just spend my whole internet time looking at pictures. I kept thinking this week how any day he could be born. Ah. So happy. Congrats Brandon and Becca! Keep that baby small so I can hold him when I come home. And send me a million pictures!!! And is that another redhead? haha! Ah little Hayden!! Okay I'll stop now.

SASSARI!!!

 I am in Sassari !!!

Traveling to Sassari

  My thanksgiving: a three hour bus ride, an hour plane ride, and a four hour train ride. whoo!

 Wow it is so awesome to be in another city and I am completely in love with it here!!! In Pescara we were mostly in a modern city, but we had a ton of little, old towns that we could visit...well Sassari is just one huge old town. It is beautiful. There's more sheep on this island than people. Everything is so old and so perfectly Italian picturesque covered with cobble stones and there's a catholic church on every corner. Also, I think I got the nicest apartment in the mission besides the one in Pescara (I think I'll be fine living in an old apartment building, but for some reason I've been getting lucky?). It is huge! It was fun living with four girls, but I'm actually loving just having Sorella Felice and I (less mess :) ) and the apartment is so huge. I am so blessed. Also Sorella Felice? Awesome. I just love being her companion! Her name means Happy and that's pretty much how to describe her--we already have so much fun together and we get along so great so I'm a happy camper. Oh here's a little make-my-parents-proud-moment...so this island is excluded and expensive to go to (according to the missionaries here) President sends the best behaved and easiest to get along with missionaries here so he doesn't have to move them around much and change companions. Missionaries here usually stay here for a while with the same companion. So I'll probably be here for a while...with Sorella Felice...it'll be great!

Sorella Felice and I enjoying some Hot Chocolate

I'm in a very small branch...but with a real chapel! In Pescara we had a ward and we were in a garage so it's so weird to see a chapel like this...for only like twenty members. The members seem awesome though! Yesterday they asked me to bear my testimony and after I talked about Christ and the joy of sharing the gospel blah blah blah I mentioned how this is a beautiful chapel and there needs to be more people here to fill it up. Then all these members, including the Branch President went up and said how yeah we do need to fill this big chapel up. Sorella Felice said she has never heard so many testimonies about missionary work before in that ward. So that was cool and hopefully we can get these members more excited about missionary work! 

 

Okay I have a funny story! So yesterday we went looking for inactive members and we found this old lady named Giovanna. She's this old lady, she was baptized into the church, but when we went over--she told us how she's Jewish and will always be Jewish until the day she dies. Her house is covered with pictures of the Jewish star and the pope. Then she told us how she reads the bible every day and loves the stories of Jesus. I thought maybe we had the wrong lady when we brought up Joseph Smith and she then started talking about how she believes Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ...but she already told us she didn't believe in Christ! So basically she is a Jewish, Catholic, Mormon. Hahaha I have never met someone so confused in my life...but to her it all makes sense. Our theory is that she was Jewish, but then became Mormon but now she is old and is going crazy and forgetting things. I don't know. Oh but the best part...She LOVES her dogs! Her walls are COVERED with pictures of her dogs and she spent more time talking to them than to us. I showed her a picture of Shasta and she went crazy over him. Oh great times in little old Italy. 

Well that's about it this time. I love Sassari and serving here with Sorella Felice! Basically all we've done is finding and I think this area will be harder than Pescara, but Sorella Felice and I work good together and keep each other going and talking to everyone so we're going to try our hardest here! Oh also, this week we got to witness a flash mob! We were in this square and then all these people in red shirts came out and started dancing and turns out it was something for special Olympics. After we went around and talked to everyone. It was great! 

 

 

Hey mom I haven't got your package yet, and I probably won't get it until the 20th when we have Zone conference (and that's if the Assistants are nice enough to bring it with them), but here's my address in Sassari which you can send me cards and packages and whatever! 

Corso Giovanni Pascoli 75

07100 Sassari Sardegna 

Italia 

I am going to the Island!

 Name that movie.

Picture of Beautiful Italy

Emilia and her daughter doing my hair. So cute.

Okay so I have news...the call came in and I'm out of Pescara. I'm getting called to SASSARI, SARDEGNA with Sorella FELICE (Felice means happy in Italian)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited. I LOVE Pescara and I've loved my time here and I'm going to be SO sad to leave my investigators...but I am SO excited. I just feel like my time here is done. I mean I've been here six months and I have worked A LOT. I could stay because I love these people so much, but when that call came, I just knew it was right. I'm way excited to go to the Island! I hear it's beautiful and there's lots of sheep and they have their own type of Italian language and I have no idea what to expect, but I'm excited! Everyone says Sorella Felice is so much fun so I'm excited to party up Christmas with her! 

 

 

Saying Goodbye to some great friends in Pescara

 

So in Pescara there were four sisters and two elders...well my companion, Sorella Mckenna, also got her transfer and she is going to Rome! So we are getting blown out! My good friend Sorella Patterson (we've practically been together our whole mission) is also going to Rome. So three sisters are leaving Pescara and two sisters are coming. It's kind of sad because we've made so great process with our investigators and now they're getting whole new people. But I'm sure they'll be fine. This weekend has been full of goodbyes. The ward is so upset to lose three sister missionaries (they love their sister missionaries here, we are their angels as they call us...no offense elders). The bishop is especially upset to have less missionaries because he's so into missionary work. 

 

 

 

 

 Saying some more Goodbyes to great friends in Pescara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This cute old lady might be making us some "American" thanksgiving food Wednesday and then Thursday will be transfers so I'll be traveling all that day. Oh guess what...I have to take a plane to get to Sardegna. Haha so awesome that I have to take a plane to get to another area in my mission. And I can only bring one suitcase...so today I've been sorting all my stuff into things I need and things I could go without for a few months or who knows how long (usually the people who go out there are out there for a while because the plane is expensive). I'm not bothered at all, I really don't need all the stuff I have. 

 

Okay now I wanted to share a quick thought for everybody. Sometimes life is hard. It is way hard and sometimes God gives us things that we don't need or want. My favorite scripture, that I've really learned on my mission, is Ether 12:27. ...unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. . 

I love this scripture because it explains why we have hard things happen to us. Sometimes we get a little prideful or we get lazy in our prayers or scripture studies or we sin or something else. But God wants us to be better than that. So what does he do? He gives us experience to help us grow and to learn. God always knows what is best for us and he will always give us what is best for us, whether we like it or not. But he will never give us something that is harder than we can handle. We need to have this trust that God is trying to give us more faith and is trying to make us stronger so when we have trials--we shouldn't get discouraged but try our best to be strong and to use this experience to get closer with God. Sometimes that's hard to do and that's where we need to be humble and ask God for more help and he will certainly give us that help. "For my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves" And if we bear our burdens with faith and with trust, I know that God will bless us more than we can imagine and we will become stronger than we were before. So please don't get discouraged or sad when bad things happen to us--pray harder, read the scriptures, remember Christ and his grace, and move forward! When I'm having a hard time, I study patience...because EVERYTHING will pass with a little time. I love you all so much! I hope you have a great thanksgiving with lots of food! 

Guess what in exactly a month I get to talk to yall (my companion is from the south. yall comes out once in a while)! So be excited for that! Wow I can't believe all that is going on with the family; I am missing a lot. I'm glad dad is doing better and I hope everything continues to go well. Ah bridal shower for Chantel. I can't believe I had to miss that. But oh well. 

                                  Love you all!

The Rains came down and the floods came up!

Okay so this week has been great! Pescara flooded over. Seriously two feet of water was everything! I had to practically swim to get to English course and then we spent some time cleaning up member's houses this week. And now I'm a bit sick. But after what happened in the Philippians...I'm not going to complain at all! 

 

 

 

 

       The flooding and crazy rain in Pescara

 

 

 This week I went to Rome, again! But this time to do Exchanges with the lovely sisters in Roma 5 and that was a lot of fun.

 

A sister from Rome 5 who I did an exchange with

Also, the famiglia Dintino is making great process, they all came to Institute and and loved what the bishop said about the BOM and now they're reading it more.

 

Also, guess what. I sang in church yesterday with the three other sisters. Who knew I could sing? Wow do missions change you. Okay I can't tell you how great the ward is here in Pescara! Yesterday in church all the talks were on missionary work; the second counselor talked about how the members need to do more work and they are seriously working on it. Everyone is stepping up and trying their best to expand this ward in Pescara. The Bishop here is incredible, I'm pretty sure that every night this week he has a dinner set up with investigators, meno attivi, or part member families. A few months ago we visited with this excommunicated sister and her companion and we weren't able to get them to come to church. But suddenly the bishop went to work and got them both to come to church yesterday! What a difference it makes when the ward is involve. I feel so lucky to be in the ward.

 

So this week I got the cutest little envelope filled with letters from our extended family so tell them all thanks for that!! I haven't got your Dear Elder package, I'm surprised you sent me another one haha! Well I'm sure I'll love it when it arrives...or don't send me packages and just send me money. Because guess what? I can buy yummy gelato and cute Italian jackets with that :). Yeah I didn't get to see Cheree, but my city and area is really big...

 

Oh poor dad! Is he going to be healed soon or what needs to be done? I will certainly pray for him. Ah wow I can't believe Becca's baby is almost here! Send me a MILLION and one photos.

Best Pizza Ever---Sorry Dad...

 

Making Brownies with Analia and her daughter

Well next week is transfers and who knows where I will go (Pescara again!) vediamo!

vi voglio bene!