Aspettiamoci Miracoli! (Expect Miracles!)

My companions and I by the beach

Dinner with the Bishop and his wife

A Beautiful Sunset

Streets in Italy--a lot like California

My companion and I in the rain.

Ciao! Ah this week was so great! A lot better than last week! I'm still confused a lot, but no longer sempre (always). In fact, I have followed full conversations this week! I feel like my Italian improves so much each day. The nice thing about not speaking much is everyone is so nice to me and will just let me bear my testimony. While sometimes people will ask hard questions to my companions about our religion. Oh and I am not a fan of Jehovah Witnesses, not because we have really met any, but because they create a bad name for us. Most people I ask have never met Mormon missionaries before and they don't want to listen to us because they think we're Jehovah witnesses. But most people here are very nice and will listen to our message. We meet so many people everyday that I feel like are so prepared for the gospel and sometimes it works out for us to teach them, but sometimes it doesn't, so I just hope we planted a good seed.
        One thing I love about this mission is that the mission President emphasizes how we are able to bring about miracles. Expect Miracles--Aspettiamoci Miracoli! My companionship likes to emphasize this too and everyday we pray for a miracle. Last week I was thinking why don't we pray for a specific miracle to happen. At the time we were only teaching single people and we wanted to be able to teach and baptize a whole family, especially one with younger kids. So that's what we've been praying for and last week one of the member families named Guisti (oh and their daughter Ludovica went to Pleasant Grove with Kyle and Todd!) invited us over to eat and...to teach a family! The family is very interested and the dad especially is so prepared! IDK if anything will happen yet, but I believe it will. Also, Paolo (the guy who read the BOM in one week, but won't come to church) is a very proud guy and even though he believed everything--he did not want to change and was almost rude about it last week. Well...we've been praying for the Lord to soften his heart and when we went back--he was completely changed! His faith has grown a lot and now he wants to repent. Oh we just love Paolo! He is so funny; every lesson we give him a pamphlet and the next time we come back it is COVERED in notes and questions. I've never seen anybody study a pamphlet so hard. Also, last time he showed us Alma 12:29 and said we were his angels (aw!). Also, we had two more investigators come to church this week! Miracles!
This week we did an activity with the YW where they were missionaries for a day with us. We gave them (the two of them) BOMs and pass along cards and we did finding with them. It was actually really fun and we got a lot of potential investigators from it. In the middle of it, it started raining so hard, but it was still fun trying to talk to everyone soaking wet. Oh that reminds me of a funny story...I debated about telling this, but it's just too funny. And mom, this city that I am in is pretty safe--there are people everything and we are always trying to be safe so please don't worry! Okay so we had some extra time one day so we went casa in casa and we went into this one complex and started knocking on all the doors. We knocked on this one door and five guys from Banglrdesa (sp?) answered, wearing...only towels. So sketch! So we hurried and told them we were missionaries and ran! But as we were trying to get out the door of the building it wouldn't open. There was a guy on the other side trying to get in and, of course, his friends were the five guys. They came down (this time dressed in more clothes) and we spent a while trying to open the door. It was just too funny and we were like ah we need to get out of here. I knew that is wasn't going to happen until we prayed or taught a lesson or something. So we asked the guys if we could say a prayer, most of them just ignored us, but one guy kind of joined in. A minutes after the prayer this other guy comes by, tries his key, and somehow it worked. The one guy kept saying "prayer works! prayer works!" Haha I guess the Lord works in mysterious ways! Too funny!
Well there's a bit for this week. Love you guys! Miss you! Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Knudsen

First week in Italy!

Hills around my home

What the city is like where I live

My companions, one of the anzioni, and 3 members of the Guisti family

Making Pizza with the YW. 

Handing out Book of Mormons

Kendra with Mission President Kelly and his wife

Ciao! Sono in Italia!!!

I have been assigned to the beautiful city of...PESCARA!   It,s on the other side of Italy from Rome and is right by the sea. There's the main city in the middle surrounded by hills filled with orchards and fields and then surrounded by mountains. I just love it here. I have two companions: Slla Spicq (pronounced like Speak) and Slla Mistura. Sorella Spicqhas been out here for over a year and is from France, and is my main trainer. Slla Mistura is from Italy (I am so lucky to have a native as my companion), has been  out for 3 months, and was the first 19 year old sister in Italy. Slla Mistura knows less English than I do Italian and Slla Spicq knows English pretty well, but not the best. Thus we have decided to only speak Italian. Seriously, I can count how many times I have spoken English (besides asking how to say something) in the last week and they have all been because we met someone who spoke English. It has been REALLY hard, but I have already felt a huge improvement and I think it's good. It has gotten easier, but man the first few days here--I couldn't understand anyone and I was confused all day long! Since Italian is Slla spicqs second language I can understand her the best, but Slla Mistura speaks so fast and with her accent--its very hard for me to understand. Its sad because shes my companion and I never know what she is talking about. But besides that, we get along great and have a lot of fun! Slla Spicq is a great trainer and will compliment me on everything I do, even when I know I just failed. I am very grateful for them.

Okay now about the work here: I feel like my area is very big. To visit one of our investigators (Emilia-a 19 year old single mom who's mom is a member) we have to take a train. The rest of our investigators are spread throughout the city so we are always walking or riding the bus to them. But buses are a great place to contact so it works out! We have lessons throughout the day and just contact along the way. The problem we;re having with out investigators right now is getting them to progress and come to church. One of our investigators is a 35 year old man named Paolo and he read the whole BOM in a week and believes it! But he has had a bad experience in the past with church so he will refuse to even let us talk about it (at least I think that's what is going on... haha I feel so helpless in lessons because I never know what is going on haha!). The members here are really great! I think there are about 70 people in the ward and we're in the middle of making a plan to get referrals from everyone.

Well this week has had a lot of scary and hard moments, but overall I love being here and learning more each day. I love missions because you get to experience all these crazy things that you never would otherwise! Such as trying to eat gross mushrooms from an old lady, having a lady ask us to heal her, and going up to random strangers and trying to talk to them. Oh three crazy experiences: We told this guy about the BOM and Mormon and the first thing he asked was "who are his parents?" Uh...I don't know. He got way upset that we were teaching about a prophet, but didn't even know who his parents were. Super random! Also we were teaching this other guy in the park and we couldn't go into his house because we were doing an exchange and it was only Slla Spicq and I. Well he was way upset that we couldn't come in (way sketch right?) and then he told us that he's an illegal immigrant and is hiding from the cops. Also, yesterday we were talking with this cute old lady and she randomly told us that her daughter is trying to sell her apartment if we know anyone who is looking. We took that as an excuse to get her number and didn't think too much about it. Then later last night we were talking with this girl, who you could tell has just been through a lot, and she said she was looking for a new apartment and asked if we knew of one. We were like yeah we actually do know of a place...We gave her the number.  Well I'm off to eat gelato on this very hot, humid day. Ciao!

Vi voglio bene.

Sorella Knudsen

Kendra is in Italy!

We have not yet received our first letter from Kendra but we found this picture on the Italy Rome Mission Blog so we know she made it safe to Italy.  This is a picture of all the new missionaries arriving in Italy.

Horton Hears a Who...gone Wrong...

Ciao famiglia! In uno settimana saro in Italia! Che pazzo! Sono molto molto MOLTO emotionata! (In one week I will be in Italy! Crazy! I am so so SO excited!). Well things are getting serious! I have my travel plans and soon I will be out of this country again! SO EXCITED.

My friend Cass

My companion and I by the temple

Okay I have some funny stories. First off, in the lunchroom there are these huge containers full of cereal and the Elders in my District decided last week to eat an entire container. Us sisters thought "why not?" so we joined the challenge. As a District (10 people) we ate 53 bowls of Coco puffs! Gross huh? Hahah! Here's the count for each of the Elders: 10, 8, 7, 6, 3, and 2; and the sisters: 5, 5, 3, and I ate 4! We felt so awful after that, but it was a lot of fun! Also, turns out you're not a supposed to do the "tower challenge" as I guess it is called. We got in a bit of trouble (more like our President just thought we were dumb), but it was fun anyway. 

Classic flying picture in MTC

This week my companion got the flu (BTW so far *knock on wood* I haven't gotten sick--quite the accomplishment at the MTC (I would say I haven't gained weight, but maybe cereal challenge might've pushed me over)) so we had to be in our room for a couple of days. It's an odd thing to have your companion be sick, because you can't leave her so you just have to sit in the room allllll dayyy longgg and study. One of the days I got really bored of studying so I decided to take a break while my companion was in the shower. I "stole" some sheets and I made our room into one huge blanket fort! It was great and we spent the rest of the afternoon studying in it. 

My companion and I in our fort

The blanket fort I made

My roommates and I in blanket fort

Also I got a little bored and decided to play a joke on my companion. Remember that little device I have that plays "Hey can you hear me?" in a man's voice every four minutes? Well I turned it on, put it under the bed, and waited. She was talking the first time it went off, said "what was that?", then just ignored it. The second time it came in clear--"Hey can you hear me?" and my companion starts freaking out wondering what it was! Okay you have to be so proud of me, because I played along so well. I acted freaked out and we spent the next twenty minutes waiting, listening, screaming, and trying to find it. Finally we found it and I confessed that it was mine. Luckily, Perkins just laughed and thought it was a great joke. Oh but I got her good! Then we decided to play it on our other roommates. We tried it two nights and they NEVER heard it and we didn't want to stay up forever so I turned it off. For Pday today we decided to do it again when two of our roommates were in the room. They were so scared and we searched everywhere (vents, windows, closets, etc.) for it. They got ten other girls to come in to hear it and look for it. We seriously looked for it for an hour and the whole time Slla Perkins and I are trying hard not to laugh. They kept thinking there was a man hiding somewhere or an evil spirit in our room. My favorite was when one of the girls said "this is like Horton hears a Who--but from the DEVIL!" One girl started trying to look under the carpet and another was going to go tell the front desk...so Slla Perkins and I decided it was time to find it. We helped them find it and they realized it was us and were so mad. But now they think it's funny. Hahaha I wish I could do this story more justice, but just know that it was really funny in person.

Girls that took part in the "Hey can you hear me?" 

 Well on a different note...I really have been working hard this week too! We met with our "investigator", Luigi, again yesterday and he has finally tried to pray and he felt that there is a God (yay!). We were so happy for him and now he's doing so great! But since we are leaving next week, we had to tell him goodbye...and it was really sad! I know he's not real, but he kind of feels like it. Also, he was so upset that we were leaving that he took the mission president's number and said he would call him to make him let us stay. What a cute, old man. Also yesterday I got to teach my first Italian in Italy...over skype! One of the teachers set us up to call some of his friends and teach them a gospel message. We had this 18 year old black girl who was born in Italy, but her family is from Gana. Her name was Pearl and she was so much fun to teach! It just made me really excited to teach an Italian and I will be doing that in a week from now!

Well can't wait to talk to you guys in the airport on Tuesday! Vi voglio bene (literally translates to I want you well, but it means I love you!)!!!

Love Sorella Knudsen