ANDREA SI E BATTEZZATO!

OMG I can't believe my little Kelsey is going on a MISSION!!!! I am so happy for her, but so sad that I might not get to see her...get her to put her date wayyyyy late :))! KEEP ME UPDATED.

Okay first off...I'M STAYING IN SASSARI WTIH PATTERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so happy!!! This will now be my fourth transfer and I'm scared it might be my last in Sassari, but I am so grateful to have another chance here! 

Pants from Pakistan from my investigator!

          

Primary activity--being a missionary

                               

The beginning of the week started kind of hard...I was just so exhausted! Spiritually and physically! Everyone here has been getting sick and my body just felt so tired and then I lost a little bit of motivation to work and then I felt awful because of that and all this stuff. So I asked one of the Elders to give me a blessing and then everything was great and I've gotten more energy and excitement since then!

Elders with Andrea

Baptism of Andrea

Also........ANDREA SI E BATTEZZATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was one of my favorite days in all my mission! His baptism was so special! Okay so first Saturday morning came around and his mom called him and said how if he got baptized, she would disown him and never let him see his little brother again (he LOVES his little brother). It just broke my heart that his mom did that, and it was so hard for Andrea, but he decided to get baptized anyway! The spirit was so strong there—everyone could feel it and everyone was crying during the whole thing. I was just so happy! I couldn't stop smiling and laughing the whole time! Anziano Juhas baptized him and he came up saying “UN BEL BELLO!” which doesn't translate to English but basically means BEAUTIFUL! Then after he gave a testimony and it was the sweetest thing ever. He talked about everything he felt, how grateful he was, and then he asked if he could say a prayer to bless everyone who is against him getting baptized. Ah it was so sweet! And on Sunday he got confirmed and now he's the best member you have ever met! He has given up so much for this because he knows it's true! And now he's preparing to go on a mission! What a champ.

His baptism was also great, because we made great success with our investigators! We had four investigators and one great contact (who is becoming an investigator this week hopefully!) come, feel the spirit, cry, and love it! Sandra is still making great progress! We taught her two times this week and her testimony of the church is growing and growing and she's been telling everyone about our church! I heard her talk with two members yesterday and she said that she can't get baptized yet because she still smokes and she's not clean yet. She totally wants to become a member! She just needs to stop smoking!

Also, Antonella came!! Okay back story...so Antonella has been an investigator for 6 months now and she has never come to church and hasn't progressed too much. I was actually thinking of dropping her when this week we decided to teach the restoration again; we've taught it like five times...but we taught it anyway...and this time she understood it all!! She got what it all meant and she asked how she could get an answer and all these things. It was a great lesson! And the next day we called and she yelled at us saying she prayed and got an answer that the Bible is enough and they we don't need the BOM. I was able to talk to her a bit and she accepted to pray. Then the biggest miracle happened and she accepted to come to Andrea's baptism...and she CAME! She was an investigator many years ago and when she came to our church, she didn't feel the spirit so she hasn't wanted to come back yet. I think she needed her first experience to be the baptism because the spirit was seriously SO strong and she couldn't even deny how much she liked it! She really liked the baptism! Although she didn't come to church again...but we visited her after church and she finally opened up to us and told us all about her life and why she's the way she is. She has gone through so much in her life and we just testified of the atonement and promised she can heal from all these suffereings. It was so great.

Daniella and I

Sorella Rost and I

And I'll leave you with a funny note...so there are two awesome, great men in our ward who are not married and part of our goals is to find them a wife. One of them is President Moro of our branch and on Friday night he came over and gave us all this fruit and we asked if there was anything we could do for him and he said to find him a wife. So...the next day here we got with Antonella....hehe... I introduced them to each other. They started talking, flirting, and he gave her a ride home after the baptism! I have never seen Antonella smiling that much before. Hahahahahha! 

Funny group picture

Another group picture.

Oh another thing...last zone conference the zone leaders talked about how we need to “Do whatever you can to get whoever you can to church!!” And this week Sorella Patterson and I have done so much to help our investigators come to church...we have done laundry, baked food, set people up on dates, and this week Sorella Patterson even gave a massage to our investigator! But we've been having great attendance for church—the best I've had in my whole mission...so it is worth it!! Church makes a huge difference!

Love you all!!!!!!!

Cruise Ship

Boarding a Cruise ship

On the Cruise Ship

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay this week has been great and crazy! So on Tuesday we got on a train at 10 AM to go to Cagliari and then at 5PM we got on an overnight boat to go to Rome to spend 7 hours and then we got on another overnight boat to go back to Cagliari and then a train back to Sassari! It was so exhausting, but so fun! We got spoiled a bit...the boat we went on was huge and just like a cruise ship. We had nice rooms and we got to go up on the top of the boat at night...and we also did finding on the boat! There were mostly just a lot of guys who didn't want to listen to us and spends all their lives on this boat, but we did meet this one worker, Massimiliano, who was interested! 

View from the Cruise Ship

Cruise Ship Deck

In Rome we had a conference with Elder Patrick Kearon from the seventy! They split our whole mission into two groups so I got to see a lot of missionaries and past companions. I got to hear from the missionaries in my old city Pescara and it made me so happy to hear how my new convert is doing great. This conference was exactly what I needed. I went in with all these questions and within five minutes they were all answered and then the rest of the time was spent answering all these questions I should've asked. We didn't have a lot of time, but Elder Kearon was so inspired and said so many useful things for our mission like finding, teaching, and conversion tips. He's from England and was an investigator for 10 years (if I remember correctly) and many people told the missionaries to give up on him, but he finally got his answer and was baptized. He gave us a lot of tips coming from the investigator's side. 

This member taught us how to make Tiramisu!

A bit on my lovely investigators: Sandra who is now coming to church everyweek at 9am and is getting her testimony! She even got sick at 1030 but she wanted to stay for sacrament. She is becoming strong and loving the church, the hardest thing right now is just finding time to teach her because she is so busy. Something funny about her is that she progresses best when we don't do anything...let me explain...she is one of those people who will not do anything if told to do it—she has to decide on her own. Right now she is deciding to come to church, pray, and read all on her own and her testimony is growing because of it. Also Sandra is trying to quit smoking...so in support of it—Patterson and I have decided to quit eating unhealthy foods. Wish us luck!

This week Alessia and Sara worked at an old jail so they gave us a tour.

Okay so here I have these four best friends—Daniela, Sara, Alessia, and Andrea. We met them all through English Course and they are the most incrediable people ever that we just had to become friends. Also, these little stinkers found my blog and read it every week now (awkward) so since we've been gone a lot this week and I don't have any other cool thing to talk about...I will just go ahead and embarrass my friends by talking all about them. :P 

Daniela, Alessia, and Sara.

First there's Daniela! My puzzola! I met her first and she has been a great friend ever since. She is very strong and beautiful. She has a very good heart and wants to do what's right. She loves doing things for other people just to make them happy...and that makes her happy!

Sara! My masci! Sara is loud, energetic, lively, fun, smart, etc. She always brings a huge smile which lights up every room. She always has a great attitude and loves everyone.

Alessia! My tesoro! Quiet, but powerful. The most caring person you will ever meet. She has a big heart and just loves everyone unconditionally. She really appreciates everyone and does whatever she can to make other people happy. She is very selfless and always puts other people over herself.

Andrea! My ciobbo! He has the greatest love for the gospel and the spirit that you will ever find. He makes friends with everyone instantly (we did finding with him this week and he knew half the bus already and invited them all to English course) and finds ways to raise everyone up and make them happy. He is naturally the happiest person. Also....he stopped smoking which means...HE IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS WEEK!!!! We are so excited!!!

Anyway I'm really bad at complimenting people, but these are my best friends in Sardegnia and I love them so much! STOP READING MY BLOG NOW :)

This week I've been studying a lot about grace and what it exactly means. Grace is the strengthening and enabling power of the atonement. Every day we face things that are hard or challenging that would be hard to do on our own---but luckily we don't have to! Christ has gone through everything and knows exactly how he can help us—we just have to be worthy and ask. He can give us the strengh to overcome anything. Also, I've been studying Moroni 10:32 which says through his grace we can become perfect. His grace also takes our efforts and make them perfect. As a missionary, I am not perfect...I'm always making mistakes and sometime I feel like I am not enough...but I know that if I try my best and ask for help—Christ can take what little I do and make great results. And the best part of this is...that it is unlimited! He loves us just that much that he will ALWAYS give us more strength. The atonement is real. It changes lives.

Well love you family! Hope you have the best Birhtday mom! Only six more weeks and you get to see my pretty little face again on skype! 

Un Bracione!! 

Love Sorella Knudsen

I ate Worm Cheese!

 

Sorella Rost and I eating worm cheese. 

Awesome week. We've seen so many miracles this week, but it has had a bit of disappointments. We've been working so hard this month to try and get a baptism...but it seems like all our investigators need a bit more time. A lot of our investigators couldn't see us this week and there's just a problem with everyone to make this step. But don't worry--we're not discouraged and we're still working hard! 

I'm learning how to cook! Be excited. Best lasagna ever.

-So there's only three things you will hear about this island before you come here...1. There are more sheep than people. 2. they have their own language. And 3. they eat cheese with worms in it. Well guess what I did this week...I ATE THE WORM CHEESE. To make it they first take some cheese—then puts a ton of worms in it. The worms eat the cheese—then poop it out—and there you go—worm cheese. It gives it a really spicy, special flavor that these sardenians really love. Yesterday we had a meal appointment and they gave us this cheese so I had to try it. It was nasty. It tasted like cheese mixed with stomach acid.

We went over to Sandra's--and she pulled out SQUID to cook. 

Squid

-We had a great lesson with Sandra this week! Her heart is changing slow, but definitely changing. She told us how she knows this church is true and how she feels better each week and she knows she needs to come to church. We taught her the restoration a while ago, but she didn't really listen to us then, so we taught her again this week. Her son, a recent convert, has been memorizing the first vision and we asked her if he could say it. It was the most special lesson! We taught the restoration, she really listened, and then her own son told her the first vision. The spirit was so strong! We also taught the word of wisdom this week...she doesn't have a huge desire to quit smoking yet because she still doesn't want to be baptized, but now we're focusing on strengthening her testimony and hopefully that will help! Also, on Sunday, she asked us if she could pay tithing even though she's not baptized. She's already the best member ever...just needs to stop smoking!

-Have I told you how boss my companion is? In English course on Tuesday she told all our English course students that the pope doesn't have the authority.

-Angela is doing awesome! She loves coming to church and wants to learn and learn and learn! She's great, even though her lessons have been a bit hard this week. Angela is very lonely and has been hurt a lot in her life; she has a lot of questions and worries that she needs to get over to find peace. We've been taking this member with us who is really the nicest lady in the world with the greatest testimony...but our lesson was about two hours long...and we only got to talk for about ten minutes of it. This member just went off explaining the plan of salvation without us and explained all these things to try and help Angela. She even talked about how in the garden of Eden there was no seeds so nothing could grow...uh...pretty sure that's not doctrine! She wouldn't let us talk until the end and we just bore our testimonies about God's plan for us. Then after she told us how we need to not just think of Angela as a baptism, but to take more time to help her;ow she needs to explain everything because we don't speak Italian too well; and all this stuff. We honestly felt horrible after—and we didn't do anything! Then on Sunday we were talking with Angela and she asked if we could keep coming over, but not bring that member because she feels the spirit when we talk, but not when this member talks. This made us so happy! Because Angela recognizes the spirit and it strengthens my testimony that we are called to do this work—even if we have a lot of weakness the spirit is the one that teaches and we are set apart to have this spirit.

Teaching Alessia about the BOM!

Gelato with Alessia!

-New investigator! There's this really sweet girl named Alessia that has been coming to English course a long time and she comes to all our activities and loves all of it. We gave her a BOM and explained all the stories—she went home that night and read 11 chapters! We're really excited about her!

Andrea 

-Okay I need to tell you the update on Andrea! He's the coolest ever. Last week his family was all cool with him joining the church, but then this week...he got in a huge fight with his dad and brother and they kicked him out on the street. He slept on the streets for two days and then the third day he called the other sisters to tell them what happened because they are teaching his mom. We were so upset that he was on the streets with nothing (and it has been really cold during the nights and he got sick!) so us sister we got all these sheets from our closet and we made him soup and gave him all these things. He was so touched when he saw us—he couldn't even speak, he just kept crying and crying. He took the stuff, found a place to sleep, and just started praying and reading...when he got a call! His boss heard he was on the streets so he called him up and told him to come live with him and his family and they will take care of him and let him keep coming to our church! Also, his boss was so amazed at everything we gave him and couldn't believe that there were people that nice. I don't know who this family is, but they seem so awesome! It was such a miracle! This week Andrea lost his girlfriend and his family, but it was awesome seeing how happy he was anyway. Also, yesterday we had lunch with a bunch of friends and there was this one girl who was asking questions to Andrea about why he would want to get baptized and change religions. He told us how he became super religious when he was younger and loved going to church since then, but that there is a huge difference between his religion and our church. He said how his religion preaches and doesn't do anything, but how we preach and act. Yes we have crazy standards, but it's great because it means we really believe in these things. He feels a huge difference once he started coming to church here and he knows that it is true. He's the coolest kid ever. There's a lot of people that need the church...but this church NEEDS Andrea. With his testimony he's going to bring hundreds of people to church.

Well that's all. I LOVE this city! This people here are so crazy and so funny and just makes me so happy every day...even when times are hard. Not a day has passed in my mission so far that I don't stop to think how crazy and awesome it is to be in Italy. Yes some days are hard, but I would never trade anything for it. Also, this week I get to go to ROME for a conference and we're taking a night boat over! Should be fun, but I'm scared to miss so much time!

incinta dello spirito santo

-HAPPY BIRHTDAY KELSEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-So you know how in America when you eat too much food and your stomach sticks out and how we call it a “food baby” well instead here they call it :incinta dello spirito santo. Which means: pregnant by the holy ghost—because that's what happened to Mary. Oh Catholics...only in Italy.

Scambio! Sisters from Caglari!

-Italian: “sono Sorella Knudsen della chiesa di Gesu cristo dei santi degli ultimi giorni.”

Sassanian: “Eu Soggu Suredda Knudsen ieja di Jesu crischi e di ri santi di luschimi di.”

Did you know that Sardegna has a difference language? They all speak Italian (thank goodness), but each city has their own language! Sardegna has a lot of Spanish influence so their language is like a mix of Italian and Spanish. We actually get told all the time that the food we eat here is the same as in Spain and Argentina. First I'm trying to learn Italian, but I'm also learning a bit of Sassarese!

-Ah where has this week gone?! These weeks are going by TOO fast and I'm not a fan. Transfers are starting to feel like weeks. Where is all the time going?!?! Thanks for the pictures mom! I can't believe Slla Waddoups put those up! Tell Daniel congrats on his mission call to Jacksonville Florida! That's awesome! Looks like you guys had a lot of fun in St. George! Ah little Hayden is SO cute! You need to send me some pictures! Hey also...have you seen any pictures of me on facebook lately? All my friends here in Italy tell me that they keep tagging me in some...have you seen them?

Sassari missionaries and Andrea

-First off, BEST NEWS!! Remember Andrea from my last email who is awesome! But him becoming Mormon is creating tension in his family so last Sunday he dumped us and we were all sad. Well he went home that night crying...then he opened up his BOM and prayed. His mom came in and started talking to him and told him if this church makes him happy then she will support him coming. So he came back and is getting ready for his baptism! Then his whole family agreed to take the lessons so now the other sisters are teaching them. MIRACLES. 

girl's day lunch!

-Anyway this week has been awesome! We have three new investigators!! One of them is named Angela. First off, we started this program with a couple of members to have them pray for missionary experiences and if they do that for 20 days then there's a promise that they will have someone to present to the missionary. Well we did with this family named Mastino—and they gave us a referral this week! Her name is Angela, she is a little bit older—BUT SO PREPARED! She knows the catholic church is wrong, doesn't like the Jehovah witnesses, and is just trying to find peace and meaning. She heard about our church and told us she just wants to go to a church where she can feel the spirit and feel good. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes! Aprile 29!!! She is one of the best investigators I have ever had—we've met with her three times last week, she keeps all her commitments, asks great questions, wants to learn so much, so humble, and she spent an hour on the bus to come to all three hours of church! Angela just shows me how much God loves his children...she's this old lady that lives alone, wants peace, and has so many questions. God knows that she really needs the gospel so he arranged for her to hear it. I'm so excited for her, because I know how much the gospel is going to bless her and I can't wait for her to hear everything. 

My friend Alessia and I in old Sassari

-Also...WE HAVE A FAMILY! Their names are Simone and Francesca and they have three little girls. But it's a little bit complicated because Francesca was married with another man and had two kids, she's waiting on the divorce, and in the meantime is with Simone. Okay can I tell you how horrible marriage is here in Italy? Okay so the catholic church doesn't want divorces so they make divorces into a huge deal and you have to wait at least four years and pay thousands of dollars before the divorce goes through. So no one wants to get divorced so no one gets married here. Also, if you can only get married here if at least one of them is Italian...so all these immigrants here can never get married, so sad. Anyway Francesca was an investigator in the past, but then someone stole her BOM so we went met her she asked for a new one. We went over there and had a great lesson about the restaurazione. This couple was very sincere, wanting to learn everything (even though they have a lot of doubts about prophets). The best was when we invited them to read the BOM, Francesca turned to Simone and was like...”will you read it?!” And he was like “yeah I'll read it more than you!” then they started an agreement—he has to read two pages everyday and he writes down everything he learns and she will pray, think of a question, and then read. And we contributed and said we'll make them brownies if they do it. Hey whatever works to get people to read the BOM! They are awesome. 

A horse.

-In the meantime...things are going great with our investigators! Our investigator Antonella finally let us bring a member with us and it made all the difference to hear someone else's conversion and testimony. But again she wasn't feeling well enough to come to church so we need to help her get over that fear...I think she just needs to have more friends. We decided to postpone Lucia's date because she was not ready for the interview this week and now she's having a lot of personal problems and doubting so we are going to help her strengthen her testimony this week! And a ton of other things. Well time is going by too fast in the mission and it's scaring me, but I'm loving the mission more and more each day! The best feeling is working your hardest and then seeing a ton of miracles and blessings. Buona settimana! VI voglio bene!!

Sorella Knudsen

Spiritually rebirthing people is hard work

Us missionaries and our best investigator friends

This week has been the best week ever! But also exhausting!  Exhausting in that we're-been-working-really-hard-seeing-lots-of-miracles way.   So it's been great!! Well first President decided to have a zone conference (even though we just had one two weeks ago) so back to Cagliari for us!! This conference was really inspired and just gave us a lot of inspiration for our work and I just loved it! 

Yeah...that's my companion.

 

I also had to do a scambio (exchange I think they call it in English) with Sorella Udall—our little Greenie!—for a day! 

Greenie and I got a little wet!

Okay can I just tell you how much I love this sister? She's brand new in the mission, but she doesn't have any fear at all to talk to everyone and she is so happy and going non stop without ever feeling down. She makes us all want to work harder. She's awesome. Also, my companion is super cool! We get along so great! I don't know how I am so blessed to work with such amazing sisters!

Greenie with her first pizza!

 

Okay so remember my last letter where we invited 3 people to be baptized...and they all kind of told us no or not yet. Well Sorella Patterson and I kept up this goal and kept inviting everyone to be baptized! We had a lesson with our investigator Antonella and it was a tough lesson. It was filled with questions and distractions and all these crazy things...but we wanted to invite her to be baptized so we just kept praying the whole lesson that the spirit would come back and the perfect opportunity. And it came! She was talking about how she wants to kneel down and pray to know if the church is true and get an answer—then we asked that if she does get an answer...will she be baptized. She said yes! She told her we've been praying about it and we know she can be prepared for the 22 of March and SHE SAID YES!!!!! So were so happy! 

Then we went over to Lucia Solinas! She had her boyfriend over, and he was making all these distractions and talking about the most randomest things...but we kept bringing the conversation back to the gospel (this is like my biggest, constant struggle...just trying to actually talk about the gospel! Hahah jk). Lucia was talking about how she likes to help other people and so we read a scripture about how when we are baptized we promise to help other people. Lately Lucia has been having a really difficult time and we've been trying to show her how faith in Jesus Christ will help her. We read Mosiah 24 together which is about the people in bondage who the Lord strengthens and delivers. At the end we asked why the Lord helped these people (kind of a difficult question), but then Lucia answered “because they made a covenant with them”. We were amazed that she picked out that part so fast. We invited her to be baptized and you could just tell that it wasn't a surprise, but that she has really been thinking about it! She said she wants to do it and when we gave her the 15th—she said she would do it then!!! Then, ah it was so cute, she said “But it's going to be hard...I don't know if I can get up at 6 am every morning” Hahaha! She thought she had to live JUST like us. She was happy to hear that our schedule was not a commandment. Ah she's the best! We love her so much!

These two lessons were the hardest lessons of my life! Satan was using every force to try and stop us, but Patterson and I knew we had to invite them to be baptized so we stuck with it and just prayed our hearts out during these lessons and we were able to come out with two dates. After one of the lessons Sorella Patterson said “Man spiritually rebirthing people is tough work.” Ah I know that that is true. But it is also the best thing ever. We have been so happy this week with our TWO BAPTISMAL DATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

….and ….then....satan came. He got both Antonella and Lucia to stay home from church Sunday! You have to come to church three times before you can get baptized so Anontella can't make her date now (which is fine, we'll just give her another). But it just bummed us out that neither one of them felt like coming. Then the saddest thing happened to all of our missionaries last night. So there's this investigator named Andrea. Sorella Felice and I found him on a bus, but the Anziani have been teaching him. He is AWESOME! He's 20, loves everything about the church, and has been reading and praying so much. He is the favorite of all us missionaries and the whole ward. Well he came to this activity last night and told us that his parents are really against him getting baptized and it's causing a HUGE conflict in his family and he can't do it anymore...so he dumped us all. I still think he will get baptized one day.

Well that's missionary life! You get a lot of miracles...but also a lot of disappointments come to. A big struggle that I've had on my mission is going from having a lot of faith for miracles and then trying to not be disappointed or sad or when they don't come and keep having that faith. When you get discouraged and lose faith then you became less effective. I'm getting better though! I prayed so hard and had so much faith that Antonella and Lucia would come to church...and when they didn't...I was fine. I still have a lot of faith without getting discouraged! They ARE going to get baptized one day...but sometimes the Lord has his own timing for everything and we all know his timing is a lot better than ours. So this week has been great and we're seeing miracles everyday and finding people who want to listen and who want the peace that the gospel brings to us. THIS GOSPEL IS AMAZING!!! I fall more and more in love with it everyday. Love you family! Have a great week! 

In bocca al lupa" means in the mouth of the wolf...which means Good Luck! I thought this was funny! 

That is so funny that you got my Christmas package back! Aw man! Thanks for always thinking of me and wanting to send me packages mom! Maybe just send me the letters and some pictures of Hayden and Kylie and don't worry about the package! As much as I would love those chocolate oranges... it might not be worth sending me a package! I wouldn't mind getting some souvenirs here so maybe just put some money into my account instead of worrying about a package! Thanks! Also thanks for keeping me updated with everything. I'm so sorry to hear about Emily and I'm definitely keeping her in my prayers. Also, I'm sending home a memory card with copies of all my photos—let me know if you get it! 

Love Sorella Knudsen