Mission life in Sassari

Flowers

Flowers

KELSEY GOT CALLED TO JACKSONVILLE FLORIDA?!?!??!! I CANT BELIEVE IT. The same mission as Mckay and Grandma and Grandpa. So crazy. I AM SO EXCITED FOR HER. She will LOVE the mission! I am so sad I'm missing her by two months though. :( :( :( she's going to do great. So happy for her. 

Giant Easter eggs.

So today I am going to answer some questions:

1. How are my investigators doing? 
   Most of them are not progressing too well this week, but we did have two big miracles. One of them is Lucia Solinas. Do you remember that curly redhead? She was doing great in the past, said yes to being baptized and was excited about it...then nothing. We called to invite her to church but that week she wasn't feeling well and didn't want to come. Same thing the next week. And the next week. And the next. Etc. The thing is is that she has this boyfriend who has just been horrible and she was so mixed up whether she should break up with him or not and it caused all this stress where she couldn't think about the church or anything. We couldn't get anything done with her and didn't know what to do so we kind of let it alone for a little while. Then last week she sent us a text saying that she left him!!! We went over and she was sad....but so happy! She was up out of bed, cleaning the apartment, and looked great! On Saturday we went over and did the Restoration again which turned out so great because she learned so much more this time and now is really going to be committed to progressing. We talked about baptism and she had all these questions about the law of chastity, but she decided that once she knows this is true...she is willing to keep all the commandments!!!! She's praying and reading right now to find her answer!
   Also, there's Angela. Angela is the hardest investigator I have ever worked with, but I love her so much. She has just had the hardest life and her whole family has left her and she has nothing except for her grandson. Her grandson is autistic, she gets to see him once every week, and he is just so full of love that it makes her happy. But besides that she hates everything else in her life and has become really angry about it. Every lesson we teach her a little thing and then she spends the whole time trying to argue about it. But even though she is really stubborn...she does want to change and she knows our visits are making a difference. Well this week I just completely called her to repentance and told her she needs to stop doing all this stuff and that she can be changed. At the end we actually got her to say the prayer and asked God to help her change and become a better person. Yesterday night she gave us a call telling us how she read the BOM all day and then the long lost father of her grandson finally gave him a call and how the grandson was SO happy to be able to talk to his dad and it made her so happy too. She told us how she just felt a huge peace and she knew that God did love and care about it. Her heart is changing. 
   
   

   

   A lady from Spain that we talked to.

2. What did I learn from my Companion this week? 
   So much! The work has been hard here, but I have been blessed with the most amazing companions in my mission! Veramente! Yes with every companion I have had differences, but the cool thing is is that with each of my companions we work really hard and we find ways to become best friends by the end. I really haven't had a “bad companion” yet. All of my companions have helped me so much and I love these amazing girls. Right now I am with Sorella Patterson who is from Texas and as of right now is studying languages at BYU. She was born into my first city the transfer after me and since we were both new and had foreign companions...we would always talk about all of our problems together and we would talk about how cool it is to be a missionary. We became great friends and I couldn't believe when I heard that I would get to spend more time with her! This week we have really worked on trying to be open with each other about our problems so we don't have to deal with everything by ourselves. Also, this week I have learned the importance of service. Whenever Patterson feels down, she knows the only way to feel better is to stop thinking of herself and start thinking of others! The only thing that gives us true happiness is helping others!
3. What did I struggle with this week? 
   Being tired. I want to love every part of my mission so much, but sometimes I get tired and I don't feel like I'm reaching my full potential. Then I feel bad. But I just remember that I love God and I need to do it, so I get up and I do it and I end up loving it.
4. What are my goals this week? 
   This week I want to improve my teaching skills and love the mission even more. I'm improving my teaching skills by studying PMG everyday and then doing role plays with my companion. I especially want to work on asking better questions, because questions can make a huge difference in lessons. I can't believe that I have been out on my mission for a year now! So crazy! So this week I am reevaluating my mission and finding ways to make these last six months the best I can and love every minute of it!!
5. How has my testimony strengthened this week? 
   Lately I've been doing a study on Ether 12:27, which is my favorite scripture about how we can turn our weaknesses into strengths. I found all these cross references and talks about it and then I decided to put it to practice. I chose a weakness that I have and I have been praying and trying my best to make it into a strengths. My companion has been a huge help in this! I really do feel a difference and I know the atonement is so powerful that it can help us become the best person we can be.
   Also, I know that God really does listen to me and gives me the things I need to be happy. This week I was kind of feeling down and right at the moment I receive a letter—from me! Haha my MTC teacher had me write it and I told myself the exact things I needed to hear. God's plan is perfect. Also, every day is a miracle in the mission because I know that God's hand is placed in every path so that I can see miracles and help more of God's children.
6. Things that made me happy this week? 
   Talking with the other sisters in my apartment every day. They are so funny. Filling my scriptures with quotes makes me happy. Also, probably the best moments of the mission is the moment right after you teach a lesson and you walk away with your companion. After every lesson, we wait about ten seconds, and then smile and scream and talk about how great that lesson went and all the miracles that happened. That feeling right after you teach a great lesson...is seriously the best.
7. Other things? Yesterday we got to have guests in our apartment! Two couples of the mission—the Steurers (they work in the mission office) and the Fenns (they work for the temple committee) came to Sardegna to take pictures for the inside of the temple. My area will be inside the temple!!!!!!!!!! We invited them over for lunch and Sorella Rost made bomb Mexican food and they told us all about the temple. It's getting closer, but it's still going to be at least 1-2 years before it's done :(. But it is BEAUTIFUL! They told us all about the statues that will go inside and we got to see the design and all this stuff. It was awesome!! Save up—we need to come back to this temple!!! 
   
   

   

   Mexican food.

   Oh also...so for Mother's day call...so there is only one computer and 8 missionaries so I was wondering if it would be okay if I did my call on Saturday night May 10^th (which would be Saturday morning for you?)Let me know what times would work for you! Can't wait!!!!!!!
   Love you all! Right now a member is taking us to Stintino which I've heard is the most beautiful beach ever!!

 

Happy Easter!

Pizza with everyone.

BUONA PASQUA!!! Happy Easter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, buona pasqetta (the day after easter)!!!

Wow this week was crazy! I can't believe that I got to spend EASTER in ITALY! Easter here is a huge deal! And the day after Easter was a holiday too so that's why I'm writing you today. On Friday we got to see the Processione! Which is basically a religious parade. There was this one church which was filled with people and they reenacted the crucifixion, then they took his body down, placed it in a coffin, and took it around town, visiting every church in a huge parade. It was so crazy! I can't even put to words what it was like to be in that catholic church. It was almost scary...everyone chanting prayers, the priest yelling all these things, the way they worship Mary, etc. It is so crazy what church is like for people here. Nevertheless it was cool to see and after we followed the parade around a bit...because...Andrea led it! Hahaha he plays the flute and was in the band and he ended up being at the very front. The newest Mormon in Sassari led the catholic parade. Hahaha! 

Processione

Catholic church

  
Here instead of all the small little eggs filled with candy...they get HUGE chocolate eggs! I-ll give you a great picture next week! Also, another traditional sweet is the Colomba which means dove. It's a huge cake in the shape of a dove! 

Easter lunch.

Okay now to tell you about my Easter lunch....haha! So the Murgia family invited us over for lunch and we were so excited! We went over and they gave us some delicious red sauce lasagna. Then some pasta typical of Sardenga. Then they brought out another lasagna but this time with artichokes (so good!). Then they come out with bread. Then they brought out FOUR different meats—pig, lamb, lamb with mushrooms, and the organs of the lamb that we were expected to eat. Oh and a huge thing of potatoes! We were dying!! We were so full! We had to take long breaks between courses just to be able to eat it all. And yes, I did have to eat a bit of the organs of the lamb...I don't know what part it was...either the heart, veins, liver, etc. Why does Sardegna eat all of this?After that they gave us a huge chocolate egg, Easter cookies, and cake to eat! Italians know how to feed you!!!! I am stuffed for the rest of my life. And I probably gained five pounds. Oh well.

There's this member who works in a flower shop by our house and he has a friend named Pietro. We pass his shop often and we always see this friend so we always go in there and talk to him about the gospel. He makes a lot of jokes and didn't seem too interested. Then one day he asked for a BOM because his wife wants to read it. We wrote her a nice note in the book and gave it to him and they invited us over for dinner! They were so sweet and the Dad kept being a jokester the whole time, but they are really interested! They had their nephew and his wife over (who just found out she is pregnant!) and they asked a lot of great questions. Th mom is reading the BOM everyday and they are so excited to have us over again...and we are so excited for them!! 

Service

Besides all of this, I have really loved this week because my testimony has been strengthened a lot. I read a couple chapters of Jesus the Christ (YES dad I am reading it now so don't you worry!) about Christ's resurrection and it was so interesting to me and I knew that it was true. Lately, I've been meeting a lot of people who don't believe in God or Christ and it just breaks my heart that all these people don't know how happy they could be if only they could get to know their Savior. Also, the biggest difference between our church and the catholic church (well besides the whole authority thing) is how we see Christ. They see him on the cross in a sad and tangled state. Yes, we see that too...but instead we see him more as the beautiful resurrected being that he is today. Yes he died for us, but the miraculous thing is that HE LIVES today. He was resurrected! He gained a perfect body! He accomplished everything! And now he lives through each of us, helping us every day of our lives! I know he lives because I can feel him helping me everyday to become like him.

Anyway I hope you all are well...I CANT WAIT TO HEAR WHERE KELSEY IS GOING ON HER MISSION!!! Congrats to Isaac and Daniel! Put an extra flower on grandma's grave for me. Tell the whole family I love them!

Gypsies stole our keys.

Great week! But where do I start? I'll start with the key story before you get too freaked out. So gypsies are really the worst. I love them because they are children of God, but all they want is money from you. You have to be careful with gypsies. And pretty much all Italians HATE them which is kind of sad. Anyway there are some Romanians here that are not full-on gypsies, so we still talk to them, but everyone tells us to be careful.. Well sweet Sorella Udall and Sorella Rost visited some of them in the hospital and this little boy stole Sorella Udall's keys! And they know where we live!! We told the ward about it and they completely freaked out, had us on lock down in our house (to protect everything) and had a member sleep in the church until they could change all the locks. They changed them all the next day and now our apartment and the church is again safe! And that's the last time we are allowed to talk to those people haha. 

 We went to a pizza place and the chiefs were so cute and made our pizzas into hearts. Also, one of them is becoming an investigators for the Elders.  

This week was a little bit sad because none of our investigators could see us and we actually lost a couple of investigators. We got broken up with two times...over text...these people are so pathetic haha. Antonella and Francesca both told us they don't want to change and never to talk to them again. I'm actually okay with it...because we really tried EVERYTHING to get them to progress, but they never did anything by themselves. I think we needed to stop wasting our time with them....and focus on other people who want to change! We didn't have a lot of appointments this week with our investigators so we ended up doing a bit of finding and we have some great potentials that hopefully we will have some appointments with this week! I'm really excited because they are families and they come from member referrals! 

Maria! She bought us these flowers--so nice! Also if you look closely to the back...her walls are covered in catholic photos haha.

Church was really exciting yesterday; we had stake conference and the leaders from Rome came and spoke to us. Also they released our Branch President Moro and called a new Branch President—Gian Luca Murgia! It came as a shock to everyone, but I'm excited for this change. Fratello Murgia is in his 40s I believe and has five little crazy children who run around everywhere. I don't know how he'll have time for anything, but his wife is the coolest lady ever so they're going to do great! Also, the other sisters signed up for a solo in church, then one of them had to go get investigators so Sorella Patterson and I had to sing instead! We are not the greatest singers! And we had no time to practice at all! But I said a little prayer, we went up and sang ''I need thee every hour'' and I think it went okay. Watch out, I might be a singer by the time I come home. 

Porto Torres

Random things: There's this cat that keeps coming on our balcony, but I'm the only one who ever sees it! I see it, yell at everyone to come and see it, and by the time they come...the cat has ran away. So now I'm that crazy missionary who sees cats. I promise you that it exists!! Also, something about Sassari is that there's an ambulance every twenty minutes on the road. I'm not kidding. This city is filled with sick, old, dying people that an ambulance is needed every hour on every street. 

A street sign...only in Italy.

Lately I've really been working on my finding skills. I've learned that you can't really be a good missionary here unless you are good at finding. Our goal is to get at least ten quality conversations with new people everyday and get 3 new investigators every week. Might not seem too hard, but when you have 2-4 appointments everyday , when a lot of people reject you before you can start talking, or when you're tired...it is kind of hard! But we have been promised that if we talk to those 10 people everyday, then all of our numbers will go up. So I am committed. And it has totally worked! The more that I have tried my best to tell ten new people everyday about the gospel—the more that my investigators have been progressing! Those people aren't even correlated, but I know that the Lord is proud of us for talking to so many people that he is blessing us in all phases of the work. So all my studies have become about finding and talking to people so that I can be the best instrument that I can be! 

BUONA SETTIMANA!!!! 

LOVE YOU. Kelsey better be going to Korean on her mission so she'll be in the MTC forever.

Sorella Knudsen.

 

Turtles and Cinnamon rolls

We are colorful in this picture.

First off, HAPPY BIRHTDAY TO DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUON COMPLEANNO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TI VOGLIO BENISSIMO!!

Okay this week was so great!! Missions are so cool because you get to see miracles everyday! Right now I think I have more constant progressing investigators than I have ever had in my mission and it is awesome! Sorella Patterson and I have been trying so hard to have a great attitude, be exactly obedient, and talk to everyone. Well...I've always done those things, but...right now...we're really getting blessed for it. Right now is a really exciting time in the mission! This past month our mission hit the highest record of baptisms in recent history in Italy! Awesome! Our mission President is so great and is always talking about how the Lord is hastening his work! We've been working on obedience, teaching well, finding well, and now having faith in miracles. President Waddoups keeps talking about how Italy is about to grow so much and how baptisms are going to happen more often! I definitely feel that it is true! We are finding more people everyday who want to listen and more people are progressing—Italy is growing!!

Watching General Conference

This week we found this awesome new investigator named Maria Artura Bella (Bella means beautiful). One day we were walking back from an appointment and we walked past a catholic church and saw this lady in our path. The white-hand book says to not proselyte in-front of other churches...but Patterson and I made a goal to talk to everyone in our path...so we decided to talk to her anyway. When she saw us approaching she said that she was catholic and doesn't want to talk. We played it cool and said ''oh good...we just wanted to invite you to English course.'' then we ended up talking with her for a half hour about faith in Jesus Christ. We swapped numbers. Then she called us the next day saying that she just went to her church and the Priest was awful and she doesn't want to go back and she wants to know more about our church! Miracle!! So we went over to her house (which is COVERED in every catholic picture you can imagine) and had a great lesson with her about the Book of Mormon. Then on Sunday she came to General Conference in church, but came at the end of the session. We gave her a tour of the church, she sat and talked with the members for two hours, and then stayed and watched the next session. She felt the spirit and completely loved everything! At the end she just went on about how beautiful it was and kept saying how she wanted ''it''. She couldn't describe what this ''it'' is, but just kept pointing at everyone's faces and how happy everyone was. It was so awesome! We are so excited for her to feel ''it''--the joy of the gospel!

Other random things:

• -SANDRA SAID YES TO BEING BAPTIZED!!! Would she give us a date? no. But she said she will definitely be baptized sometime, but right now she doesn't feel worthy or clean enough (because she's still smoking). I actually really liked her answer because it shows that she really understands what baptism means—remission of sins—and that she really wants to be clean before baptism.
• -Antonella started reading the BOM and is loving it! She told us how she could never sleep before, but now she sleeps great each night. I told her it's a blessing from reading the BOM. And she came to General conference, loved it, and made friends with so many members.
• -Also, Angela is reading the BOM everyday and is becoming happier! I'm just so happy that all these people are reading the BOM, it really makes a huge difference for their conversion. This week I just gained a greater testimony of the importance of investigators reading the BOM. That book is true and makes a huge difference!
• -This week we did service for the famiglia Carboni (a family who has a large yard and house and asks the missionaries to come over and help all the time and then they make us the best pizza ever) and I got to rake up all these things in the yard and it reminded me how much I miss the good outdoors with fresh air!
• General Conference was awesome! We watched them all in the church with the missionaries. Our ward was so cute and let us watch it in English, but when we had investigators come we watched it in Italian with them. General Conference was so great and I learned so much! Everything was perfect for my investigators especially Uctdorf's graditude talk! I have to admit, watching conference was the weirdest thing ever! I've been in Italy almost a year now and I feel like this is my life. Home in Utah with all those mormons seems so weird. Everyone in conference was so white and clean and modest...does that really exist? I've been thinking it's just some crazy thing us missionaries do.
• Also, Sorella Rost and I (okay it was mostly her, but I came up with the idea) made some bomb cinnamon rolls...except we made them out of chocolate and nutella! Yeah. BUONISSIMO.
  

  
• Oh also last week for P-day we got on some good old pants and went to the beach. We played games, skipped rocks, found a turtle, etc. It was so beautiful. I can't believe I live here!!!
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  
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   Okay I'll leave you with two funny things about the people here. 1. they belive in colpa d'ario, which translates to fault of the wind, which basically means if the wind touches your neck too much—you will get sick. And that is why everyone here ALWAYS wears a scarf and will get mad at you if you don't wear one. 2. they really believe in dreams here. I guess I've just had too many crazy dreams to believe in them. But here every dream is from God and means something. Sandra tells us how Mary would come to visit her in her dreams to comfort her. People tell us all the time about their dreams and what they mean. Dreams are serious things here.
  Well LOVE YOU ALL. Slow Kelsey down on a bit on her mission papers. Thanks!
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