Baptism of Emilia!!!

Baptism of Emilia Rosello

Another Baptism picture off Emilia

Inside the catholic church

The Big Catholic Church

Chieti, gelato

Okay...this week--Ah so great!!!!! First off, last week after I wrote Sorella Mckenna and I went to this city named Chieti and spend our Pday exploring there. This city is BEAUTIFUL--on the top of a huge hill with a great view and all these beautiful old buildings and churches--exactly what you would imagine Italy to look like. We had so much fun taking a million pictures, buying gelato, and looking at churches. We went into several Catholic churches and we were seriously the ONLY ones in these churches! One of them was HUGE with a ton of beautiful art and we didn't see anyone else in there so we went exploring around the church in these creepy tunnels and stuff. It was beautiful to look at, but the thing that was so interesting to me was the spirit in these church. There's definitely a spirit in these churches...but it's so different from our church. I almost felt intimidated by all the crosses and everything. I feel like these people FEAR God, while in our church people LOVE God and you can feel it. When I came out I just thought "No wonder no one here goes to church!" If my investigators think that our church is exactly like that...no wonder they aren't coming. I'm so grateful for the spirit and the love that we can feel every time we go to church! So now I am in love with our little chapel here in Pescara with it's white walls and a few pictures of Christ. 

Also this week...WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Emilia Rosello is now a member! Planning a baptism was way stressful (especially since our ward mission leader was gone and the bishop didn't want to help and we had no idea what we needed to do), but we did it all and it was beautiful! We had a ton of people come (including three of our English course students!) and the spirit was so strong and it was beautiful! Okay so Emilia's daughter was so interested in our little blow up font before the baptism and she kept trying to get into it. When Emilia went into the font--her daughter started screaming because she wanted to get baptized too and she couldn't understand that she wasn't old enough. It was the cutest and funniest moment! Ah I am so happy for Emilia. She has known the church for six years and has met with the missionaries so many times--and now she is finally baptized! So grateful to be apart of this moment! 

Okay another miracles...I BROUGHT A JEHOVAH WITNESS TO CHURCH--AND SHE LOVED IT. Yeah. Her name is Mattia, we met her on the street the other day, she let us into her house, we talked about the BOM, she asked us what the name of God is (okay dad--homework for you...all these Jehovah witnesses keep asking me what the name of God is...why?! Why do they care?), she said she was interested and just wanted to see our church. She was true to her word and she came! During the sacrament meeting we had the confirmation of Emilia and an 8 year old boy who was also baptized and Mattia cried during the whole thing!! I was sitting with Emilia, but Slla Mckenna was sitting next to her and said how she couldn't stop crying and kept saying how beautiful these blessings were. I asked her after sacrament what she thought and she was saying it was beautiful and she wants to learn more. Che forte!! We have an appointment later this week and I have so much faith for her! Pray that all goes well.

We're also teaching this lady named Anna Pantalone and she is the best! I already talked about her, but recap: we met her in corso d'inglese and now we're doing private English lessons with her as well the class because... I think she just likes being with us. She's been divorced and has three kids that have all suffered much from the father; she's the strongest little lady and does the best she can. It's very interesting to see how different the people are that we teach--for some this is a search for the true church, but Anna she doesn't care about Joseph Smith...but she loves the spirit that she feels when she's with us. I love how here people can recognize a difference in us and know that we have something that they don't. I love being a missionary. Love you all. Till next week.

Sorella Knudsen

Our dog that we bought...jk. After our lesson with Elena, she asked us if we could take her dog for a walk and we were very happy to do it.

 

We found these ladies in the area book--they LOVE the missionaries, aren't interested in religion, but they were cute anyways.

Sorella Patterson making UN SACCO (a LOT) of pasta. Succede (it happens). It really is a wonder that I haven't gained any weight yet ahha! 

 We teach these Africans Italian and at the end of the lesson they always give us cookies and the strangest drinks.

 

Sono felice di sentirti! That's cool that already you got to meet one of Dallan's converts...if only people of Italy came to Utah more often...haha. Anyway this was another bellissimo week! First off...

We got a call Thursday night from our Zone leader saying that Saturday night we need to come to Rome because Elder Ballard wants to have a meeting with all the missionaries in this area!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sunday was stake conference and we were already planning on going to Rome with our ward, but now we get to go earlier and meet Anziano Ballard! All of us missionaries stayed in the villa (the mission home) and then we had to wake up super early to head over to the hotel (conference center). Both Elder Ballard and Elder Maynes spoke to us and it was so great! I was kind of expecting a talk about the atonement or how to follow the spirit...but if I could title it...it would probably be "How to deal with Catholics." Not what I was expecting--but it was SOOO helpful and I learned so much! It was basically just an apostle of the Lord giving us advice very specific for this area! He was talking about how we need to praise people for their belief in Christ and tell them we want to add to it, how important it is to establish who Christ and God are (the catholic church believes in the trinity, but most people don't anyways), how we need to emphasize the apostasy and especially help people realize that it has happened many times in the past and it is no different from today. He gave us all this advice to work with members and he went on a long time about how we need to convert the youth here in Italy! They did a study and almost all the church leaders in Italy were converted when they were about 18. Older people are so stuck in tradition that they won't ever listen to us, but the young people aren't! He really emphasized the youth and how we can have a greater effect through that. And he said a bunch of other great stuff! For the conference with everyone they only talked about missionary work and he said that when God gives a temple--he raises the expectation for the members...so now all the members have a great desire to do missionary work. Ah such a great conferenza! 

The work this week has been really great! We've had some really great lessons with our investigators and we've finally saw Maria and Elena this week (these are huge miracles). Emilia's baptism is this week and we are way excited for it!! Oh the other day we were walking when this girl stopped us and said "Hey I want to do lessons with you." It was right after English class so I thought she was talking about that and I started explaining about the class when she says "but you guys are a religion right?" "si..." "Yeah I want to learn about your religion--I met the Anziani (Elders) in Milan." We talked with her for a while, got her information, and we're teaching her later this week. We were so amazed. We didn't do anything and this girl just asked us to teach her. THIS THING NEVER HAPPENS. One day Sorella Spicq told me how it's easier for prepared people to stop the missionaries than it is for the missionaries to find and stop prepared people and that we should pray that prepared people will stop us. I've actually been praying for this to happen--and it did. God really does listen to our prayers!  

Read and pray every day!

Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Knudsen 

New Companion!

Bella Italia

Slla Mckenna and I!

Looks like you've had a great week! How is it possible that Kylie keeps getting cuter and cuter? And that RED hair! Ah so darling.  Okay so right now I am companions with Sorella MCKENNA! She is great. She's 22, from Georgia, bubbly, a little kid at heart (she brought a few stuff animals and Harry Potter toys with her), knows the scriptures by heart, loves easily, and so on. I miss Sorella Spicq and it's a little weird being with a new companion, but it's really good! So Slla Mckenna did three transfers in Rome...but in Rome everyone speaks a lot of English so she hasn't had as much practice as I've had...so suddenly now I'm the one teaching Italian and talking to everyone! It actually has been really good and not as hard as I would've thought. We may not speak very well, but we still do work! This week the work has really picked up here in Pescara, I have no idea why, but I am loving it! Suddenly we have so many appointments and things we need to do that we are late to everything. And we've seen a lot of miracles this week...

Okay last Saturday we had the best lesson ever with Emilia! Emilia has took the missionary lessons many times in the past, but she has never had a desire to follow the commandments or be baptized--but now she does! We just talked about how she has changed and she was just talking about how she hates reading, but she doesn't mind reading the scriptures now. Also, a couple months ago she was saying how she liked being immodest and wasn't sure about joining this church...well after this lesson I asked what she was going to do and she said we're going shopping to buy a modest dress for church tomorrow. This just showed me how much she really is changing and wanting to be better. The gospel changes lives! I am so happy and grateful to have Emilia! We also planned out her whole baptism and it is going to be so cute! 

This week we've also seen some miracles and got a couple new investigators: Daniela--a cute lady who met with the missionaries in the past and wants so badly to come to church, but her mom is way Catholic so we're trying to work with that. We met her the first day that Mckenna was here--after all our plans fell through and I felt like I was completely failing--but then we found her! 

Corso d'inglese is a huge success thanks to our party we had last week! We have so many students and all of them are great. There's one student named Anna Pantalone (which means pants in Italian haha) who is going to Australia this spring and wants to learn English really fast so we are doing private lessons with her as well as the weekly course. Yesterday we had the first class and I gave the spiritual thought at the end and it was one of those cool missionary moments where I felt the spirit talking through me. The way we pray is a little bit different than how Italians are used to praying and since we pray every class I wanted to explain how we pray and also what it is that us missionaries do. I talked about how God is our Heavenly Father, he loves, and he wants to hear our words when we pray. I talked about the church and what we do as missionaries and how we also want to become good friends with our students. I don't know I just felt like the spirit was really strong during this. It was a lot easier to talk and I just knew what to say. After, Anna asked us if she could come to church Sunday!!!! 

This week I have felt so much love for the members in the ward and the people in Pescara--I am so grateful for another transfer here. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. I'm never coming home. 

Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Knudsen

English class and more Pescara

A bit of our party we had yesterday

Me in front of the city Chieti

A member family we are teaching Italian to.

Famiglia Rosselo! Emilia is in the front.

Aw the baptism of Brooklyn and Eric looked so cute! Well this week has been so great! Seriously we have seen so many miracles this week and suddenly we have so many potentials and all these people are wanting to make appointments with us! I don't know why the last few weeks we didn't have anything and now we have a ton, I guess sometimes we just need to go through a tough patch. Also, this week we got our transfers...and...I'm staying in Pescara!!!! This is Spicq's last transfer so I thought for sure she would stay and I would go, but it's actually the opposite. It feels really right to stay because there is so much more that I want to do here! I'm getting a new companion tomorrow--Sorella Mckenna! She has only been out here for one more transfer than me...so together we are way young in the mission and hardly know the language! I'm a little nervous to not have Slla Spicq to rely on when I can't understand anyone, but I'm sure we can do it! I've heard that young couples like us always see more miracles so I'm excited for her to come and to work hard! 

This week Slla Spicq and I set some mete pazze (crazy goals) to keep us more motivated each day, like call someone to repentance or ask for 50 referrals (we got to 28 without receiving any--but then the next day we got six without hardly asking). Anyway one day we decided to give away a BOM in a different language--we chose Russian and Spanish! We went the whole day without meeting anyone who spoke one of these languages and at the end of the day we ended up having some an extra hour. An hour to do finding and find someone to give these books to. We sat down to pray to know the direction we should go and immediately Spicq said we need to go visit this member Sara in her shop, which I thought was a little strange because we visited her the day before. We went anyway and asked Sara if she knew anyone of these lanuages that we could give a BOM to. Immediately she knew two people so we wrote a note inside and she gave them to her. She gave the book to her spanish friend already and she is reading and loving it (hopefully more on this next week)! Then while we were talking with Sara, her friend came in and started talking to us. Her friend loves Sara and was very interested in our religion so we got to tell her all about what we believe and bear our testimonies. She took a BOM, promised to read it, and then meet up with us to talk about it. One of the best parts of being a missionary is getting to see moments like this where you have nothing, you follow the spirit, and suddenly you find miracles and people who want to listen. 

Also, in Italy most baptisms come from referrals from members and then from English class. Because of this, the church has established a whole program with lessons and advertising for us to use for English Class. Yesterday was the first class of the year and we decided to start it off explaining the program and having a party. This week Spicq and I have been working really hard to get everything set up and make it into a success. And it definitely worked! We had SO many members, friends of members, and random people from the street show up! We played all these games, I made delicious brownies (I found out Italians LOVE brownies so I've learned how to make them and now I am every one's favorite :) ), and we had so much fun! We had all these people asking questions about the church and we made so many friends. Ah it was so good and I'm sure we're going to get so many investigators from it!  

This fast Sunday almost all the testimonies from the members were about missionary work! It wasn't like this for the last two fast Sundays that I have been here, but lately we have really been working with visiting members, inviting them to work, and involving them in our work and I think it has really paid off because now all these members are talking about all these experiences they have had on their own and encouraging others to open their mouth. Really members are the key to missionary work because they can share the gospel more naturally than us missionaries sometimes. This (how to work with members) is something that Slla Spicq has really learned on her mission and I'm excited to keep applying it!

Ti abbrachio! 

Sorella Knudsen

Faith to keep going...

Be excited for me to come home. I HAVE SO MANY DELICIOUS RECIPES ALREADY.

more pizza. haha. But SO GOOD

Italia e bellissimo!

Looks like you've had a great time at Education Week! I pretty much died of laughter to see you in the Newspaper! Wow you're famous! But good picture of you and your friend! Sounds like everything is going good and thanks for the thought you shared!

Okay well this week has been great...and hard. My companion says that Satan tries to make Missionaries disobedient and if he can't do that--then he discourages them. Well I'm proud to say that I always try to be as obedient as I can...but this week I fell into the other trap for a few days, I'm sad to admit. For some reason we haven't been able to contact any of our investigators this week except for one lesson with Emilia (her father had to work so he couldn't even come). It's almost the end of this transfer and I realized how hard I've worked and how little has come from it. I haven't been perfect, but during this month I have really pushed myself in talking to as many people as I can...and after all of that to have... nothing...(okay that's not fair of me to say, I have definitely seen a lot of miracles with the investigators that we do have). Idk I just got a little sad about how everyone complains about how awful their lives are, but won't even listen to us or give change a chance. Sometimes it's hard for me to find the balance from leaving the apartment with such great faith that we will find people and then returning with nothing and trying not to be disappointed. The thing is I KNOW that there are prepared people here, but for some reason we haven't found all of them yet. Satan has a great hold here and if people would just listen for a second...anyway I was discouraged and didn't see the point in talking to anyone.

But then we had our District Meeting Monday and it was seriously all for me. We just talked about our purpose and how it is to invite others to come unto Christ--and I have definitely invited a lot of people to come to Christ or learn more! I also learned a lot about following God's will for us. Sure I would love ten baptisms every transfer, but if everything was easy--then where would I learn? This transfer has been hard at points--but I have learned so much! I've learned how to plan better, how to follow the spirit, how to really focus on my investigators, how to always have faith, how to do finding, how to explain our message, etc. God wanted me to learn these lessons so I had to go through this tough path to figure it out. I'm grateful to have this testimony that trials are really here to strengthen us and bring us closer to God--something that most people don't believe here. I've really learned that numbers don't matter, if I do my very best everyday to find people to teach. I'm grateful that through this all I have been given the talent to always smile, at least others can see my light even if they won't listen. Also, the other day I had a thought while I was doing tracking on the street, trying to talk to everyone, that God was just kind of like--"Sorella Knudsen I'm trying to get these people to listen to you too, but they're also ignoring me." For some reason this made me feel a whole lot better. Yesterday Spicq and I talked to over a hundred of people and we didn't really have any success...but that didn't even matter to me! I'm a representative of Christ. I know my purpose. I am doing my best. I'm doing great now and I'm ready to keep working and to keep loving and to keep getting rejected. :) 

Also, I had a tender mercy this week--Antonio came to church! He's my sweet non active member and we haven't been able to contact him at all this week so I thought for sure we wouldn't see him at church. But he came in his nicest suit with Jesus is the Christ by Talmage and his old BOM in hand with the biggest smile on his face. After sacrament, he gave me the biggest handshake and thanked me so much for bringing him back to church. It just made me happy to know--hey I am making a difference! If I'm staying in Pescara the next transfer, my number one goal is to convert his wife!

Love Sorella Knudsen

p.s. My English is odd now. I said a prayer in English for the first time in three months yesterday and it was the most pitiful and hardest thing I have ever done. The language of prayer in Italian has become so much more familiar to me now that I had to translate my prayer into English and it was seriously awful. 

Miracle of the week!

P-day--We visited this castle

At the castle

Zone Conference

P-day at a castle

Another picture by the castle

Just a morning run to the sea

Ciao! Come state? Wow this week has been so great! I have the best miracle to tell you! I can't believe I'm almost the end of my second transfer out here--it seriously feels like it has been a week compared to my first one. I'm glad you like your new job! And it's about time you made it to High School ;). Aw Kelsey is at college!! I can't believe it! She just graduated last week, I swear! Have fun being almost empty nesters now...poor Jordan ;). 

Okay now to my miracle of the week :). So a little background info...we've been teaching this girl Emilia from Argentina. Her mom became a member there, loved the gospel, and has been trying to get her whole family involved for many years now. Emilia is now ready and really wants to be baptized, but the other members of the family (there's two sons and the dad) don't really show an interest. This past week we took the bishop with us to the lesson to meet Emilia and to give a blessing on the house (the family thinks their house is haunted). While we were teaching, the dad (Sergio) came home early from work (this never happens) and the bishop invited him to come over. The bishop went on saying how he blessed the house and he noticed a huge lack of priesthood in this house and as head of the household he needs to have the Priesthood to bless his family. It was very direct, but so filled with the spirit! Sergio was like "yes I know." The Bishop gave them a talk about the importance of family prayer each day and invited him to start doing. Then he invited Sergio to prepare to be baptized with Emilia! The wife was saying how she always knew that one day he would be baptized and how he has great faith and sometimes is the reason they make it to church so often. I think that fact that Emilia has been really interested and wants to be baptized and has the dad think about it a lot and maybe now he is really. Anyway we are way excited and I am so grateful for how things work out for us to have this miracle! 

In other news...lately our Mission President (and I think the church itself) is trying to put more focus on in actives in missionary work. There are a lot of in-actives here, but for some reason or another they have fallen away, usually for very small reasons. One of the things we are encouraged to do is to reteach the five missionary lessons to the in-actives so they will have a stronger testimony and come back to church for good. Right now we have two in-actives (who I practically consider as my investigators)--Iolanda and Antonio! We've been trying to teach them each week and bring them to church and I am very proud to announce--both of them came to church Sunday!!! We've trying to get the ward to become more of a family and serve and help each other more so people will stay in the church. This definitely worked for Iolanda and Antonio--so many people greeted them and I could tell they were happy to be back again. 

My ward here is so great and strong. It's a pretty young ward--I can tell you the family tree of this ward and who was a member first. These members are seriously some of the best members I have ever met and the cool thing is that they are ALL converts. Sometimes when I have a little doubt about finding people to teach, I just have to remember how every member in this ward was found through missionaries. There is definitely work here to do in Italy! There are so many people here prepared--I know it! I thought the main problem about serving in Italy would be that everything believes SO strongly in the Catholic church, but honestly I feel like most people don't here. A lot of people have noticed the errors and they only believe in part of it. Jehovah Witnesses are all over the place and there are so many churches and beliefs here. Honestly, I think the people here are a bit tired of all this confusion and has just chosen to have their own faith and not listen to anyone else, even me. Religion here is who you are and not what you do. Everyone is "catholic", but most don't go to church or pray or do anything. It's hard here, but I am so very grateful to be here where people so desperately need this message! The truth is not lost! God exists! He is our Father and wants us to pray to him! I know this gospel is true and I wish I could show everyone what that really means! 

Love you all--pray, read the scriptures, invite someone to church!

Sorella Knudsen

P.S. Thank you everyone so much for your letters and emails!! I appreciate them so much and I am the worst ever and I haven't written anyone back. It's not because I don't love you--I'm just focusing on my investigators :)

Phone Master!

Beautiful Italy 

A street in Catignano

Spicq and I!

Birthday girl with the best sweets ever

Okay I don't have much time today (because we're going to a castle with the elders whoo!) and my thoughts are all over the place...so we'll see how this letter turns out! Aw my cousin Todd is in Africa now? There are SO many Africans here and they are the nicest people and have such great faith! So excited for him! Congrats on your new job! I hope you like it!! And my poor parents...almost empty nesters now!

 

Okay this week has been great! First off, I am the phone master. My first transfer I never talked on the phone...because well I couldn't understand anything and I couldn't talk very fast. But now Sorella Spicq has decided that I am ready to talk on the phone and she has given me full responsibility. I am totally fine with talking to people and making conversations, but on the phone I can't see the Italians (the language is very expressive so even if I can't understand everything sometimes I can still understand by the expressions) and it's usually important information that you don't want to miss. I was scared at first, but now I am fine. So this just shows that my language is coming along--I can understand and speak at a normal pace! Whoo!

 

Well our investigator Elena finally came back from her vacation and we had a great lesson with her!! We talked about the Restoration again and she was saying all this all makes sense. She has always felt like the Catholic church has been corrupted and so she joined the Baptist church but she was saying how she cant feel the spirit when she goes to church and doesn't listen to anyone. Haha and there's the problem about other churches! Anyway we're really excited for her and we have so much hope. She does smoke though and really wants to stop--so next week we're starting her on the church's program to quite smoking. Kind of funny that I will helping someone quite smoking! Oh well Elena is so great!

 

Okay so this week I pulled out my "Hey can you hear me" device and decided to use it on my companions. I wanted to be nice about it and make sure it doesn't interfere with our schedule or sleep so we had a day where we would be at the apartment for a few hours--perfect opportunity. I turned it on, nobody heard it, and then I completely forgot about it. So the next day during morning study we suddenly hear the sisters freaking out and run out saying that there's a voice. Sorella Spicq and I went in and waited until we heard it. Then Sorella Patterson said, "you guys can hear it too?!? I'm not crazy!?!?!" Then she told us how she couldn't sleep at all the night before because she kept hearing this man's voice saying "hey can you hear me?". She didn't want to wake us up or think she was crazy so she didn't tell us and just laid in her bed, scared to death all night. She thought she suddenly got under a lot of stress from missionary work and went crazy. At this point I felt so bad that I kept the poor new girl up all night that I had to confess that it was me and just a little voice box. She wasn't mad at all, just grateful she wasn't mad or haunted. So that's my story about how awful I am. Although now I can't help, but laugh at it! Also yesterday was Sorella Mistura's Birthday and she thought it was so funny and was laughing all day long--so at least I made some one's day.

Till next week--Love Sorella Knudsen!