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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