Sorella Williams: Siena goes to Florence for Elder Chistofferson!!

Buona (quasi) Pasqua!

I hope everyone had a good week!! I ate an entire bag of oranges so yeah you could say I've had a good week too.

We had a busy last couple days! Thursday we went to Roccastrada to visit Eunice and Adriano at their house and Doris and Luciano (her husband) at theirs. I was really nervous going into it after having that last lesson with Adriano, I wasn't sure what to expect this time around. But when we came over, he sat the table with us and Eunice and ate yummy pasta and we had a good lesson with them! It can be hard because most of the time he's only interested in talking about finances and investments in and out of the church. We can't always tell if he actually likes what we say. He told us he wanted to talk to our president (literally he wanted to talk to the prophet-I had to tell him that wasn't possible) about proposing to the church a good financial plan. We told him the one we have works pretty well because it's from God and it's the same plan they used in the Bible, which is tithing. I don't think he understands how big and organized our church really is. But by the end of the lesson he knelt and prayed with us and Sorella Rowe was so excited because he has never prayed with the missionaries before! They said they would try to make it to stake conference Sunday on the promise that we would introduce him to someone he could discuss investments with. Hope our branch president is ready for some serious money talk hahaha!

Then we visited Doris and she said would try to make it to Stake Conference as well. We really challenged her to invite Luciano (he wasn't at the house when we visited) and make sure he knows how important this is to her and how rare an opportunity it is to hear from an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

By Saturday night both families confirmed they would be in Florence the next day! We were so excited but still didn't want to get our hopes up because you know....Italians. We woke up on Sunday at 5 to walk all the way to the train station because there were no buses that early. We got to Florence and we met a couple other missionaries at the train station and we got on a bus headed to the hotel where Elder D. Todd Christofferson was speaking at. It was SO COOL to see how many members there are just in the Firenze Stake. I get so happy for my branch because it's a good reminder for them to see they aren't alone! Well, at the last minute both Eunice and Adriano with their kids Jason and Nicol, AND Doris and Luciano with their son Danielle came and sat by us and I was SO EXCITED that they all ended up coming. It was a really great meeting. Elder Christofferson mentioned that he had been to the Rome temple construction site just the day before and that he can't say exactly when it will be finished- only the prophet could do that, but within the next one to two years it should be done. He really complimented the Italian members and their handwork in the gospel. I was really grateful Doris and Eunice and their families were able to make it. I got to shake Elder Christoffersons hand after. whoot! and the lds.org photographer was there and I made sure I was camera ready at every angle and definitely made sure he knew it so maybe you guys will see me on the big screen you know what I'm sayin?

The rest of our investigators are progressing as well. Jennifer said she would finally pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true which is great and Irma is just hilarious and we pretty much have to chase her around at different bus stops in Siena just to teach her, that is if she puts down her apple sauce cups long enough to listen to us hahaha. oh my gosh she is the best. Everyone else is slowly, but surely coming along.

I hope everyone has a great Easter, but more importantly celebrates the gift that was given to us by Him instead of focusing on the chocolate eggs and weird man sized giant bunnies that we force crying kids to sit on (still freaks me out). Because of Him we have the opportunity to be forgiven, to be with families forever, and to have eternal life. There is nothing in human history that can compare to the magnitude of the atonement of Jesus Christ and there is nothing that can compare to seeing people truly discovering His love for them as I get to here in Italy.

love you all!

Sorella Williams