This week we found two new investigators! Maria is the neighbor of a less active we visit and she is willing to continue meeting with us. She's an herbalist (lets hope not the Colorado kind) and her work takes her out of town often. She believes that all religion is good and doesn't understand why affiliating with one would be important. I bore testimony to her that when Jesus Christ came to the earth he established his church with the correct authority that God had given him to perform ordinances such as baptism and conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost. Christ also gave this sacred authority to his apostles. But after his death, and the death of the apostles, his church over time was changed and distorted, scripture was misinterpreted, and the correct authority was lost. With time, many churches emerged to try and follow Christ's original church, but none practiced the complete gospel without having the authority to do so. Our church today is the restored church of Jesus Christ with all the same authority that had once been on the earth, given again to our prophet in these latter days. With this authority, we can be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and have eternal life with our families. I'm so grateful for this knowledge and told her if she prays to know if what we said was true, she would receive an answer.
Our second investigator is Samuel! And I love him. He was so interested in what we had to say and was eager to start reading the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it is true. I'm so excited to see him again.
A lot of people have been asking about Eunice. I wish I had a good excuse but we honestly just can't get a hold of her. We can't pass by her house because she lives over an hour away. It's been hard and sad, I miss her a lot. But I'm hoping when Doris comes back in town on the 2nd we can go to Roccastrada, see Doris, and then pass by Eunices and see where she's been!
A cool experience happened Sunday when after sacrament a boy walked in all by himself in a little suit looking so cute! He is American and told me he's in town staying at a family friends house who lives here. He decided to walk by himself to church just to take the sacrament. It broke my heart to tell him he had missed it, but I grabbed the branch President and the 4 of us went into a separate room where the bread and the water were blessed just for him so he could have his own sacrament after walking all the way to church by himself! The spirit was strong and I knew the little boy was so happy. Come to find out, the family this little boy is staying with for the summer is a less active family from Utah who decided they were done with America and moved all the way to Italy a couple years ago. We have been trying to meet with them for a while, but the wife is pretty anti-Mormon. We hope that this little boy can have a good example on them and soften their hearts so we can invite them back to church.
Monday and Tuesday we had scambio in Florence. I went with Sorella Insalaco and we taught some AMAZING people. A woman met us at the church and wanted to learn more. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of Christ's church on the earth today. The spirit was so strong and she was excited to learn more. After the lesson we asked if we could pray all together and asked her if she would feel comfortable saying it. She said "sure! Where's it written?" and started flipping through the pages of the Book of Mormon. We explained to her we don't used memorized prayer, but instead believe it to be something from the heart, like a conversation, to our
Heavenly Father. Well she was very hesitant to say it after that, but we told her we would help her. She then gave the most heart felt prayer I've ever heard and midway through she couldn't help but cry. By the end of it we were all in tears. She kept saying "I don't know what I'm feeling I don't know what I'm feeling". We hugged her and
asked her what it felt like and she said "peace". I felt so lucky to be there and see the very moment someone discovered for themselves that God loves them individually and confirm to her that what we had taught was true.
Palio is Saturday and the city is absolutely electric. I can't even walk down the streets anymore without hearing drums, chants, mass groups of singing, flags being waved in my face, parties, etc. Siena, since before medieval times, has been divided up into "contrada's" which they chose based on what neighborhood or street you lived in. To this day those contrada's still stand and the people are so loyal to which ever one their family has been apart of for generations and generations. I have seen grown men cry tears of joy when discovering their contrada would be competing in this years race. I feel so lucky to be here for this event!!! I love Siena so much and all its amazing
history so I will join the crazies Saturday and watch the horse race. It's about to go down.
I hope all of you have a great week!!!!
Sorella Williams
My favorite senior couple the Ferrara's. They came to Siena for Pday and I played tour guide. They took us out to lunch and gelato. It was the best!
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