Sorella Williams: Ciao Siena!

Ciao tutti!

     This week has been absolutely crazy. Saturday we received transfer news!! President called me and told me I will be training a new missionary and opening the sisters back up in a city called Brescia, meaning me and my greenie are both fresh in the city without anyone there to help us know what the flip is going on. Brescia is way up
north so I'm literally moving across the country. After president told me the news, I had to sit down right then on the side walk and process everything. I'm excited for a new experience, but I am also way nervous! For starters, I'm only going into my 5th transfer and do not feel ready with the language to lead all lessons, talk with everyone
without much help from my companion, have meetings with bishop and ward leaders, open the Sorelle in Brescia, etc. I've never even been senior companion before, much less a trainer! But at the same time it's a cool feeling knowing the Lord has confidence in me to do this with a new born baby fetus missionary! All I know about Brescia is that it's a big city at the foot of the Alps and it has a ward!! With a real ward mission leader and real family home evening and everything! I'm traveling ALLLLL the way to Bergamo to stay the night tonight and then
traveling to Milan tomorrow to get my new companion and then we go off to Brescia. AH. I'm so nervous.

     The rest of this week has just been a lot of hard goodbyes. The people in Siena will FOREVER be in my heart. I lived and served here for over 6 months and truly fell in love with this place. I was grateful to my branch president who let me speak to everyone in sacrament Sunday so I could tell them how much I love them and how much I will miss them. The experiences I've had here have forever changed my life!

     My last day, yesterday, I had a HUGE lunch with all the people I love in Roccastrada; Adriano, Eunice, their kids, Doris, Luciano, and Danielle. I could not have asked for a better day. That was the most difficult goodbye. When I think back at how far these people have come with the missionaries I am so happy and feel like we truly made a difference for them. No one tells you the hardest part about serving a mission is saying goodbye. I had been frustrated because I prayed so hard to see Eunice and everyone again one last time and Heavenly Father didn't answer it the first time I went and I almost had a melt down in the middle in the road when I found out she wasn't home. But he answered it in the best way possible. A whole afternoon with all of us eating and laughing together. Oh my gosh I am literally crying writing this I love them so much. I love Siena. I think it's interesting how sometimes we pray and pray and pray for something to happen and if it doesn't we are upset and say why God? But I'm learning that his goal is not to make us suffer like we sometimes believe, he is just trying to answer our prayers in the way that will make us MOST happy and sometimes he takes plan C when in our head we only had plan A and B. I'm learning to trust him a lot more because when I do I see his plan was far better for me than the plan I had on my own. We need to trust him and have faith he never leaves us, it makes his job of answering our prayers far easier when he knows we recognize it was him helping us the whole time.

     Thank you for all your emails and support as I go into this next crazy phase. I have that feeling that I've had only a few times in my life where I'm on the brink of something either big or just really different and scary. I'm about to grow a lot these next two transfers. I'm hoping God qualifies me for this calling because I can't speak Italian for the both of us yet at all. There is nothing I can do, but submit myself to His will! I'm so scared. I think about how much I've grown in Siena and I literally cry everytime. I cannot imagine not being here anymore.

     I'm excited for new experiences in Brescia. Hopefully it's a little cooler there and not as many dumb pigeons.

Vi voglio bene!

Sorella Williams