And to all a good night !

Thursday we met two new investigators. One is from Africa and his name is Mondi. He is a believer! It makes me so happy to see how strong his faith in Christ is. He came prepared with scriptures to share with us and wants to come to our church. Then we met Milli and Nicolo. Milli is the daughter of a less active and Nicolo is her 7 year old son. Milli has taken the missionary lessons on and off but called a lady in the ward because she wants to start taking them again. She's our miracle. When we asked her why she wanted us to meet with her again she said more than anything it was for her son. She wanted her son to grow up well. She had seen 8 year olds swearing and she wants her son to grow up in the church. She thinks there's a different feeling in our church

Friday we tried cleaning the baptismal font. We used bleach, calcium remover, any type of chemical, you name it and we used it! However, still it was not spotless. There are a lot of minerals in the water here so the minerals have dried in the font and makes it look a little less than clean. You could say like people have left their sins in there, haha. But we tried and scrubbed but nothing. Then we passed by Corrado and took him some cookies for Christmas and also Grace.

Christmas Eve was amazing! We went to the Reyes to eat lunch and man did we eat! Melissa served in Salt Lake 3 or 4 years ago and Victor served in Rome. In fact, he actually served in Pisa when it was still a part of the Rome mission. We had a lot of fun with them. And they have a 7 month old baby. She's adorable. This couple is amazing and I think that they are examples for everyone in the ward. For the night we went around and gave people on the street cookies. But we also gave some to our poor neighbors below us who get woken up by us sometimes and Francesco from the cafe where we always steal wifi. Haha. Serving on Christmas Eve was really the best way to spend it. I want to make it a tradition back at home. The little things make a difference and just a smile makes all the work worth it.

Christmas was amazing! We spent it with the Craddock family. They are half British and half Italian. They are very giving and made us feel at home. We played games with them, talked, laughed, ate, and had a ball of a time. It was good to see everyone at church too. My heart is full of love for the people here.

Monday was the 26th and yet another holiday in Italy. So we went and ate at a family's house with the elders and passed by Francesca’s because we haven't seen her in ages. But we were able to say hi to her and it seems like she's doing alright. She's probably just been busy with Christmas and family.

Tuesday we saw the Alvarados and they are doing fine! It makes me so happy to see them. We ate some panettone with them and talked. We were laughing pretty hard. It makes me happy to see them laugh and smile because they always work so hard!

We saw Juana and Claudio this morning and they're doing alright. They are still struggling a bit but want to pick things up this next year. I would do anything for them! They will be taking a family trip up to Germany either today or tomorrow and it's greatly needed for them!

So we got transfer calls this week! I stay and Sorella Nielsen will be going to Lugano. It's the only city we have in our mission that's in Switzerland! I'm going to miss her a lot but I know she will be great! My new companion is going to be Sorella Orr. I don't really know anything about her but I pick her up Thursday and drop off Sorella Nielsen.

Something that has been on my mind this week is the scripture 3 Nephi 17:5.

5 And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus spoken, he cast his eyes round about again on the multitude, and beheld they were in tears, and did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them.

Christ has just appeared to the Nephites and He had said that He needed to go. But the multitude was in tears. I feel like I often feel like that. Sometimes you have a spiritual experience or you just feel the Spirit extra strong for some reason and you don't want that feeling to go. You want to keep that feeling that Christ is with you for just a bit longer. Maybe we want the Christmas spirit to last just another month. After Christ saw that they were in tears, He had compassion on them and stayed for a bit longer. Christ will also stay with us. He will not leave us.

I love you guys! I hope you guys have a wonderful new year! Be safe out there!

The Reyes Family

The Craddock Family

Christmas Call with the Family

Sweet and short !

Ah! So I'm writing this email last and to be honest I don't have a whole lot of time and want to do it fast. And let's be honest, I'm sure we will have plenty of catching up on the week on THIS Sunday! I would say I'm pretty pumped to see all the beautiful faces over Skype (or FaceTime because I'm blessed to have an iPad).

This week. Well there was a beginning, middle, and end. Haha just kidding. Last PDay we had a zone activity at the Muggiò church. It was a lot of fun! We played some games and ate pancakes. It was a grand old time! I love this zone. We do have a lot of fun together.

We saw some families and we were blessed. We were able to see the Ferranti family. The mom is from Brazil and the dad is Italian. I love that family. Sorella Ferranti is like a mom. She always is telling us to eat more and that we eat too little. She has daughters that are in young women's and they both want to serve missions. They are just a great family and Sorella Ferranti has a big heart. She is so willing to help anyone.

We had interviews with the president before district meeting and that was super good! It was nice just to be able to talk with him about the work and how I'm doing. I was able to ask him to ask him some questions about what he does as a president and all I have to say is that they really do so so much! It blows my mind. The Allens are great and all the missionaries feel so much love from them. President Allen always looks at you in the eyes when he talks to you and you can tell he's listening. You just feel like he's looking right into your soul..... which goes to say, I'm sure his kids didn't get away with anything!!

We had our ward Christmas party. I feel like I'm going to be sad when I go home to Christmas parties now. The youth and the YSA put on a musical and it was amazing and so cute! It also made it 10x better that we knew all of them. The ward invited a lot of their friends and they are anxious to help us in the work. It makes a huge difference.

In short those are the highlights of the week. I wish I had time to say more but well, I'm about to get off the bus. So just know that I love you all and I promise my emails will get better after the holidays! Maybe a New Years resolution haha. Miss you guys!

A tradition the sisters have at nine months lol.

This is a presepe, aka nativity.

 All of the nativities are on steroids over here but they are absolutely beautiful! 

It's cool because they don't put baby Jesus in it until Christmas Eve or Christmas.

Our Centro

Baby, it's cold outside !

Okay... let's see if I can remember things.

There might not be anything too big to report on this week. I think our main struggle is getting people to see us. Sometimes we have set appointments with people and then they cancel, or forget, or any other number of things. It happens.  There are times where you have a million things you want/need to do but can't do any of them!

Anyways, great things did happen this week though.

Adriana was baptized!! She was adorable and it was a beautiful service. I gave my spill on baptism and everything went smoothly. Her family and relatives came and it was a good experience for everyone I think. Also, a huge shout out to the pianist that came to play the piano for us at the last second. Like people always say, little things make the difference. After the baptism, Maria (her mom) had us and her family over for dinner. My face hurt from smiling. The family is Peruvian and we ate some Peruvian food. It was absolutely amazing! Haha Anziani Yee even decided to try some of the hot pepper. Then after all of us tried little pieces of it and made him look like a baby for saying it was hot haha. The grandma finally had to stop us because Anziano Engen wanted to try a bigger piece. We were all so proud of Adriana and her choice to follow Christ.

Sunday was the primary program in church and I loved it. It was so cute and they all did so well! Adriana was in the program so it was a good day for her mom to come to church to see her confirmed and be in the program! Then after church we went to have dinner at the Sorgiacomo's. Really just with Andrea (our ward mission leader) and his mom with the Anziani as a farewell to Anziano Yee because he's going home. It was a fun dinner and again there was lots of laughing. They showed of videos of the Christmas party in past years and so it made me really excited for this Christmas party coming up.

We met Sandra. She was an investigator a while ago and she let us come see her. She really liked our visit and we showed her the Christmas Video. She has overcome a lot of difficult things in her life but just got good news on her health. So things are looking up!

We did another family night with la famiglia Rosa. Wow. I am always just so impressed with Sorella Rosa. She has 3 rowdy boys and is just full of patience in teaching them good manners around the dinner table! She also has a huge desire to do missionary work. I just think she's a good example for everyone. Her husband isn't a member but supports her in everything that she does. They really are just a really good family. I wish that you could see them. Giacomo (the five year old) would just melt your heart if you heard him speaking, especially because it's in Italian. I think it's adorable to hear little kids speak Italian.

Tuesday we did transfer predictions because it was Anziano Yee's last district meeting. It was a pretty normal day.

So the reason I'm writing on Thursday is because we had a mission tour yesterday! Elder Johnson of the Seventy came to talk to us. It was awesome! The Spirit was so strong and I felt like I really received some answers that I had been looking for. We got to see lots of missionaries from all over the mission. So I got to see Sorella Rosano, Fife, and some other of my peeps. It was a really great day!

One thing that I really liked about the mission tour conference was what Elder Johnson talked about. He talked about Paul and his missionary experience. Paul had received revelation in a dream to go to a city to help a person but in the end he didn't find that person, wrought a different miracle, and in the end was rejected. I think this is so relatable in a sense. Sometimes we, well at least for me, feel good about something, feel promptings, and feel like it's what we should do but then when we follow through with our "gut", it doesn't turn out like we thought. Everything doesn't fall perfectly into place. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean that we didn't receive that guidance. It doesn't mean that we misunderstood that inspiration. Sometimes, even though we may be inspired to act or do something, does not guarantee that everything will fall into place.

Well I love you all and I'm hoping you guys are spreading this Christmas cheer and "singing loud for all to hear".