Sorella Bonzo: Happy, Happy, Happiness!! 😄

BUONGIORNO!!!

Okay first, Beverly is still doing so awesome! She's so on top of it. She loves the Book of Mormon and the spirit she feels when she reads it. We taught her the plan of salvation Tuesday and we're like so where would you like to go? Of course she said the celestial kingdom. Then we asked "what do you have to do to get to there?" She's like "I have to be baptized of course!!" Right there we invited her to baptism for December 3 and she said of course she wants to get baptized!! She's only 15 though and every time she asks her dad he tells her to wait until she's 18 so we did a special fast for her this last week. She said that her mom is more open now. We are praying for her and hoping to meet them this week as well. She's so great though I love her so much! We get transfer calls tonight and I've been here since July so I might be leaving, who knows. When Beverly found this out she was soo sad. She told me that she wants to do her baptism early if I leave so that I'll be there haha but of course I had to explain that that's not really possible. She's so cute though and I love her like a little sister. I told her not to worry because we if I was to go, there would be another wonderful sister here to take my place. Which is true!,if that does end up happening.

The other night we called a less-active and we were pretty sure she didn't want to meet with us because she kept saying that she was too busy for us that week. We decided to call her one more time to t to set up an appointment and when we asked if we could see each other she's like "I can't hear you" then starts rubbing the phone on her shirt to make a fuzzyish noise hahaha it was so obvious that it was fake that we didn't know what to do and just started laughing 😂 ...it's just not her time to come back yet I guess.

Unfortunately Alessia (my new convert) is going through a little bit of a hard time right now. the day after her baptism her mom found an antimormon website and will not stop showing her tons of stuff. It's really hard because now her mom is very against our church whereas before she was taking the lessons and about to be baptized as well. When Alessia is with us she has no problems because we are able to explain everything to her with the spirit but then she goes home and her mom shoves more antimormon articles in her face. It's really hard but we're getting through it. She's strong and so is her testimony of the Book of Mormon so I have faith that she will be alright.

Saturday morning we went over to a less active's named Rosalba. It was really cool because usually she doesn't really care for our lessons (she's the kind of less active who doesn't think she's not active) but today she really needed us. We started the Book of Mormon over with her and read 1 nephi 1. She loved it so much she invited us back every Saturday to read together. As we were leaving she introduced us to her parents who live below her. They were this super old but really cute couple. The old man loved us. He would not stop kiss our cheeks and patting our bums hahaha. We asked if we could take a picture together and after the first one he took off his hat and smoothed down his hair all nice. Afterwards he's proceeded to show us pictures of himself when he was "young and handsome" haha so cute. He even gave us caramels!

That night there was another baptism! It was of a man named Benedetto (translated as blessed) who is literally the most amazing person I have ever met. He found the church about 3 years ago, gained a testimony of the church and Joseph smith and everything, but then his wife was very opposed him getting baptized because she is very catholic. He has 3 kids and is the most family oriented person I've ever met. He said that he believe that God wouldn't went him to break up his family for this. So he didn't get baptized, but he continued to study the Book of Mormon and he church in general. He went off the map after that, and the missionaries had no way to contact him. Then when I first got here, one of the members who he had become friends with invited him to her house to study the Book of Mormon and invited he elders as well. From that day the elders have been working with him and truthfully, miracles happened, especially with his wife! He stared coming to church every week and anyone who didn't know him thought he was already a member.--he does have more doctrinal knowledge than probably 90% of the members--But his wife finally allowed him to be baptized!!! He was beyond happy and so are we to have him as a member of our ward now. I just pray that one day him wife will come around so that they can be an eternal family.

Thursday was he funniest day of my life. Literally EVERYTHING went wrong. Every single one of our appointments weren't at home or didn't show up..our English course class didn't even show up! But it was my favorite day. So many funny things happened including when I put all of my pass along card in my skirt (like between my skirt and my body) so that I could answer a phone call, then 15 later when I wanted to give one out I looked down and they were gone! One of these streets must have a lot of prepared people waiting to pick up a card of Jesus off of the street and call us!! Another funny moment was when we were doing door to door and we rang this one guy's buzzer (is that how you would call it in America?) He answers and we're like "hi we're missionaries and we're gifting a book about Jesus Christ" he's like "look, I'm taking a shower. I'm not interested." Okay either it's a lot funnier in Italian or it was a "had to be there moment" either way we both could not stop laughing. At that same building there was an old lady who couldn't hear us so she just let us in. We climbed like 10 stair cases to reach her floor and then we got to her door and we're like "hi! We're missionaries!" She just looked at us, slowly closed the door, then locked it 😂 good times. And lastly, we did some finding in a pastry shop where my companion bought a pastry we'd never tried before and it turns out that it was soaked in alcohol! Hahaha she took a bite and she's like "sorell, I think there's alcohol in this, I mean I've never tried alcohol before but it smells like rum" haha and sure enough, it was! Che ridere quel giorno...

So although every single one of our plans fell through that day, we ended up meeting some cool people including the gate keeper at a park that we never go to. We talked to everyone in the park but no one was interested so on our way out we talked to the gatekeeper and he told us to come back and teach him! And in the part after being rejected by tons of Italians, we walked over to these 3 cute African girls who were sisters ages 10-16. We showed them a video and asked if they wanted to learn more and they said of course! (We'll pass them to the other sisters because they're in charge of the English speaking branch) But to sum up this day perfectly, guess what their names were? Happy, Happy, and Happiness!

We dropped sorella Littlefield off at the airport last night because she is finishing her mission. It was such a sad thing for us because we all love her so much, we've all gotten really close. But I think that he biggest thing that Sorella Littlefield taught me in these two transfers that we've lived together is to just be HAPPY! She taught me that no matter what is going on in life, if you just face it with a smile, everything will go a lot better, or at least you'll have a lot more fun. And when you really become this happy person, when we ARE THE MESSAGE (like President Kearon taught us to be), this happiness will start to rub off on everyone around you! God didn't put us in this earth to suffer, but to have JOY! And as we constantly search to be happy, we will see that life really is just a bunch of funny moments all designed to help you grow and become the best person that you can become! (Aka like Christ). Sorella Littlefield once told me that she believes that her purpose in life is to make other people happy. She has definitely fulfilled that purpose here in the great Italy Rome mission and I know that she will continue to fulfill it in her life back home. But may I suggest that should be the purpose of each one of us? To make others happy? As we serve and love others and most of all, share the marvelous gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone, we're fulfilling this purpose and spreading joy all around the world! I would like to invite all of you as Sister Kearon invited all of us to "GO SPREAD SOME JOY!"

I love you! No matter what's going on in your lives right now, know that happiness is always the best choice, and although it is sometimes a hard choice, it is a choice!

Love,

Sorella Bonzo

Cathedral we went to last week in monreale. It's all made out of real gold.