Sunday Will Come

This week we felt like we watched our work slip out of our fingers. On Wednesday we taught our last lesson to Precious and said goodbye to her. 😢 We're really happy for her but we're going to miss her tons. It really all started with Rina though, telling us that she needs some time and ended with an investigator (Rosa) stopping us on the street as we were walking to her house to tell us that she will never change religions. Even our less actives that we have been trying so hard to work with are avoiding us on the streets and dodging our phone calls and visits. 

Our lesson with Rina was interesting. We started with just talking to her about our objectives for her and asked what she expects from us. This is when she told us that she needs more time. We're a little stumped on what we should do for her because she just basically told us to stop asking her to come to church because she just needs time. She said that right now she had her grandchildren living with her and her life is crazy. She still wants us to come over and see her, but is not willing to even consider coming to church at this point in time. 

Then as we got into our lesson (teaching her about obedience to God's commandments) there was a knock on the door and in entered 2 catholic "missionaries" (I'm not really sure exactly what they'd be.) They came in and read from the Bible with us and shared their thoughts and asked us our thoughts. It was kind of weird watching them do basically the same things that we do. In the end, if nothing else came out of that lesson, those 2 women gained respect for our church and understood that we are also good, normal christian people. 

We also had branch council this week, but no one showed up except for the branch president and us missionaries. He talked to us a lot about some problems that are going on. After that meeting we were pretty worried for Sunday, assuming that no one would come to church, but it ended up being one of the best days of my entire mission. 

So many miracles happened that day. I realized that we could've either gotten really down about what was going on in the branch, or we could do something about it. I woke up that morning with so much desire to work the hardest that I ever have in my entire mission for this branch. The talks on Sunday were about faith, and they were exactly what I needed to hear. Halfway through sacrament meeting 2 of the Elders' investigators walked in with their aunt who is a less active member who hasn't been to church in years. The branch was so excited to see investigators in church. I went with them to gospel principles and I cannot even describe the feelings in that room. It was just pure joy as the sister teaching was finally able to teach her lesson (without translation into English) to 2 people who were truly searching for a greater peace and joy in their lives. The less active sister also was able to bear strong testimony as was I, to answer their questions. I watched the church become all the more real to them. They stayed for the full three hours. And they too looked happier than I've ever seen them.

Then during relief society sorella taylor came and grabbed me, telling me that there were two women in the church who wanted to learn more. Our branch president had invited his cousin and her daughter to come to the church to discuss a few things with him, and I'm not exactly sure what happened but when we walked into his office the mother was holding a Book of Mormon that he'd just given to her. We walked in and they immediately noticed a difference in us. They said that they could see some sort of calmness in our countenances. She said that she was searching for something more in her life and she was asked us when we could meet. I love member-missionary work! Our branch president had already testified to her of the Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray about it. As she was leaving she asked us, "but wait, how do you pray?" We got to then teach her how to pray and say a little prayer with her as well. 

In the end, I have never felt the spirit so strongly in this church building than I did yesterday. I was more than content with how the meetings had gone, and then that little miracle at the end was like icing in the cake. 

We missionaries in this branch have set some goals for this branch and have decided to work as closely as we can with our branch president, being there for whatever he needs as he works through a few things here. We are also more motivated than ever to find, teach and baptize new converted souls into this branch as well as recover the lost ones. 

A continuous theme that has come up in my thoughts and studies recently is Faith. We know that everything starts with faith, and through faith, all things are possible. We are aware that it is by faith that miracles are brought to pass, and through faith, we obtain hope and subsequently follow all of the other Christlike attributes that we all strive to develops. But the thing that we sometimes forget, is that faith without works is dead. We can have all of the faith in the world, but if we don't do anything about it, nothing comes out of it. We have to take those first steps of action. We can follow the example of the father of the an afflicted child who desperately cried savior,  "If thou canst do any thing," he said, "have compassion on us, and help us." Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." (Mark 9:22-24) Although this desperate father could not profess to have a perfect faith, he acted on the belief that he had, and asked for our savior to make up the rest. Faith is not a stagnant thing, but a word that requires action. I have a testimony that as we grow our faith by putting in double the work, we will truly see miracles. 

Abbiate fede, e siate fedeli. 

-Sorella Bonzo

Random pictures because we didn't take any this week

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on the road again

Hello my friends! Did you miss me? Our zone conference fell on Monday this week and therefore our Pday was moved to today. So many things happened between last Monday until today so we'll see if I can remember a few highlights for you all.

Sorella Taylor has this magic headband that she wears. It's just a regular diamond headband but with her curly blonde hair I guess it really stands out. Whenever she wears it we EVERYONE compliments it and asks her where she got it. This week we had people on the street stopping us because of this headband. Like really we had about a 20 minute conversation about what we do as missionaries with this lady on the street and afterwards she said that she'd love to hear our message  and she was the one who stopped us to ask Sorella Taylor about her headband! So that's pretty cool because we figured out a new finding technique that actually works really well!

It's carnevale season which means.....boh...no one really knows... I've literally asked so many people what carnevale even is and when they celebrate it and at least down here in Crotone, no one knows. So after asking people and observing the city every night, I've come to the conclusion that Carnevale is a time to dress up in costumes (like halloween) nad destroy the city. Every night as we walk throught the center of the city we see tons of kids all dressed up in little costumes running around with this shaving cream looking stuff spraying everything. There have been a few close calls where we were almost hit by it but thankfully no damage so far. Also, there's always a new addition of confetti to the street every night. Oh, and one night I think there was some kind of parade or something because the streets were packed and so we stopped someone and asked them why and they told us that the Madona (mother mary) was walking around with the nuns or something like that. So yeah, that's the holiday that we're going through right now...not really sure why, or when it will end, but it's been really good for us because centro is always filled with tons of families at night! wooh!

We finally were able to see the africans again last Monday which was fun because we haven't been able to go for a few weeks. Juliet made us about 4 lbs of spicey rice each and some turkey.. let's just say we were full for the next 3 days. But we love visiting and are so grateful for their kindness. 

Our Valentine's Day was a little unusual but always fun of course! We wore our cute red valentine's outfits, but I'm afraid we looked a little too cute because there were one too many ragazzi who were still looking for a valentine that night. Sorella Taylor and I got to put our nonexistent acting skills to work when we had some young men trying to speak the little english that they knew to us. We both just looked straight forward with blank faces, they then began to speak italian and we continued to pretend like we had no idea who they were talking to. They started debating where we were from and in the end it was just really funny to us. We both were trying so hard not to laugh but we were able to pull it together and dodge a bullet there!

Then we went over to our investigator Rita's house where we were invited into a different house right next door by her nephew and his girlfriend. They told us that she wasn't home yet and said that we could wait with them. As we went inside they acted very suspicious closing the blinds and trying to make us feel comfortable. We were a little freaked out because we didn't even really know these people (we'd seen them once) and they were just acting really weird. (Keep in mind this is the family who is obsessed with my very american-looking companion.) As we sat down and they offered us the usual cup of coke and little treat, they got very serious. They proceeded to ask us if we could do a blessing on their house. We explained to them that we are all children of God, and therefore he listens to all of our prayers and answers them according to our faith and his will. After being pretty clear (at least I thought) that our prayers have no special powers and are no better than thier own, they immediately asked, "so....can you still bless the house?" So, my companion blessed a house this week! (She just said a normal prayer for them and their family bascially to make them happy and let us leave.)

On Wednesday we got to do to Cosenza for district meeting. It's another city in Calabria about 3 hours away by train. They were put in our district this transfer so we're switching off who which city we go to each week. Our zone leaders and sister training leader and companion from Taranto came as well so it was basically a mini zone conference (just minus one companionship in the whole zone- the sisters in Statte.) It was fun to be in a big district again and to see Cosenza. The highlight (beside district meeting itself) was eating hot, fresh cornetti from a little bar when we first got there. We also got some pretty had kebabs for lunch. 

In the middle of our lesson with Silvana (which was again held at the bar) she was telling us about her problems then she looks at this random older lady who was also sitting in the bar smoking and goes, "you know what I mean?" That gave this lady permission to join in on the conversation and so she came and sat behind me so I had smoke coming at me from the front and the back and 2 italian women talking at each other about their problems. It was definitely not an ideal situation, but with patience and a lot of silent prayers and seeking of the spirit to know what to say, we were able to get her back on track and with some inspired questions we were able to help her realize that the bar is really not the best place to feel the spirit and hear our important message. 

We got to teach Precious who is asolutely to a t her name, precious. She's just so cute and sweet and I have absolutely loved teaching her. She will be leaving this week to go to Holland and will have the opporunity to be baptized with the sisters there. We're really excited for her.

We had a really good lesson with Rina this week but she still didn't come to church :'( But regardless of that, church was fun because we had the primary program! Our primary consists of 3 girls, the president, and my companion as a counselor. They sang a few songs and gave some good talks, it was a little chaotic to be honest, but in general it turned out about as well as it could've!

Like I said we had zone conference on Monday. It was really great as always and I'll just leave it at that do to the time. We did exchanges with the sisters there yesterday and I got to visit this cute older lady who was one of the very first members in Taranto and a less-active samonan lady who was absolutely hilarious. We walked in and she told us that she'd been cutting wood for her neighbors all morning then out of her bag she pulled this giant machete to show us how she cut it. She was so funny but as we started the lesson, the spirit was able to touch her, and us, and we were able to discover some of her previously unknown needs and reasons for not coming to church. As she told us about her concern that she thought that she had to be completely perfect to take the sacrament, we were able to testify to her of the purifying power of Holy Ghost that comes after we have repented of our sins and partaken of the sacrament. Elder Bednar said it best in a recent general conference talk, "the Holy Ghost is a sanctifier who cleanses and burns dross and evil out of human souls as though by fire." This lesson really helped me to reflect on this amazing power that the sacrament has for us each and every week as we do so worthily and with full purpose of heart.

Today we went to a city in area called Le Castella which was this super cute city with this beautiful castle in the middle of the ocean. 

Anyway, it's been a lot of traveling this week but it's all worth it of course. I love you guys and pray that you're doing well! 

with love, 

sorella bonzo

Zone conference 

Cool panting on this wall with all of the symbols of Crotone 

Le Castella 

x

Success not earned, it's given.

Hello!! I hope that you guys passed a good week! 

Monday was a pretty chill day. We went to the beach that day, did a gesso (finding method with chalk and a sheet,) and received our transfer calls. My entire district is staying the same! The only change is that the Cosenza sisters were blown out so the Cosenza elders were added to our district so we are now in 8. 

Wednesday was on interesting day.. When we got home for lunch and found that our water was off, our power went out, and our door handle also broke off. Haha the life of a missionary. We were able to fix the latter two but our water stayed off all day long. We had to use our store bought drinking water for cooking and dishes. Luckily it came back on when we got home that night though! 

There was also a soccer game on Wednesday which means that they close down all of the major streets around our house so we have to walk all the way around to get anywhere and everyone would rather watch the game than see us. We had 3 people cancel on us after we'd already gone to their houses to see them because they were watch the soccer game and didn't want to turn it off.. so that was a little rough because we walked around the city trying doing some finding but there weren't very many people out. After the match everyone was pretty sad because Crotone lost 2-0 against Juventus (the best team in Italy.) its actually pretty cool because our little town Crotone is in the A series which is the best series in Italy so they play against a bunch of huge cities like Rome and Palermo. They keep losing but at least they're in the A series! I'm pretty sure that this is the first year that they've been in this series so the whole town is all decorated in A's and everyone's really proud of it. 

Thursday started off really cool because we finally got to teach this woman named Vittoria. Ever since I got here we have been passing by her house in hopes that she would let us in, but she never did. She's a very depressed woman and just says that she doesn't feel like it. My companion insisted that we keep trying so we have. We passed by Wednesday morning for one final try. She told us no once again, but as we continued to talk with her we asked if we could just teach her a little part of our message right there on the doorstep. So we stood there and taught and testified and helped her to feel the spirit so that she would have the desire to let us in the next time. We'll see where it goes from there, but I know that she felt the something with us and I hope that she agrees to let us continue to teach her.

On Saturday we had an investigator take us out to lunch. I wasn't expecting anything huge but when We showed up to the restaurant and was really nice. It was definitely the nicest place I've ever eaten. We had clams, pumpkin shrimp risotto, and salmon with peppers. It was so good and such a cool experience. That's the first time I've ever felt underdressed as a missionary because I was sitting there in a 5 star restaurant in my proselyting skirt and shirt. We were told they the menu changes every day because everything is made fresh according to what they go out and find that day. It was definitely an unforgettable experience. 

We also had a great lesson with Rina on Saturday. We taught her about tithing, fasting and tithe and fast offerings. We were a little worried because their financial situation is pretty tough but she accepted everything so easily. She assured us that she was coming to church the next day so we organized a ride for her and were so excited to see her there, but in the end, she didn't come. That was really hard for us. 

This was definitely a week of working hard and not seeing the immediate results due to the agency of others. I've been thinking a lot about what makes a successful missionary with regards to the comment that Elder Bednar made in the recent worldwide missionary conference about success being given rather than earned. He said something on the lines of "Success isn't something's earned ma it's given to you. When you see success in your mission (i.e. Baptisms) it's a success of the Lord. The true measure of your success is if you will do the little things every day whether or not the Lord chooses to give you success." I feel like sometimes we do everything that we can then we look back and wonder why we're not getting those investigators in church or those baptisms or whatever it may be, while it seems like everyone around us is. In the end I've decided that it all comes down to two things, the agency of the people with whom we are working, and the timing of the Lord. Neither of these things are in our control. And that is why in the end, our biggest success story is our own. We become the greatest convert of our mission because we decide to do the little things every day especially in the moments when we are not given that success that everyone seeks. 

We saw this with many people this week, but above all, Rina. We had everything perfectly planned for her to be in church yesterday, and she didn't come. Our member even went to pick her up, but when she wasn't waiting in the previously designated meeting spot. We had no way to get ahold of her because her husband took her phone with him to Reggio Calabria. We don't know what happened in the end, and hope to be able to contact her soon to understand why. It was really disappointing for us because she assured us that she would be there. This means that we will need to push back her baptismal date so that she will be able to attend the required amount of Sunday's before she is baptized. 

In the end, we don't get up every morning at 6:30 and stay out until 9, talk to everyone we see on the streets, or exhort people to repent and change so that we get a baptism every transfer, we do it because we love God. Our personal obedience to these things may not correlate to the number of souls we bring into the waters of baptism, but it has a direct correlation to our personal, and lasting conversion.  

I am doing well though! I'm happy to stay here in Crotone with Sorella Taylor and continue to see what I can offer to this city and branch. I have been feeling so much desire this week to "cambiare (change) Crotone." I want to help to change the attitude and mindset of this branch by strengthening it from within, so that when we bring others into it, they will feel welcomed and loved. I want to work harder to help these members have the spirit of missionary work because I know that it will help this branch a lot.

Sunday was actually pretty relaxing compared to the past 6 weeks in this branch because we didn't have investigators in church and none of the Africans came so I didn't have to translate. I was able to sit and enjoy the lessons for one and I loved this quote by President Hinkley that was used in the Relief Society lesson, it was exactly what I needed that day after this crazy week: 

"Be believing. Be happy. Don't get discouraged. Things will work out."

-President Hinkley 

I love you! Keep believing and loving and and laughing and living. 

Love always,

Sorella Bonzo

We matched (not on purpose) so we had to take a photo (you can't tell in the pic but her tights are the same color as my cardigan & socks)  

Another transfer together! (The number of transfer that we are in) 

Fancy restaurant food 

Look I found a street sign with my name on it! (Haha) 

Sorella Taylor and I went for a hike today. It was great weather for a hike. We brought my speaker and listened to our favorite efy songs the whole way up then got to see this beautiful view of the city. 

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