Ladrões, Amazing People, Paradise Weather

(Sister Ellsworth)

Hey yall! This week was filled with lots of fun things. On our Pday we went to the local mall and tried to find a new skirt or dress for the Zone conference that happened on Tuesday. All the Sisters in my district are "old" sisters (we've been serving for more than 9 months) so we've all worn out all our clothes or worn them six bajillion times. When we got there we quickly realized that the winter knee-length skirts and dresses had long gone and had been replaced with the summer skirts lol. Let's just say that there will be no hope of finding new skirts unless you go to the old ladies section XD We got a few funny looks from these Germans as three Americans and a Brazilian tried on old lady skirts.

On Tuesday we had an awesome Zone conference and I got to see a few of my friends before they head home in a few weeks. I took pictures and everything but then my Zone leader deleted every single picture I had on my camera. He doesn't speak a lick of English so the "delete selected picture" looked a lot like "delete all photos". I wasn't too happy but hey... The Atonement works in many different ways haha. So I don't have pictures for you guys... Sorry. I'll take some more this week.

On Wednesday we were in the chapel waiting for an investigator to show up. We were there with Sonia and Carina who were working on a relief society project when this guy comes running through the door, blows past all of us, and books it to the end of the hall to the bathroom.  The four of us looked at each other bewildered but none of us had the guts to go find out why he need the bathroom so bad. Here in Portugal it's super rude not to say hello to someone. It's rude enough that people get in fist fights or break lifelong friendships over it so it was really strange that this strange man I've never seen before would just run into the chapel without saying anything. Well a few minutes later three other guys came running in and scared the bejeezes out of all of us. They were Gypsies so they're the type of people to live in shacks and steal things. Very nice people but not very trustworthy. So being the fearless missionary that I am I intercepted them before they could beeline it to the back of the church like the first guy and said "Hello, we're the missionaries. Would you like a tour of the chapel?" The man responded and said that they were looking for a thief who ran in the church. I was like.... uh oh... So I told them that a guy ran to the back of the church and they started to look for him. They didn't end up finding him and left in peace. I think the robber probably jumped the fence or something.

We also met this woman named Teresa. We gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her about the plan of Salvation. She started to cry and told us that she had never found answers to her questions about life after death and the purpose of life. She began to read the Book of Mormon every day. She told us that she didn't understand everything that she was reading but that while she was reading  she felt this funny burning feeling in her chest. She didn’t understand it so she paused her reading assignment and took some medication for anxiety, thinking that her anxiety was coming back. But we explained to her that the Holy Ghost speaks to us through feelings like that. She felt so content that she asked if she could be baptized. My companion and I were like... Um. Sure. If you want to... Haha just kidding we were so stoked for her. Marked her  and everything. She's such a powerful woman.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY NEXT SUNDAY!!!! It was mothers day here yesterday... Don't ask me why it's different because I don't know.

Well that's about it! Love all you to bits!

Sister Ellsworth

Rain, Viviana, Soccer and the Savior

(Anziano Wilkinson)

We all know that "April showers bring May flowers", but, when Italy forgets that it was April until the last week and just decides to keep on pouring into May, we can expect flowers some other time. That is our reality this week. That old time saying put a nice due date on most of the worlds downpours and trickles in Italy, like a washed up high schooler, rushing to finish his procrastinated homework the night before. Of course, dealing with the rain gets a lot easier in missionary life if one happens to be in possession of a Toyota Yaris. Haha

We this past week was a pretty great one! It started with a solid lesson with Viviana about the Ten Commandments. We are so excited about Viviana's progress and the way that she is trying to bring the Spirit into her life! It was a great lesson! She, sadly, wasn't able to make it to church this week due to complications, but it'll be good. She plans on introducing us to her boyfriend Adrian sometime soon, so wish us luck!

This weekend we went on exchanges with the Anziani in the town next door, Merate (a thirty minute drive). And that went really well. We got some good work done and saw some awesome people up there (which basically looks like a brand new city compared to a lot of Italy as the oldest parts seem to have been built around the 70s and 80s at the earliest).

On Saturday we had a YSA/missionary activity where we came to the church and played sports. Mainly handball and soccer were played but we did some other games as well. It was a good time and we had Paul, our new convert, there... And he brought 7 of his friends! They made a soccer team and it looked like team Nigeria vs. Team Italy haha. It was great! You just have to try hard to integrate them and make sure things are communicated correctly for them because Italians don't speak English that well, and the Nigerians often don't really speak Italian. But it was a great success!  This week I wanted to share that truly, our Heavenly Father loves us! He has very high expectations for us, it is true. But, He knows that we can all make it. And He wants to help us and will help us as we strive to be like Him and His son. Miracles happen everyday, and I would argue that the very greatest of the miracles that happen are the ones that deal with our very nature. When we put ourselves trustingly in the hands of our Savior, and He takes what was once raw material with only great potential, and makes us more than we could ever become by ourselves. He does this by changing changing our hearts when we let him and try.

I hope that you have a fantastic week and remember to let the Savior change your hearts!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

Alma 27-17 - It has been a great week!

(Elder Cummings)

I cannot believe that it has been seven days since I was last in a family history center emailing. We have done so much work this week. Elder Ellestad and I get along on a high performing level. We are putting in the hours to find, teach, and baptize. We both want to give our whole heart to the work. We get up at six, and by 7:30 we are planning. Friday morning we even went for a 6.4 mile run , getting up at six and still planning by 7:30. When we don't have dinners, we work through the evening. We are seeing many mighty miracles. I am so happy to be in this area again.

Andrew and Goshen, the two children who were baptized last night, have been one of those miracles. I met their family for the first time almost 18 months ago. At that time they were staying on the east side of town with their cousins who were baptized in January earlier this year. Their father was abusive. He was the only obstacle between their and their mother's baptism. Since I last saw them almost a year ago their parents have gotten a divorce, and mom took the kids to live with her. They were somewhere in the United States, but we and their cousins didn't know where they were. A few days before the transfer the cousins got in contact with them. Transfers came, and I was back in the area that they were living in, and I was blessed to be a part of the baptisms and confirmations of the kids. Mom is getting baptized in two weeks. This family is one that I love and have thought about and prayed for often since leaving Pioneer Park last May. It is a merciful gift from a merciful God that I have returned for this.

My first convert in Fresno and his wife will be getting sealed in the temple near the end of this transfer. Another blessing!

Last night we were recontacting a potential when her granddaughter came out of the house almost in tears. Her name was Nancy Vang, another investigator who I taught and loved over a year ago who was dropped when she was kicked out of her apartment during a week she didn't have a phone. Since last seeing her she has had a hard time. Abusive relationships, drug abuse, losing the custody of her children, and going through rehab without family support at the time. She has way more tattoos than the last time I saw her. As we talked together we wept together. Without any prompting from us she told us how she needed to be baptized. A week ago she downloaded the gospel library app and began reading the Book of Mormon. I do not know if she will be able to fully repent in the time I still have left, but seeing her again and seeing her humbled and penitent, even more than before, is miraculous to me. I feel so blessed. There is no other place I would rather be a missionary at this moment.

Elder Ellestad and I are going to keep going at this. We are having a great time!

Adventures!

(Sister Ellsworth)

This week flew by... I feel like I blinked and it's Monday again. This week was fun! We had a training meeting with the Sister Training Leaders, Zone Leaders, and Assistants on Tuesday. We practiced teaching and we got a lot of really good feedback that saved a lot of would-be disaster lessons during the week. We taught a single mom this week named Carol. She's from Brazil but lived in England for a few years where she had her first daughter after her boyfriend left her. She moved back here to Portugal to finish school and be closer to family. I love her little daughter to pieces... She's so dang cute. As we were talking to Carol about how the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families and how the Plan of Salvation is a guide for our lives, we were all touched by a special spirit. We also explained how the Book of Mormon is a history of her ancestors in ancient America and that special spirit was even stronger. Leaving that lesson I felt so happy to feel the spirit so strongly that I wanted to just stay with Carol for the rest of the day!

On Thursday we had a grand adventure. The sisters from Lagos, which is the area closest to ours, called and said that one of the sisters was in the hospital with appendicitis. They had gone to the hospital without any spare clothes or toothbrushes so I did a division with Sister Ribeiro for a few hours to get back to Lagos and get extra things that they would need. Sister Herrera was so funny after she came out of the surgery! She's a funny girl in the first place but she came in singing the Boheimian  Raphosdy. She froze halfway through the song and said, in half Portuguese and half English, "Guys... I'm holy.." And then tried to do a contact with the doctor who was trying to explain to her a few rules. She had all of us laughing so hard.

It's been a good week. We're working hard and happy as ever!

Love you!

Sister Ellsworth

Transfers/Thoughts on Leadership

(Elder Cummings)

It has been another week that has gone by far too fast! As I leave Heritage tomorrow morning I leave it set up to baptize every week in May. I feel that I accomplished what I needed to. I am looking forward to my last and first area now, Pioneer Park West. I was trained there, I trained there, and now I am returning to end my mission there. The woman I wrote about last week, Nou with her three little kids, live in that area's boundaries. I am excited and feel exceedingly blessed to go and teach them again.

This transfer has also come with some other news: I have been released of all formal leadership responsibilities. Over the last year I have learned more than I knew there was to know about leadership in Christ's church. I would like to share one of those things with you all.

After nearly two years of contemplating leadership, and one year of serving in a leadership position, I see callings in a new light, at least a least a new light to me. Church callings are all extensions of our baptismal covenant to stand as a witness of Christ "at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in" (Mosiah 18:9). For almost a year now I have been asked to witness of Christ as a zone leader. It is now my commission to stand as a witness of Christ as a missionary without formal leadership responsibilities. This ties right back into the talk given by Elder Bednar in priesthood session: the call is what is important (I am a witness of Christ), where the assignment sends me is not something to harbor guilt over or to be concerned or anxious about. It makes sense! All callings are the same in the eyes of God because the call, to be a witness of Christ, is universal and given by covenant. The field of labor varies and "mattereth not"(D&C 80:3), which meaning is expanded by Elder Bednar, teaching that "because the work of preaching the gospel is the Lord’s work, He inspires, guides, and directs His authorized servants. As missionaries strive to be ever more worthy and capable instruments in His hands and do their best to fulfill faithfully their duties, then with His help they 'cannot go amiss'—wherever they serve. Perhaps one of the lessons the Savior is teaching us in this revelation is that an assignment to labor in a specific place is essential and important but secondary to a call to the work." ("Called to the Work" David A. Bednar). My understanding has been significantly expanded. I see a night and day contrast between where I am now and where I was a year ago in how I view leadership in Christ's church. I cannot adequately express how grateful I am for this growth. It has not come to me because of any worthiness of myself, but because God is a loving Father.

It is hard to imagine where I would be without Christ. He has done more for us than we are even capable of realizing. One Bible story that I love is the story of the woman with an issue of blood. It was shared often at the last general conference, and since then I have pondered on it regularly. I find it worth noting that even after being completely healed through faith on Christ, the woman, when pressed to confess her act of faith, did so "fearing and trembling" (Mark 5:33). The woman felt as if she had in some way taken advantage of Christ, or taken a gift for which she was unworthy. That fear is unneeded. When we are purified and healed by the Savior, we need not fear or tremble. He loves us. He wants to heal us. He wants to forgive us of our sins and raise us to overcome all about us that is wicked, worldly, or simply falls short of absolute perfection. His desire is to heal us of our plagues.

I know my Savior, and I know that he lives. I knows you. He has carried your sorrows and he will carry you.

I love being a missionary.

-Elder Cummings

Resegone, Bergamo, Volleyball, and Commandments!

(Anziano Wilkinson)
Last week we had an unfortunate turn of events with our P-day activities. We decided to take a hike up in Lecco with some other anziani and so we started out early so as to have enough time to come back and finish doing the other things we needed to do to prepare ourselves for the week. We had a great time hiking to the top of Resegone peak and we even celebrated our arrival with a typical Italian Easter cake called a colomba haha. For some reason, however, the group decided to take different way down. I was against this idea but I was out numbered so I had no choice haha. Anyway, long story short, we got lost on the way down and ended up making our four hour hike an eight hour one, in the which we hiked 17 miles and took 37000 steps... on a mountain... we were all pretty tired in the end haha. So needless to say, the rest of our day was shot and we only managed to get home by the end of the day. We definitely won't be doing that again any time soon! Haha

This week we played volleyball with some other missionaries around the Milano area and it a bunch of fun! Luckily the field was indoors and the sand was heated, because it was really cold and rainy! We had a blast, but after so many hours of running around in the sand my legs started remembering our misfortunes on Resegone and we had to call it quits haha.

Then on this past Tuesday we had another crazy thing happen that ended up taking up a bunch of our time! So that day, April 25, is Italy's Independence Day, so obviously it was a national holiday. Apparently the Anziani of Bergamo didn't get the memo and ended up stranded in a small city in the mountains about two hours away from their home with no bus to take them there. So naturally, we, having a car, got a call from our president asking us to do a rescue mission for these poor stranded anziani haha. It was a long drive, but it was fun and the mountains were gorgeous! Bergamo and it's surrounding areas are easily some of my favorites in our mission! The mountains are super green and steep and every once in a while you drive though charming little towns that look like they could be part of a storybook. Let's just say that this little detour was more than worth it for my companion anziano Farneman and I haha.

Aside from these adventures, we had a fantastic lesson with one of our investigators, Viviana! We talked about obedience and commandments and more particularly about how they don't restrict us, but rather, free us! God is our loving Heavenly Father, and because of this, He gives us commandments so that we can know what things make us happy and what things make us unhappy. It's always our choice to obey the commandments, but every time we do we are guaranteed blessings! As our Heavenly Father has declared in the scriptures, "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." He never varies from His promises! When we obey, He blesses! Always! But when we disobey, we forfeit blessings and become slaves to the consequences of sin, which consequences range from legal trouble, to addictions, to haunting memories and feelings of guilt. Obedience to true principles frees of from these things and that's why God commands us to obey them! This principle clicked for Viviana and the spirit testified powerfully of the truth of it. She's now anxiously anticipating learning more about what those commandments are so that she can live them more fully! She has a great desire to do what's right and she's one of the most sincere learners I've ever taught!

I hope you have a great week and remember to obey the commandments!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

Easter!

(Sister Ellsworth)

Hello yall! And happy Easter!

This week was great. It was a really special experience to study the stories of Jesus Christ each day of the week as the stories were happening. I really loved to study about the resurrection on Sunday morning. I was sitting at home before Church reading and imagining how it would be to be Mary Magdalene and to watch my Savior suffer such cruelty and to watch Him die on the cross. I tried to imagine the heartbreak that he felt as she left Christ in the tomb, completely distraught and questioning my faith if I would ever see him again. I tried to imagine going to the tomb on that Sunday morning and finding the message that Christ was not there. I think in the moment when Mary asked if "gardener" had taken Christ's body away would have been one of the most confusing moments for me... But then to imagine the  joy in finding Christ, alive, free of pain, and full of love!

It was awesome!

I really felt my Savior's love for me and for each one of his children here. It was a great blessing!

We had an awesome moment in a lesson this week too. All of our plans had fallen through so we tried the good old prayer and then randomly choose a road on the map. We walked to the road we chose trying to talk to every single person but everyone was busy buying things for Easter and ironically didn't have time to hear a message about Christ. So we prayed again and chose one side of the road to start knocking apartments. In Portugal most of the apartments have doorbells and speakers outside the apartment so it makes knocking doors pretty fast and all the apartments are close together so I was knocking one apartment and my companion knocked the other side. We knocked about 150 apartments and got to the last apartment building on the road. 6th floor. Nothing. 5th floor, and angry Portuguese lady making food. 4th floor, elderly man who didn't understand us. 3rd floor nothing. 2nd floor nothing. and the 1st floor. Nothing. Feeling a bit down, I sighed and started to walk away when a cute little black woman from capo verde poked her head out the window and said she didn't want what we were selling. I explained to her that we weren't selling anything, in fact we were giving things away for free and we asked if we could give her a book that had the words of God in it. I showed her the Book of Mormon and she gave us a look and disappeared into the house. We started to walk away, thinking that we would never see her again, but then the door buzzer sounded and the door opened. I exchanged a look with Sister Carr and we entered. This woman, Maria, let us into her house and we taught her about the Resurrection in the bible. Then we explain that the Book of Mormon had another witness of the resurrection of Christ and explain the Restoration story. She started to cry.... Come to find out she had been praying to find someone who could help her understand the Bible because she wanted to have more faith but she couldn't understand the bible very well. It was a great and tender moment helping her read and understand the bible for the first time. I already love that woman so much!

There are a couple of pretty funny traditions that they have here in Portugal for Easter. One is that there is a cake called a Folar de Pascoa, which is a normal cake but it has one to four hard boiled eggs baked into it. When I first saw it i had the thought that maybe they forgot to mix the egg in and just left it on top instead!! Haha I asked how the tradition started and some people said that in the early Easter egg hunts someone hid eggs in the cake dough. I also heard that it was a symbol of prosperity, new life, and fertility. Normally the kids get to eat the eggs or they paint them too.

Folar de Pascoa 

Sister Carr and I also found this pizza place that sells pizzas that are bigger than a tire! I think it took a whole week to eat that thing! Yay for Maxipizza!

Well have a great week! Love all of you!

Sister Ellsworth