Ciao Famiglia!

Ciao Tutti!

Well, it has been another rough week for us. We found a list of members in our area. There are a lot more than I thought there were. So this week we made plans to go and see some of them. Let's just say that it was not the most pleasent experience. One of them asked us not to come back and seemed kind of mad that we tried to find her. It broke my heart, not that she rejected me, but that she was rejecting the gospel, something that would bring so much joy to her life. Another was on the phone when she answered the door and said she was busy and slammed the door, so that was hard too. 

We did have a great lesson with a women named Liria, she has a ton of questions and doesn't understand how people can know something is true. It was cool because we thought of the scripture in Moroni 10 verses 4 and 5 and how first you have to have faith, then act, by praying with sincerity and real intent and then can you come to a knowledge. I love the scriptures! We had our district meeting on Monday about faith and we were talking about how faith has so much power behind it. We cannot do anything without faith. If you do not have the faith to get up in the morning you will not get up in the morning. You have to believe in something first and then come the actions to carry out that belief and then that belief is realized and becomes a knowledge. For example, I eventually in my life want to run a marathon. First I have to have the desire to do it and then I have to believe that I can do, I do not know yet that I can, I believe only. Then I take the steps to realize that belief by finding out information on how to go about doing it, then I start training, acting. Then I run the marathon and my belief becomes a knowledge. I love faith!

(I forget what I write, so if I already told you that analogy sorry:)).

Last night was the most terrible night ever! We really have to go through the bad experience to enjoy the good. So last night we invited Giuseppe to a baptism that is taking place in Palermo tomorrow. Well, he wants to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is a miracle, not the bad part of the night! Well, we need another miracle now, how are we going to get him there. So we started calling people about rides and looking a train times and bus times, etc. Well, I did not realize the time and I was calling people, in my frenzy for Giuseppe to go to the baptism, I called a member at like nine thirty at night who was sleeping and he just had a surgery. I felt so bad............ I felt so stupid........bah! Well, I was so busy on the phone (we were driving home on the freeway) I was not watching the exits for Mistretta, I wasn't driving, but since my comp is still new to driving and to the area I needed to tell her where to get off and everything.Well, we missed our exit and by the time I realized where we were we missed the exit after ours..... and the exits here are like 10 km apart. so we had to drive like 20 km just to turn around and then another 20 km to get to our exit. AHHHHH!!! So I felt bad about calling an old sick guy, then I felt even worse about missing so many exits. We ended up getting home an hour late. In times like this looking for the little blessings is key. So, usually we have to park far away from our house, well we were so tired and did not want to park so far so we went to see if there was a spot near our house. The spot closest to our door was free!!! That never happens! That helped me to feel better:) 

I have been learning a lot more about prayer lately. Ever since President Kelly told us in Zone Conference about finding time to pray out loud I have been striving to do so. I thought it would be easy, but I am so used to praying silently I had to kind of work at it. Now, I am seeing a huge difference in my prayers. They are more focused and I feel like I can express myself more because I am not getting distracted by other thoughts. I am seeing that prayer is a most edifying experience, way more than I realized. Thank goodness for prayer, for after that night of stress I needed that support. I want to bear you all my testimony that as we pray and use the atonement we can overcome those feelings of inadequecy and frustration. The atonement is not just for the remission of sins. Like it says in Alma 7:11-13, Christ went through all of our infermities, so he can succor us. I felt such a relief from those negative feelings after invoking my heavenly father for help. There is no reason to give up, because we have help, help from on high.

I love you all so much! I am so happy that I am here. 

Have a good week and I shall write you next week!

Love,

Sorella Comollo

Ciao!

Ciao Tutti!

This week has been filled to the brim with rejection! Bah!This week has been hard, I do not think I have ever gotten rejected so much in my whole mission! Almost every one of our appointments fell through and when we did finding the usually nice siciliani seemed a little colder of spirit. We perservered though!

One of the reasons we had more rejections than usual is because we went to Palermo Sunday night to do mostra, which is were missionaries go to a piazza in downtown and set up a booth of sorts and talk to people. It was my first, "big city" experience with missionary work. On of the anziani told me, "I just do not know how people can be mean to you and not listen to you, you are so happy and bubbly." I just do not know why either! jk. I was thinking about how people react to missionaries, I think it is because we are the imbodiment of change and people do not like change, per niente!

So something amazing happened with an investigator named Lina. She was telling us how she want more faith. We had another lesson planned for her, but we both felt we had to read in Alma 32 and developing more faith. Well, she loved the analogy of a seed and I had this idea to expand on it. This expansion of the allagory was totally from the spirit, for I would have never thought of it by myself and in that moment. I told her just as a seed needs good soil and water and the sun to grow so does this seed of faith. We talked about prayer being like the water and then how the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon being the good soil to plant your faith in. Well, by the end of the lesson she took the book of mormon! THIS WAS A MIRACLE! We have been teaching her for about a month or so and she never would take the things we left, she says I like to talk and to discuss, but I do not want to read or I do not want you to leave me something that I know I will throw away. Well, she took the Book of Mormon, finally! We also talked about work and how to get anything out of life we have to work hard and make some sacrifices. She agreed that she could make a 2 minutes sacrifice to read and pray. Hurray:)

 We had an Area Book Miracle happen. Since Sorella Sobeck had a cold we stayed in one morning. I did area book whlile she slept. Well, I called this man named Pietro who was a former investigator a year ago. Well, he said he would meet with us! He is so awesome, he loves how all of the missionaries he has met have had such a faith and such a light in them and he wants to have that too. He said that he would read The Book of Mormon after he got home from his night club party that evening, it is a start!

We also found out yesterday why Giuseppe is postponing a baptismal date, because he knows the church is true and wants nothing more than to become a member (he told us he wanted to give a talk in sacrament meeting one day! and he wants to go to the Stake conference! and he reads the ensign like there is no tomorrow. He reminds me of that book if you give a mouse a cookie. If you give a Giuseppe an ensign he will ask you for another to go with it:)). He said that if he gets baptized his family will not talk to him anymore, his wife, his daughters, his parents, his relatives. At first I did not understand, but apparently for the religion of his relatives, which is Jehovah's Witness, they are not allowed to talk to people, even members of their own family, who have changed religions. I have no idea what to do, we told him to keep praying for his family's heart to soften and to keep continuing to read and come to church, but I just do not know what else to do.

The church should be coming to Mistretta officially at the end of June. Right now it is half an hour away in Santo Stefano, where there are no members, it is a weird that it is so far. I am so excited, I really think that with the church in Mistretta a lot more people will be able to come and see exactly what we do and believe, instead of just ignore us because they do not know. I am excited that English Course will be starting up again, that is such a big help and so many people in Mistretta have been asking about it.

I love Mistretta so so much, I really feel like things are looking up for the ward here, full of its history and drama, the Lord is seriously blessing the faithful saints high on this mountain top.

Transfer calls are this Saturday! Bah! I do not want to leave, I love it here too too much, maybe that means that I need to be tested. Mistretta has my whole heart!

I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!

Love you!

Love,

Sorella Comollo

Ciao Tutti!

Family!!!!

First off, Congrats Alex on Graduating! I am so happy for you! You are free. Freedom, sweet sweet Freedom:)

This week has been pleasent:) The lesson we had with Giuseppe last night was so awesome! He told us that before he got to know the church he did not really have any direction for his life, he felt like he was just going through the motions, now he feels a lot more like he knows there is a purpose for his life and he has a direction. He also told us how much adversity he is experiencing. He said when he was exploring other faiths, before he met the missionaries, no one cared what religion he was a part of or learning about, but now he said everyone is against him and it just makes him want to keep going forward, instead of fall into their taunts. He is so awesome!

We had a miracle with area book. We called an ex investigator and he told us that he would call us and for us not to call. Well, we saw him the same day and he came up to us, because we did not know him and said he wants to meet with us next week! Area Book is awesome!

We had a lesson with three Romanian women. They are so sweet, I love them! Well, we were talking about strengthening our faith through the gospel and one of them asked us if we, as members of this church, have problems. She said that she has never met anyone that is so faithful and believing and so happy that perhaps with this church people do not have problems. I thought it was an interesting question. Of course we have problems, of course. We can still be so faithful and happy though our problems because the gosple teaches us how we can and why we need to. Hopefully that made sense.

I seriously have never been so happy in all my life. This is the hardest thing I have ever done, sometimes I wonder why I was so anxious to come because this work is so draining, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually, but for some reason I cannot stop being happy! I love the people here so much, even though they drive me nuts:) I get so excited for the day while I am studying the scriptures, anticipating what I can teach with the spirit from the things that I am learning by the spirit.

Now I am just babbling. I just want to let you all know that I know that this work is of God, I know it, I know it and I can never deny it. I know that he loves us and that he is there and I know that prayer is so essential to our exsistence. I like the word essential, because in Italian the verb "to be" is essere. Prayer is a part of our being. Communication is important, communication with our Father in Heaven is essential. I know that if you pray with a sincere heart, real intent (to act on the things for which you pray) and have faith in Chirst, God cannot stop himself from giving you an answer, no matter what.(Moroni 10:4-5).

I love you all so so much and I am so excited to talk to you on Sunday!

See you soon:) 

Love you!

Love,

Sorella Comollo

Mother's Day Family Picture

My Family

My Family! I found out that Ma Fia in siciliano means my family, cool huh;)

First off, Tanti Auguri Olga!!!!

This week has been so busy and great! We ask Giuseppe to get baptized... He said... That he is still praying about it. That is way better than no:) He is so great. He has not been to church in two weeks, but yesterday when we talked to him he says that he feels like something is missing from his life, a spiritual spark and he says that he knows it is because he has not been going to church. We had a crazy experience yesterday in Capo D'orlando where Giuseppe lives. We go there early, our appointment with him was at 7 and we arrived at 5. We just wanted to go in an area near his house and do finding until the appointment. Anyway. I was driving up the huge mongo hill to the area where he lives and I passed a little street. I have passed that little street lots of times, but this time the idea popped into my head, you should turn down that street. I ignored it because we had already decided to go up by Giuseppe's plus I did not want to make a U turn, they are so difficult in these tiny Italian streets. A minute or so later I got this super strong idea, You need to go back and go down that street. Well, I can testify that that was the spirit telling me what to do. We turned around and went down the street. We did some finding, no one was interested. Then we saw a kid fixing his motor bike and asked him if we could talk to him, he said no. Well, his dad came out, Carmello. Carmello, is so cool, he let us talk to him and pray with him!!! He started to cry after the prayer and said it was so nice. He is a super tough guy and kept looking around so no one would see him crying or with missionaries. In the end he said that he would call us and that we could stop by again next week. He also said that he likes how I am so happy and smilely, he said you do not see that everyday:) So Carmello was a reason to go down that street. The anziani called us for our numbers for the car, the milage and the money we spent this month. We were not near the car, so we had to walk back up to it. Guess who was driving and saw us walking to our car, Giuseppe's wife! She had to go but she told us to go see her sister and Clara, her daughter, in the apartment complex across the street. We parked right in front of her house and did not even know it! Well, the sister of Giuseppe's wife just wanted to bible bash (she even prayed at the end that these sweet girls could learn more and not be decieved...oh dear). However, for the first time I got to really talk to Clara, Giuseppe's daughter. She promised she would pray and she says that she wants to know if what we are saying is true, but she just doesn't know how. It was so awesome! Things happen for a reason!  

On Tuesday it was the holiday of work, so we got invited to the country home of an investigator, Salvatore. It was so fun and we got to meet all of his neighboors who said that we could come by, hurray! I love italians! They are so nice and fun! We ate way too much, I got full on the antipasti, but kept going;)

We also had the chance this week to have the Anziani in our district come to Mistretta and help us with Beatrice and Pasquale. The Anziani worked with Pasquale to help him stop smoking and we worked with Bea. I love Bea and Pasquale so much, I know that they can do it with the Lord's help!

We went to Cefalu' today for Preparation day. It was fun to go on a hike and see the view:)

I love you all so much! I am so excited to talk to you soon! I made a skype account today, so you should be able to find me:) It is eva.comollo

Sorry it is kind of early for you(8am), at least it is not for me;)jk

Love you lots!!!

Have a great week!

Love,

Sorella Comollo