Letter #37 - 5/27/14

Ciao famiglia!

How are you all?? So this week was a little rough, it all started on Friday when I started to not feel super great, but I tried to persevere and we went to teach a lesson to one of our investigators in the park.  But I wasn’t able to get through it and ended up having to run out of the lesson and throw up behind a bush in the park. I literally left my companion in the middle of Joseph Smith’s first vision and everything, haha! It was horrible timing.

So then we went home and I was up all night throwing up and just slept on the bathroom floor and everything. It was awful. But I just slept all Saturday morning and then we went out so that I could play the piano for the musical number at a little boy in our branch who was baptized on Saturday night. It was such a great baptism. He was so excited, he is thirteen years old and the Anziani (Elders) have been teaching him. Our branch president and his wife are in the process of adopting him and they sang "a child’s prayer" and I played the piano and Sorella Carter directed. It was really cute.

But I am feeling a ton better now! So all is well and back to normal :)

We have been seeing lots of miracles here in Ravenna and the work is starting to pick up. We are just trying so hard to find those people who are waiting to hear about the gospel. We were doing casa (door to door) in a neighborhood on Monday night and were just getting rejected left and right but we ended up finding a woman who was taught by the Anziani years and years ago; and she LOVED us! It was such a huge miracle. She said the last time she saw missionaries was a year ago when they came to try and find her but couldn’t come in because she was home alone. Well guess what. We are women and we will never have that problem, haha! So we are super excited about her. She was super amazing.

And then we have had some amazing lessons with several less active members these past few days too and we are just seeing the hand of the Lord in our work every day. We know if we rely on Him, he will guide us where we need to be. We just have to be willing and ready to act. It’s been really hard but so rewarding.

Also, in other news. Sorella Carter and I found the best gelateria (ice cream shop) in Ravenna the other night. THEY PUT CHOCOLATE IN THE BOTTOM OF YOUR CONE ABBI. I know! It’s great. Mom you would love this place. Some day we will go here together.

And my companion is just the best, I love her so much. This morning she let us sing Christmas hymns during companionship study. And she took such good care of me when I had the flu. Hopefully we get to be together for a second transfer. We will start praying now.

I think that is everything for this week! Everything is great here in Ravenna, We are just pushing forward and trying to find :) I love you all and hope everything is good at home!

Love and miss you! Talk to you next week :)

Sorella Yost

 

 

Letter #36 - 5/20/14

Ciao from Ravenna!

Oh my goodness, I LOVE this city so much already. It is so perfect and cute. So this area has been open to Sorelle (Sisters) for only one transfer now so we are basically opening up a brand new area. It’s crazy fun. We are basically starting from nothing. But that’s okay; we are working hard and already seeing so many miracles. On Friday we made a goal to find one new investigator every day this week so that would be 7 for the week from Monday to Sunday. So yesterday we went out finding and we found 7 new investigators in just one day!!! It was so amazing. We could not believe it.

One of the new investigators we found was there in the park with her 13 year old son and they were so nice and she wanted to learn more and loved that we were out there talking about Christ. It was so refreshing, haha. So we are so excited to meet with them again tomorrow and really hope they will be able to come to the baptism on Saturday for a 13 year old kid in the branch. It was such a huge miracle. Blessed be the day.

We are on bikes here in Ravenna and it is like the best thing ever. I love it. I hope I am on bike for the rest of my mission, haha. Our bikes names are David and Isabella. They aren’t the prettiest bikes around but we love them comunque (however), haha. But really, bikes are the best. Riding in a skirt is a bit difficult but I think I am starting to get the hang of it. And I have only had one minor accident and I rode into a wall because a car got close to me and freaked me out, haha. But I’m totally fine, my hand just got a little beat up. Don’t worry mom, I always wear my helmet and everything :)

Last week we had new beginnings for the young women in the branch! There are 2 of them and Sorella carter and I are the first and second councilors in the Young Women’s presidency. So we taught Young Women’s on Sunday, ahha. It was actually really fun. I really liked it. They young women are super great. But so last week we had New Beginnings the day after I got here and we set up for it and both gave talks at it and everything, haha. It went really well though! It was really fun.

It’s funny to have gone from a tiny branch (Montevarchi), to a huge ward (Allesandria), back to a branch (Ravenna). I really love it though, I am so lucky to have served in each of the areas I have been in and with each of my companions. I LOVE Sorella Carter, we get along so well. She’s so great.

Well I think that is everything for this week! I hope everything is well back home! Oh and congrats to Anna for making the Eastlake cheer team! that is so awesome! :)

The church is true! Have a great week! Love you!

Sorella Yost

 

 

Letter #35 - 5/13/14

Ciao Famiglia!

So guess what. I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED....again- haha! I am headed to Ravenna tomorrow morning to be with Sorella Carter! I am really excited! I am sad to leave Alessandria and Sorella Hoffman though for sure. We were not prepared for this at all. We thought for sure we would be staying together. In fact, on Monday morning we missed the phone call from the Assistants telling us we were getting transferred and everything, haha.  We had the phone charging in the kitchen and like thirty minutes later I went in and looked at the phone and saw the missed call. Then... we called back and they told us I was leaving and Sorella Hoffman was staying to be a sister training leader (she is going to be AMAZING) annnnnnd then we started freaking out. We weren’t prepared AT ALL. Really. Like we have been telling people in the ward for weeks that we will be staying together and everything. Yep. We were wrong. Looks like the Lord has different plans for us! We are excited for what lies ahead.

So quickly before I forget, a lady just came into the internet cafe WITH HER CAT. #italyprobs. Seriously, everyone is obsessed with cats here. He is just chillin by the computer while she does her thing. Classic Italy, haha, anyways, yeah. I am leaving! Still really weird. I can’t believe I was only here in Alessandria for 6 weeks. I loved it though; it is a great city to be a missionary in. The work is amazing and the members are so involved. I am sad to leave them for sure.

Also I don’t know how I am going to get all my stuff to fit back into my suitcases again. You would think I would be good at packing in the mission now seeing as this is my 5th time moving so far but I think I am actually getting worse at it. So pray for me to be able to get everything to fit.

I think that is all for this week, Skype was so great on Sunday! I hope you had a happy Mother’s Day Mom! I am so glad I was able to see and talk to you guys. Everything is going good here in Italy, the work really is hastening and it is an amazing time to be a missionary. I can tell my testimony is growing each day I am out here and I am so thankful for all the opportunities I have had to learn and grow.

The church is so true!

Have a great week! Talk to you soon from Ravenna!

Sorella Yost

Letter #34 - 5/6/14

SKYPE!!!!!

Yeahhhh I am so excited :) 5 more days!!! Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday we were skyping at Christmas. Then again I think about everything that has happened since then and I can’t believe it’s only been 5 months, haha!

This week was so great here in Alessandria. Sorella Hoffman and I taught 26 lessons and got 5 new investigators. It was a miracle week for sure. One of our new investigators is a little girl who is friends with a 9 year old convert in the ward. She was over at the new convert’s house the other day when we stopped by to see the family and we ended up teaching her about the Book of Mormon and we read the first chapter together. Then we gave her her own copy of the Book of Mormon and she wrote her name in it and everything – and then went home, showed it to her mom, who then started reading it for herself. She read like the first 20 pages in like 2 days (NOT NORMAL; WE USUALLY HAVE TO BEG PEOPLE TO START READING). She said she just couldn’t put it down; she had the strangest feeling when she was reading it. AND she needs glasses to read but by some miracle when she reads the book of Mormon she can read perfectly without her glasses. Isn’t that Amazing??

Then the other day we went to go see this member family again and we ran into this lady in the park with her mom! (so the mom and the grandma of the little girl we first taught) and we taught them the restoration right then and there and they were Amazing; they loved it! So we have an appointment with all three of them tomorrow night, the little girl, the mom and the grandma and we are so excited. They are so special and have so much faith already. The Lord really does lead us to the people who are prepared, and sometimes he even leads them to us. This work really is Amazing, I love it. I am even more grateful each day for the opportunity I have to be out here on a mission.

Oh and mom and dad, remember that one year that the missionaries crashed my birthday party in the backyard? Now like 10 years later I am reaping the blessings of that because members here invite us to their birthday parties ALL the time, haha, it’s like a ward event – so funny.

There are a lot of people from the Philippines here – like half our ward, haha. Oh and I ate African food last night and I finally understand what Tanner was talking about. It was so spicy and so sticky. It was like this big ball of dough looking stuff and you are supposed to pull off pieces of it, dip it in the spicy soup and then basically just swallow it whole – or else it gets stuck to your teeth when you try and chew it, haha, so crazy. Then after eating that we had to run about a mile to the train station so that we made our train and with all that African food in our stomachs we thought we were going to die, haha. But we made it and didn’t get home late and all is well. :) haha.

I think that is all for this week, I am so excited to Skype on Sunday! :) thanks for everything Mom and Dad! Tell Anna congrats on cheer! That is so cool! and Will with lacrosse! :) So awesome! and it sounds like Abbi is going to kill the ACT :)

Love and miss you! see you soon!

Sorella Alli

Letter #33 - 4/30/14

Ciao Famiglia!

Come state (how are you)?! All is well here in Alessandria, we are seeing lots of miracles and just taking it day by day.

We met a really awesome lady while doing finding in a park the other day and we had a return appointment with her and she came to church on Sunday and to the young adult’s activity! So we were super happy :) She is really awesome and we are working a lot with her right now. She is from Nigeria.

Tell Cali congrats on the engagement for me! That is so awesome! :) I’m sad I am going to miss the wedding though, so send me lots of pictures! grazie mille (thank you very much) :)

Hey remember how we get to Skype in 11 DAYS!!!!!! I am sooooo excited! We are counting down :) oh guess what! I saw someone playing Uno the other day and it reminded me of Sunday nights, haha remember that?

Everything is good here in Italia, not a super eventful week but we are learning so much each day out here. I become even more converted to the Gospel each day, I have seen it bless the lives of so many people and I think that is why it makes it so hard to see people reject it, because we know just how much it will bless their lives.

I love and miss you so much but I know I am exactly where I need to be right now :) Love you but talk to you soon! :)

Sorella Alli

Letter #32 - 4/23/14

Hi Mom and Dad!

 

How was your Easter?! All is well here in Italy we are just learning the meaning of "perseverare sino alla fine (endure to the end)". It was a really hard week; we have had our most promising investigators dropping us left and right. It has been so sad to see people walk away when they are so close. But it’s okay, because we know someday they will be ready to hear and accept the Gospel and when they are ready there will be missionaries here waiting for them :) We are really trying so hard to be positive and see the good in everything and it is working. We are just even more determined to go out there and work and find those who are prepared and ready.

We have been doing a lot of less active work as well, we are going through our ward list and visiting those we have never seen or heard their name. Yesterday we had a ton of appointments cancel on us so we got a list of 9 names from the less active list and set out to go and find them all over Alessandria. Well, no one answered/no one still lives at the addresses on the list. BUT its okay, we know everything happens for a reason and that it will all work out in the end. We are still seeing miracles every single day and we know Heavenly Father is so mindful of us.

Easter was so great; we ate at a member in our ward's house out in the countryside and had...yep spaghetti with succo di tonna, a.k.a. tuna sauce. #italy. It was pretty good though! Oh and people here get all crazy about these cake things called a colomba. They aren’t that great...but we have like three of them at our house, haha they are famous during Easter.

But all is well here in Alessandria, last week we had scambio and I ended up being the one staying here in Alessandria with our sister training leader (after being here barely 2 weeks) and I was able to get us around and not get lost going to see some people I had never met/never been to their house ever before, haha I was so happy.

I hope all is well back home and that you had a great Easter! Thank you so much for the pictures, I loved them! :) We are doing well here, Sorella Hoffman is so great and we are just making the most of what is happening and andare avanti :) love and miss you!

Sorella Alli

Letter #31 - 4/16/14

Hi Mom and Dad!

Greetings from Alessandria! So this week was crazzzzy. But so good! I love this place so much, even though it is really different than Montevarchi. Sorella Hoffman and I are doing so good; we get along really, really well and have a lot of fun together :) she is awesome.

And we are working hard and seeing a ton of miracles. We are teaching a lady right now who is super awesome, she actually found the church because one day she was in the parking lot of the grocery store and she found a flyer on the ground for our English class. So she called and came to English class and got in touch with the missionaries and now we are teaching her! She is so sweet. One trial that we are trying to overcome here this past week is other people's agency, haha, it’s so hard. There are so many people we want to work with and want to see...but then they cancel on us and we end up having no appointments. But we know that everything happens for a reason and we have seen miracles happen as a cause of people cancelling.

 

For example the other day we were supposed to have an appointment at the church and so we were waiting there and she never showed up. So there happened to be about 5 young women at the church during that time so we gathered them together and told them that they were going to go out finding with us for an hour, haha classic. so we gave them each a pass along card and told them that in the next hour they each had to give theirs out to someone. So we went out and two of them went with me and three went with Sorella Hoffman and we both ended up finding someone to teach and then when we all got back together we ended up teaching one more lesson to someone on the street. It was so amazing and these girls were so brave. I think the oldest was 16 and the youngest was 12, the rest somewhere in the middle. They were so excited and proud of themselves that they did it. They all gave out their pass along cards and were so happy. Sorella Hoffman and I were so excited they had a good time and were able to see some miracle lessons. We were praying the whole time that they would have a good experience and someone would listen to us, haha, God really does answer prayers.

 

Church was really good on Sunday and one of our investigators even got up and bore her testimony in church, so cool.. oh! also! tell Tanner that last night we had a lesson at one of our member’s houses from Africa and she is from a country really close to Ghana. I told her about how my cousin served in Ghana and she asked if he liked their spicy food. I told her I don’t know but I know he liked cat and fufu...so she said the next time she makes fufu she is inviting us over and we are going to get to eat some real nice fufu, haha, soooo yeah. If he has any advice on that, that would be great, haha.

 

Also the other day at an appointment, I accidentally dropped my plate and it shattered everywhere. It was really embarrassing and I felt so bad. But the member was so nice and told me not to worry about it and that she does it all the time, haha, so yeah, I’m still a klutz.

 

But everything is going well here in Alessandria! I love it here. It’s crazy how fast time is going, then again I can’t really remember a lot about normal life out of the mission. I am tired all the time. and some mornings we wake up and don’t know how we are going to make it through the day we are so tired. But we tell ourselves that if we get out of bed then we have already won half the battle, haah, and it’s true.

 

I am so thankful to be a missionary, I have learned so much already. Everything is good here in Italia! Thank you for all the prayers and support!  Love you! and Happy Easter! He lives!

 

Sorella Yost