Week 8

Ciao famiglia!!! Come state?!

Italian side note: Every letter is pronounced in this language! So different than French ;) I'll be sure to give a pronunciation guide in a future email, but I don't have a lot of time (what else is new... haha!).

This week was filled with challenges and miracles. I love being a missionary.

Sorella Patterson had a hard day on Friday while we were cleaning, she loves to lose herself in the work so being stuck in the casa all day was hard for her. She doesn't realize how incredible she is as a missionary, and I have made it my personal mission to help her see how wonderful and loved she really is, and how her service is blessing lives. But other than that, she teaches me daily about the gospel and our purpose as missionaries, she is so kind and patient and she makes every day fun, even if we aren't met with a ton of success. She loves this work and loves being a missionary. She has a lot of confidence in me, which gives me the courage to open my mouth and try to invite others to come unto Christ. She always has my back when I stumble through the grammar of the sentence, and I know I can look to her for help, support and encouragement in all the settings we find ourselves in. She is a huge strength for me and I am so glad that the Lord knows what He is doing when He inspires companionships.

Our work out in Rome 5 goes well, we have done a lot of teaching and a lot of finding this week. We had a great day in Rieti (center of our province I am pretty sure) on Tuesday, I had to take care of some permesso (visa) stuff there after our DDM meeting in Terni (where the stake president and other half of our district lives). We found two people and taught them both the Restoration on Wednesday because the posta (post office) was closed Tuesday when we got there, so we had to go back. Also, how many miles do we get to use the car for each week and how does that all work? Neither of us know!

Wednesday our afternoon plans fell through, and we hadn't made backups because planning didn't get finished till almost 10:30 the night before. So we tried to just wing our way through it, but when we left the house to go walk around Passo Corese (where we live), neither of us were motivated to talk to the people we saw and we ended up just killing time for a while, and then we decided that we should be productive at the least, so we went home and watched the drivers safety video since I hadn't seen it yet. That night during planning we begged to be guided by the Spirit, and we came up with solid plans and solid backup plans for the next day. We did probably 2 hours of just finding during the day on Thursday and along the way to lessons, and we ended up meeting only one person who was interested in having us teach him Italian. But throughout the day we opened our mouths and talked with as many people as were put in our path, and we had some great gospel conversations. We taught a lesson that night, and even though we didn't get any new investigators out of our finding efforts, we were able to talk and bring the spirit to some of God's children who I feel really needed it, and hopefully someday they will remember that one time the missionaries talked to them and how they felt, and be open to learning more.

We had a similar experience on Sunday, we didn't have much of a plan for the afternoon, but we wanted to be out and we knew based on Thursday that if we are willing to go out, follow the Spirit, and TALK to people, that we would be doing what God needed us to. So we prayed and told Heavenly Father that we were going out, to give us His spirit and to lead us to those who He was preparing. We had met a woman earlier that week so we decided to go knock on her door, but she didn't answer. This led to four straight hours of casa (knocking doors), strada (street contacting), and ricerca (literally research, we use it to mean finding). We found 5 people who were interested in something that we had to say. Heavenly Father needs us to be willing to act in faith, and when we do He will show us miracles!

We have three progressing investigators at the moment, one of whom, Peter, does not like the message of the Book of Mormon as being more scripture but he keeps his commitments and he keeps inviting us back, so we will keep teaching and praying that his heart will be softened by the spirit! We are also teaching a man named Amède, he is so ready to be baptized but he won't come to church because he doesn't want to be an imposition on anyone. He is also painfully shy around new people and doesn't want to have to get a ride to church with someone he doesn't know, which is what happened the last time. We have been trying since I got here to get a member to one of his lessons so that he will have a friend in the branch who can take him to church, and we have that lined up to finally happen this Tuesday. Our third investigator is Caterina. She's 16 and she came to church with us on Sunday! We have been teaching her a lot about finding things out for herself and the importance of a testimony, and she seems to be understanding that we want her to do something with the message we are sharing, instead of just continuing to talk at her. She is such a sweet girl though! We have picked baptismal dates for all three and are planning on inviting them to commit to baptism this week!

I personally am doing really well, sometimes I get a little distracted by thoughts of family and friends but I am sure that's normal. I want to do all I can to be focused on this work because I know God needs me to be a missionary here, at this time, in this place, and I have answered the call to serve Him.

We have plans to do our sightseeing P-day in Roma on September 8th, so we will celebrate my 20th birthday at the Vatican, Sistine chapel, Coliseum, and trying to find Michelangelo’s David (I think that's actually in the Louvre....). I don't have access to internet or any guide books, so if you will all put your heads together and email itinerary suggestions for that day, or just a ''sightseeing in Roma'' list, I would be so grateful! We only get to do this once a transfer so we want to make it worth the trip. Plus, it might be Slla. Patterson's last transfer within a reasonable distance of Roma, and she has yet to see the Vatican City!

Trivia from the life of Slla. Decker:

Number of pizzas eaten this week: 3

Favorite gelato flavors so far: strawberry (fragola), and cantaloupe (melone)

Number of meals eaten in an Italian home: 1

Number of meals eaten in an Italian home that I've finished eating: 0

All my love!!!

Sorella Decker

PS: There are so many details I had to leave out and I am so sad about it. I will have to write you a letter or something!

Google Earth snap shot of the area Nicole's living and serving in