My dear family -
Mommy, I love you. You are so fantastic. Thank you for your emails every week; there is always something in there that I need to hear. When I was in the MTC, I would always peek in the booths to see what languages they were translating - in hopes that you guys would be there, always in vain. Haha...Heavenly Father knows best, right? How wonderful you and dad are at the MTC so much lately! That's awesome you are there at the same time as Nick and Harrison (cousins).
Harrison (Japan) getting dropped off at the MTC Nick (Brazil) saying goodbye to Lucia
I'm happy you like my letters in Italian. Those are what I work on during language study twice a week, so you can keep expecting them. I am sure they are rough :),but hey, the point gets across. (Actually, her letters are very well written in Italian!) I love this langauge though. It is so pretty.
As for updates this week, I am going to start with Thursday. One miracle is that it started to cool down - thank the heavens above. We had zone training, and President is adding new stuff, reinforcing stuff and shaking things up a bit with lots of changes. For someone who doesn't like change very much, maybe a mission wasn't the best idea! haha jk. Change does bring growth...I guess I am just a slow learner.
After our conference, we came home to an appointment with a man named Angelo. To describe him in few words, I will use the words of one of our members we brought to a lesson: a pharasi. When we aren't teaching, he is great! So that Thursday, we needed a member to come to our lesson. All of our women were busy. There was one sister left, who I had never taught with, and I was a bit nervous - not knowing how she would react to him and all. But, we felt to call her, and it ended up being the best decision ever. We watched "Finding Faith in Christ".
Angelo does not entirely believe in Christ, but he says he wants to, so we felt this would be good for him. We asked him to pay attention to his feelings as we watched. Not even five minutes into it, he was criticizing the film character, asking how we know really if his hair color was blond or brown. After a few of these types of comments, I asked him to just watch, and he did. I was praying the whole time for him, so he could actually FEEL something. After the video, he began talking about things that were missing in the story. I finally said, "Okay, we're not going to talk about the things that it lacks. How did you feel while we were watching it?" He told us he didn't watch it with his heart, but with a technical mind. My heart sank.
I didn't know what to say...I started to say something, but then I felt like I should ask our sister how she felt while watching the film. That wonderful sister was an answer to my prayer. She was a great support to us. She bore a beautiful and powerful testimony of Jesus Christ and of who we are as missionaries. She told him we are not just young girls with good energy, but we are called of God to teach basic, simple, pure doctrine of Christ. At the beginning of our discussion, he was talking about Hinduism and Buddhism. She said that although we might not have a deep knowledge of all these different religions, we do have power. She called us angels. She asked him to just stop and listen to us - to stop arguing and listen, because she did, and it changed her life. All this was very bold and very loving. I was crying. Sister brown was crying. It was so beautiful to receive my own testimony of who I am as a missionary from a member's perspective.
Our next miracle is Veronica. This is probably the most sacred experience I have had on my mission thus far. She is African and our "mission mom" here :). I love her. I think I have written about her before. We had an appointment with her on Saturday. She is meno attiva (less active). She called and told us she had an emergency, and she was in the hospital with some friends. Her friend was having twins, and she had to go help. This woman is always helping, serving, giving and loving everyone. I have never met such a wonderful woman. She told us that she would see us in church, and we could come by after. I was so relieved when she actually walked into church. She looked so happy, but sooooo tired. These past few weeks have been really rough on her. Work is physically demanding for her; she runs all over the area serving people, despite her exhaustion and physical pain. She is a very large woman with a heart that is bigger than her body.
Her birthday was on Saturday, so we made her banana bread. That evening, we went over and began singing happy birthday to her. We ate the bread with her too. After talking a bit, she said she had to knead some flour for tomorrow (I thought it was for work) but it was super hard for her, because she has a slipped disk in her back. She asked daughter to help, her but she refused. I offered to help, but she thought I was kidding. When I stood up and told her I was serious, we all gathered into her little kitchen and sat on the floor in a circle with this big metal bowl in the middle.
We gave our message (We are all children of God), as she worked the dough through her tears. We sang "I am a Child of God" for her while she finished kneading the dough. I was overcome by an immense love for this woman - as I watched her tired, but determined hands knead the dough. I felt Heavenly Father's love for His daughter who continually is serving. When we ended the song, she was crying hard.
She said, "I love serving people. It makes me happy. I don't have a lot (as she was patting the dough, she said this) but what little I do have, I have. I like doing this once a month - to bring a little food to my brothers and sisters, my friends, who don't have much. I had been praying to Heavenly Father to help me do this, because it is what I love doing. He sent me three angels to help me. I know He loves me and that I am His daughter, because He sent you to me. My own daughter, my daughter, would not help me. This was Heavenly Father telling me He wanted me to do this service, because He sent me help. I will never forget this day, when Sister Brown, Sister Bennett, and Sister Montagnoli - on August 11, 2013 came to help me. I will write this in my journal and never forget."
I don't have time to write the other miracles, but this week truly has been full of miracles - which compensate for all the struggles we had this week too. I love you all. I pray for you all. I am so excited for everything that is going on at home. I am so happy you loved the pictures. They were so fun to take! hahaa! Rex, I miss you too! Never stopped! Can't wait to see you again!
Rex, Nicole, Lucia, Sarah, Martha, Cliff, Kelly & Max after doing temple baptisms for the Montagnoli's of Italy
Sorella Montagnoli
You can write her at: alicia.montagnoli@myldsmail.net
-- Sister Francesca Montagnoli
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