Sei mesi per andare fino a quando io vado a casa!

Hello, Everyone! So, this week was pretty good. At the beginning of the week, we were Both sick, so we had to stay inside for a couple days. But we are doing fine now, Especially Because We got blessings from the Elders (the guy missionaries). We had a really great week though Because we were Able to stay positive through it all and we even got to listen to the  Sons of Provo soundtrack! Haha, it was the best. And, I had a bunch of other good music from Elder Padilla, like songs from  Phinneas and Ferb , and a bunch of other Things That  kept  us upbeat while we were inside.  

And, this week, basically all the rest of our promising supporters moved away ... At least for a while. Cornelia went to Romania for the next two months, and Ofori moved to Germany. We are not sure if he will ever move back, but we Gave him the info for His church city and we Told him to text us with His new number as soon as he gets it. Then, we can refer Jim to other missionaries in Germany. It is sad though wayyyy Because we will not be Able to see him for a long time, if we ever see him again. I Hope that we were at least Able to make a small difference for him.  

Our last couple visits with him were sort of all over the place though Because this preacher guy comes and tries to speak very loudly over us, and he thinks That He Has to contradict every doctrine That We talk about ... But it all went well Because in the end one of us would distract this man for a while and the other would talk with Ofori. In the end though, we were Able to ask this man to take photos for us and I thought of Sister Bradford with Ofori. :) In short, our last visit with Ofori Necessarily was not what we expected, but it went well all the same. Especially Because He Told us what His Favorite chapter in the bible was (a chapter in Psalms, I think I wrote it down, but I forgot the chapter number).

Hmmm ... Oh! And the ward is really starting to love us! In church, the Bishop thanked Sister Bradford and I for our work and for our Testimonies, and he Said That we are really "good sisters." After That, there were some other people in the ward who came and shook our hands and Told us That we are some of the most "good" sister That they have had. It felt really nice to be appreciated and to know That our love for the people and the church members here is returned to us. I love Taranto. This week we really not have been involved-in the ward Because We as well not have been visiting members and Bringing them spiritual thoughts for the month of invites. It Has Been a really great experience Because there is such a great spirit in the members' homes, and you can really feel That they have a Testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

In addition, Sister Bradford and I have so much fun together. We love talking to people on the streets, on buses, everywhere. And we love Taranto. It was really fun, being Able to laugh this week, even in times When Work felt slow. Man, I am so thankful That Sister Bradford and I can do at least one more transfer together.

Welp, that is all I have for now! Love you, Guys! I hope That You all have a great weekend.

Love, 

Sister Corey Cherrington

PS-Our stamp (stamp) ran out of ink this week and, in the search for a new ink pad, this random guy in a shop toner tried to "help" us by injecting a truck load of ink INTO the stamp! I tried to stop him, saying "Ummm ... do you like that?" And he responded by continuing to take action, saying, "I do not know (I do not know), I never did! (I do not know!'ve Never done this!" Lol, our poor little stamp is now broken, and now we have to get a new one ... At least we got a good laugh out of this though! The ink was everywhere, and it even got on Sister Bradford's neck! It was a pretty funny day.

Another quick note: This week, we went to the hospital again to visit some of our friends from church and friends of people in church. It was really great! I love Bringing people joy When they need it most, and I hope to be Able to continue to do this in the future. Love you, guys.

Il mio amato Taranto. Aiutami a fornire un servizio dove c'è bisogno di me, Signore ti prego

So, this week, all the forces of mission difficulty were against us, but it is okay!  Because we still succeeded in doing some really good work and in trying our best in everything that we did.  

This week, we started a really great program with our members here to prepare them for the month of invite (June).  I encourage all of you guys to prepare for this month as well!  It is the month when all the people in the church come together to show people who are not members that they are welcome.  Because everybody is welcome! (lol, I know what you are thinking, Ma.  It is nothing like the creepy "all are welcome" sign in that one movie... Poltergeist?  ;)  Sooo, we have already done this with 2 families, the Bonvissuto's and the Pastano's!  :D  It worked great both times because there was a grande missionary spirit!  :D  These two families are so strong, and we are so excited to help them feel comfortable inviting their friends to church.  

So, pranzo at the Pastano's house yesterday was soooo fun by the way!  :D  So, Emiliano Pastano is so fun!  On Easter, he told us "Buon Natale,"  merry Christmas, so since then, I have called him "Babbo Natale," Santa Claus!  And Emiliano had a guitar at his house that he let me pick up and play for a bit, and he told me, "If you can play good enough, I will let you have the guitar!"  I played for a while (Mamma Mia, did I miss playing...) and he ended up letting me have it!  XD  It was one of the most graaaaaande personal benedizioni I have yet recieved on my mission!  I missed the guitar sooooo much!  And now, I can start learning to play the hymns from Antonio Chitano's simplified hymn book that has the chords written in it!  I am soooo excited.  :D  I will be like Elder Karchner in Clearlake who could play "Nearer my God to thee" for all of us at the ward activity!  I will never forget that song they did for us.  :)  

Comunque!  We also did a scambio with the Sorelle di Cosenza!  :D (Sorelle Hibbert and Perkins).  It went sooo great!  :)  And, because I got to be with Sorella Hibbert (another of my past companions), we got to see how much each of us has grown.  WOW!  It was soooo great!  We were no longer totally scared to talk to people, we both speak Italian by now, and it was really great to be with Sister Hibbert again.  I consider her a good friend of mine.  She is also a really spiritual, awesome person. I was so thankful to be blessed with the opportunity to do a scambio with her.  Also, I really liked being able to finally see Cosenza (Sorella Worsham used to tell me all about it and about how much she loved it, and it has been the same with Soella Bradford!  :D  So I finally got to see and do work in the magnificent Cosenza that everybody was telling me about for so long.  

We saw many miracles there as well!  We were able to teach a lesson to one man on the street, and he agreed to pray with us!  He was so great!  :D  Also, we ended the day with 9 phone numbers!  Everybody there just seemed to be interested in hearing our message!  It was meraviglioso!  

Hmmmm.... And OH!  XD  I forgot to tell you all about Cornelia and crew!  So, Cornelia is one of our Simp's, is from Romania, takes care of a nice older lady named "Regina," and she is just the coolest!  Haha, but whenever we go to see her, like I said in an e-mail a few times back, we are swarmed by every older woman in the city of Taranto.  I actually really love it.  I enjoy talking to older people and letting them know that they are loved :)  Lol, and one of our friends that we met through Cornelia, S-------, is a bit off her rocker...  During lessons, or just conversations with Cornelia, S------ tells Cornelia, "Non parlare!  Parli troppo!"  In her loud, passionate, raspy voice because usually she wants to interrupt to tell us something else that she is thinking of.  It is a bit frustrating at times, but sort of humorous.  Suzie also loooooves me and she gives me an extra big kiss on my cheek every time I see her.  One day, I sat between her and Cornelia, and each of them had one of my arms in theirs.  I love them soooo much!  :D

Well, that is all I have time for this week!  I love you guys! 

-Sorella Corey Cherrington

ALL PICTURES ARE TAKEN IN TARANTO

Scambio meraviglioso con le sorelle a Crotone

Ciao, Tutti!  I just love you guys.  :D

Allora, this week?  So, we did a scambio this week with Crotone (aka- Sorella Kimball and Taylor!  :D)  It was sooo cool because me and sorella Kimball got to be together for the scambio!  It was really cool to be with her again, to see how much each of us has grown in these past 6 months, and to talk all about Ostia.  :)  I love Ostia with all my heart, and I miss it sooo much!  :D  She told me all about how the members are doing, and that Sorella Alicino and Teresa miss me.  :)  It was really nice to hear about Ostia.

Annnd, uau!  We just had a great week!  We have been having some of the best lessons that I have done my whole mission because we have come up with a new technique where we do quicker pass-offs between the both of us during lessons, and it is really cool to see how the Spirit works through us when we complete the things that the other person says by testifying and continuing a gospel principle.  I really enjoy teaching nowadays, and it used to be one of me weak points (I got way more nervous at the beginning of my mission).  I feel like the mission habits have set in, and a lot of things I could not do before are now 2nd nature.  I love my mission, you guys.  I have learned and grown so much.

Also, we taught _____ a couple times this week, and he really seems to be making progress.  His desire to quit smoking grows every time we see him, and he has a totally different view of baptism than he had when we first started teaching him.  We tried to set a date with him last night for him to be baptized and to work towards a goal for his baptism, but he said that he would think about the date and choose one himself because he does not want to make promises with God that he feels he cannot keep.  That is totally understandable, and he decided last night that the next step for him to progress is to come to church!  His progress is a bit more gradual, "Small, small," as he says :), but he is making progress nonetheless towards changing his life for the better.  Oh!  And the suggestion we got from President Waddoups worked!  We talked about the difference between Temples and churches, and that made _____ understand that the church is for imperfect people.  He now wants to come to church of his own merit.  

And, famiglia, if you have any advice for our friend, _____ it would be much appreciated because we want to help him quit smoking and to have faith in himself, that he can quit, but we don't know how to help him take the first steps to quit smoking for good.  And, Dad, I shared with him the story about how you stopped smoking because, when I was a kid, I picked up the stick off the ground and began imitating your smoking gestures.  I was not sure that _____ had remembered the story, but about a week or so later, he mentioned that story, saying, "Your Dad, you see, he stopped smoking because he saw that he was a bad example for you."  That started a conversation then about choosing your number 1 reason to quit (Dad's reason was to be a better example) and keeping that reason in mind, to help strengthen you in times of weakness.  In the next lesson, we talked about the temple and said that his journey to Baptism, and eventually to the temple could be his "one thing."  He changes more and more every time we see him.  I hope we can help him to feel the Spirit and to progress more this week.  

Hmmmm.... What else?  Oh!  _____ is absolutely amaz-a-zing!  He is one of our most loyal English course students- recently turned Simpatizzante, and he invited us over to his house for pranzo yesterday.  His entire family was there and they were really great!  They are all really intelligent and, apparently, _____ brother went to "The MIT of Italy" to study to be an Egineer.  They are so kind!  We also got to teach a bit of the first lesson to his sister, L..... and her husband, _____.  They are genuinely interested, and we got their phone number to be able to pass by them again soon.  It was such a great day.  Also, the view from their apartment was beautiful.  You could see all of the naval ships on the sea and the clouds were beautiful and there was sun on the water.  Guys, I love Taranto.  

Welp, I am really happy for Andrew and Emma.  :)  I wouldn't doubt Avri's statement that they were "one of the cutest couples at the prom."  Andrew looked really sharp in his suit and him and Emma looked so cool in the pic by his nice car :).  I am happy that they are having so much fun together.  And I can't wait to talk to Andrew this Saturday on Skype!  XD

Oh!  I almost forgot!  So, there was a baptism the other day in our church building, and the man being baptized was afraid of water.  Uh-oh!  So, they ended up closing the baptismal font and trying for the next few hours to help the man to go under the water.  It was so crazy because they told the man that he did not have to be baptized that day, but he said, "No, I have to do it. I still want to be baptized."  It was a sure test of his faith, but the Elders were ultimately able to help this man go under the water to be baptized.  I have never seen a baptism like that!  Lol, molto particolare, ma è stato un successo!  Che grande.  :) Well, I think that is all for now.  I love you guys, and I will write you all again next week!  :)

Love, 

Corey (Sorella Cherrington)

Sorella Bradford

Sorella Kimall and Bradford with the very large tub o chips!

Sorella Cherrington and Taylor with PIZZA!!!

Sorella Kimball 

Anziano _____ needs his beauty rest!!

Sorella Kimball and Cherrington

Sorella Bradford, Taylor and Kimball

Lasciate che le cose deboli divengano forti

Ciao, Famiglia!  

The foto uploader is taking forever, so Idk how many photos I will send this week.  BUUUUT, this week was fantastic!  Wow, was it hard, but it was really great.  Maybe if I start from yesterday and go backwards, that will help me remember all the best things from this week!  

So, my favorite bit of spiritual knowledge that we discovered this week was in a talk from the 2008 General conference when Anziano Bednar (he is so cool!) gave a talk about how to say more meaningful prayers.  He recounted an experience from when he and his wife were at BYU-I, giving a talk or something like that and they suddenly found our that a dear friend of theirs had passed away.  Anz. Bednar and his wife had decided that they would offer a prayer on the family's behalf, asking for help for the family.  But, when they were about to pray, an apostle suggested to pray only in gratitude.  Sorella Bednar offered a prayer of gratitude for the Plan of Salvation and for the doctrine of eternal families, and both she and Anziano Bednar felt more comforted than they could have if they had prayed for anything else.  Maybe this seems kind of crazy that a prayer of gratitude to God can change our outlook on anything and everything, but I know that it is true.  The scriptures always tell us to pray in gratitude whenever possible, and there is a reason for that.  I have found since listening to that talk that, if I offer prayers full of gratitude, I will be lifted up in happiness and my perspective is better that is otherwise would have been.  I invite you all to try this!  Especially to try saying prayers of only gratitude.  The results are very cool.

You can find the full story here under the 2nd point:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/pray-always 

So, Church was really great too!  We tried to pick up one of our investigators to come to church with Sorella Mazzolari, and it ends up that she didn't want to come because she had promised us the other day that she would come and be ready by the time when we would pass by, buuut it was not so, bro!  It was kind of sad, but I think that going to pranzo at the Mazzolari's house made it all better! 

They are seriously one of the most funny, scerzose families that I have ever met!  They are really kind, and Sorella Mazzolari told us that she was 1.) the first female waitress in Taranto, and 2.) she and her husband were the first couple to be married in the church in Taranto.  It was pretty cool!  And their son, Manuel, reminds me a lot of Andrew because he always has headphones in and he loves rock music!  Manuel is a really great kid.  I think him and Andrew should be friends, haha.  :)

Also!  Ofori is doing great!  We have been working with him to quit smoking, and he really wants to quit, but he is having some issues with stopping completely and with alcohol because he has been doing these things for years now, even since he was with his family in his home country.  And, it is great to meet with him not only because we get to talk about the Word of God, but also because he tells us a little more of his story every time.  This time, he told us this story about how he has had a fear of women since he was a kid because he had a dream about a woman frying him.  Then he recounted a conversation with his friends (all this cam up because he said that when he talks to us, he feels like a sinner in church, but he also appreciates the help that we are giving him.).  And he said to this of this conversation:

"And I tell them, 'they are not my wives,' they help me!"

I imagine the conversation went like this:

Friends: Ofori, why do you talk with those girls so much? Are they your wives, or something?

Ofori: They are not my wives, you understand, they bring me the word of God.

Ofori is the greatest!  :D I feel so grateful to be one of his missionaries! 

Annnnd, we also have been trying to work with this one girl from English course who took the lessons in the past.  She knows so much about the church and she thinks that the Story of Joseph Smith is beautiful.  She speaks perfect English, and we have had to think of creative ways to continue being her friend, but to also reintroduce her to the Gospel. And it is going well!  So, the other day, we went and got gelato and we were able to talk a little about her past experience with the Book of Mormon, and were ultimately able to leave a chapter for her to read.  It was especially cool because she invited us to her house to come see her cat and to talk about the reading that she will have done.  We love her!  She is so great!  :)

And, our friend, Collins is leaving for Denmark today... A week earlier than he had anticipated.  So, he will not be able to be baptized here in Taranto... Just yet at least!  He gave us another bit of info that he will return in 2 months, and he hopes to get baptized when he returns!  But, we discovered that he lives in the Zone of Statte, and even though he spends a majority of his time at Piazza Garibaldi, we have to pass him off to the Statte Anziani when he gets back.  No prob tho!  Because either way, he will have made the first step on the "covenant path," as they say in General Conference, with the decision to be baptized and confirmed.  Really, these are just the first 2 baby steps on a path towards eternal life and being able to be with our families forever. 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/04/covenants-two-way-promises-with-god?cid=HPFR042514738&query=two-way+promises+with+god&lang=eng 

Well, that is all I have for this week.  I sure love you guys, and I hope that all is well for you.  Can't wait to write you all again this next week!  

-Sorella Corey Cherrington

(Fotos: Us and Bianca, and me with the Mazzolari family!  :D)

Miracoli per la Pasqua

Sooo, this week was outstanding!  :D  First thing's first!

COLLINS CAME TO CHURCH!   XD  And he now has a baptismal date for the 2nd of May! :D  He is such a good person, and we are convinced that he truly is one of the "elect" people that missionaries are searching to find.  We taught him the Word of Wisdom yesterday and he totally agreed with all of it, and said that he wanted to quit smoking and drinking cold turkey.  WOW!  He is so great!  And he said that he has a testimony of Joseph Smith, that he was a special, chosen man of God.  He is also very serious about baptism and he said in the closing prayer, "Lord, I put my date of baptism in your hands."  He is seriously the greatest!  :D  He also read in his Book of Mormon and he wants to show the Word of Wisdom pamphlet to all of his friends who smoke, to help them to stop.  :)

And Ofori is doing great too!  He has been reading everything that we leave with him, and this is a phone conversation that we had the other day, "So, Ofori, have you been reading in your Book of Mormon in Twi?" 

Ofori: Yes, I read the chapter you gave me.  It is about a man, who, he repents, you understand." (About the Book of Enos.)  This is one of my favorite quotes from my entire mission!  :D

Wow!  He read and he could tell us about it!  When investigators do this, it means that they are committed to learning more and they are serious about it.  The only issue with our friend, Ofori, is that he feels a bit uncomfortable about coming to church because he wants to feel worthy first.  We have tried to share with him our testimony and scriptures from the Book of Mormon that explain that anyone can come into the church, because it helps us to progress in our endeavors to improve ourselves.  We pray for Ofori and Collins all the time, and we have the faith that they can continue to progress in their knowledge of the Gospel.

And the coppia Franceschini have been helping us a lot with teaching Ofori and Collins and gave Collins a ride to church on Sunday and they also gave Ofori a tie (his dress clothes are stuck in Brindisi) and they also gave our new simp, Rosi, a ride to the activity in church for Pasquetta!  We are so grateful for the Franceschini, and without them, we would not be having success così.  

Annnnnd, CORNELIA!  :D  We have been able to see her this past week because she exits the house with the Signora who she takes care of.  The lessons we have taught to her have been both packed with the spirit and also hilarious.  Why hilarious?  Because in the piazza where we teach her, nearly "Every old woman in the city of Taranto comes to salute the Signora and Cornelia," as Sorella Bradford says.  And that is actually quite accurate...  Haha, but it is really fun.  We have come up with some ideas to teach Cornelia in a different post in the future because she clearly believes in that which we teach her and she loves to read the Book of Mormon with us.  She is really sweet.  And she is really strong too, perché she has been having a lot of health problems and not enough money to fix them, so she has been in a really tight spot lately.  We love Cornelia and we want to help her as much as we can with the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Other than that, we have had a blast these past couple of days, during Pasqua (Easter).  (Happy Easter, everybody!  :D).  There have been some pretty crazy things going on, like the Processione durante la Settimana Santa with all the odd men in white suits...  and there were big parades for la Madonna, and uau, it was pretty huge.  For Easter, we got to go to Fratello Miccoli's house (love that family!) with Bishop and his family (Bishop is the son of Fratello Miccoli.  It was sooo fun!  Especially because Greta (Vescovo's daughter) is hilarious and they are such a loving family.  :)  They also bought some of the big Easter eggs for us (We had a total of 3: one, we bought together, one from the family Miccoli, and the other from the Anziani!  :D  It was certainly a chocolate-filled holiday.  And it was really cool to be able to do this huge Meno-attivi biglietti per Pasqua progetto where we delivered several cards to less-active families all over  Taranto for the amazing, Sorella Pastano.  It was a really tiring progetto, but we did it!  :D  And it was really rewarding in the end.  

Well, that is all I have for now!  I love you, guys!  And I hope that you had one of the greatest Easters ever.  :)

Love,

Sorella Cherrington

Sorella Bradford

Marzipan fish and shellfish!  Look closely at the clams!  

Beautiful Taranto Sunset!

Sorella Cherrington contemplating the beauty of Taranto!

Marzipan for Easter Celebrations

When I google translated this, here is what came up: L. Teresa's Missionary Sisters Institute Primary School Matching cost???

Holy Week 2014

Corey said that these people who dress up and participate in the parade pay 70,000 euro to have their sins forgiven?  Italian religious tradition.

Easter Presents!!

Another beautiful Sunset in Taranto!

Cornelia gave the Sorellas a marzipan lamb.  Awwww!

Corey with a large piece of chocolate!

Easter Goodies!

Rami di ulivo e di palma Fronde della Domenica delle Palme

Soooo, this week was sooo amaz-a-zing!  I cannot tell you how much I loved this week!  :D  Except I will because I am writing about this week in this e-mail!  :)

Allora, we met with Collins again this week and invited him to be baptized before he goes to Denmark.  He accepted!  XD  He is such a good person and he loves the Gospel!  Literally though, he has such a special spirit about him that one can just see and know that he is a good person.  We love Collins!  And we are excited that he will be a member of this wonderful church in just a few weeks.  

Annnd... yesterday was "Palm Sunday"  and it was pretty cool to see everyone selling or buying these cool things made out or palm fronds and these olive branches.  This one nice sorella from church gave us some olive branches and Marianna put an olive leaf in my scriptures at church!  It is a really interesting way to celebrate the holiday.  And, Martin (I will talk more about him in a minute) told us that, in his country, they call this holiday "the day of the many flowers." Because, when Jesus went to Jerusalem, the people brought many flowers.  

Also, Saturday, we had a nice Picnic with the GANS and the giovanni and our buddies from the Pastano family.  It was pretty much amaz-a-zing, and Sorella Bradford made cookies and I made a lasagna.  It was really fun and we got to know a lot of the members better.  We were a bit disappointed that our simpatizzanti couldn't come, but it was all good lo stesso.  :)  And, right before the picnic, we were able to go to Talsano with Sorella Pastano for an appointment with a menoattiva.  It was a really beautiful morning, but the visit with the menoattiva was a bit sad because she has lost her testimony.  We hope to help her rebuild it, but the most we can do is help.  She has to do the things that she knows are right (read the scriptures, pray, and come to church) as well if she wants to nourish her testimony.  

Hmmmm... And we also had a really good experience with our investigator, Giovanna!  W love her sooo much!  And her son is really cool! They both accepted a new baptismal date together and are totally willing to follow the Savior's example.  But, it is very hard for them to come to church because her son's wheelchair is tough to transport.  All the members we have brought with us have said that they will give her a ride, but it has just been difficult form her and we just have to keep praying and trying our best to help her out.  She is awesome, and we live her and Michele.  I love their dog too!  It is a puppy named Lilly and she loves us!  XD  I love dogs.  :)

What else?  English course has been going really well, and Sorella Bradford and I are managing well the 2 classes that we each have to teach.  I know the Lord is helping us because I used to get so nervous before English course, and not I just feel so comfortable walking in and teaching the class.  A lot of it could be because I know all the students and we have a pretty good relationship with all of our students.  :)  There is one girl who I am really good friends with, Bianca!  She speaks English perfectly, and is really fun!  They are all really great, and we love our students!  :D

I think that is all for this week!  I love you guys, and I hope and pray that your guys' week will go well!

Love,

Corey

PS- I am going to leave you all with an invite this week to pray for a date when you plan to invite the Missionaries over to talk with a friend.  You may not know who will be the friend at first, but once you pra for an choose a date, miracles will happen!  This is a promise that Elder Ballard gave us in his talk "é un miracolo."  Love you, guys!  :)

The Challenge of Believing the Lord's Blessings

This week was one of the hardest weeks of my mission and possibly of my life. But I think that that is why it ended up being one of the best, most rewarding weeks of my entire life. So, as some of you know, I started off the week with some pretty bad news that a dear friend of mine who is like a brother to me had lost his life a few months back. I talked to someone about how I was feeling because I was really not doing good for a while as a result of the sad news. But, when I was finally able to talk to Sorella Perry, and she really put things into perspective for me. She told me that, because of the Atoning sacrifice of the Savior, my friend is okay, and that he is in a safe spiritual situation where he is able to heal. I felt peace in this and I immediately began to feel better because I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for my friend and that he has nothing to worry about, and nor do any of us here on earth. I know this is true, because it immediately brought peace to my sad, suffering heart. God lives, and he loves us. I know that for a fact. And he will never forget or hold a grudge against anyone of us.
So, this week was really intense... The other Sorelle also just left the city too, so we are managing all of their work into ours this week. It has been a bit rough, but Sorella Bradford and I are up to the challenge. Also, we got to see our buddy, Martin, the other day, and he is just fantastic! :D He was going through some hard times this week because he had to change classes, and it did not seem possible for him to catch up in school before the grades would be published. So, he came to one of our lessons a bit down. So, we talked with him about how we can face our trials, and I was able to share with him a story about when I was at BYU and I didn't think that I could finish all of my classwork prima di andare to New York for the Model UN conference. It literally seemed impossible. But, my Dad came up from CA and gave me a blessing and some council, and all went right and well. I advised Martin to get a blessing, he accepted the invite with faith, and told us that evening that the blessing had worked! He was able to understand all of the Italian texts that he had to read (he is from Hungary, and has not been in Italy long, so that has also been difficult for him), and he was so excited that his faith, along with the priesthood authority of God, were able to help him through his seemingly impossible trials. It was a miracle!
Also, because this week was a week of break-throughs with all of our Simps, we had a turning point also with Collins, Ofori, and Joseph. It was amazing! The lesson we did the other day was wayyyy crazy because so many things happened like this crazy lady was yelling at us and the pigeons as she waved a bible in the air and fell to the ground in an odd prayer position..., and then the church bells went off as we were trying to give the baptismal invite and... just everything man... BUT! We were able to get through all of the hard things and we really got to know our friends better. It ends up that they are refugees from Libya, and that is why they have had to search for work all around Europe. We told them that we wish we could help them more, but they said that we are helping in the best way we can because we are preaching the word of God, and that is more than enough. Ofori and Collins accepted the invite to battesimo, but said that they would not be able to be baptized on the dates that we offered to them because they will have to move to different countries before long. But they want to find the church in the countries they go to and are not actually 100% sure that they will have to go. All I know is that I really feel like these friends of ours, and also Martin, are our brothers, and we love them as children of God. It is amazing, the profound and pure love that we feel for people as we invite them to come unto Christ.
Annnd, there is also Giovanna! So, this is a cool story:  Giovanna was an ex-simp of the Sorelle A who we (then Sorelle B) had met when we were with Sorelle Hibbert and Perkins before Zone Conference. We had planned to stop by Giovanna's house and start teaching her, but then we discovered that she was in the Area Book of the other Sorelle, so we gave her to them. Then, the first time that the other sorelle had taught Giovanna after that was when we were doing a scambio with the other sorelle, so Sorella Bradford was able to go to the teaching appt. with Giovanna and be there for the baptismal invite. Giovanna accepted the invite, had a baptisimal date, and we are now the missionaries who will go to see her! Crazy how these things work out! We love Giovanna! And her kids are so great too. Her son (8 years old) is paralyzed and cannot walk, and is one of the coolest, funnest kids I have ever met. :) We love their family, and we are excited to help her towards battesimo and to help her come unto Christ, above all. 
Hmmm... What else? I love you all, and I hope that everyone is doing good. :) Right now is a really good time in my mission, and there is a lot of stress, but it is a good stress because we are in the service of our brothers and sisters here in Taranto, and there is no better thing to be doing than the work that our Savior would do if he were on the earth. Love you guys! Be strong in your hard times and the Lord will bless you. I hope you all were able to see general conference (lds.org) because it teaches us how to endure our trials with patience. Some of my favorite words of advice were these:
-When we have an attitude of gratitude, everything will be good. We don't have to pretend that we like our hard times, but when we have an attitude of gratitude, we will find little miracles in every and any situation
-We have to take upon us the right load, or the right preoccupations, concerns, opinions, etc., and that load is the yoke of Jesus Christ. This means that we have to ensure that we are serving others and doing what He wants us to do and then, we will see happiness unlike any other happiness known to mankind, and we will find our way back to our Father in Heaven someday.
Vi voglio bene! :D,  Sorella Cherrington