The Missionary Work Begins

Ciao, mia famiglia!

I can't believe another week has come and gone! I'm sorry I didn't tell you that my regular p-day is actually on Wednesday. Last week was just a special circumstance. How has everyone's week been? Are you all getting excited for Christmas? Sorella Forbes and I went and got a little christmas tree and decorations on our last p-day to set up in our apartment. It looks so cute! Have you gotten a Christmas tree yet? I can't wait to see all the lights go up in Milano. I hear it's absolutely beautiful here at Christmas time. 

This week has been a little slower than my first as far as teaching goes, but we've been doing a lot of finding and have had some cool experiences! One night (I think on Saturday) we were tracting and rang the citofono of a man named Giuseppe. He sounded really interested in our message through the citofono but couldn't meet with us right then. We went back on Monday and met him outside the palazzo. He saw us both with a Book of Mormon, took one out of Sorella Forbes' hand and starting flipping through it. Before we could say anything he told us, "ok, it will take me three or four days to read the whole thing and then afterwards we can talk about it." I was so taken aback! I've never seen someone so eager to learn about something so instantly like that. We told him we would come back to give him a Book of Mormon in his language (Albanian) and talk about it a little more. I'm excited to see where it goes! 

Last night we talked to an elderly lady named Maria who had a lot of interesting ideas about the Mormon church. She liked to talk so we weren't able to say a whole lot, but at the end she looked at me and said she knew me! I said my mom, Sorella Rogers, was here a while ago and maybe they had crossed paths! Do you remember any Catholic ladies named Maria, Mom? :) Another lady we're teaching, named Assunta, also loves to talk and is very fun to teach! Right now we're teaching her about faith and read Alma 32 together in our last lesson. She says it's a little hard for her to understand, but she said she would read the rest of the chapter this week which I think will help her. 

I love seeing all the little miracles that come when we're diligent in our finding efforts and continue to have faith. We have a lot of potential investigators right now that we're trying to meet with, but they're all super busy with work! Right now we have baptismal dates for Patrick and a Filipino woman named Abby. She is so ready and excited to be baptized! She talks about the gospel with all her friends and when we saw her last we gave her five pass-along cards to hand out to them! She is so great. We're also teaching her roommate, named Ditche. I'm really hoping we can meet with more of our potentials! I feel like there are so many great things coming. 

I'm excited for the rest of this week- our ward, Milano 3 (or Milano Navigli), is having a serata di talenti (talent show) on Friday, which everyone is very excited about. There's going to be lots of participation including a performance by the missionaries (I'm not quite sure what we're doing yet) and lots of people who will be singing, etc. It's going to be lots of fun! Mom- thanks for sending me some names of people you know! I don't think I've ran across any of them... yet. :) Well, I love you all and can't wait to hear what you've all been up to! Vi voglio bene! 

-Sorella Lyman

 

 

Me and my MTC companion, Sorella Harward!

 

 

Our Christmas tree :)

 

Me at the Duomo!

 

Pictures from Italy

 Cannolini!

Leaving for Italy!

Hi everyone!

How are you all doing? This is my last P-day here at the MTC! There are so many things to do before I leave, it's crazy! Mom, did you get the letter that I sent to you? I can't believe that I met someone in the temple who served at the same time as you in Italy! Her name is Sister Colton and she said was companions with one of your companions, who I think was a native Italian. I can't remember her last name, though! I got my travel itinerary this week! My departure date is the 13th, and I'll be getting to the SLC around 9:30. We leave for Dallas at 12:15, have a about a three hour layover, and then leave for London at 4:45. We'll be getting to the London airport at 7:30 a.m. on the 14th... I'm not sure what time that would be for you all- maybe about 1:30 in the morning? And then we leave for Milan at 9:30 and will be getting there at 12:30 p.m.! I'm guessing when I'm at the SLC would be the best time to call. Will you all be free from 9:30-11:30ish? There are no restrictions for when I call or for how long (although my branch president said to keep the calls relatively short). So I could maybe even call you when I'm in London!

Things have been pretty exciting for my last week at the MTC. Tomorrow we have in-field orientation, which is all day long and sort of a practice for contacting people on the streets and tracting, I think. Sunday was exciting because Sorella Harward, Anziano Johnson, and I got to play a musical number for mission conference! We did an arrangement of Savior, Redeemer of my Soul from the Joseph Smith movie. I played violin, Anziano Johnson sang, and Sorella Harward played the piano. I'm so glad I got to play the violin one more time before I leave for Italy! It was a little intimidating, but also really fun to play in front of the entire MTC! Devotional was really great on Tuesday. Elder Zwick from the Seventy and his wife came to speak to us. They talked about being a true disciple of Christ how having a pure and honest heart is one of the most important things in missionary work. It was a really great reminder for me to always keep Christ at the center of my thoughts and how I can be a better representative of him through my work as a missionary. 

I can't believe my time here is almost over. In a lot of ways it's seemed like an entire lifetime but it's also gone really fast, especially in the last few of weeks. I'm so excited to get to Italy and start teaching real investigators the gospel! I'm sure it will be a little intimidating walking up to someone for the first time, but I'm just going to have faith that the spirit will be with me and I will know what to say! Well my computer time's about up, sadly. I wish I had more time to write to all of you! I can't wait to you on Tuesday! Keep your phones on from 9:30 to 11:30!! If I don't get a hold of you then, I'll try to call from Dallas/London. I love you all! Have a wonderful week this week!

Love,
Sorella Lyman

Nov. 1, 2012--The District on TV

This week has been great! I can't believe I only have 12 days until I leave! I am so excited. We had two new districts come in last week, including one sister named Sorella Ehorn! She is from Southern California, and actually only lives about 15 minutes away from Nana and Gramps! She's been to Crestline a lot, and used to live in Lake Arrowhead! All the rest of the new Elders are great too. All the sorelle are making a goal to speak ONLY in Italian this week, and whoever ends up speaking the least amount of English gets a prize at the end. It can be hard to speak in the language all the time, so having a little extra motivation definitely helps! Right now I'm really trying to just make the most of the remaining time I have here. I'm trying to read up until Mosiah in my Italian Book of Mormon before I leave, but right now I'm a little behind. We still have the same four investigators, and they're all doing great! This week has actually been pretty exciting because it turns out that the main TV station in Italy, RAI, is some sort of special on Mormon missionaries because of the political campaign with Mitt Romney. They wanted to come and film one of the Italian districts and see how they train the missionaries here, because I guess one of the biggest reasons Romney gives for his success is his experience as a missionary. They chose the other district that's leaving with ours, and had a camera crew come in yesterday to film them in class and do interviews with them. I think it's supposed to be a two hour special, and it will be airing all over Italy!! Isn't that crazy? This is going to be really great for all the missionary work that's happening right now, and hopefully will get people more aware of the church and open to our message!

Well, my time on the computer is about up, unfortunately. I'm so excited to be in Italy in just under two weeks! I'm sure there will be a lot of challenges I wasn't expecting, and I'm really trying to utilize my last to weeks here to speak the language and become as familiar with Preach my Gospel as I can. I love you all and hope you have a great week! Arrivederci!

Love,
Sorella Lyman