Le esperienze che ci fanno imparare (letter from 10/15/14)

Carissima famiglia,

It has been a good week! Lots of learning experiences and God answering our prayers. I want to write about a lesson we had this week that was one of the favorites of my mission. We went to go teach one of our new investigators, a referral from our new convert. We show up and she was there with her next-door neighbor, who is from Columbia. My spanish speaking companion started getting to know her more (and I surprisingly understood the majority of the conversation) and we decided to teach her and our investigator the Restoration. Before we even started teaching the lesson, this woman told us that she saw purity in our eyes and she could tell that we were messengers from God. They literally hung onto every word we said. She explained to us the spirit that she felt, and how every single stressful thing that she had been feeling before had gone away. She just felt complete peace. It was amazing, to see someone with such faith like that. Such an open heart, willing to listen and receptive to the Spirit. As we taught her that the spirit testified of truth and speaks to us in a still, small, voice, she was so happy, because that is what she has been searching for. As we taught her how we prayed, from our heart, she was so open and excited. “I like this! I like this!” she kept saying. We have an appointment with her tonight, and we are excited to teach and baptize her!  Their faith is just so amazing. It was an answer to my prayers to know that we were worthy instruments in the Lord’s hands to bring the spirit into her life.

This week I also have learned about the importance of communicating with my companion, and how when we are unified, it truly can make all the difference. I don’t know, sometimes just the littlest of things can get to us and we can’t seem to let them go. This morning I was praying for the strength to just let go and move on, because I knew I was annoyed for absolutely no reason at all. And, Heavenly Father answered my prayer. I know as we read the scriptures, with an open heart willing to learn and humble ourselves to change, the spirit will speak to our hearts and we will change. God is so powerful! I try to humble myself before Him every day, to change myself to be who He wants me to be.

In tanto, this is what I learned from this week. We can’t compare our points of weakness to other’s points of strengths (oh mamma mia I have no idea how to say that in english, forgive me for my strange italian/english please.) We can only compare ourselves to who we were before. No one is perfect. We’re all on this straight and narrow path, and different challenges come our way to every one of us. Heavenly Father won’t give us a trial that we can’t overcome, so we need to stop comparing ourselves to others, and just do what the Lord wants us to do. He is so patient with us. Every time we hurt Him, He forgives us. Every single time. It hurts Him when we compare ourselves to the rest of His children. I know that each of us has our own personal relationship with the Savior, and that as we do our best to follow Him, it’s all going to be okay.

I know that as my companion and I are unifed in prayer and unified in both wanting to do the Lord’s will and not our own, that is when we have the spirit, when we see miracles we didn’t think possible, and when we are happy with love and carita in our hearts.

Vi voglio un mondo di bene,
Sorella Strong
p.s. the picture is us after being caught in a rainstorm. we laughed and ran through all the puddles on the way home