Week 73

(Week 20 Rome)
God is mindful of every situation...
This week has been a long and hard one! The hospital has been visited
by us many times, for us and others. People want to be baptized and
then two days later not. English Group makes me die of laughter.
Sometimes miracles happen in the last hour of the day. Our member
friend from Paraguay cooked us a turkey. I ate a super super good
cannolo.

Paid a visit to the hospital Sunday.  They made me wear this silly mask for five hours while waiting.  BUT, met the most wonderful couple and turns out you can still teach and testify with a mask on.

The hospital, I had some wacko virus and ended up in urgent care with
a face mask, but I really am fine :). The Anziani were awesome and
brought us food since we hadn't eaten in forever and we got to see
another less active who also was at the hospital. long story short...
Members are awesome and Heavenly Father blessed us and really does put
people in our paths. We met an INCREDIBLE couple in the waiting room
and we basically talked to them for 4+ hours about the Restoration,
temples, our families, their lives. It was the greatest!!! You can
still teach a lesson and testify with a face mask! Sadly, they don't
live in our area but they are so excited to read their BoM and meet
with the missionaries close to them! #findingintheemergencyroom

Palma, I talked a tiny bit about her in my last email. She is a friend
of Donnatella, another investigator. Palma was so excited to see us
again after our first lesson with her and she had even started reading
the BoM! We all just sat down to start our lesson and she immediately
asks us how she can be part of this church! My jaw literally dropped
and Sorella Cardullo was trying to figure out if she had understood
correctly and in the meantime Palma is talking about how much peace
she feels from our message and wants it in her life. We established a
baptism date right then and there and all three of us were sooo
excited!

Fast forward two days later... We are in the area of Palma's house so
we decide to drop by and see how her reading is going. Her son and his
girlfriend come to the door and are just as awkward as one can be when
we ask if Palma is home. They then tell us that Palma has no interest
anymore in these things and that she won't come to the door to see us.
They then ask us to not try to pass by or call her again. We just felt super
deflated as we walked out of the apartment building so we stopped, 
said a prayer and the feeling that came over us was of complete peace.
I know we had done our job and Heavenly Father was proud.

English Group: I think it makes me laugh so much because it's at the
end of the day when I am tired. Well, during our spiritual thought we
are talking about gratitude and we read the hymn "count your
blessings" with them. Three or four different people were reading the
verses to the song and they read the words super short and broken up
and we were all dying of laughter!!! Nothing made sense and having it
not sung was terrible! Haha we should have thought about that... we
all were in tears from laughing, but we redeemed ourselves with our
testimonies at the end.

The last hour of the day: I noticed this week just how many miracles
we see at the very end of our day. Whether it be the bus ride home, or
someone we meet on the street. During a scambio with Sorella Graff, a
one week old missionary and rockstar, we met three different people in
the last half hour of the day! I know in those moments that we are
tired and ready to call it quits for the day is when we need to open
those mouths and testify of Christ!

Have a fantastic week and find the random moments to talk of Christ!
Sorella Carrie Nelson
Tante belle cose
Alma 26:37

Segway in Rome!!!

Member Martin cooked us turkey with wine but I was 
thinking he got it to drink!!!  HAHA

Week 72

(Week 19 Rome)

Gratitude...

One of the highlights of the week was Wednesday! The assistants called
the other STL and I to help them give the new missionaries a tour of
Rome and help them talk with people while we went. I was SOOO
excited!!! There were a lot of new sisters so I took a group of six
and we just went to crazy on the metros talking to so many people!
They were so stellar!!! We were able to meet so so so many people and
seeing the solid courage and desire of these new missionaries was such
a boost for me. 

Sorella Taylor and I taking the newbies all around Rome!

\

We also were able to stay for the dinner at the villa
with all them, the assistants and President and Sorella Pickerd. They
were all just firing off questions about my areas, companions, food,
language and it was so fun to see their excitement! Sorella Taylor and
I as we were watching them, we felt just an overwhelming feeling of
gratitude to be serving a mission. I feel like I was just that brand
new Sorella, but just looking back and seeing how many wonderful
people I've met and everything I've experienced made me just so happy
for these newbies and everything they will get to do.

Speaking of newbies. My dear trainees Sorella Cardullo and Sorella
Erickson were together while we were gone. They absolutely ROCKED
IT!!! They picked Sorella Taylor and I up and were telling all about
the lesson they taught and everything they did and I just wanted to
cry I was so darn proud of them! These sweet two Sorelle who hated to
do role plays, who hated every time I would correct them or only speak
in Italian are just so so so capable and incredible.

CULTURAL ACTIVITY!!!! I have to just tell this like play by play.
We had the most incredible activity that we have been inviting people
to for weeks. It was a cultural dance activity where each country
would do the typical dance. So, it's about to start and this man walks
it and is like, "Where is Sorella Nelson?" Finally I am located and I
recognized this man from the bus! I had been talking to him and
invited him to the activity and HE CAME!!! He is so so so cool and
named Giuseppe and is having lunch with a member soon... Anywho, this
activity starts and for the people who couldn't dance, they are
showing YouTube videos of typical dancing and basically tourism of
their country.

]These two are legit professional dancers who came to dance at the activity.

Carina is one of my favortie members!!  She danced a Peruvian dance at the activity..

The other missionaries and I are all dying because it
is so boring and so many investigators were there so we ask them to
stop showing tourism videos and just show the dances. So the activity
continues and we see some incredible incredible dances!!! Suddenly
Anziano Toronto tells me that they want the missionaries to dance and
so he and I discuss it and we know we can't be disobedient so we tell
the members we will sing instead. WE SANG THE NATIONAL ANTHEM AND IT
WAS TERRIBLE! Hahaha we literally put the country to shame! We hadn't
practiced and we all started off on the wrong key and I just was
laughing the entire time. The members LOVED it though! Afterwards
everyone kept saying "God bless America!" Hahaha the activity was a
huge huge huge success and so many nonmembers came!!

This week we were able to meet with Donnatella and the lesson went
soooo well!!! We were teaching her and then her doorbell rang and
walked in two of her friends all ready to be baptized. Haha jk, but
they are so cool. Sorella Cardullo and I looked at each other like
what should we do and I just whisper, let's teach the Restoration. The
spirit was incredibly strong!!! At the end of the lesson all three,
Donnatella, Alessandro and Palma all talked about the feeling they
felt inside. The room was so peaceful and it was one of those times
the spirit confirms to you over and over that this is true.
Miracles!!!

Week of gratitude! During studies we found that gratitude brings
miracles. When Christ needed to feed the 4 thousand He didn't ask for
more food but gave thanks and a miracle came! Let's give thanks!!!

Sorella Nelson
Matthew 15:36

I am becoming part of the art.  This is at a famous statue by Circo Massimo where they did chariot racing.

This man was so happy and telling her how to pose.

We have fun Pdays

Beautiful look outs of Rome.

Round 2.  I still made it out with a whole arm.

Cutest companion award.

Sono io

Chocolate running down gold walls.  The prettiest Gelateria called Venchi!!

More Italian piazzas.  Not sure about this ones story but we walk by it alllllll the time.  

Fall time!

Parks are turning so so so pretty!

This is a man named Giuseppe who we met in the park.  He is a painter and asked to take pictures of me to paint....hahaha so funny!  I think it's because I'm blonde.

We met this man named Michele who took us to see these gardens and lookout.

This is Michele.  Is from Milan.  Teaches Math.  Didn't believe the Restoration happened.  Is still a son of God.

Week 71

(Week 18 Rome)
Another great week in the Italy Rome mission!
We've been super blessed with 2 new investigators this week! When I
first arrived here in Rome here were three investigators and two of
them didn't want to see us anymore and then we found out the third
one, Anastasia, had moved to Ukraine. Well...she is back!!! She is a
wonderful wonderful mother of a 1 and a half year old boy and she
wants to be baptized, but she has just never really felt ready. She is
so so wonderful and explained she had never really read much of the
BoM so we are sure as soon as she has and prayed about it she will be
READY!!

We did a scambio this week with the other Sorelle in the house and it
was so wonderful! Sorella Carver is a rockstar and we were able to see
some miracles! We met so many amazing people throughout the day that
we knew we were just touching lives everywhere we went! It was
amazing! We were able to teach a woman named Cristina who is just
amazed at the fact that we are out here trying to convert Catholics
that she realized our message must be pretty important! IT IS!!! We
are excited to see her again :)

Little tender mercy: we were sitting near a young man on the bus and I
told him I liked his glasses to try to get a conversation going and he
immediately says, "You aren't Italian. Nobody here smiles at strangers
on the bus like you do." SMILES WORK MIRACLES! We had such a wonderful
conversation with this young man and are hoping to see him again! We were
talking afterwards about how the people on the bus always say ciao to
us and smile back at us when we get off and we were just so grateful
to have the privilege to "Be" this message.

Gaetano sta bene. We taught this dear man literally in a tree. In our
favorite park there is a tree that just separates and you can stand
inside and branches surround you so when it was windy and cold we went to
talk in the tree! Strangest setting ever! He is so great though. His

Having a lesson in the famous tree in the park with Sorella Cardullo and Gaetano.  It was so windy so Gaetano said, Let's go to the tree!"

prayers have turned into some of my all time favorites. He talks to
Heavenly Father straight up and tells Him things he is struggling with
and what he promises to do. He even explained why he isn't baptized
yet. During one of our lessons this week without his family he just
went on about how grateful he is to have met the Sorelle and learned
all these wonderful things. Even if this dear man is never baptized it
feels good to have helped his faith grow.

We are excited for another week!!!! Sorella Cardullo and I are  just on fire
and ready to see the Lord's hand wherever we go!
D&C 123:17
Let us do everything in our power!
Sorella Nelson

P-day at the Roman Forum.

Last gelato run before Sorella Adamson goes home!

Sending "Happy Birthday"wishes.

Yes, we made this!!  Ragu!!

A dear Sorella from the ward named Sorella DeMatteis fed us pranzo!

This is Dario who was baptized into our ward!  We are currently teaching his mother Donnatella who is here in this picture.