Ciao tutti!
What a week and what a time to be a missionary. I haven't written for a couple weeks now so I'll sum up some other highlights from the last little while. First, last week was awesome because we got to have a member of the 70 come visit our mission! Elder Tunnicliffe is from York and he and his wife spoke to our half of the mission on Thursday in Bologna. It took us a while to travel there from Pordenone, but the conference was amazing and I soaked up every single second. He talked about humility and submitting ourselves to God and what success looks like as a missionary. I took pages of notes and have been reflecting often on things that he said. I also loved that the day after the conference, Sorella Johnson and I went up to Milano where Elder Tunnicliffe talked with the zone leaders and stls of the mission for the day. That was also a stellar conference and something that Anziano Tunnicliffe said at the end had been running through my mind a lot lately. He said:
"If this mission was your peak (and it's pretty great), then that would be a tragedy."
What a face punch. He basically was telling us, "your missions are great and go and do great things, but just remember that they are preparing you for something bigger and more important." That really struck me as something I need to remember.
We had Thanksgiving! With Americans!! It was the best. I forgot how much I MISS cranberry sauce and pie and Apple cider. Basically just all the sweet things haha. Sister Riding and her toddler from our ward had us over and we shared a message on gratitude (classic) and had a great time together.
I've gotten to do more exchanges these past weeks and I adore them. I'm pretty sure the sisters from our Zone teach me way more than I could ever teach them though. Such stellar missionaries.
We've been going tracting more frequently, and found 3 new people this week!! We've had a dry spell in our finding lately and have been finding almost no one, so we were super grateful to actually get to talk to people. The funniest was when we had a conversation go well on the porch with a woman named Monique, who lives up in aviano. After our discussion we offered to exchange numbers and she ran inside to get her phone and Sorella Johnson looks up at heaven and does the classic Italian thing where you put your fingertips to your lips and kiss the sky (poorly explained but just watch what people in Italian movies do after they eat a good pizza). It basically explained how I felt in the moment that God is good and is so kind to sprinkle us with little miracles.
Have a great first week of December everyone! They just put up markets and a tree and ice skating rink in the main piazza here and I'm remembering why Europe is my favorite place ever.
Lots of love,
Sorella McConkie
