Angela's Rome, Italy Mission: Miracle Sunday

lCiao i miei amici!!

This has been quite the week, with two temple service days, lots of rain, and a miracle Sunday!

I guess to start off, we received our transfer calls this morning. I've finished my two training transfers so we were expecting some changes, and changes we got! So Sorella Harmon will be leaving me (😭) and moving to Roma 3, which is in the Roma East Zone. I'll be staying in Ostia another transfer, and will have Sorella Brown join me. We are in the Roma West zone. So that will be an exciting change, and I've heard wonderful things about Sorella Brown.

So this week, we met a lot of important people. Since V.I.P. Tours are smaller, we didn't start very many groups. However, the groups we DID start, were very impressive. Now it was a wonderful experience, but our miracle on Sunday was waaaay more cool, so I will list this in a bullet point fashion:

-We started a tour for one of Elder Bednar's groups, and he sat in. So we had to give our Italian instructions in front of him and his wife. That was pretty nerve-wracking. Watching the audience become more open during the video was amazing.

-We started a tour with just one person and her body guard. She was the ambassador of Palestine. That was way cool. And Elder Rasband came and spoke with her for a while in the room with us. When I say us, we stood on the side and watched and smiled. But that was really cool.

-We started a tour for the Temple Architect and the people from Denmark who gave permission to copy the statues of the Cristus and the 12 apostles. I felt so much gratitude towards that group.

- We started a tour for the Bahai religion, and that tour was lead by Elder Stevensen and Elder Johnson (who is in the European Area Presidency) so we were able to meet them and their wives. Sister Johnson was so so sweet. It was pretty special to be able watch these two religions join in friendship.

There were some other special four groups, but these are the highlights.

Now to our miracle. We have a family who is part member. The grandmother, Margarita, joined the church when she was in Mexico with her son a few years ago. But she can't take care of herself very well, so she lives with her daughter here. Margarita doesn't speak Italian, so if we are to meet with her, we needed her daughter to translate. However her daughter works a lot. So we couldn't find a time to get out there. A couple week ago, we finally set up an appointment with them, and the morning of, Margarita canceled because her daughter would be working. We asked to go over anyways. Neither of us speak Spanish. But we went over and spent time with her. It was hard, but we bonded with Margarita. Her daughter isn't a member and won't take her to church. But this Sunday, we arranged for a member to pick her up. The daughter, Miriam, ended up calling back the member and saying she would take her mother. And so, on Sunday, Miriam and her son, and Margarita all showed up. They stayed both hours. The son Francesco liked Primary, and Miriam really liked Sunday School. She took notes, participated and even took a Come Follow Me Manual to study for next week's lesson. The members were so loving and welcoming. All the members who spoke Spanish came and greeted Margarita and just loved her up. And the best part. There is a little girl in the ward, who is the only Primary child. She was crying because she didn't want to go to church and be alone again. Her grandmother told her to pray that another child would come. So she did. And then, Francesco came. It was just proof to me that God softens hearts, and helps His children find Him.