Eternity has alway been an idea that I understand, but have never been able to comprehend. It's difficult for me to wrap my head around the idea of "forever," but thanks to Italian Beauracracy, I feel that I have a better comprehension of what eternity will be like. Wednesday morning I had my fingerprint appointment for my Permesso at the Italian Questura. My appointment was at 10:00 so, being the punctual missionaries that we are, we arrived at 9:20 The woman gave us number 17 and we sat down. The next number they called was 5, so we were feeling good about only having 12 people ahead of us. FOUR HOURS LATER they called number 17. I thought we were going to die at the questura. I also thought this was a pretty funny story, so I shared it with some of my italian friends. Three out of the four of them said "wow, only four hours? You guys were lucky you went there on a good day."
The work in Battipaglia is slowly but surely getting better. We had a couple weeks of hard finding, but now we're feeling good about the investigators and potentials we're working with. If I had to identify the trickiest part, it would be the fact that all of our investigators are smarter than us. We have two investigators who can speak english and use words that are beyond my vocabulary. For example, we were having dinner with our gelato miracle couple, and the husband used the word "hedonism." After a couple seconds of blank stares, this Italian man went on to define and explain this English word to two native speakers.
This week, I'd like to share with you that when we fast and pray, blessings will come. Earlier this month, we fasted to have investigators in church. The first week, everyone we invited to church didn't show up. It was a downer, but we continued praying fervently to have success the next week. Like always, Heavenly Father answered our prayers. We picked up an ex investigator who was so determined to come to church, she asked us to bring her an alarm clock so she could wake up on time. (Why she didn't have any alarm clocks in her house is still a mystery to me.) Then, Saturday night, another dropped investigator called and asked if she could come to church the next morning! It was amazing to see how God can answer our prayers and our fasts in truly unexpected ways.
I love you all so much
And happy Valentine's day
Sorella Maxfield
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