Week 71: Referralssssssss

I feel like I've been on a week-long scavenger hunt for referrals. We dedicated nearly all our time this week to contact or tracking down the people who requested to learn more about the church. At the beginning of the week we bought a map (yes mom, a real paper map. Just like you used back in the olden days) and marked down the address of each referral. Then we planned out our routes for each day and tried to track down as many as we could. There were some address mishaps, and a couple didn't answer, but we found several new people who are genuinely interested in learning about the church. 

We concluded the week with the last day of the temple open house. Because of the large number of people who visited (over 50,000) and left comments (3,000), they were granted permission to open the temple to the public for one more day. And my goodness, were the italian members proud of that. It's apparently a very rare exception that an open house gets extended, and when the Italians realized that they were getting an extra day (and that the Paris temple wasn't given the same permission...) it was almost as good as winning the world cup. It was a very inspired decision though seeing as we got almost as many referrals on Saturday with 1,800 visitors as we did on our best day of the normal open house (8,000 visitors).

Throughout this week, one thing that I've been thinking about a lot this week is Heavenly Father's individual plan of salvation for each one of us. We talk a lot about His plan in a very general sense; We lived with Him before this life, we came here to get a body and learn and repent, we'll one day be able to live with Him and our families again. While that's all true and applicable to each of us, it goes much deeper. Elder Massimo De Feo told us in October that we all have our own, individual "Plan of Salvation" and that each plan is different. We face unique challenges that are customized to fit our personal growth needs. And the trials we face allow us to further rely on the Savior and the power of His Atonement. I know that we have a loving Father in heaven who allows us to face our own individual difficulties in order to grow and become more like Him. I'm so grateful for the knowledge that He watches over us in every moment of our lives and that He gives us endless opportunities to grow and, more importantly, to turn back to Him. 

I love you all!

Week 70: It's Glorious

After 16 months of listening to Glorious and The Prayer sung by American's almost Idol, David Archuleta, I finally got to see man behind the music. Yep, David Archuleta came to the Rome Italy Temple Open House and I was in the Visitor's Center when he came in. Did we talk? No. Did I creepily walk run to the other side of one room so I could catch him leaving? Absolutely. I kept having flash backs to 4th grade when me and my friends wrote him love letters for Post Office week.

The coolest miracle of this week was when Sorella Allen and I were going out, trying to contact some of our temple refferals. (I've gotten more refferals this week than I've gotten my whole mission. 12. We got 12 in one week.) So we're walking up a street pretty close to our house, searching for a number 63 with no success.
Before continuing, let me jump back like two months. Sorella Brooks and I were on the hunt for a less active family one sunday morning. We looked all over for their name and we couldn't find anything. So we started heading back to church. On our way back, we both stopped at the same time and both felt impressed to ring at least a couple doorbells before going on. We turned around, and there was on citofono that stuck out to me, so we walked over to it. We didn't have much time, so we rang the first four names. None of them had time, but they at least let us introduce ourselves before saying "Buona Domenica." We talked to one woman as she exited the palazzo but she wasn't interested so we left her with our card and went to church.
Flash back to me and Sorella Allen: We're walking along the same street where Sorella Brooks and I found ourselves 2 months ago. We weren't having any luck finding the name. At the end of the street, I felt impressed to go back to the same Citofono that Sorella Brooks and I had rung months earlier, even though it was not the house number we were looking for. We went up to the citofono, and the fourth name from the top, the LAST one that Sorella Brooks and I had rung was Emilia Iezzi. The temple refferal that we were looking for. We rang and she told us to come back on Saturday night.

This experience was such a testimony builder for me. Heavenly Father is so aware of even our smallest efforts, and He truly does guide His children. But more than that, everything must be done in His timing. His plans for each child are bettert than any plan we could design. I'm so grateful for the knowledget that there is a God who guides us, who knows us, and who loves us. I love this gospel and I absolutely love the time I have been given to share it.

I love you all!!
Sorella Maxfield

Week 69: The Day in the Life of a Visitor's Center Missionary

For those who either 1) never read the church news or 2) never read my emails, I wanted to make you aware that the Rome Temple Open house is in full swing and I have never been more tired in my life. But at the same time, I've never been more happy about being tired. For the past six days we were working at the open house from 8 am to 9.30 pm. We had 24 sisters staying at the Mission Villa, so it was pretty much like girls camp on steroids.

Everday we would wake up, pack six girls to a bathroom to get ready, eat breakfast, and head out the door. Then it was 13 hours of teaching. I tried keeping count of how many questions I got on the first day and I lost track after an hour. It was unlike any experience I've had in my mission. There were people coming up to me and asking me things! They wanted to know about the church, and they wanted to know why they felt the way they did inside the temple. After we did all we could to answer questions and invite people to meet with us again, we'd pack up, eat a late dinner, go to bed, rinse and repeat.

The number of miracles I saw while being in the visitor's center are countless, so rather than bore you with all of them, I'll share my favorite three:

Cristina and Livia: I had just finished explaining to a man why we do baptisms for the dead, and as he walked away a cute mom and her 15 year old daughter walked right up to me and say "Hi". I couldn't tell if I'd already met them or not, so I just said "Hi". Cue the awkward silence. I understood that I'd never seen them before and maybe I looked lonely or something so they decided to just make some friendly conversation. (I'm really not used to people randomly trying to start a conversation with me. Typically, I'm on the other end of things.) But I asked them how they were doing and how the visit went, and five minutes later, I'd taught them the restoration, exchanged numbers, and they asked if they could take me and my companion out to lunch some time this next week. The whole encounter lasted maybe eight minutes, and I just stood there afterward trying to figure out what had just happened.

Four moms for Four daughters: A typical encounter in the visitors center usually one missionary talking with one or two people, and that's what I thought I was getting into when I asked a middle aged woman how her visit in the temple had gone. As she started asking me a couple questions, she somehow telepathically summoned all of her friends in the visitors center. Her daughter showed up, then another mom, another daughter, until I was literally surrounded by four moms and four daughters. They were asking me questions at a machine gun rate. "Why do you do baptisms for dead people?" "Do you have four moms?" "So, are you a nun?" It was like playing whack-a-mole. Then finally, one daughter asked me where our church came from, and I was able to teach and bear testimony of the restoration. With the calming spirit there, they starting asking more profound questions about Christ and our church, until at the end one daughter asked me how she could become a member of our church. I showed them all how to fill out a comment card requesting more information. I gained a greater testimony of what a huge impact the spirit can have on situations. Their hearts became more open to understanding more, rather than just knowing more.

Finnish Faith: Our last day working at the temple, and we were wrapping things up in the visitors center and starting to send sisters back to the villa. At 9.00, a woman and her daughters walk into the center in tears. They asked us if we spoke english and then told us that they were from Finland and had been walking for two and half hours trying to find the temple and it was their only day in Rome to take a tour. So Sorella Decker and I told them to stay put while we found someone. We were running around the whole site like crazy people until we ran into President. He made a few calls, and even though the temple doors were already locked, we found someone who would be able to get them in. When we went back to tell them, the mom started crying even harder. As I helped her with her shoe covers, I asked her how they felt when they saw the temple finally. She said, "We felt like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and finally getting to the promised land. But I knew we had to make it to the temple. When I was pregnant with my second daughter, I heard the announcement for the Rome temple, and I promised that I would take my children there when it was finished so they could have the temple as their goal. Since then, life has been up and down. My husband has left the church, and it's pretty much just me and my daughters. But through everything, I never lost sight of the promise I made to take my daughters here. Our life has been very far from perfect. But I hope that I have at least taught my girls the importance of the temple."

I could go on for 15 more paragraphs about more miracles and more lessons that I've learned, but I just want to conclude with my testimony: The temple is literally the house of the Lord. The blessings that we recieve inside temples gives us unimaginable happiness and eternal joy. Families can be eternal and they are intended to be eternal. Through obedience to the commandments and by making all the necessary sacrifices to follow Christ, we can be sealed for time and all eternity. And the one who makes it all possible is our Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that He lived, suffered, and died for us. And I know that He lives still. I'm beyond grateful for the time I've had to work in the temple and the countless opportunities I've had to share my testimony of Him and point people to His path. I want to invite each of you to do the same this week.

I love you all!!

Sorella Maxfield