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!