August 29, 2012 Un Nuovo Trasferimento! A New Transfer!

Hi family! This week has been crazy. I usually write down everything I want to talk about, but didn't this week. So we'll be pulling this from the top of the head. Hope I can remember everything...

I have a bimba! (infant, in missionary lingo!) She's so great! Her name is Sorella Mancuso from Rochester, New York. She is so great! She is such a hard worker and came here ready to bring souls unto Christ! We've already seen a lot of success and miracles together and I am SO excited for these two transfers we'll have together. Sorella Willey! She taught you in the MTC and loved you. And I just said "AH! I love Sorella Willey so much!" over and over again and we just talked about how great you are. Miss you!!! Anyway, She's so great! She has italian ancestors so a lot of people think she's italian. It's great.

Training is a different experience. I am teaching every minute of every day. But I love it. I feel like this experience is really helping me/will really help me understand and realize how much I've grown on the mission and how much it's changed me already. I LOVE our companionship study sessions. I feel like they are so edifying and refreshing and we teach each other. I love it so much. It's also different teaching, because she doesn't speak a whole lot of italian (although it is better than most that come out of the MTC) but she has a testimony that is so strong and if that's all she gets out in a lesson it's enough. People have really been touched by her simple yet super powerful testimony. 

Our investigators! Sorina has digressed. She hasn't read or prayed in quite a few days. And she didn't come to church. And it's because of a different culture thing that I'm trying to understand. But it's frustrating. Benedetta is on vacation so we haven't seen her. But we have some other really awesome potentials! We found Mario in the park on Saturday. He said he was a "little bit" atheist. So we talked, and he wants to know if God exists con certezza! So we are seeing him tonight and we are so excited. We both have a really good feeling about him, but unfortunately he isn't in our area so we'll have to pass him off. Then last night on the bus we met Pamela, a young girl from Santo Domingo. She had been to church there about 10 years ago but was never baptized, but remembered that she liked the church and felt a good spirit there. We're seeing her tonight too! And then a few weeks ago we met a young girl named Skaidre and weren't able to meet with her, then last week Sorella Bishop and I ran into her on a bus, and this weekend I called her and set up an appointment for Monday. She came and accepted a baptism invite! But everything is super new for her and she kind of got a little worried when we knelt down to pray at the end of the lesson. She comes from a non-believing background, so it will take some time for her. But we have a good feeling about her too. 

That's one thing about this 12 week training program we're doing... The trainee takes the lead in inviting investigators to be baptized in the first week. Sorella Mancuso has invited 3 people to baptism already. They've all accepted. She is so awesome!!!

Yesterday was the Sorella Conference. OH how I love my Sorelle. We have 24 sorelle in the mission right now. They are all SO fantastic. I love all the sorelle so much!!! It's amazing how close you come to people in the mission. Even though I hardly see all the Sorelle in the mission and just met some of them yesterday, I already feel like we've known each other forever and we will be friends forever.
Let me just tell you how great this conference was:

1)24 of the best sorelle missionarie nel mondo tutti insieme.

2)Sorella Soh played her rendition of the mission hymn on the ukelele.

3)We had a training on how to more effectively use the Book of Mormon in finding and we tried it last night and already know it's going to increase our progressing investigator number.

4)President and Sorella Wolfgramm. Nuff said.

5)Sorella Wolfgramm played clips from CALAMITY JANE! One of my favorite movies of all time. And then related it to missionary work and missionaries.... BEST THING EVER!

6)We listened to part of a talk by Elder Holland about how missionary work "isn't easy because salvation isn't easy." And I cried. And it was amazing. I always learn SO much more about the Atonement from these conferences.

7)We closed with a testimony meeting. With just us sorelle. 

I could go on forever about that conference. It was incredible. But alas, my time is running short.

I love you so much family and I hope you are all well. Miss you so much and thanks for the emails and prayers and love and support. I wish I had more time to reply to you all, but know that I pray for you every day! Love you so much!!!

Sorella Forbes

 Me picking up my trainee with Presidente and Sorella Wolfgramm.

All the sorelle insieme (sisters together) our fans from Sorella Wolfgramm.

 Because she and President Wolfgramm are our "our biggest fans!"

  Sorella Nilson and Sorella Soh striking a pose.

Ha! Me, Sorella Bush, and Sorella Bunker 

all together for the first time in 3 transfers!

MTC Buddies

August 22, 2012 - IT'S A GIRL!

Yes. Indeed. Congratulate me. I'm becoming a mother this week. 

Phonecall I got on Monday at lunch from one of the Assistants:

Anziano Osborne: Sorella Forbes, I have some bad news...

Me: uh, okay?

AO: Your companion is dying.

Me: NO!

AO: Yes. She is going the way of all the earth.

Me: No! What do I do, Anziano?

AO: Well, I have some good news. You're training at Milano 3.

Me: silence...

AO: Yes. Congratulations Sorella. You are going to be a mother!

So that's how it went down. I am training here at Milano 3! I'm so excited, yet SO nervous. That's a lot of responsibility. I don't know who my  companion is and won't until Thursday morning at Milano 2. I get to meet her today though! (we're going to the Duomo to proselyte with all the new Sorelle today). I'm really excited. I have nervous butterflies. I'm gonna be a mamma!!! Anyway, don't know what else to say about that. I've been praying for me and I've been praying for her. I'll let you know who she is next week! This means I'll be in Milano for at least 2 more transfers. So much to see and do and so many people to find!!!

Sorella Soh is also training at Milano 2. Can you say party?! Everyone in our district will be training (Anziano Scheurn has a greenie from last transfer). We will just be having too much fun! ha!

So anyway, it's been a good week. You might have noticed how last week, I didn't really talk about any of our investigators... because we didn't really have any. We dropped Nickel as a baptism date because his football playing has taken over his life. Va bene. His time will come. Stephen has been in and out of the hospital with a problem with his leg and won't get baptized before he has to go home to LA. But we now have Benedetta and Sorina! I just love them both. They both accepted a date this last week. Benedetta is a referral from Milano 1 and Sorina we met in the park by our house on Friday. She came to church on Sunday and loved it. She invited her neighbor to come with her next week. The GANS leader of the ward was talking to her and asked how she met us, and she just said "Dio l'ha fatto." (God did it). Both Benedetta and Sorina are worried about being baptized again, but are ready and willing to pray and to read the Book of Mormon to find for themselves the truthfulness of what we teach. They are so beautiful and amazing! Sorina is my age from Romania and Benedetta is from Peru. 

It is SO HOT!!! We have been hit by a heat wave from Africa this last week. And it is SO HOT. Sorella Bishop and I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, and lay there awake for a while praying we can cool down enough to sleep. Last night I got up, drank a whole bottle of cold water from the fridge in 2.4 seconds, splashed my face with cold water, and went back to sleep. Luckily it did cool down a bit. It cools down pretty good by about 3 AM, but before that... misery! It's okay! We are surviving! They say it will end by Friday. Speriamo! But still everyone tells us it's hotter here than Africa and Peru, among other notorious hot spots in the world. Italy is on fire!

The city is still pretty dead. People won't start coming back until the end of next week. But I'm SO excited for some of our potentials that will be coming back. We'll be spending a lot of time calling potentials come September. 

They're closing Pordenone to Sorelle! Anziani are taking over. Crazy! Both of my previous cities have been overtaken by Anziani... I know they're doing good work. Next transfer they'll have to open 2 cities for Sorelle I think. Cool! 

I've told you before that I love Philipinos, right? I LOVE them! We went to the Albello family's house on Monday night. They wanted to say bye to Sorella Bishop. They are so funny! Fratello Albello made her a sign that said "farewell Sorella Bishop" and then they wanted to sing a song but couldn't remember it so they broke out singing God be with you til we Meet Again instead. I just can't describe how awesome this family is. Sorella Albello answers the phone yellings "SISTERRRRRSSS!!!" And when we walked in her house she yelled again. It kind of reminds me of our family... ha!

So anyway, I'm loving Milano and learning a lot. Sorella Bishop gave me this talk called "the fourth missionary" and I think it is going to change my mission. I'll share more with you about that another time, but it talks about four different types of missionaries and the choices the fourth one makes to become an amazing missionary. It was given by a mission president about 10 years ago in England. But it's amazing! One of my favorite quotes, if I can remember it right, is "Life is hard, not the gospel... there is no part about the gospel that is beyond your capacity." Or something like that. But basically it talks about consecration and how giving everything to the Lord, all our hopes desires dreams wants... everything we have, is not just the best choice, but the most intelligent. It is the easiest way to live. The easiest way to do missionary work. It's true! Because when we do that, the Lord has promised to immediately bless us! And He does in ways we don't always see right away, but they are always there. Anyway, I just read it quickly today but I'm going to study it more and I'll share more thoughts with you later. 

Love you family! I hope you are all well. It seems that all of us have been facing different trials these last couple of weeks. I PROMISE you that all will turn out well. One of my new favorite chapters in the scriptures that I've been turning to often lately is 2 Corinthians 4. Specifically these verses:

 15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the ^athanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

 16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man (natural man) perish, yet the ^ainward man (spiritual man) is renewed day by day.

 17 For our light ^aaffliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and ^beternal ^cweight of glory;

 18 While we look not at the things which are ^aseen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen aretemporal; but the things which are not ^bseen are ^ceternal.

Sometimes all we can see are our trials and the hard things we have to go through. The negative things, the things of the natural man. These things are the temporal. But if we strive to look beyond, to put on our "spiritual glasses" as President Wolfgramm would say, we can see that everything is for our eternal benefit, to grow our spiritual man. We are being refined through our trials. God knows us and he knows what we need and he will place us where he wants us and make us face the things he knows that we need to become more like Him. Who are we to disagree? As Sorella Walton wrote to me... "Chin up, Charge the mountain." I'm learning a lot about this subject these days...

Anyway, love you all so much! Have a good week!

Sorella Forbes

August 16, 2012 Miracoli nei parco - Miracles in the park - and her half way mark!

It was Saturday morning. We had it wide open for finding time. So we decided to try a new park. We headed there and started with our teach to find about the Plan of Salvation. We were getting straight up shut down left and right. About an hour and a half we were feeling really discouraged. I had never seen so much rejection in so little time. We were debating whether or not to change parks or change our T2F, and so we decided to pray about it. We sat down on a bench and said a prayer. We both felt that we needed to stick with the advice of our leaders and stick to what we had planned. An hour later, we left the park with four lessons and 7 new investigators. Miracle! That was a really cool morning.

This week has been really good. Our scambio in Varese was amazing. Sorella McNamara is so great. We had fun talking about all of our art history friends. Claire, Ciera, Brittany, Heidi, Emily.... etc etc. PS shout out to Heidi... Congrats on the marriage! Got your announcement. And it is so cute! One of my favs I've seen. Anyway... don't know if you read this, but thanks! Anyway, Sorella McNamara and I taught a lesson on prophets to one of their investigators. We didn't have anything planned because we went straight from the station basically, but it was so awesome. I felt like we were both really intune with the spirit and it was a really good lesson! I loved teaching with her! And then we did a whole lot of finding and met some really amazing people and got them some new investigators and some really great potentials. Varese is beautiful! Their view is so gorgeous. I'll attach a picture... Sorella Walton opened Varese, so SORELLA WALTON: I thought about you a lot while I was there. Miss you! Got your letter too. Love you! Comunque (However), Varese scambio was a success.

The other night we were doing casa and I rang the citofono and the person responded in english. That had never happened to me before... I panicked. I didn't know what to say in english! So I looked at Sorella Bishop and she was just "we're sister missionaries. we want to share a message about the family..." So I repeated after her. But it was crazy! All english thoughts escaped my mind. Funny.

Crazy thing happened the other night... so we were sound asleep. When we sleep we leave all the windows and doors open because it keeps a cool breeze going through. We put rocks in front of the doors to keep them from slamming. The other night at about 12,30, a HUGE breeze came rushing through our apartment, our bedroom door SLAMMED, and the glass shattered... ha! Scared me half to death. But it was weird because something woke me up seconds before and I saw it happening in my mind. Then it happened. And I'm really grateful otherwise I probably would have had a heart attack.

Yesterday we had interviews, and oh my goodness... I LOVE THE WOLFGRAMMS! My interview with President was really great, but what he and Sorella Wolfgramm talked about yesterday changed my life. They talked a lot about how their mission statement is to get the mission to go through the missionary. So they talked about what that means exactly. Then President talked about sanctification and how we are all our own book of life. Everything we do in this life leaves a mark on us that when we meet Heavenly Father, these marks will be like letters of a book he will be able to read very clearly. I wish I could explain everything he said, but basically he talked about repentance being the purification that erases the bad marks, but they still leave an impression. But then that it is sanctification that gets rid of those impressions and we become completely clean and perfect. It is the things that become a part of us that will leave impressions. I am learning SO much about the Atonement on my mission. Especially from the Wolfgramms. In my interview President asked me how I thought that mission statement was going for me, how I thought my mission was becoming a part of me and going through me. I am forever changed by my mission already and I am hoping these next nine months I can let it go through me enough that it will always be a part of me and that it will have changed me for eternity. Even more than it already has. And then Sorella Wolfgramm talked about having a Christ Centered core... and I can't even describe that in this short email. I was blown away. I repeat: I LOVE THE WOLFGRAMMS!!! I honestly believe I have the best mission president and the best mission president's wife in the world. No contest.

PS today is my 9 month mark. Can you believe that?! I can't... Barf. I don't want to think about what that means...

Next week are transfers. I will be getting a new companion. I'm excited to see who she is!

Arrivederci for this week! Vi voglio un sacco di bene, tutti.   (I want a lot of good, all)Thank you continually for all of your love and support. I really do feel your prayers lifting me up.

Sorella Forbes

Scambio gelatos in Varese!

Scambio comp! Sorella McNamara 

My AWESOME district.

 Oh, I just love them. This picture is all of their personalities to a "T"

August 8, 2012 Vacanza!

Every one has left. Okay, exaggeration, but not so much. The beginning of August has brought the "great migration." Every body is going to the mountains or to the sea or to the south. It's made finding new investigators tricky. We can't get return appointments because every body is leaving. So when September comes, We'll have too many people we won't know what to do!

I can't believe we are already in week 4 of this transfer... wow how time flies. Milano is still crazy. But each place has its own special things.

One special thing the ward here in Milano 3 has is Sorella Cano. She is the relief society president. Ah! I just love her. She just looks like a woman who loves everyone around her and does her best to live a righteous life. She had us over for lunch on Sunday. She's from Columbia. It was delicious! She has like this really cool deeper accent and I just love listening to her talk. She is so strong! She has a very difficult family situation that has basically left her alone, but that has not brought her down. She still serves with all her heart and eminates a light that is so strong. I love Sorella Cano!

Friday night they had a GANS activity at Milano 1 (YSA). We took Nickel. It was a talent night. They announce someone was going to do some hip hop dancing and I was all excited. He gets up... wait... he looks familiar... It was Mario!!! My friend from Club Style my freshman year. He is from Spain, but just finished his mission in April and is engaged to a girl that lives in Milano so lives here now. CRAZY! I was blown away. Small world. We talked about all of our dear friends from the club. He took a picture and said he was putting it on facebook... ha. But it was so fun! Sorella Soh played the Mission hymn on the ukelele, Anziano Rodriguez beat boxed, and the rest of us missionaries (6 others) sang the mission hymn. It was so fun. I really needed it.

Today we are heading to Varese for a scambio blitz! I will be paired with Sorella McNamara, a fellow BYU Art History major! Small world! Again. And Sorella Bishop will be with Sorella Bush. I'm so excited. So we'll take the train at 5,30 and be there till tomorrow at 5,15. Happiness. I love scambio! And I hear Varese is beautiful. It's up by como.

NEXT WEEK p day will be on Thursday. Don't be alarmed when you don't get an email from me on Wednesday. We have interviews with President Wednesday. 

So Stephen and Nickel are doing good. Nickel brought his brother and niece to church on Sunday! And they loved it. They live in Malta, so hopefully the missionaries will find them there. But Nickel is doing pretty good. We're probably going to have to push back his date because his soccer schedule is keeping him super busy and we can't see him very often. And as for Stephen, he is going to go live with his family in Los Angeles at the end of this month, so we're going to have to see if he'll get baptized here or there. But they are both so great and so forte. 

We had an interesting lesson with our muslim investigator yesterday. Mannan from Bangladesh. He is reading the Book of Mormon in Bengali! And he is SO sensitive to the spirit, it scares him. Every lesson with him he kind of panics at the end and rushes out. Yesterday we taught him the plan of salvation and he started kind of panicking again so we asked him to describe what he's feeling. He described the feelings of the spirit and that he had never felt it before. He sat down and looked so confused. All of a sudden he said he felt something dark coming over him. Something prompted me to read the scriptures so I opened up to the first one I could think of, Moroni 9:25-26. After we did that he had calmed down but it was weird. He accepted a date for September because he really wants to do what is right, but he still needs to pray and get a confirmation. He is so sweet and just so sensitive to spiritual things. I felt prompted to warn him that he is going to face difficult times while he is searching to know if this is true and that it will be hard, but that if he has faith and relies on his Savior He will help him. So we're praying that darkness stays away! It was weird!

Yesterday we had a lesson with that less active I talked to on the bus a few weeks ago. She has been away from the church for a long time. She now has a 4 year old son. She suggested we start out singing "I am a Child of God" for the lesson. It was so sweet. Her son kind of hummed/sung along. Then we taught the plan of salvation. Something her son had never heard before and something she had forgotten. It was such a special lesson. She's coming to church on Sunday!!!

I'm doing good! Hope everyone is fine at home. Thanks for the emails and letters! Mi mancate un sacco! Buona settimana!

Sorella Forbes

August 3, 2012 Mormons in Italy Rejoice

Mormons in Italy Rejoice, Church
Granted Country's 'Official'
Status

SALT LAKE CITY — 

More than 150 years since the first Italian Latter-day Saints were baptized, and after decades-long efforts and negotiations, the Italian government has granted The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) official status as a church and “partner of the state.” As Maurizio Ventura, president of the Pisa congregation, explained, “The intesa is a fulfillment of a long-awaited blessing.” This legal status gives the Church greater freedom to do more good, both as a church and as a social institution.

Italy President Giorgio Napolitano signed the Intesa con lo Stato, or legal agreement, on 30 July, and the document will soon be published as law in the Gazzetta Ufficiale, the official journal of record of the Italian government. In contrast to the 1993 legislation that recognized the Church as only a charitable institution, the Church is now officially recognized as a religious denomination, along with the Catholic Church and a few others.

In fact, the agreement grants the highest status given to religions — which, until recently, numbered only about half a dozen besides the Catholic Church (including Jews, Baptists and Methodists). This status affords many benefits. As John Zackrison, director of the International Coordinating Committee for the Church, explained: “It will eliminate current barriers that frequently interfere with our Church leaders performing marriages and otherwise ministering, it will smooth the process for obtaining visas for missionaries and mission presidents, and it will grant unquestioned freedom for the Church to perform any functions or activities deemed essential to its worldwide mission,” as well as grant Latter-day Saint clergy the ability to visit members and those in need with automatic access to state hospitals, prisons and military barracks.

Additionally, the Church’s new status and strengthened relationships with government officials will enable the Church to work more effectively in community relief efforts with the Catholic Church and other recognized religious denominations.

“The secretary of the prime minister has already put me in touch with the minister of social activities,” said Giuseppe Pasta, the Church’s former national director of public affairs in Italy and current volunteer coordinator with government and religious institutions. “Important Italian entities are already reaching out to us from the left and from the right now that we are considered an official religious denomination.” 

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The Church in Italy© 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

Most rewarding for many Mormons, however, is the long-awaited public recognition that the Church is a legitimate Christian faith. Ventura explained that the long process of achieving this historical event was a “time of work, a time of prayers, a time of preparation and finally a time of full recognition.” The acknowledgment of the Church’s full religious status with the government is “the most important blessing” and, in the words of Pasta (also a Mormon for more than 40 years), makes he and other Italian Latter-day Saints feel “very, very happy — we have been waiting for this for many years. We have been praying and fasting, striving to be better people, to receive the Lord’s help — and now we are here.”

Read more: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormons-italy-rejoice-church-granted-country-official-status