Sorella Forbes, Italy Milan Mission: December 19, 2012 - I vero spirito di Natale "The True Spirit of Christmas"

"L'amore di Cristo è il vero spirito di Natale."

"The love of Christ is the true spirit of Christmas.

The love of Christ is the true spirit of Christmas. Says one of the first presidency. I can't remember which. But it was from the first presidency Christmas devotional. I'm trying to keep this in mind this week as we are nearing Christmas. I LOVE being a missionary at Christmas time. This week we've started a teach to find approach about how Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, and then leading that into thinking of and learning more about Christ can help it be a more joyful time. And then how the Book of Mormon helps us do these things. Something like that. But it's great. We've got some people talking to us with that. Christmas is in the air here in Milano! It's BEAUTIFUL! There is a giant tree in front of the Duomo. It's beautiful!

This email probs won't be much since I'm talking to you next week!!!! I'm so excited. I can't believe it's already Christmas. That is just crazy.

This week has been a strange one. We're just now getting back on a normal schedule. We've been traveling around a lot and we had a scambio with the Varese sorelle, so we're trying to get back to normal. Ma va bene. My scambio with Sorella Bush was fabulous. We set a baptismal date with Karin, Martin's ex on Thursday. I just love her so much! I have a good feeling about her. Abby will not be baptized this month, but she has so much faith and knows this is right. We're praying hard for her. We also started visiting a part member family this week. The wife and oldest kid are members. They have two younger kids baptism age that are not baptized and the dad is not a member. They had a son die a little over a year ago. They had met with misisonaries before then but he was never interested in baptism. He loves the church, thinks the book of mormon is true, but never wanted to take that step. We had a beautiful lesson with them on the Plan of Salvation this week and I believe this could be the dad's time. THey want an eternal family. I love them so much!

The snow is coming down hard here. ON Friday we had to go to Bergamo so Sorella Lyman could play the violin in a concert there. That was fun. We're just getting to share all of our talents! I love it. Sorella Lloyd and Brown from Milano 1 also went, and the Bergamo Sorelle both have studied classical voice. Sorella Padula will be a famous opera singer some day, and I was in heaven listening to her on Friday at Bergamo. Beautiful!!! That was fun. We all stayed the night with the Bergamo Sorelle. Then our train the next morning was cancelled because of the snow, but we caught one not too long after. But that was fine. Didn't get much sleep because I was on the floor and it was cold, and loud neighbors, but we have amazing sorelle here! I was grateful to get to spend some time with them and hear all of them share their talents. I was the page turner for the piano players. :)

About that call, dad... sorry about that. Here's the story really quick. We were at correlation with our ward mission leader. he asked us what we were doing for Christmas and I said we had to find someone to help us out with a computer to skype. He said he had it on his phone and we could use that. He said "let's call right now and see if it works!" I said no no no fratello... and he kept saying "Dai! Facciamo!" And so i didn't think he could call a house number from skype so i gave him the house number. He was calling and a voice machine came up in english and he passed me the phone, but it had ended by the time I got it. I was thinking "IT doesn't work!" And he said "facciamo un'altro. Vediamo cosa dice." So then he dials again and hold the phone up to my ear. I was expecting to hear a machine again, instead I hear "Hello?" Uh.... that's my dad... "HELLO?!?!" "HII!!!" "AAAHHH!!!" Fratello LaFranceschina takes back the phone really quick I'm up running around the room laughing with Sorella Bush and he just yells "Ciao da Italia!!!" in the phone. And hangs up. Oh gosh. My heart.... I hope it didn't scare you too bad. All is well. haha.

About the call next week. If all else fails we are coming to this internet place about 4-5 PM our time. 8-9 your time i believe. I'll send an email from the phone booth again if that has to change. I'm excited!

Something to think about this Christmas season: 3 Nephi 1. The Christmas story in the Book of Mormon! Read that chapter. I like to categorize the people into 3 different groups. Those with different levels of faith. I'll talk more about it next week. Thoughts?

Love you family! I'm so excited to talk to you next week!

MERRY CHRISTMAS E BUON NATALE TUTTI!!!

Vi voglio un sacco di bene!

Sorella Forbes