march 28, 2016 Week #7

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 11:24 AM, Whitney Elisabeth Hess <whitney.hess@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Buona Pasqua tutti!

I hope everyone had a great Easter! We sure did! We saw some amazing
miracles this week!

Tuesday we had a District Meeting and had a big lunch together and
then we had another lunch with a less-active member in our ward! Holy
cow. I've never been so full in my life. I literally had to say a
prayer in my heart to be able to keep it all down. I was full for
basically 24 hours after haha.

We made some cute little Easter treat bags for our less-actives and
investigators so we delivered a lot of those this week which was fun!
Pretty much every person in our ward is somehow related so it's fun to
meet them all and try to figure out who is related to who😊

From Thursday afternoon to Friday afternoon we fasted so that we could
find some new investigators to teach, and it was amazing how soon
after we started seeing results!! We had a ward movie night on Friday
and as we were about to start, we saw a teenage girl and her mom that
we didn't recognize so we went up and talked to them. Turns out
they're both Catholic but are interested in our church so they decided
to come to a ward activity!! (WHAT?!😍 Golden!!) We got their numbers
and are excited to try and meet with them sometime this week.

Saturday night we did a "Gesso" in Centro. We bring a bed sheet and
Sorella Adamson draws either a scripture or the Plan of Salvation or
something, and the rest of us go and talk to people as they stop to
see what she's drawing. I was pretty nervous because I hadn't really
done any finding on my own yet, but I stopped 3 teenaged girls and
showed them the new "Hallelujah" Mormon Message and bore my testimony
of the Savior to them. I'm pretty sure they understood what I was
saying😂 I got their numbers and we're gonna try to call them and meet
up this week so we'll see how it goes😊

I just wanted to take a moment to publicly thank my parents for making
me stay in piano lessons for all those years even when I fought it and
didn't practice:) I've had to play in church/RS every week so far and
they tell me what song it is right as we're about to sing it...so
thankfully I can kind of sight-read😊

Italians take their Pasqua (Easter) really seriously! Holy cow!
They're all out of school for like 5 days for it! Today (Monday) is
called Pasquetta (Little Easter) and it's the day they all actually
celebrate since they go to church on Sunday. The whole ward has been
here at the church since 10am for games, lunch, karaoke, movies,
volleyball, etc. They take advantage of any reason to get together
with friends and to eat and have a good time. I love Italians😊

I'm so excited for General Conference this weekend to hear from our
leaders of the church. I encourage all of you to go in with a question
and to truly listen to hear what Heavenly Father is trying to tell
you. I'm grateful for this Easter season and for the knowledge we have
that the Savior lives! "Oh sweet, the joy this sentence gives, I know
that my Redeemer lives."

Our address is:
Via Carlo Sforza 4/1
74100 Taranto Italia

I love you guys!! Hope it's a great week for you all:) Happy Conference!!

Sorella Hess

Gesso with the Anziani and Tayna in Taranto

Sent from my iPad

Cute Tanya--15 year old in our ward

Delivering our Easter Treats