Pozzuoli take 2!!!!!!!!

Sorella Viazzo e io rimaniamo insieme per un altro transferimento! WOOHOO!! Siamo molto contente per fare un altro. Abbiamo tanti piani and mete. Avremmo un battesimo sicuramente! Ok forse non sicuramente ma il Signore dicidera:) Il lavoro e buono qui ma sappiamo che ce di piu che possiamo fare per migliorare il lavoro! 

Truth is.... I didnt really plan what to say for this email today, so I spiced it up with some italian. Yes, Sorella Viazzo and I are staying together and we are getting an Italian slash German elder in our district. Doesnt know english....this will be fun. Dad, quick give me some german to use on this guy. It should be interesting teaching all the english speaking africans:)

What a crazy week! We taught some of our regular investigators this last week. Not much is new, but we saw some cool miracles!

We were on our way home from the church one day when some sweet old French lady tourists approached us with their little english. They were looking for the train station so we offered to direct them there. We were able to share with them a little bit about what we believe. One of the ladies didnt know ANY english. She spoke in french and Sorella Viazzo spoke in english and it somehow worked. They would be returning to FRance the following day so we invited to hear from some missionaries that could ACTUALLY speak their language in France. They agreed. We took their contact info down. Who woulda thought?? Hahaha it was really cool. 

On our way home from an exchange in Battipaglia, we were sitting on the train, tired and planning for the next day. We had missed our previous train, so it was pretty late. While we were planning, a younger man approached us, asking who we were and what we believed. He was so open and sincere about learning....which is a miracle! HE APPROACHED US. He agreed to meet with us. It was NOT a coincidence that we missed our train that night. Gianpaolo... we will see, but we were really excited about him.

We saw a baptism this week. It was so powerful. He was a young guy who found the missionaries on the train because the missionaires had prayed to know where they should go finding that day. He was baptized four weeks later. HOW COOL. I have NO doubt that the Lord is preparing his children to receive the gospel! We just need to constantly be looking for them. 

We saw some beautiful Greek temples in Paestum today!! GORGEOUS!! WOW so beautiful!! Love the people, the work, the language! Sorry for the short letter, time is up!!! Love you!!

Sorella Clyde

ps. ITs finally spring and warm!!!

Dai

Dai. Okay so the way you pronounce this word is "die". It means "Come on!!" I still get a crack out of it when some missionary or random italian will yell "DAI!" at me. Seems kinda harsh at first at least to an english speaker, but its really all just in good fun:)

Fantastic week! Elder Kearon from the Seventy visited the mission and he gave a training that changed the way I will view the rest of my mission and after the mission. With his charismatic english accent and passion for the work, he inspired me to really own and love this work! So many of my questions were answered. The theme of the conference seemed to be that we need to help these people understand who they REALLY are, but first we must understand who we REALLY are. We are sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father. I was so touched by that. Once we really understand this concept and this great love that he has for us, we will love the work more than ever and be more effective missionaries. Today I studied a little more about this. I read 1 John 4. It so toching! Please read.  This is HIS work- we are simply His hands. We need to pray for opportunities to take part in His work and expect miracles and He will do the rest. IN and OUTSIDE the mission field! We have a responsibility to do so!

The work is good. Really good here in Pozzuoli. Sorella Viazzo is golden and such a go getter! Its so great! Olivia, we followed your example and decided to pray specifically to find one prepared person and guess what, we found 2! Sorella Viazzo went to Catania for a leaders conference so I did an exchange with a greenie for two. It was so fun and succuessful. We went knocking doors one morning. We knocked 8 doors and 3 of them opened up to us! 2 of them let us inside to teach them! Wow cool! One was a mother and son, Carmella and Antonio. They are really in search of hope as the husband and son just died within the last year. They were so eager to hear what we had to say! It was really sweet. They invited us to come back! I love it. When we pray and ask with specific needs-questions, the Lord blesses us with specific answers!

Awesome missionary tactics when knocking doors: First publicize our free english course (rather than the typical "we have a message on faith") and they will be so honored by the invite that they open up the door and let these "2 belle raggazze" come in. THen it leads to convo about the church. ALSO, when someone offers you food/water of any kind, TAKE IT. It is an automatic invite to sit down ....and then teach. FANTASTIC. 

Italians are such beautiful, warm people. We taught a lesson to some strangers in a glasses shop and they let us stay for lunch. Then they invited us for sunday lunch with their whole family! I attached a photo. Their house was a dream come true little cottage. I loved it! The kitchen was so beautiful! 

It poured CATS AND DOGS while we were waiting for the bus yesterday. LITERALLY. It was basically a hurricane. We ran and took cover with lots of giggles. What is this life? HAHA

So many suprises! Ugh I love it! I am falling more and more with the culture and with the work! Have a fantastic week! 2 weeks to conference!!! 

Love you all! KEep seeking for opportunities to share the good news!

Sister Clyde

Sorella Viazzo hit her 9 month mark soo she got a little crazy.

so much running, so little time...

It is 4:54, we just finished with a lesson, the bus should be coming any minute now... When BAM. There it is: the massive M1B bus headed towards the stop. And we are booking it- full on sprint, hair flying everywhere, mission skirt picked up to keep from tripping (or looking less foolish). Whether its for buses, trains or getting to english course on time, we are usually running. Oh mission life...

We had a really great, productive week. We taught some great lessons. Gennaro, (old man) one of our investigators who has been taking the lessons were 6 months now refuses to come to church because needs to walk his dogs, but he claims he is reading and praying. We decided to start the lessons over with him, so we taught a great lesson on the Restoration. The Spirit was really strong, he agreed to really pray and find out for himself. He offered a powerful pray on his knees and then he told us that he couldnt come to the church for lessons anymore. And told us: "Its not you, its me." and broke up with us... dangit. Well, it needed to happen anyway, wer are just glad that we didnt have to do it. One day Gennaro, one day.

We also taught Peppe. He is this old short man with the biggest beer belly. He has been taking the lessons for a while and almost got baptized but his family refuses to let him because of the law of tithing. We still share spiritual thoughts with him. Well this last week we met him in Campi Flegrei outside on a bench. The three of us sat there and talked about the gospel. He had been a bit angry because we arrived late yet again because there was a strike that had delayed all the trains. But, he pulled out red wrapped gifts of chocolates for each of us. This is perfect, old, beer belly man gifting us with Christmas gifts= SANTA.

We saw wonderful Amaglia again! Amaglia is absolutely golden! This time we shared the Restoration with her. It was a powerful lesson as she just listened and took everything in. Then she ended the lesson with the prayer as we all knelt. It is amazing how strong the Spirit is when we share the story of Joseph Smith and to see the light of Christ touch them. We will meet with her again tomorrow! Sorella Viazzo and I just "floated" out of the lesson; we were so happy! We even did our jump up and down "clyde" huddle.

Pina, another long time investigator, has not been progressing. She reads and comes to church every so often but she is not progressing towards baptism. We did a great lesson on the Restoration with her and her husband. When baptism came up, she said that she wants to wait for her husband. It was a drop lesson with her but it went really well. We ended the lesson with a prayer on our knees. It was really powerful. As we left her house that day she really opened up to us and just cried over the frustration she has with her sick husband. I hugged her and just had this sudden amount of Christ like love for her. We were able to tell her that God loves her and knows her. She was so touched. The more I am on my mission and the more comfortable I am teaching Italian, the more I see the influence of the Holy Ghost in our teaching. Its really cool!

As we were waiting for the bus, we had a crazy African man ask us: "I want to serve God, I only need a white wife- can you help me??" And bam the bus was there within 10 seconds, we hopped on and were safe. SO MANY BLESSINGS!

We were given a referral for an African woman, Maria. We then got 3 referrals from her. We taught her and her friend, Benjamin. They agreed to be baptized when they receive an answer from God. So good.

The work is so surprising every day, but it is so good. Love you all and praying for you!

Sorella Clyde

go women.

We made a last minute stop via airplane to Catania for four days....in other words, had a four day vacation....so didnt get much work done as we would have hoped. But the good news is that it was in fact Womens Day last week. Woohoo my first womens day!! People were handing out flowers all day long. In fact, while Sorella Viazzo and I were BOOKING it for the bus, a lady sticks out a hand full of flowers to us. "What makes you think we want some weeds at a time like this!?" (yes, they were weed-like and we thought they were selling them to us) She may have been giving them out probably whoops:)

Church in the Flegreo branch means all four missionaires translating all three hours. Last week was fast and testimony meeting, so one of the Africans, Mercy got up to bear his with one of the Anziani translating. Well lets just say that he didnt exactly put as much passion into the translation as Mercy was putting into it. HAhaha he was so passionate and full of emtion and hand gestures, while this Anziano just flatly traslate with absolutely NO emotion. So painful and funny to watch!

We saw Gianfranco last week who greeted us with bellies full of homemade lasagna! YUM and then he pulled out the biscotti (cookies). We were dying already, but I can always go for some biscotti. First bite said it alll... rum filled cookies. I carefully, casually and gently wiped my mouth with a napkin (thus spitting the bite out at the same time teehee). Then carefully shovig the rest of the cookie into the napkin as well. Sorella Viazzo totally commented on it afterwards... Missionaries know all the secret tricks. hahhaa

While in catania I bought a Peppa the Pig notebook, solely for the stickers that came with it. When the cashier man rang it up, he said that it costs more bcause of the stickers and that I could get one without. Sorella BAir explained, that I was buying the book FOR the stickers. HAHAHA this 22 yr old girl. He just responded, "Che ci vuole, ci vuole"

What it takes, it takes. HAHAHA so great.

So many miracles this week with buses!!! So so grateful everyday.

We didnt see Amaglia this week, but we plan to this coming week.

We had a great training with Brother Bonner at coordination. He talked about the different layers of parables and how many different meanings there can be. I worked on Lehis dream parable from the view of doing missionary work this morning. The fruit from the tree is the joy that comes from doing the work. While the iron rod is the pathway to that joy through inviting. Many of us invite and get rejected and fall off the path because of fear. Then there are those in the Great and Spacious building. These are the members who have not yet experienced the joy of doing missionary work. They are content with the way their life is now. Although they are not wicked, terrible people, they are not progressing and sharing the good word of God. There is SO MUCH more joy ahead of us when we are sharing the gospel. 1 Nephi 8:12

Gots togo! The work is really good. I am learning and growing so much as a missionary. I love you all and are praying for you and your missionary opps!

HAve a beautiful week!

Sorella Clyde

back to the island....

Stew, ken, spence, that subject line is for you. Whenever people refer to Sicily as "the island", I always think of LOST and get an anxious feeling haha.

Yep. Today I am back in Sicily...there was a mistake and I was tranferred back to Catania. Dangit.

PSYCH. Sor Viazzo and I are back in town for two days to take care of permesso stuff. So we took a flight at like 5am this morning. EW. But we are back in good ole catania and plan to go see Taormina again with the whole catania district! HAhA its so weird to be back!

Great week. There is a LOT of work here in Pozzuoli. I am shocked! People have baptismal dates- they exist! Haha. Last week we saw Roselyn, the sweet wonderful african woman and taught her a post baptism lesson. She is an amazing, inspiring woman! Wow really. She shared some terrible stories of her past in Africa with us and it was definitely an emotional experience. I am so amazed by the great faith that she has! She is already giving us referrals and she has been baptized for two weeks.

We had an old lady party with Sorella Tempesta. She invited us over for pranzo and to teach her friend, Anna. We ended up teaching Titi eating some yummy pesto pasta mm mmm and some other courses and then took the trip over to Annas house where sorella Viazzo helped three old ladies pick fruit from big lemon and orange trees for like 45 minutes. The funniest part was that the old ladies were the ones carrying and climbing the ladder (they refused to let us do so). So the pulled the fruits and we caught them. Years of softball definitely came in handy:)


Sorella Viazzo and I translated for a marriage counseling session last night. It was ridiculous and really uncomfortable. HAh! I felt like I was in this italian soap opera...wanting to stay completely neutral to the situation! I did no want to show ANY sign of agreement with both sides. I am a missionary, okay!

We went to a last minute conference in Rome last week where Elder Steven B Allen spoke. It was fantastic and inspirng! He totally gave us the slap down for all the missionaires and started out by asking us "Do you truly believe you found and taught every person ready for baptism last month?" (the total for the mission last month was 16). It definitely got everything thinking! Wow, there is a lot more that I could have done!

He really talked about the WHY of the gospel. IT was awesome! He said that we should go into our lessons EXPECTING to invite them to baptism (unless the Spirit directs otherwise).

We received a referral from some elders in Caserta of a woman named Amaglia. We didnt know anything about this woman. She picked us up from the bus stop and drove back to her house (which was a bit of a sketchy part of town). Turns out, her house was really nice and she was just this kind, gentle, middle aged woman. She really opened up to us and shared some hard things of her past. It was clear that she was in search of some hope. We shared the Plan of Salvation with her and she just ate it up. It was clear she was feeling the Spirit. It was going really well and we planned to take Elder Allens advice. Baptism. It was definitely feeling right and so Sorella Viazzo went for it. She agreed to be baptized April 19. Wow, this is good to be true! She seems golden and just asked what she needs to do to make it happen. She closed the lesson with a prayer the Spirit was definitely present. There is just something about having an investigator pray in their own words (for possibly the first time), that really brings the Spirit! We were so excited all night and obviously it is important to keep a level head as a missionary:)

Had an awesome training with Brother Bonner again. He talked about d&c 100:4-5 about the meaning of the effectual door. He talked about how there are souls being prepared by other souls on the other side, so that their ordinances can get done! It was such an interesting perspective! It is encouraged that we bring family names, only to the temple, so wouldnt it make sense to prepare posterity still living on the earth. Then she shared a quote from Lorenzo Snow who was one of the first missionaries of Italy who had promised that ancestors would prepare people for the gospel by appearing to them in their dreams. Then he challenged us: if all else fails when finding people and inviting them to hear the gospel, ask them if they had ever had dreams of their ancestors. So cool.


Love you all!!! Service is happiness.

Sorella Clyde