Mia Sorella: Pull Out the Weeds and Water the Flowers. 🌸

Not sure if I sent this already, but this is a pretty decent selfie of us.

Ciao tutti,

This week was lovely!!! I don't remember everything but I remember there was a distinct miracle every day! Follow up on last week's miracle during spesa-- ELLY came to church yesterday!!! She is a dream divine! We didn't even know she was coming she just straight up showed up in the middle of sacrament meeting and I almost died of a heart attack. Whenever a new simp comes to church it is like the Christmas of all Christmases! Like literally though! She is wonderful.

And another miracle follow up, the guy named Mark Slla Holiday and I met at the park in Rome during Zone Conference has a bap date for June 11!!! It is so COOL.

We had a scambio that literally changed my life. I went with Sorella Davison who goes home this transfer and she is Australian. Just thought that was an important detail. But she was also born in Pescara, and so we went up to Chieti and visited a less active who used to be really active and was best friends with Sorella Davison. It was really good to see her and she is so cool and still wants to help me with my Italian! She speaks fluent English too so that was cool. But I learned a lot about the kind of missionary I want to be, and it really helped me!!

Saturday we got to go to a baptism for this couple from Venezuela. They are the most beautiful human beings ever. :)

Also Saturday we had planned to drop an investigator who has been kind of crazy lately. But instead she wants to get baptized. JUNE 11th BABY! Same day as Mark, so cools.

This week has been a lot of simply desiring to be better and then figuring out how I can bring to pass those desires into actions. I was reading the talk In Praise of Those Who Save by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf from this past GC, and it was my second time reading it. But as I was studying it, I realized it was just about overcoming pride. And how pride is usually why much of our trials come about, especially when it comes to family and relationships. He talks about how "pride may be a common human failing, but it is not part of our spiritual heritage." I love that. I also love how he defines pride. He says:

Pride exaggerates its own strength and ignores the virtues of others.

And gosh that hit me right in the soul! I think that is where mostly eight seven point five percent of unhappiness stems from. Is us wanting things to be about us, to be for us, and for people to always read our minds and seek out making us happy without us putting in the same or more effort to make them happy. Because I have noticed the days I am the happiest here are the days when I don't give any thoughts to how I am dressed, how hungry or tired I am, how many hours of sleep I didn't get and how much I just want to do different things, or how much i want to just instantly speak Italian and instantly have every Italian listen to me and want to be baptized. Pure happiness is found in the moments where I am tired, and I am hungry, but none of it matters because I'm having a conversation with a woman on a bus in Italian. And it's God magnifying my abilities, and putting his hands over mine, lifting me up enough to help others see that the truth is right in front of them. None of it is me, it's all him. I'm simply just another tool in His capable hands. That's when the miracles come. When we forget ourselves and get to work.

One more thing I'd like to leave with you this week, is a promise. That if you truly desire to do the Lord's Will, and you forget about what you want now, and you start wanting better things, and wanting better things for other people, those things will happen. I know that for a fact. I have already seen so many miracles in my time here, out of situations that seemed fruitless or impossible or pointless. Never believe that there is not something to hope for, because there always is. Always. And those miracles come when we forget that things aren't perfect, and we stop expected them to be, and we find joy in those imperfections, those in-betweens, and those times where it seems like nothing is working our way. That's because it isn't! It's God's way! And his way ALWAYS turns out way way way BETTER than anything we could have ever dreamed up in our limited human imaginations. Trust him. Just let whatever is holding you back go. And let him show you what he can make of you, because I promise it's more than you could have ever dreamed.

And last, one more quote from that talk:

Build bridges; don’t destroy them.

Even when you are not at fault--perhaps especially when you are not at fault--let love conquer pride. If you do this, whatever adversity you are facing will pass, and because of the love of God in your hearts, contention will fade. These principles of saving relationships apply to all of us, regardless of whether we are married, divorced, widowed, or single. We all can be saviors of strong families.

Vi voglio bene!!

Sorella Jarnagin