Zone Conference, Lost & Found, Answerin' prayers‏

Family and friends ... This week has been a splendid one indeed! First of all, we had Zone Conference yesterday and it actually blew my mind! Elder Kopischke came (Probably butchered the spelling of his name...He's German. I speak Italian now...it's just not in the cards for me to know how to spell it!) Anywho, he's kind of an Elder Jeffrey R. Holland kind of a speaker. You certainly don't leave feeling prideful and like the best missionary in the world. That's for sure. I don't know how he does it but somehow he sweeps the pride ladder right out from under you and somehow you just get up feeling completely okay about it. Seriously I don't know how he gets the job done. I just wanted to be 500 percent better. He really talked about the importance of planning and finding. He said those are the things that we need to work on in this mission. He's right. I think I took like half a notebook worth of notes and just loved it. We were in church like all day. The Zone conference started at 10 and then ended at 5. It was a doozy. THEN we had English class afterwards which was a good time as usual.So here's a rad story that I really wanted to share. My first week here in Cagliari I talked to someone on the bus. I remember it was my birthday. I talked to this guy for like 15 minutes and I was really stoked about it and then when we got off I didn't get any of his information and this other guy at the bus stop started talking to us and...before I knew it the OTHER bus that we needed to take came and we needed to get on. I felt really bad that I didn't get Massimo's information or anything. We were doing service that morning at an inactive members house and I just remember being preoccupied the whole time because I felt bad. Well, every time we're at that bus stop I say a little prayer that by some chance he'll get off a bus or we'll already be at the stop. So. on Saturday we left an appointment with one of our investigators and were walking back to the bus stop. The street was unusually chaotic. There were lots of things that were distracting. Old men painting the walls of an apartment building, some young guys making a van driver mad because they were in the middle of the road, etc. Well, we continued on and I noticed there was someone in a doorway up ahead. I was just going to say "buona serra" and keep going but about when we got even with him I froze in my steps and just whispered "aspetta..." I turned around and the guy in the doorway smiled. I said, "Massimo?" and he nodded. It was crazy! I don't think I hid my excitement to finally see him again. ha ha We stopped and talked to him for a bit and got his info and...it was just a splendid answer to prayer. The thing is, I don't know for sure how interested he is or anything, but Heavenly Father helped me out. I jacked up my first try and He gave me an opportunity to have closure and try again. Ah. How cool is that?! After it happened, like every ten steps I would ask my companion "Can you even believe that that happened just now?!"Here is another Jewel that happened: We were early to an appointment with one of our investigators by like..45 minutes. My companion and I have a goal of doing house everyday. So...perfect opportunity. We got off the bus stop and were walking in the direction of the investigators house and were just glancing down the street trying to feel out which street we should do house on. I saw one and honestly I don't remember any overwhelmingly strong feeling or anything but I just felt like, "okay, that's it." We crossed the street and said a prayer outside of the first door and got started. The first door was actually pretty fun. The guy wasn't super interested but we had a good conversation and we left him with a pamphlet and a good impression of the missionaries. So we continued on down the street. We got to one door and this man in his 50's answered. I excitedly told him who we are and that we have a message about the Savior and he kind of smiled and said, "Let me get my wife." Well, the wife came around the corner and I introduced us again and she just smiled and said to come in and make ourselves comfortable. Uh....wait, what? We went in and asked them about the pictures on the wall of their family. They were SO nice to us. I just instantly fell in love with this cute couple. My companion looked at her watch pretty much right as we sat down on the couch and...we were almost late for our appointment with our investigator. I asked if we could just say a prayer with her and come back and teach them about the church another day. She said yes. She told us several times that she was so thankful that we came. That we brought her so much joy. She said she'd been having a really hard day, was feeling really down, and that we were an answer to her prayers. She started crying. We went and gave her a big hug. It was so amazing. We have an appointment with them tonight and if things go according to planned, we'll have two new investigators tonight! How cool is that that we answered someone's prayer? It just made us wanna knock on so many more houses and help more people. Who knew? House works!There's so much more that I could tell but this will suffice. What a great week as a missionary. I certainly have flaws up the wall (thanks Anziano Kopischke! ha ha) but we get so blessed and Heavenly Father is sure patient. It's been cool to watch us as a companionship. My companion has grown and gotten so much better. I'm not saying that she's bad, because she's wonderful. But it's cool to look back at when we started and say, "Well, look at you cute thing, you're talking to people on the buses more and more." or "I was so proud of you when you chased that old lady down at zone singing." We're learning and growing a lot together. No doubt there is a lengthy laundry list of things to change but little by little we're learning how to better do this work and trying to make it a fun and happy work too. Because...it should be. :) I love you guys so much. Be safe! Lots of Sardegnian love, Sorella Hansen