Pescara, Italy Week 15; Mission Week 49 in Italy

This week felt long and it was cold. 

This week my companion and I focused a lot more on obedience. We wanted to try to be exactly obedient to the rules as missionaries. While we were trying to be obedient we were able to see some miracles in our lives. 

We went to a city named Chieti which is in our area and about an hour away. We went to visit an inactive member that we had never met. She had met us on the streets and she was very open with us and really enjoyed our presence. She enjoyed reading the Come Follow me with the Book of Mormon and we were able to strengthen each others testimonies. After that my comp and I had ran to the bus stop because we had to get back around 1:00 pm because we had a lunch appointment in Montesilvano with a member. Montesilvano is about 15 mins away from Pescara, the place I live. But we were in Chieti which is an hour away and it was already 12:00. The bus hadn't came yet and we weren't late but no buses were coming and the train wasn't coming until 1:00. So my comp and I prayed then we asked a guy that sells tickets where a bus going to Pescara could be and would be. He pointed to a bus stop and said in about 30 mins. We walked there without any hope to make it to our next appointment and literally 5 mins later there was a bus heading back to Pescara! We got on and got to the bus station in Pescara. To our amazement there was another bus directly there to Montesilvano; it seemed as though it had waited for us. We were then able to be at our meal appointment. 

After that we waited again for a bus and it was about time for our lesson appointment with someone. And as soon as we started to panic the bus came! Everything we had thought we would miss and be late to actually turned our perfect. Thanks to obedience, prayer, and faith.

I love our new English course we have. The church has given us material as teachers that teach us how to properly teach students English and has given us material for our students and homework for them to do. We do 40 minutes of just learning the language and 20 minutes of a spiritual section which has some English in it. We have seen big time miracles with this and we just started 2 weeks ago. My companion and I teach English Connect 1(which is basic reading and writing in English) we have a class with about 10 people total for basic and there are 6 of them who loves to stay now and learn about our church. We had a lady tell us that she didn't believe that God cared for us and asked us why we thought he did. It ended up being a lesson about the Plan of Salvation and our purpose here in life. To our surprise these 6 ladies stayed just to hear the message and then requested to know more about how our church came to be and about prophets for the next class. 

On Thursday after the actual English portion that is exactly what we taught and we gave out 2 Books of Mormon to 2 of these ladies where was very curious to read the book. One lady in particular became fascinated that we have a living prophet today and 12 apostles and wants to read talks from them! Such a miracle!!!!

On Saturday my comp and I really didn't have as much as a full day so we had prayed together to figure out where the Lord wanted us to be and who we should teach. After the prayer my comp and I both had the same thought to stop by a family from Ecuador we have been teaching. We hadn't seem them for a week and it was about 10 am. We trusted the prompting and went to the apartment and once we rang the door this family was there. We were so happy that we had listened to the Spirit because this family is always busy and barley home. They were home and we were able to read some of the scriptures and after that they invited us to stay to eat a typical Ecuador dish. It was another miracle to be able to meet with them. 

That night my companion, the Anziani (Elders) and I got invited by a student from English course to go to their house and eat famous Arrosticini. This is something only in Pescara and its steak on a stick but made completely differently it was probably one of my favorite things i have eaten in Italy.

Also Family History has been a success. We have been stopping people and inviting them to come to our family history center and to find their ancestors. A lot of people are very curious about this and has never heard it before and are very open to learn more.
I personally this week took the time to build up my family tree on Family Search. I learned how to do indexing and I have learned how to search for an ancestor. I am currently working on my mothers side of the family trying to find some missing people and it is harder than i thought to find someone let alone with the records from Brazil. I have learned a few things about my ancestors that has made me grown and i am still on the hunt for more ancestors in Brazil.


Last but not least... Sunday! It was a very good Sunday about 7 out of 10 of our people we are teaching came to church.
There has been a family from Santo Domingo we have been teaching and the father wanted to get baptized but one principle of the gospel was holding him back and he had always said he would get baptized in 2 years. This man had disappeared during Sunday school and after Sunday school he ran to me to tell me he would like to be baptized February 1st!! I was in so much shock and filled with joy i almost cried. We had been working with for 4 months and he finally decided to follow his family and be baptized. He told us he would tell us for sure on Thursday since we are going to his family's house for lunch. This new literally filled my heart with happiness because now he can receive all the blessings that Heavenly Father wants to give him and he can start preparing to be sealed with his wife in the temple. This was also a miracle from God.


I am so grateful for this gospel. I am grateful that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and that he is a God of miracles. My faith has been strengthened so much due to our obedience, hearing the spirit, and seeing the little miracles in everyday life!

Sorella Hyatt🇮🇹

My Zone = The Mountain Zone

Pescara, Italy week 14, Mission Week 48 in Italy

This week was a pretty fast week but a very good one.

 
We have had quite a few lunch and dinner appointments lately which usually does not happen super often, at least when I am serving in an area

We went to a place in our area called Lanchiano and we are teaching a part-member family there. We spoke to them about the Law of Tithing and we were able to point out scriptures in the bible where Abraham had given tithing. Another great scripture about tithing is in Malachi 3:8-12 which, as well, talks about tithing. After the lesson this family had made us Santo Dominican food. Really good rice with some beans and homemade fried chicken. It was very good.

 
This week we also visited a member in our ward who lives alone and has no family around. She loves to have us over and we love giving her company. We had the opportunity to do a practice lesson with her over the Plan of Salvation and she helped us more with our Italian. 

One day, as we were walking to the train station, a random man stopped US. Usually no one stops the missionaries so we were surprised. He had asked us where we were originally from and then he started getting mad at us for coming to Italy and kept asking us why we were here and how much he didn't like his own country. We then were able to explain our purpose as missionaries and that we love his country. He then shared with us about his contradicting belief that he believes in Jesus but the world aspect does not believe He exists so that was reality. It was quite confusing his stance on things. Nonetheless, my companion and I bore our testimonies of our Savior Jesus Christ and our living prophet today. We then invited the man to come to church and to our surprise he said he would love to visit. 

We also went to another part-member family that we are teaching from Ecuador and we had a family home evening with them. We read the first 7 chapters of the Book of Mormon together and did the "Come Follow Me" booklet in preparation for Sunday. After that we then played a game equivalent to the game "Sorry" and the family was really happy; there was a good spirit there.
Saturday we had a dinner appointment at a member family's house from Venezuela. It was so cool to be with this family and strengthen them spiritually. We spoke to the about the importance of genealogy work and how we all should find out more about our ancestors. We then ate very good classic Venezuelan food. 

Sunday was a good fast Sunday! 2 Brazilian girls that had always came to visit me when I was in the visitor center randomly showed up to church in Pescara. One of the girls dad is part of the stake in Rome so he came up to Pescara to visit it and they decided to come with him. It was very good to have them with us. We also had 6 people in church for sacrament meeting.

After church we did a lesson with a family and their 2 nephews who has interest in the church and we taught them about the Restoration of the gospel.
For lunch we went to another member family's house and we as well explained the importance of temples and family history. They had made us an awesome lasagna and a desert called Tirimisu! So yummy. 

For dinner we had also been invited over. We took a bus to another place in our area name Chieti which is about an hour away. We ate at this beautiful young member family's house and they invited their non-member friend over. We ate salad, salami, cheese, and chicken. It was a very light dinner but very good. It was great to get to know this cute family and their friend. We took the opportunity to show pictures of our family members to them and explain to the friend why families are so important in our church. The beautiful message that families can be sealed together for time and all eternity is just miraculous thanks to temples. I'm grateful for the restored gospel and priesthood authority on the earth. Through the prophet Joesph Smith the church of Jesus Christ was able to be restored and priesthood keys are on the earth once more. Through keys we are able to have temples that unites families together for eternity.


Sorella Hyatt🇮🇹

Pescara, Italy Week 13; Mission Week 47 in Italy

This week was a great start to the New Year!
New Year's Eve my companion and I bought Guarana (Brazilian drink) and we told each other our favorite memories of 2019. I was surprised that all my memories from 2019 were only on the mission while my companion had some from home. Made me feel like a very old missionary We then went to bed and set up our alarms for 12:00 just so we could say Happy New Year to each other.
Looked like there wasn't a need for alarms because we woke up to a bunch of fireworks surrounding our apartment and we thought they were bombs. it was super loud and we weren't ready for them. I personally was half asleep still and i never got out of bed because i was so tired. My companion got out of bed and opened our deck door, and it made me very cold since it was cold outside but I slept it off.
The next day was New Years and we had Deep Cleaning Day. Since we are not supposed to be proselyting during new years we take about the whole day to Deep clean the apartment. Believe it or not it was tiring. I cleaned the whole kitchen literally from top to bottom as well as the bedroom. My companion cleaned the bathroom and our study room. It was a very long day but at the end our apartment looked very nice. 

January 2nd we had ZONE CONFERENCE. This one was the best one I have had in my opinion. Our zone was combined with the Rome Est zone which is the zone I used to be in when I was serving in Sabina. We traveled 2 hours down to Rome for the conference. We learned new ways to do missionary work and one is through family history work. We are now instructed to learn how to do indexing and learn how to use family tree app in order for us to help members do family history work so they can take family names to the temple. We are encouraged to tell non-members that we have a family history center and that they can work with finding out their families too. It is perfect for the Italians since they are so family based and they love their ancestors. 

I also found a 4th cousin of mine who serves with me in the visitor center. We used the app to search relatives and oddly enough I found my 4th cousin Sorella Nay. We figured out we were cousins through my father's ancestry in my great grandma Hyatt's family which her maiden name was Holt, my great grandma's brother is Sorella Nays' grandfather. I think that's what I remember. All we know is that we are 4th cousins and we serve together as missionaries in the visitor center. The first time she came into Italy I remember I greeted her welcome and ever since we felt a very close connection of friendship and now we realize why... we are family

We also got a new program for our English course that we teach called English Connect. It is more geared towards a manual for teaching English as well as help people get into a college and have knowledge of the gospel of Christ. All these tools given to us at zone conference has been inspired.
During zone conference I was asked to do a musical number. On the piano I accompanied to Anziani (Elders) in my zone while they sang "A poor wayfaring man" it was scary at first but became better.
This past Sunday was very good. I have the opportunity this week to read Come Follow Me and was actually prepared for it. Learning about the introduction to the Book of Mormon was so amazing. Even though I have read the Book of Mormon various times the front pages with the 8 testimonies and 3 witnesses are always very powerful and touching. It made me realize what a blessing it is to have the Book of Mormon. It is the key stone to our religion. The Book of Mormon proves the Bible to be the Word of God and that Jesus Christ was resurrected. Once we know the Book of Mormon is true we can know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and through him the church of Christ was restored. Such a blessing it is to not only have one Book testify about Jesus Christ but 2 Books talking about the same Christ. That is powerful and I hope everyone gets the chance to read it.


Sorella Hyatt🇮🇹

My 4th cousin from Southern Utah

Happy New Year! Pescara, Italy, Week 12; Mission Week 46 in Italy

This week has been filled with miracles! On Christmas we were able to talk to our families and we were invited to eat lunch at our neighbor's house. 

The day after Christmas a family that we have been teaching invited us over for lunch with them. They are from Ecuador and we were able to try their food. It was very good. This family also had invited, surprisingly, a different lady that we have been teaching and she is from Venezuela. They had become friends through church when we had invited them to come. We had the opportunity to teach them all together about the Divine Mission of Jesus Christ. We explained why Christ is important in our lives and the blessings we can receive through the Atonement. It was a very nice experience to be able to speak about Christ's mission here on the earth. 

This week we also had the opportunity to teach a Brazilian lady we had found a while ago and we were able to stop by. She had very good questions in regards to "What is my purpose here in life?" "Where do we go afterward?"  The Plan of Salvation was able to explain all the questions she had. At the end of our lesson she was very happy with Heavenly Father's plan for us. I was happy that I had the opportunity to speak Portuguese with her! She made us hot chocolate and afterward told us something interesting. She had been reading the Book of Mormon and her nephew saw her reading and asked her what she was reading. She told him it was a gift from us and he asked her if he could borrow the book and read it. When she had told us this we were so surprised and excited. She then asked us for another copy in Portuguese!

On Sunday a different family we had been teaching brought two of their nephews with them to church. Both from Santo Domingo; one 14 years old and the other 12 years old. These brothers had said that they were very interested in learning about the church and saw a change in their Aunt and cousin who had recently joined the church. After church meetings we were able to teach this whole family together about the Restoration of Christ's church and explain about the Book of Mormon. 

These young boys really wanted their own copies of the Book of Mormon and once I gave them their own they were so happy and agreed to meet with us again next week! 

Sunday evening my companion and I had planned to go finding in the city and talk about the gospel with random people. We both had felt something different the moment we got outside. We had a feeling to visit a member, a very strong feeling. It was getting dark out and we had to take a bus but we followed the prompting. Once we got to her house she told us that she had been very sick. This lady has no family and lives alone. She had then told us that her prayers had been answered, she had told the Lord she had been feeling alone and would have liked to see the love He has for her; then suddenly we knocked on her door. She was super cold and had been vomiting. We were grateful for the opportunity to serve her and we prayed for her. We then called the Anziani (Elders) and they came over and gave her a blessing. About 2 hours later we got a text from this lady saying that she felt so much better and she didn't have a fever or stomach ache anymore. That really strengthened my testimony because we have the priesthood power restored on the earth again. The same priesthood power that Paul and Peter had to heal the sick. I am very grateful for the priesthood and how it is used to help others.

By small and simple things great things are brought to pass!
Through faith in Christ miracles can happen and we can move mountains.


Sorella Hyatt🇮🇹

Pizza Delivery Truck!

Brazilian that we are teaching

Spicy African Meal

Italian Christmas Meal