Rome Week 9

Being a Temple Visitor Center sister missionary is so amazing!

One day I am in the visitor center and the next day I am doing regular missionary things, such as proselyting, in my area. 

I have spoken with so many Brazilians in Portuguese because they came to see the visitor center and they don't know Italian. 

I am having so much fun teaching the people of Rome in their language. 

I gave a group of 4 Italians 3 Book of Mormons. And I gave another couple one too. 

My favorite thing is explaining about temples and our marriages. Where we can be sealed for time and all eternity, together forever. It isn't death till we part. Heavenly Father chose families to be in his beautiful plan of salvation. 

And I'm so grateful for my family and that we are sealed together forever. 

Today we went to the Sistine Chapel and it was very beautiful. There was so much to see. We took an hour there but it was fun. 

I am doing better and better each week with Italian even though I mix all three of the languages (Italian, Portuguese and English) together still. 

Tonight we got invited to a members house and I'm going to make some basic Brazilian food, so I hope it tastes good just like my mom's. 

I know that Christ is our Savior and that He lives today. 

I know the Book of Mormon to be true Word of God because every chapter talks about Christ.  

I know we have a living prophet today and that Joseph Smith restored the true Church of Jesus Christ, back to the earth, that contains all of the authority and ordinances necessary for us to return to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in exaltation.! 

Rome Week 8 - Temple Dedication

This week was full of amazing things. 

I got to go to the dedication of the Rome temple and be inside the temple during the dedication!  I was blessed to meet 4 of the 12 apostles. President Eyring, President Oaks, Elder Chrisofferson, and Elder Stevenson. It was so cool to be able to be in the same room and get to see them so very close and have them wave and talk to us about the temple. 

Then, Visitor Center training started and it's a lot we had to train for - but it was only for 4 days. We then started and opened the Rome Temple Visitor Center on Monday, yesterday. It was very cool. I love serving in there and I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to serve right by the Lord's house. 

This truly is the place I am meant to be, I am comfortable serving and I have gotten better at the Italian language which makes me so happy! 

I love all the new visitor center girls that just came here and have been here for the past 2 weeks. They're so cute and I love them. Most of them are fresh out of high school like me and we have a lot in common. I also love their testimonies and faith about our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Also, I have been driving in Italy! My companion's international drivers license expired so I had to get driving approved by my mission president because we live an hour away from the area where prosilyte currently. So we need the car. I'm the youngest missionary driver so far. It can be scary at times but I always pray for safety and I know Heavenly Father will help me. 

In the visitor center we met this very beautiful family from an island near Africa that speaks French. They were just sitting there and they wanted to watch videos and stuff but they thought they only had it in Italian. And I told them that we have it in variety of languages and they were so happy to watch videos of Christ in French. After that their two daughters dedicated a song to my companion and I in French called "Peace in Christ" I recorded them, it was so beautiful. We exchanged Facebook so we could keep in contact because that family wants to come to Missouri to see all the church historical sites. I really loved them, and their strong testimony in the Lord. It was very cool. 

The weather here is kind of bipolar just like in Missouri. In the morning it will be warm and then afternoon to night it is freezing. It's so weird. But I really enjoy it here and I love being able to share my testimony about Jesus Christ to everyone I encounter. 

I hope you all have a great week! 

ROME Week 6

This week was a very good week. 

We taught a very cute couple the Restoration of the gospel also about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. They were so happy and they are very eager to read the Book of Mormon because they want to read the part about when Jesus Christ came to America and about his teachings. It was amazing. 

We also taught a lady from Peru who has always wanted to read the Book of Mormon but her mother never let her. She was so very happy that we gave her one in Spanish and she let us in so we could share the beautiful message of Jesus Christ. She was so happy. 

The true gospel of Jesus Christ brings true joy and helps us know who we really are and where we come from and why we are here. Through the Book of Mormon we can learn even more about Christ and His true Gospel.  We can also learn about the sacrifices the prophets had in order to tell the message of Jesus Christ as our savior. As well as the ordinances that are necessary for us to have to obtain exaltation and live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for ever with our families.

Also we got transfers today and the other 5 girls that roomed with me are going to far away cities in Italy and they will now have new companions. But I am lucky, I get to stay one more transfer with my amazing companion. 

Today for p-day we went to the Coliseum , the Trevi fountain and we did some shopping! Such a fun day we as the Fantastic 6 for the last time. 

I hope all you guys have a great week!

February 25, 2019

This week was pretty great! 

We went out meeting and finding finding; we stopped by a house and there was a Brazilian lady. I finally got to use my Portuguese with her. She was overly excited that we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and she said Heavnly Father truly loves her for sending angels like us to her. She wants us to come over and she wants to come to church. She loves us. I'm so excited.

We met another cute little old lady who really likes us. She told us how sick her and her husband are and she asked us why God let's horrible things happen to people. We read to her a verse in the Book of Mormon. 

2 Nephi 2:11,  For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

In other words, we explained to her that we need opposition so we have knowledge of good and bad, and that we can know what love is and be grateful for God. We also explained that Heavenly Father has given us our free agency for everyone to use as they desire.  He can't control our choices,  He can control the consequences for the choices we make.

She wants us to see her again, she's such a great lady. 

We had our last open house this past Saturday because of so many people who were interested in coming it was open for one more day. There were SOOO many Italians and it was amazing. 

Today for my P-day I did some shopping for groceries and we got invited to a members house who made us awesome lunch which was some kind of pasta with whatever awesome seasoning it was and cheese with pear and crackers and it was amazing. She also taught us how to croce. It was so good. Then we are going to another members house at 6 and we are going to give them a spiritual thought. I'm so excited. 

The temple and the gospel of Jesus Christ is such a great blessing. I love this gospel and I know its true. 

February 18, 2019

Hello! So last week I was helping with the open house for the temple so I did not have time to write on my blog. 

But last week there were sooo many people from all over the world here just to see the temple. 

I had to introduce what temples were and what the tour was going to consist of and I spoke either Italian or English for that. It was very tiring. 

Some Brazilian people came to see the temple and I was able to speak to them in Portuguese and answer a few questions. 

But that whole week was basically work, work, work, to get people into tours. 

This coming Saturday will be officially the last day for the open house. 

Then today was for my free day. We were in Rome and we went to the center; we even were on a four man bike. We biked in this beautiful huge park and we took many pictures. We even went to the Spanish steps. It was amazing! 

It was soooo pretty. 

We also ate this really interesting pasta that was kind of spicy and didn't even have any meat, honestly it wasn't good. 

But then we got gelato, I had dark chocolate with a different chocolate, and it was good. 

The temple brings blessings. I do love the temple. The temple is a place where we can be sealed for all time and eternity with our families, it is not "till death do we part".

Just like baptism is a covenant and a step for us to get closer to our savior so are the covenants we do in the temple. In the temple we make covenants which are promises with God that are other steps into coming unto Christ. We make promises to follow Him, and live a moral life, we learn more about His plan for us and His love for us. 

I love the gospel and I love our Heavnly father and how loving He is and wants us to return to be with him. 

Rome week 2

So this week was very interesting. It rained a lot and was kind of cold but it was okay. We had one family feed us Cena (dinner) and it was the first time I had actual real Italian food made by an Italian and it was a different kind of noodle type soup. All I know it was very good and we got to share a good message with them. 

 We tried visiting the less active members but we found out that their house or numbers don’t exist or they don’t even live there. One family lived at least 30 mins away and it was kind of frustrating. 

Also we did a lot of finding this past week. We found a guy from Equador who was interested in our message so we taught him and his kids the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they wanted the Book of Mormon. The next lesson we will teach the Plan of Salvation, this will be on Friday. I am excited. They said they loved the beautiful message of Christ and it made me so happy. 

Oh, I also had my first Italian pizza this week and the woman who owns the restaurant is named Anna Linda which was named after her two grandmothers just like I was. She already has the Book of Mormon so we invited her to the temple, and she really wants to come. Also, she wants us to come back. 

The temple is a blessing. We stop people on the street and invite them to the temple and they get so interested. We have gotten so many numbers from these people who want to go to the temple or talk to us more about it. 

Today we went to the Vatican and we went to the top of the Dome which was super cool. The Vatican was very pretty! We spent most of the day there. There were so many American LDS members who saw our name tags and wanted to talk to us about the Rome temple and were so excited to see us there. 

Then we went to eat pizza and gelato which was very very good. It was a great time. Today was like the warmest day in Rome I have experienced it was so good. 

I hope everyone had a great week

 The third picture is the family we ate with one night. The fourth one was my first pizza here. The second picture is with this really yummy dark chocolate from Italy that a member at church just gave me. The first is my companion and I in the car. 

Arrived in ROME!!! Week 1

Okay, so the first day I met Sorella Bressan she is Italian and I knew her from Instagram and she is the other girl sent to the visitors center and they told us that she and I were supposed to be companions but she ended up going to the London MTC for this reason our mission president let us be companions until Thursday. We slept at the mission home for 2 nights and it's like a mansion and so pretty. I did get the phone perfectly on time and I love this phone, it's a good phone. Every week my companion and I switch sim cards because a lot of people call us.

My new companion is soooooo AMAZING! She has been out a year and she has 6 more months left. Her name is Sorella Stepherson. She is from Las Vegas and she speaks Italian amazingly. She has been helping me with my Italian so much. She is a great missionary who follows all the rules. She has a twin sister and they're identical and her twin is serving in Milan. I'm her first sister she got to train and probably her only one. She is so nice and I love her. I'm learning so much from her and she pushes me so hard. 

Since the temple isn't dedicated I'm in a prosylting mission with my companion who is just a prosylting missionary. But our apartment is soooooo nice and it's by the temple but it's not the apartments on the temple. We live with 4 more girls who are just prosylting missionaries but they are soooooo sweet. We all love each other. All the Rome girls come just for the open house to help with videos and tours. And on the last week of the open house is mine and my companions week. I will probably be giving videos and speeches for it. 

Okay, so my area is 30 minutes away and we go to a branch. We are the first sisters ever in this branch and EVERYONE loves us. They are so happy we are here. They do church in a hotel call the Eurohotel and I have pictures of their rooms they use. They are such happy people. I can understand ALL the Italian I just can't speak it super well but I understand a lot which is a blessing. A lady from our branch invited us to her house on Sunday and she helped us with the Italian language, this lady speaks English as well and she really has helped us. Also this Sunday I was called to bear my testimony in Italian and I did. 

On the street I met 3 Brazilians and I was able to give them the temple card with times they can go to the open house and they said they would. Bishop also gave my companion and I a person that is from Brazil and lives next door to him. We have so many people to teach now like investigators. 

Yes, I love prosylting here, it's very fun. Yes, the Brazilians here don't speak Italian so I have to speak Portuguese with them. That's why bishop sent her to me and he said there are more Brazilians but they can never teach them because no one speaks Portuguese. But I can. I'm doing well in Italian also. I'm the one stopping people sometimes and telling them we have a message and who we are and why the temple is important to me.  Also, some of the food isn't good and I've been so hungry because I didn't really have food until today but also the food here is healthier and I haven't had the chance to eat actual food at members houses because we are the first missionaries in this new branch

Also I LOVEEEEE finding people. It is so fun. Yes we do have a car but we get to our area and then we walk and it's so nice. So people have these fancy gates around their house or apartment and they each have an intercom that we can press the button and it connects to their phone and we can talk to people inside their house through there. Or they just open the windows. Some actually opens the door. I have had a lot of Alma and Amulek experiences where people reject us but it's still cool, I dont feel bad when they do. I like to. My companion pushes me so hard for me to talk to them and tell them our purpose. But my favorite is when people are walking on the roads and we stop them and they take the cards. We had this lady who really liked us and she said we remind her of her daughters. So she took us to this super cool Italian bar because she wanted to talk to us more and we told her that we dont drink alcohol or coffee. So she gave us pear juice which was soooooo good and she gave us these really yummy finger foods. It was like a party with her family and she told the bar tender and her husband about the Rome temple that we talked about. And she said she would like to go and she gave us her number and she said when she goes she will contact us so we can meet up with her there.

We also had another woman last night that we met on the street who didn't know that we believe in God so we invited her to come; she gave us her number too so we can meet her at the temple when she comes. Also, we got a man's Facebook. He wanted it to keep in touch with us since he couldn't really answer the door but he would like to hear our message so I'm very excited.

I love it soooooooo much.

Oh yes, people dont believe I'm American here. At church they said my accent is Latin based not American and that I dont look American so they always ask me "what are you really?" I say half Brazilian. And they said no way! They dont like it when I say American because I dont look like it so I always have to say Brazilian, it's so funny. 

I start the visitor center after its dedicated and because of me my companion will be a visitor center one too just because we get to be together for 12 weeks then I guess I can kind of teach her about visitor centers since I had the training, she's so excited. We also heard that MAYBE one day we are out prosylting and the next day visitor center so like every other day. But we aren't quite sure yet. But that would be so cool . I love it here, it's so amazing. 

I love and miss you guys 

Last email from the USA, next stop Rome

Hello so this is my last week in the MTC. I leave Monday for Italy and Ive never been more excited in my life. Today is p-day and I have basically packed everything since my visitors center training schedule will not give me time. Let me tell you guys about visitor center training and as a Sister in there what we do.

We will be using a lot of technology. On this website called Mormon.org people can order a free bible or Book of Mormon. And the visitor center sisters are the ones who call to confirm the persons address and answers any questions they have. Through this we also ask them what interested them and can build a relationship through the phone. Also on this website people all over the world has the right to chat with a member  of the church Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Usually those are the Sister missionaries in visitors centers. So we answer their questions about the church or about Christ or anything really. If they want to talk more or let us read the Book of Mormon or bible with them, then we get to schedule another appointment with them either text, email, phone call, Skype, or Facebook messenger. If they want to meet with someone in person then we call and pick their local missionaries and then both of us works together to teach this person. Also we have to memorize all the history of the church in somewhat detail and then memorize the history of your certain visitor center so as for me I will have to learn all about the visitor center in Rome, but they will teach me when I get there. I have to know ALL the paintings, statues, and architecture and history behind that since I will have to teach. What’s cool about being a VC missionary is that we are like all the other missionaries with the same purpose, Bringing people closer to Christ. And we do this by teaching them in the visitors center and using our other resources like pictures, the videos, the statues. We actually don’t prepare lessons like most missionaries because we never know who is going to walk into the visitors center. So we have to study just everything and trust in Heavenly Father that through the Holy Spirit He will help us approach anyone with good questions to know what they are in need of and then we teach them what we feel would help the person. It is pretty cool. 

There are a total of 20 visitor centers in the world. Most of the, are in the United States, there’s one in London, France, São Paulo Brazil, Mexico, and now Rome. These are the only ones I know of out of the country and there could be more.

The teachers are excited because we are the only ones in the class to ever go to the Rome visitors center and they say it’s like we are helping to open it and we will be in history. 

So on Tuesday was our last day of Italian class because Wednesday,Thursday, and Saturday is all visitor center training and we go to class basically all day than regular missionaries. The class is all girls since only girls can be in visitor centers. But very few girls because not a lot get called to visitor centers. On Saturday at 1:00 until 9:00 pm we will be in Salt Lake City at temple square in the visitor center for our final training, so I’m excited to go there. 

So this has been most of my week. To end I would like to share a scripture with you guys from the Book of Mormon. So in the Book of Mormon we have these two groups of people the Lamanities and the Nephities. The nephities were usually very righteous people who believed in all the prophecies concerning the coming and death of Jesus Christ and they would follow God”s commandments. And the Lamanities were very wicked, they did not believe in God, they didn’t keep His commandments and they were a blood thirsty people and very jealous of the nephities. They hated the nephities and always sought to take over their land and people through battles. So in the Book of Mosiah chapter 9 this is what is happening. The Nephities heard that the Lamanities were going to attack and they weren’t as strong as them but I love what they did in verses 17-18 which reads

“17 Yea, in the strength of the Lord did we go forth to battle against the Lamanites; for I and my people did cry mightily to the Lord that he would deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, for we were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers.

18 And God did hear our cries and did answer our prayers; and we did go forth in his might; yea, we did go forth against the Lamanites, and in one day and a night we did slay three thousand and forty-three; we did slay them even until we had driven them out of our land.”

I absolutely love this because they had so much FAITH in God that they prayed to Him in mighty prayer, truly asking for help. Because of their faith in coming to God through this time God answered their prayers and the nephities were able to defend themselves and defeat the Lamanities. 

This tells us through all of our trails and hard times we can and should have faith in Christ. We should come unto him in mighty prayer knowing that He can help us. I know that if you do God will answer your prayers and will help you in anything you need.

I hope you guys have a great week! 

Sorella Hyatt 

Week 4 - Missionary Training Center

Hey guys. I hope every one’s week was great! I have another funny story. So last Friday I was washing my clothes and we went to eat lunch while we were waiting for our clothes to be done washing. After lunch we went back and I had the hugest brain fart ever. In my mind I thought my clothes were in the dryer so I completely forgot that I had placed the in the washer. So when I opened the washer I was like “oh my gosh my clothes are still wet! They are soaking!” And so I decided to keep it in the washer for another spin since I thought it was the dryer and then I realized the moment I heard the water that I had put my clothes to wash again. I had to wait another 30 minutes for it to wash and then put it in the dryer later for another 30 minutes. My companions laughed at me. I will admit that was very dumb of me


This week my companions and I had another TRC where it’s a training for us to teach people who speak Italian in only Italian. But this time we did it on Skype with a person who spoke Italian. We delivered our message well, but the technical difficulties were very bad.
Also this week we taught a lesson to our teacher without notes in Italian and we taught with our knowledge of Italian. We aren’t fluent yet but we are able to make sentences in Italian and express our feelings somewhat through the Italian language. I know God is helping us so much for learning Italian in 6 weeks. I can read so much better and understand most everything I’m reading.


Last night my companions and I taught a lesson about the plan of salvation in 1 minute all in Italian and it was a success. It was super stressful, it was to train us to get the most important parts about Heavenly’s Father beautiful plan of salvation or the plan of happiness. So it was fun at the same time. Only in a real lesson it won’t be one minute.


So I would like to share with you guys another scripture that I really enjoy. It’s in the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Jacob chapter 4 verse 10
“Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.”
I love how this verse tells us not to counsel God. A lot of people demand things from our Heavenly Father or does not like the way His commandments are or what He asks of us and seeks to counsel Him. We shouldn’t do this because He is our God and Creator and He knows what is best for us. I like how is mentions for us to take counsel from Him because He will counsel us with His wisdom and justice. He is the best counselor we could ever have in our lives. I promise you guys if you counsel with the Lord with any of your troubles, fears, or your confusion He will counsel you for the good and for your benefit. He will hear you and will respond to you.


I hope you all have a fantastic week!




Sorella Hyatt