The Lord continues to bless us with miracles with our new Italian family who are investigating. I was able to talk with the mom a bit about her gregorian music (thanks to my music class at BYU). She's legitamate...she gave us a couple of CDs they had recorded. We had another great lesson with them about the first part of the plan of salvation. They kept thanking us for giving them a perspective they have never had. The mom said, ''In 20 years, you are the only ones to enter our home.'' The dad is super intelligent and very rational, but the thing that pushed him to let us come back was the prayer we had on the doorstep with him the first time we met him. He now prays every time, and says that although he cannot explain it scientifically, he feels something.
It's amazing how powerful prayer can be. It's something we take forgranted, always having known how to pray. But like the Bible Dictionary says, once we understand our relationship with our Heavenly Father, prayer becomes natural. This also helped one of our new investigators, Ingrid. We came to her house for a first lesson, and she mainly just needed to talk, so we left a short message about prayer with the invitation to pray. She's a single mom whose fiancè passed away, and is always running around trying to make ends meet. When I called her a few days later, she said, ''Guess what? I prayed and something amazing happened. It worked! It actually worked. My baby slept through the night for the first time. I am able to get things done. I feel so much more tranquil.'' We were able to go back and teach more about the restoration and the book of mormon. But it was the prayer that changed her heart.
Anna came to church for the second time and talked with the bishop about how she wants to be baptized. We prayed about a date for her, but felt we should leave it up to her to choose. When we told her to pray about a date, she was really relieved. She said, ''I told my niece that I wanted to pick the date.'' I think my companion was inspired to let her choose instead of us choosing for her. We also have another couple who are preparing to get baptized the end of February. At first we were just teaching the wife, but then the husband's mother passed away (she was a member) and so he started listening to us too. He was the one to accept and kept telling his wife in regards to a baptismal date ''Devi pregare'' or ''You need to pray.'' Of course we wish it didn't have to happen, but trials bring us closer to our Heavenly Father.
I was thinking this week about the roller coaster in Disneyland's California Adventures, and was thinking that the mission is a lot like that roller coaster. It gently comes around the curve, and then all of the sudden you shoot off at high speeds. From then on, you don't know whether to laugh or cry, open or shut your eyes, know which way is up or which is down. There are moments when you wish it would all just end, and then others when you know the end will come all too soon and you wish you could keep going on forever. But at most, the best you can do is just keep holding on and enjoy it as best you can. There are many suprises and sudden turns you don't anticipate, but somehow after walking off with shaking legs, slightly nausiated, you get right back in line. I remember when Richard and I went 6 times in a row. I guess you could call us crazy, but I'm glad he's sitting alongside me for this wild ride.
Sorella Jacobson
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