Adventures in Milan: It's Up to Us

Heyyyy family.
We have had a fairly average week this week! Just working hard and learning lots, just like every week. Not sure if this will be super long because I'm not sure if I have lots to say but we'll see! I'll start out with probably the most exciting part of our week...it was probably on like Friday or Saturday that I received a phone call from the mission office saying that my Permesso di soggiorno (that thing that allows me to live here that has literally been the death of me) WAS FINALLY READY!!!!!I was like sooooo excited because that meant I would need to take a trip to Trieste to pick it up! My appointment was for Monday afternoon so on Monday morning we left Milano to take the 6 hour voyage to Trieste. We lucked out biiiiiiiig time because we had a 30 minute 'layover' with train switching and what not in VENICE. So we ran around for a second and took some pictures, it was a dream! Sorella Boscia has never seen Venice so she was just in heaven and it was just suuuuuuper fun. There were like a MILLION people there because it's tourist season but it was like the best layover for transportation I have probably ever experienced. Annnnnd oh man, going back to Trieste was a little baby dream. Man, I love that place so so soooooo much. Unfortunately we were only there for like 2 hours but we were able to see Sorella Hawks which made me cry because I just love her so stinkin much. And also I randomly saw a new convert at the train station and also the Anziani on the street that I used to be with. It was just beautiful and did wonders for my soul. Also seeing the sea again was almost too much for me to handle.

The dynamic Burt/Hawks duo reunited!

VENICE round 3!!

We saw one of our amazing investigators this week, F., and just had the most wonderful time with her. She actually requested for us to come and see her through the church website a few weeks back and is just suuuuuper awesome. She actually used to meet with the Sorelle a few months ago for about a year when she lived in Holland, and pretty much just knows everything about the church. She has such a reallllll desire to do what is right but is just struggling with some things. We had an amazing lesson about how it is up to her if she wants to overcome these things. She can choose to turn to her Father in Heaven and with Him, she can overcome any trial that is placed in her life. I
don't really know how to explain it, but she is just amazing and I know that we were supposed to meet her for a reason. The spirit was powerful and truly helped her understand the things we were teaching. She would ask a really good question, we would answer it following the spirit and then she would say, oh okay yeah that makes sense. As we as missionaries seek to have the spirit with us, we can be instruments to help bring the truth UNTO people's hearts, but it is up to them to let it INTO their hearts.

I have learned this week that happiness is a CHOICE. It is up to us if we want to be happy or not. I read a really great article in the new Ensign that talks about the pioneers and how happy they were despite all the reasons they had to not be happy. Happiness is something we decide. It is within us and is not a factor of what is happening around us. As I have chosen to be happy this week despite my circumstances, I have seen that this is true. When I say...okay, I am going to be happy today...it really works! We are the masters of our fate and the deciders of our destiny. We are given situations that we cannot control, but we can always control how we handle them.

Just so you know, next week pday is on Tuesday because transfers are being moved to Wednesday. I bought all the supplies at the store today to show Sorella Bosica what the 4th of July is all about! Grandma would be proud, I'm gonna make cookiewiches!!! I cannot go a year with out them! Happy 4th! Watch all the fireworks for me...I mean they are for me, right?
Love you allllllll,
Sorella Burt