Hey

Heyyyyy everyone! I have just been so very excited to write you guys this week and share with you some of the INCREDIBLE experiences that have been this week. Ah. Literally i do not have the words for how wonderful this week has been. The Lord has been pouring out his blessings and miracles and just beautiful experiences down upon us.

It all starts with my incredible new companion, Sorella Hibo. She got here on Thursday and from that very day we have been seeing so many beautiful things happen. So just a little bit about her, she was born in Ivory Coast and moved to Italy when she was 5 years old. French is her first language, Italian her second, and she is also fluent in english. She is 23 years old and has been on her mission for two more transfers then me. She is a mission hero...just one of those missionaries that everyone knows and everyone loves because she is literally just incredible. She knows the Bible and the scriptures and just the gospel like the back of her hand and is an amazing teacher and just has a way with people. We clicked from day one and literally are just a wonderful companionship. I love her so verrrrrrry much and we haven't even been together for a week. I love her because she knows how to do missionary work...how to do it efficiently and with her heart. I don't know, we just have the same vision for the work and it is just a huuuuuge blessing. I cannot really describe it but since she got here there has just been a fire in our work. an excitement, a great energy! We are working hard together and Heavenly Father is blessing us so very much. I have realized and learned a lot this week, one being that there are no excuses in missionary work. none. zero. the fact that everyone is gone out of town? yeah it really doesn't matter. The amount of people that we taught and found this week is amazing. Yes, we didn't have like lotttttts of scheduled appointments...but we went out and just talked to so many wonderful people and found so many potentials and beautiful miracles.

One of the first miracles that we saw this week was when we went to visit one of our members and her less active daughter. We get to their house and just as we finish praying before going upstairs, she calls us and says that we cannot come up because they have to leave. We told her we were already there, but she just tells us that we have to come back another day. We were kind of bummed, but stood there for a moment trying to decide what to do. Like 3 minutes later, she calls us back and tells us that we can come up. So we go upstairs and low and behold..SHE HAS A FRIEND OVER...what. we were like so stoked. Her name is P. and we just sat down and went right into the Restoration. It went beautifully and P. was so wonderful and very interested. She is from Ecuador and had already met with missionaries in her country and was just very wonderful and open to our message. We got her phone number and set up a date that we could come to her house and start teaching her!!! We were walking on air after that appointment and this excitement that we felt just continued and continued.

The key is literally just talking to everyone. We live in the  most wonderful city for doing that. There are alwaaaaaays people around...Milan is just huge and full of so many wonderful people that are actually willing to listen to us and accept our message. I am growing such a real and deep love for this city and for the amazing potential and beauty that it has in store. Another day we had an appointment set with a Philippine lady so that morning we had gotten out a Book of Mormon in her language and had it on the table all ready to go. She cancelled the appointment a little bit before so we had some time to go out and do finding. We decided to grab the Book of Mormon and Sorella Hibo was like, we will find a Philippine person that needs it. We went to the park near our house and literally the first person we talked to was a Philippine lady that loves reading religious books and has heard about our church and wants to know more. Coincidence? I think not. Heavenly Father Literally has been PLACING so many people into our path it is incredible.

One of my favorite parts of the week was sunday...We called Sorella Dibb (Our mission president's wife) to see if she wanted to come and do some proselyting work with us on sunday afternoon. She agreed and we had a few appointments set and we were really excited for it! As we were walking to the church to meet her, one of our appointments gets cancelled and it is also raining so I was like a little bit worried about what we would do with Sorella Dibb. But Sorella Hibo was just her calm and cool self and said, don't worry it will be alright. We parked the car and got out in an area that we had selected, said a prayer and started finding. We had about 2 hours and we told Sorella Dibb that we wanted to teach 6 lessons on the street before our appointment and then we just started talking to people. I cannot really describe that two hours but lets just say that it was the best sunday i have ever had on the mission. It was such a special opportunity to be able to do missionary work with Sorella Dibb, her bearing her simple, but powerful testimony on the family and seeing how it touched people's hearts. We were happy and we saw miracles and by the end of that two hours we had met our goal. It was an edifying experience. We saw that prayer touches lives as we prayed for a man that was sick with cancer and tears rolled down his face. We saw that Heavenly Father helps us reach worthy goals. We saw that missionary work is the happiest thing on the planet. Man, i could go on for ages.
Literally there have just been too many amazing experiences to count...maybe one day I will tell you all of them...but this week i really learned how it really feels to give your heart to the Lord. He requires our heart and a willing mind ( D&C 64:34) and we are imperfect instruments in His hands and He uses us to orchestrate His perfect work. I could not be happier and I know that the power of prayer is real. The gospel is the only thing that can truly change the world...and we are changing it, one person at a time.

As a side note...Sorella Hibo knows the Motyer family!! When they lived here in Italy, they went to her ward and they are just suuuuuper close with her family! We were like freaking out when we made that connection. It is such a small world.

As another side note...i started this email in the church and then we had to leave to buy some cream for Sorella Hibo's cool hair and we were like rushing to catch a bus so we could hurry home and finish email before pday ended and i like TOTALLY biffed it on the side walk. Like a straight face plant, shopping bags in hand...straight on my face. I was like crying but laughing and just like overwhelmed and we missed the bus and there was a suuuuper cute little old lady that was just so worried for me and giving me candy and so many people were watching and it was just one of those experiences...yup.
Have a happy week! I love you all so very much. thank you from my heart for all the love that you show me.
Con TANTO amore,
Sorella Burt

Another Week Another Change

A beautiful miracle that we saw this week was actually at church! We got to church and one of our members said to us, "Sorelle! My dear friend is coming to chuch today! We ran into her at the river this week and invited her to come back to church!" We were super excited that she had invited this less active friend to come back to church and she actually came! She and her boyfriend came to Gospel Principles and she was like really happy to meet us and I was able to talk to her a bit and she told me that she is really trying to come back to church! After church we were invited over to the Bishop's house for lunch and this less active lady, M., and her boyfriend were there too! We had a wonderful lunch and shared with them a nice little lesson and afterwards I was talking with M. and she just said, "Sorella, here is my phone number! I will hear from you this week and we can set something up!" I was really excited, it was just a beautiful miracle, especially because we have really been trying to work with more less actives and this gives us the perfect opportunity to do so! I love when members do missionary work and when beautiful results come of it. Also, as a small side note, today I was reading in Helaman 3 and I just thought it was suuuuuper neat and talks about the beauty of member missionary work! The church grew a looooot in a certain year and I was thinking...well the church doesn't just like grow over night on it's own...it grows because members share the gospel with their friends! I love verses 24 and 25 because it talks about how BLESSED the people were...the blessings were just POURED upon them, and that was because they were sharing the gospel. Many people were baptized, and that is because those in the church did their part to bring new people in. I loved that.

I went on an exchange in Piacenza this week and it was another just cute little bike city which we all know I love cities of that type a little bit too much. It was a good lil' exchange and we were able to have appointments and do some finding work and have some good teaching opportunities! One little miracle that we saw was we were doing some finding by their house right before we were supposed to go inside for the night and we met this woman named M. P.. She was from southern Italy and that means that they are usually wayyyyyy more willing to talk! this was true in her case and we were able to talk to her and really have a good teach with her. She ended up crying and telling us some things she has been struggling with and it was just neat to be able to testify of God's love for her. We had to go home, but we gave her a restoration pamphlet and the cool thing was that we actually saw her the next day in town while riding our bikes and she was like suuuuuper happy to see us and said that she had been thinking about us and that she read the entire pamphlet the night before! we were so surprised and it was just such a blessing to be able to see her again and hear of how much interest she had #miraclefind

This week was full of a lot of finding work, passing by less actives, and our favorite...casa! We had another miracle find the other day named L. that was suuuuuuper great. We were just walking around in this little town outside of Milan and this woman walked past us and I said the usual, "buon giorno"...she excitedly replied in the same manner and I just felt like I needed to stop her. So I did and she turned into a super human that just lovvvvves serving others, is open to hearing about religions, loves and wants to follow Christ with all her heart, is from Brazil, asked US for the address to our church...and as we were leaving she said to us the thing that we normally say to people and no one EVER says to us...if you need ANYTHING, just give me a call! she was absolutely amazing. an incredible person with an amazing spirit. We were able to set up another appointment with her this week and she is going to come to church. miracles abound.

In other news.....we got our transfer information on Friday night and sadly enough Sorella Roper is leaving me and going down south to Siena. I am getting another STL companion named Sorella Hibo. She is an AMAZING missionary, I have met her a few times and she is pretty much just one of those stellar mission legends that everyone just adores! so I am suuuuper pumped to be able to learn from her and ALSO, she is a native Italian speaker too. She was born in Africa and then moved to Italy or something when she was little...so ya I am reallllly excited for the second chance I have to really learn the language super well. a huge blessing! and she speaks english too, so it will be good. I am REALLY sad to be loosing my beautiful Sorella Roper though. We have literally had a life changing transfer and I am and will forever be grateful for the things she has taught me.. She is my best friend and I know that this transfer was completely and 100% inspired, she was the exact thing I needed.

I am seriously going to miss this girl soooo much!

That's about all from me today. Changes are coming, but it is always for the best! We have a mission conference coming up next week with someone from the first quorum of the 70 so that should be pretty cool! Also we found an absolutely magical vintage shop by the duomo today that literally just was too amazing for me to handle. so that was good for my soul. I am happy and things are goooooood.
love you all
Sorella Burt

This is our massive district. It is going to be split so that is a blessing!

LIFE IS GOOD

LIFE IS GOOD.
yup it is. there are many things that could be getting us down but you know what? life is what you make it...and if you want to make it happy, you just do it! Attitude is everything. We had a good week, just like normal things! Not a lot of super exciting things to report, but i will just highlight a few of the flakes of gold we mined this week.

and the mission destroyyyyyys all things that are nice. i literally
have no clue how this happened.

Miracles:
-This week i saw a cool miracle with a lady that i met on the metro. I got right on and started talking to her and it turns out that she is a member, inactive. She was baptized when she lived in Peru, but then she moved here and only went to church like once and then stopped going a lot of years ago. I was able to have a nice little chat with her and we exchanged phone numbers. She said that she would like to come to church, she just doesn't know where the nearest one is. She lives in the Cimiano boundaries (another church in Milan) so we passed her phone number over to them. It was a neat miracle though, i was grateful that i was in the right place at the right time to be able to talk with her!

-Another little miracle came and once again we were in the right place at the right time. We were passing by a potential that we met a few weeks back while on scambio. On the way there we were talking to a woman on the bus that happened to be an ex investigator and was really nice and willing to meet with us again. that was neat, we got off the bus, having missed our stop and started walking to the house that we wanted to pass by. On the way there i felt prompted to stop a man, and we were able to teach him a small lesson on the street about the power and importance of prayer. We left him and made it to the house we were looking for. We said a quick prayer, and as we were about to ring the doorbell, this old man standing by the door said..."you are mormons aren't you?" we told him that we are and then he proceeded to tell us that he is a mormon too...or was, he said! We were able to testify of the church and invite him to come back and he said that he wants to. We also asked if the Anziani could stop by and he agreed. It was a neat miracle and we were definitely in the right place at the right time, thanks to Heavenly Father! All of those little events leading up to it, happened perfectly so that we would be at the door at the precise moment of that nice little inactive member guy. Heavenly Father is involved in the little-est details in our everyday lives. It is impossible to comprehend, but it is true and it is amazing.

-Another miracle this week came in the form of church where we miraculously had four investigators there and two less active ladies that we have been working with! It was a huuuuuuge blessing for us and showed us that the work still does move forward...no matter the circumstances. I also had to give a talk in sacrament and it was a miracle that i did not like throw up or cry not even a single time. #blessings

Our week was full of pass by's, knocking on doors, stopping every human we see because we don't see many of them, working on updating the massive ward list, eating gelato, cleaning our apartment, exchanges with other sisters, eating more gelato, learning how to iron from our 75 year old new convert named M.....she is such a hoot. no matter how we iron, we are doing it wrong! She was very worried that we didn't know how to iron...she said that we HAVE to learn or we will be single forever. No worries everyone, i successfully ironed a shirt and it got her approval. #thereishopeforme
I am happy to say that i am happy! I got a letter this week from our stake president and it just really stuck with me. He talked about how we as missionaries are like like those that rescued the Martin and Willey handcart companies from that terrible winter storm. We have been called to be the rescuers in our day, to find those that are wandering...hungry and helpless and cold. We need to respond to this call with urgency and just really give it our all...or else they will never be rescued. i am just trying my best to remember that always and find those that i am meant to save. I love you all and i hope you remember who you are and what you stand for!
love,
sorella burt

A fun finding technique we call....WHITEBOARD. yeaaaaaaah. we love it.
we get some interesting looks but also some prime conversations.

We saw this on a door while we were doing some knocking...
translation:
Jehovah's Witness? No, thank you!
We knocked anyways...it just cracked me up

YAY for awkward graffiti pics! This is right outside of our apartment - #milanoisbeautiful

annnnnd scambio selfies in train stations...yay i love sorelle

Sorella Montagnoli...we did a scambio together and had a lot of
small world moments. she is a cutie and a good lil' worker!

Remember Why We are Fighting

dear all those that i love,

Just another week over and gone! I hope that this finds you all happy and healthy and just lovin' life wherever or whatever your life consists of! We are just pluggin' right along here in Navilgli! Things are going relatively well and we are just really trying to keep those smiles on our faces and the faith and joy burning in our hearts. August is what they call 'Ferragosto' which literally means that everyone just leaves....i know that i have mentioned that before...but this week August actually started and the population decreased a major amount.

Last Wednesday after pday our ward had a little MTC, proselyting activity with some of the youth preparing to go on missions. It was really neat because we got to go on splits with them and just go hit the streets around the church and talk to people! At the very beginning, the girl i was with told me that she had started filling out her mission papers but stopped because she started feeling a lot of doubt like if she could do the mission or not. She told me that that activity was the make it or break it. Like it was going to be how she decided if she was gonna go or not. So i was just prayyyyyying right from the start that we would be able to help her have a meaningful experience...and we definitely had that! We talked to a bunch of people on the street and in a park and had some good chats with them. We didn't see like any huge miracles, but by the end of the short time we were together, the girl was like SO happy and just smiling and content that we had helped people feel the love of God, and that is what success is. Ah. it was just beautiful and i was so grateful that Heavenly Father helped me to help her and that we were just able to share His love with His children. I know that i was supposed to be with her because i was able to share with her some experiences and feelings from my life that just really fit with her situation and worries. It was just a special blessing for both of us.

We had this one beautiful day where it RAINED. yaaaaaaa it was literally just the perfect breath of fresh air after the crazzzzy heat that we have had lately. It was just fresh and cool and i was just sooooo happy. That night we had a neat little experience... we had planned to go inside and make some calls and plan some things a little bit before planning that evening. When we got inside, i just had a weird feeling in my heart. I just felt strongly that we should go back outside. I didn't know why and it didn't make sense because there were like ZERO people outside with the rain and what not. But i told my companion...Sorella, we need to go back outside. She agreed and we went back out. We were doing some strada and not after too long, we stopped an amazing woman that turned into the reason that we needed to be outside at that moment. Her name is M. and she is searching for the truth. She has studied with many different churches which is a huge indication that she wants to find the right one. We were able to teach her and get her information and she was just really excited to see us again the next time. We were very content with the fact that Heavenly Father had directed us and put her into our path so we could find someone who is searching for what we have. I am grateful for the guidance of the spirit that we receive and I am grateful that we were able to act on it. ALWAYS act on those little promptings.

This week i am learning a lot about what it means to have real intent. Real intent is doing the right things for the right reasons and just really putting your heart and soul into it. If we don't remember the WHY behind the things that we do, then we are just going through the motions and not living with real intent. I read an amazing talk this morning that my companion shared with me that just really put it into perspective for me. I would challenge each of you to search for the why and if you don't know why you are doing something, maybe it is not the right thing to be doing. If we strive to know and to DO the will of The Lord, the things that we do, even the small things will have purpose in our lives and we will truly be happier. Going through the motions is no happy way to live this life. Find out the purpose and then write that purpose on your heart. We need to remember WHY we are fighting and what we are fighting for. I am reading in Alma right now about the people that had a worthy purpose...they were fighting for their homes and their families and their religion. They knew why they were fighting and they came out victorious.
I am grateful for each day i am given to be a missionary and i am striving to truly put my heart and soul into each moment and remember why it is all worth it.
I love you all so very much!
love,
Sorella Burt

meet my friend frank. we walk by him like on the daily and i just feel like we are good pals by now

this is us just doing some casa in casa...or how we do 'door to door contacting here in Italia. oh good fun it is. ha

We love Como and we love each otherrrrrrrrrrrr