Rule 370: "We Love Sports and We Don't Care Who Knows!"

Rule 370: "We love sports and we don't care who knows" -Anziano Robinson

Last Wednesday was so great! I kept getting birthday wishes throughout
the week! Thanks for the emails! We had a fun ward family night party
that night.

Saturday we received transfer news.... I'm staying in Modena with
Sorella Besco for my last transfer! I am so happy! I love Modena so
much, I didn't want to leave. You come to realize on a mission that
you don't get called to a place, you get called to people. And I LOVE
these people. This Ward is incredible and each week I am just so
amazed at how supportive they are. Sorella Besco and I both woke up
Saturday morning knowing I would stay. I thought about other cities I
could go to and nothing felt right. I belong here in Modena. This will
be mine and Sorella Besco's third transfer together, it'll be the
longest I've been with any other companion. It must be because
everyone thinks we are real, related sisters, even twins!  After I
told Sorella Besco that I am staying for a fourth transfer I said that 
people are going to start asking when I am leaving... Sure enough on
Sunday one of the Relief Society sisters asked me when I was going to
leave Modena. Haha they don't say it to be mean they just aren't used
to missionaries staying for 6 months in one city. I've done it in both
of my other cities though and I wouldn't have it any other way! The best
part about being in one area for a really long time is that you really
get to know the people. All my companions who are younger than me in
the mission have served in at least 4 cities by now, but I'm very happy to
be the one that always stays!

A cool thing that happened a week or two ago was Ariel, who was
baptized about a month ago, got called to be the assistant ward
mission leader! It is so cool to work with such a new member! He is so
humble and is always striving to do the right thing!
Church was fun because both us and the anziani had a few
investigators in church! I sat by the 6 year old daughter of one of
the anziani's investigators during Sacrament Meeting. She was an
absolute angel! Most definitely one of the most refined, well-behaved
6 year olds I have ever met in my life. She loves coming to church!
She asks her dad if they can come everyday! Haha I wish all 
investigators were that excited about church!

Sunday night we had a little culture dinner for the GANS activity. The
anziani covered America while Sorella Besco and I made Korean food! We
made Bu....... . Everyone loved it! We had some good Ghanese, Brazilian,
and Puglianese food too!

I absolutely loved the Women's Session of Conference. Obviously we
couldn't watch it live here, but Sorella Besco and I watched it as
soon as we could. I really enjoyed all the talks. One of my favorite
themes of the session was that even though life can be difficult we
can still find joy. In fact, one of the purposes of this life is to
have joy. Being happy really is a choice. And it's not always easy,
but it's possible. I have seen this many times on the mission.
Sometimes you have such good, righteous expectations but then things don't
work out like you think you should. But that's okay. Because Heavenly
Father knows what He is doing. We are in His hands. We are His.

Sorella Besco and I are struggling with what seems to be the most
common problem here in the mission... Finding people to teach. We have
tried what seems like just about everything. Despite not finding a lot
of people who want to learn more I still enjoy the conversations we
have and we met some really amazing people this past week. One of my
favorites was a man from Ukraine. He spoke very little Italian. We had
a hard time trying to communicate anything until we realized the
park we were in had wifi! Thanks to modern day miracles we were able
to download the video "Because of Him" in Ukrainian on our iPad and
show it to him. Then we used google translate to communicate with him!
The Lord has blessed us with some amazing tools so we can do the
seemingly impossible. "For with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke
1:37). We were able to get his Ukrainian phone number and I pray the
missionaries will find him and his family.

I love this work. I love this Gospel. I am looking forward to  Conference this
weekend! I am so thankful for the Prophets and Apostles we have here
on this earth!

Vi voglio un Sacco di bene!

Sorella Dani Hamblin