I have officially been a missionary for two months. Crazy!

Ciao tutti!!!

    I have officially been a missionary for two months. Crazy! Time has gone by so so fast! And a little slow as well haha. Two months isn't that long, but it's a big milestone for me Haha! Baby steps. I am so happy that I'm a missionary and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'm soo grateful for the experiences and miracles I've witnessed in the MTC and in Italy! I'm so excited for the miracles I will continue to see!!! 

    We went and visited a man in our ward this week and he is so cool!! He was one of the first twenty members of the church in Italy so it was amazing to hear his stories. He even opened a branch in Italy and converted like 50 people just as a member! The bus ride to his house is like an hour and a half but it is beautiful and along the lake the whole way! He is so funny and gives all the missionaries nicknames so he can remember us. My nickname is Wowow haha. He had us sing him some songs and he fed us lunch! He talked to us for so long and just gave us the greatest advice ever. I am very thankful for him!

   This Sunday was Father's day so I was able to call my family! I am so so grateful that missionaries are able to call their families. It helps me so much to be able to call them and talk to them. I'm so thankful for the amazing family that I have. 

    This week during finding I was able to start lots of conversations and we gave away un Libro di Mormon to one lady! We do a survey for finding, and one question we ask people is "se potessi fare una domanda a Dio, quale sarebbe" (if you had one question for God, what would it be?) And her answer was if she can live with her family forever and we were like heck yes you can!!!! We bore our testimonies on how we know that families can be together and she thought it was amazing. She told us all these questions that her dad has, and a few of the questions just so happen to be questions that we wrote in il Libro di Mormon that we gave her with verses highlighted that answered them. And so I hope we're able to teach her more because she is golden. 

    Yesterday, we went and visited a girl who was baptized three years ago and hasn't come to church since. Shes 17 and really fun to be around!! We read Alma 32 with her and bore our testimonies on how important it is to have a desire to have faith. I have never ever felt the spirit so strongly. This chapter talks about if you even have a desire to have faith, Christ can help you. I know that we are not sent to earth to figure out life ourselves. Life is hard! So if we have faith in Christ, life can be so much easier!  We are going to try super duper hard to get her to come back to church! Being a missionary is crazy, I have the strongest love for this girl and I have met her once! It's really cool to feel the spirit working through us as well. Everyone please pray that her heart will be softened and she will decide to come to church again! 

   I love you all sooooo much!! Thank you for the love and support! Have a great week! I encourage you all the look for all the blessings that Heavenly Father has sent you.I know that if you try to see God's hand in your life, you will see how much he is there for you and how much he blesses you every single day! So che Dio vi ama tantissimo!!!!!!! 

   

Vi voglio bene :) 

Sorella Zesiger 

1. Relief society party

2.we get lots of gelato lol

3. View from a hike we did today

4. Yummy grilled cheese

5. Tomatoes we cut for an hour!

    

Sometimes it's hard to see the light at the tunnel and to enjoy myself, but I came on a mission because I love my Savior.

Boungiorno tutti! 

This week has been very good! A lot better than last week, and I'm starting to get used to missionary life!!

During relief society this past Sunday, I was able to understand like 90% of the lesson! I was able to take something away from it which made me very relieved because I haven't felt like I've been speaking very much Italian since I've been here Haha! 

We met up with one of the teachers from the MTC and his wife on Friday! It was so so happy to see someone that I recognized and they gave me some good advice about the language and being in Italy! Everyone thought we were tourists while we were sitting there eating our pizza and they'd walk by and say "the pizza here is good right!" Then we'd all answer them back in Italian and they were so confused hahaha!

This week we searched high and low to find marshmallows to make Rice Krispy treats. We went to like every grocery store and Chinese market ever. Then finally we found some at a random store that sells games and notebooks Haha. Such a happy day. And they tasted soooooo good! I love rice Krispy treats haha

For P day we went to Milan! We met up with other missionaries and one of them was Sorella Cooper!! (My MTC comp) I about cried when I saw her. I was so dang happy! We became best friends in the MTC and I've missed her a lot. We went to the bone church, the whole inside has real human bones. Its craziness. Then for lunch we had these things called panzerotti. OH. MY. GOSH. Best food I've had in Italy. Hands down. They're like a calzone but in bread that's like a scone. So so good!!! A random man came and started to tie a bracelet around my wrist and I told him no and that I didn't have money but it was already tied on so he gave it to me for free Haha. The McDonald's in Milan is also the coolest thing I've ever seen. 

Since our city is on a lake, when it rains a lot it floods! It hasn't been raining that much. Only a few storms here and there, but sure enough the lake flooded the streets! All of the busses are so slow and behind schedule because a lot of the streets are closed Haha!

The field is definitely a big adjustment from the MTC and I'm still getting used to it. Missionary work is not an easy task. Sometimes it's hard to see the light at the tunnel and to enjoy myself, but I came on a mission because I love my Savior. I know how much Heavenly Father loves his children and wants them to know the truth. I have so much to be grateful for. Italy is beautiful. I'm grateful my bed here is so much comfier than the MTC beds, I'm grateful for the knowledge I have of my Savior and my Heavenly Father, and I'm so grateful to have such an amazing family. (sometimes I wish they weren't so cool so I didn't miss them that much haha) I know I am exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing Thank you for all the support and prayers. I can feel your prayers everyday and I'm so grateful for them.

 

Vi voglio bene

i

Sorella Zesiger 

(ps read your scriptures DAILY :) )

Pictures! (Not in order)

Sorella Cooper!!!

bone church

Sorella sharp and me

 Flood!

LA VITA IN ITALIA

This week has been kind of weird, getting into the grove of missionary work. It's been a long hot week! Como is absolutely gorgeous and the gelato is fantastic! 

LA VITA IN ITALIA

It is super duper hot here and it's only going to get hotter so that is fun! But I like the heat better than the cold! On Friday, we made lasagna. And here, it's not just an easy meal that you make like in an hour. You have to make a ragù which takes like  four and half hours to make, and you have to stir it every 15 minutes. But it's really cheap to buy all the ingredients, and it makes two pans so we will be eating lasagna everyday for like the next two weeks hahaha. I for some reason have become weirdly obsessed with cereal, it is literally all that I wanna eat and I crave it 24/7 lol, before my mission I wasn't a big cereal person so idk what sort of person I am becoming. Also, I recently started grinding my teeth apparently, and I made one of my fillings of cavity come out! And I hate the dentist more than anything in the world so I hope that it's not worse in Italy than in America!!!!!!!!!! (Sorry mom it might be expensive:) )

CORSO DI INGLESE 

We teach an English class every Friday, and it's so fun! But we only have three people who come to it, so on Saturday night we went to Centro (which is basically downtown) and did finding. It was so scary for me to try and talk to people! I felt like a sales person and was so nervous Haha. By the end I was able to stick my hand out and hand people the flyers and say free English class but in Italian hahaha. So I definitely need to work on that! I hope a few more people end up coming to class!

CHIESA

Sunday was my first Sunday in church! It was a little rough to understand everything that was going on, and everyone had separate conversations the whole time so you couldn't really hear the people who were bearing their testimony's hahaha. I bore my testimony and I don't think it was horrible Haha! I was soooooo nervous, but I did it! We went to a primary class and helped with the lesson and I was able to understand a few things since she was talking slow so the kids would listen Haha! We have a really awesome ward that is very well established! I'm excited to get to know everyone!

LEZIONE!!!!!!!!

We found a number of a lady in our area book, and we decided to call her! She said she would meet with us (hallelujah) and so we met her and taught her the restoration! I was able to say the first vision, and that's about it hahaha. I was nervous and kinda forgot every single word I know in Italian, and I wasn't able to say the simplest things ever haha! We asked if we could meet with her again, and then she told us that she is moving to the south of Italy in 2 days soooooo that was sad haha. But we've been meeting with members and have been doing finding so that we can stay busy! 

P DAYYYYY

Today for p day we went to Bellagio and it was so pretty!! Its just a little city and it's exactly what I pictured Italy to be like. It has tons of cobblestone sidewalks and cute little buildings! Seriously one of the prettiest places I've ever been. Fun fact Haha some of star wars was filmed in Bellagio! We met up with Elder Wright who left our mission not too long ago. He was visiting with his family and it was so much fun to hang out with their family! They were so sweet and bought us all gelato! I talked to his little sisters about the real world and it was fun to hang out with them Haha! I love Italy!!!

I invite you all to read the talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf titled "Missionary Work: Sharing What is in Your Heart" from this last general conference and see what you can do better to share the gospel! This is something that I could have definitely worked on before my mission, and I wish I would've taken advantage of the knowledge I had, and shared it with others! Member missionaries are soooooo important! 

I love and miss you all! Thank you so much for all the prayers, emails, and support! 

Spero che avete una buona setimana!

Vi voglio bene 

Sorella Zesiger 

I have a giant sty on my eye!

Ciao! I've made it to Italy!! It is so beautiful here! I love it!

Ciao! I've made it to Italy!! It is so beautiful here! I love it!

TRAVELING

ok so on Monday morning, we woke up at 5 am to get ready to go to the airport! We got to the airport at like seven  and our flight didn't leave until 11 hahaha so we had to wait and hang out forever. We flew to Dallas, and had like a five second layover before our next flight. We met this awesome guy who served his mission in Idaho and he offered to buy us food but sadly we had like 3 minutes so we couldn't. We also met this guy named Matt who was flying to London to visit his mission. He was so cool and we did a seat to seat chat with him on the plane Haha. The flight to London felt like the longest flight of my entire life, even though I've been on longer ones lol. There was horrible turbulence and the lady next to me said that she was praying the whole time telling God that he couldn't let the plane crash because it was full of his messengers. She had never heard of our church so that was so cool of her to tell me. She thanked me for going on a mission, and she said because we were on the plane she knew she would be okay. People are so cool!!  Then we got on our plane to ITALY!!! 

ITALY!!!

As soon as we step off the plane in Italy, everything was in Italian Haha and it was quite scary. We met Presidente Allen and Sorella Allen. They are seriously the coolest people I have ever met! I'm so sad I don't get them for very long. They gave us a snack on the way to the metro and it was this bread called focaccia and it was the best thing I've ever had in my life. We went on the metro and did finding, and I was able to talk to this man in Italian and I gave him un libro di mormon!!! And he told me he would read it! It was marked up with sticky notes and questions, then had verses highlighted that answered the questions so I think it will be easy to glance at easily and find something that will speak to him! We went and saw the Duomo in Milan and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I almost started crying because I was so overwhelmed with joy and I'm so grateful to be here!

I am serving in a city called Como, and a little part of my area is in Switzerland! So we go visit members in Switzerland often! Were not allowed to proselyte there, but we go there quite a bit! This area hasn't had sorelle serving here for a while so we have no investigators and are starting from scratch Haha! While we were taking the train and metro to get here, we both had 3 suitcases and since my collega was transferring as well, we had 6 suit cases and it was a nightmare. I was dropping my suitcases left and right, down escalators, and barely getting them on the metro Haha.My collega is sorella Sharp, she's going to train me for two transfers then go home! She is so so cool!

Como is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. I am so grateful to be a missionary in Italy. 

Also, my feet and ankles are so swollen from flying and being in humidity, they look like I'm nine months pregnant so that's cool.

Our Kitchen

Our Apartment

My bedroom

Our Church Building

I love the tomatoes here!

And the Gelato!!

ALICE

Today we have been hanging out with a girl in our ward named Alice, and she is way cool. It's kind of hard to hang out with two people who speak Italian and I'm just trying to understand what's going on hahaha, but I was able to have somewhat of a conversation with her!

I love being a missionary, and I love this gospel. I miss and love you all! La chiesa e vero. Vi voglio bene!!

Sorella Zesiger 

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