I have really been a slacker lately and have been spending too much time on facebook! I know, not much of an excuse, but the month of May was such a whirlwind!!! Wow, I am so glad to have if over..even though it means one more child of mine has graduated and will be moving on. So anyway, I plan on submitting news from my missionary, some pics of graduation, youth conference, and yes - girls basketball.......

Here are some of Kayla's letters over the last few weeks...

I cant wait until the Rome temple is finished. Right now we are praying really hard for it even to start. The general authorities have asked us to include that in our prayers every day. Right now the church isnt recognized as a certain level of churchiness (not a word I know, but I dont know how to translate it) and to have a temple, you have to be well established. So we are praying like crazy!

About the religious background of those we teach, here they are. Most of them were all born Catholics, but nearly ALL are not practicing, dont really believe its true and some how have mostly a half belief in Christianity and half in reincarnation and budhism. Not sure how they make the shift, but alright. Its kind of hard because just getting the basic knowledge of the personality and characteristics of God is so hard! Its so sad because honestly people dont know that God is like us. He is our Father in Heaven, has a body of flesh and bone, LOVES us (big one) isnt out to get us and wants us to be happy. I have learned a lot more about the Catholic church and mostly figured out one thing. No one really knows what exactly the Catholics believe, not even Catholics. Thats why its so amazing to some about our church because you can walk into any one of our churches and hear the same things! Not so with catholocism. They teach good things, but not all the same beliefs.

As for me in this gigantic city, a few things are changing. The first and foremost is transfers. I am staying here (YES!) and Sorella Glass is headed to Torino 2. Im happy for her, Torino 2 is the beautiful, non slummy area and she will do great! Im going to miss her, but I think you are right. We were both up for a change. But I think we will miss each other a lot more once we arent with each other. I am getting Sorella SMITH!!! remember her? She was the blonde sister from Torino 2 when I was there! We had all the fun pictures and what not! Anyway, Im so excited and cant wait to work with her! She is an amazing missionary and is so hard working! I got a letter from Sorella Doxey, my MTC companion, and she is doing really good. I think she is training this transfer. She is in Modena and is such a good missionary. Honestly, this mission is blessed with such good people!
As for our baptisms, Carmen is doing so good! We had a lesson in McDonalds with her and a member named Lucia. It was going to be outside, but these Italians cant handle a breeze to save their lives. Love them anyway! Anyway, so there we were in McDonalds and we decided to read the Jospeh Smith story together. We were reading in the pearl of great price about the 1st vision and Carmen taught us the apostacy! Basicall this is what she said: so, God and Abraham made covenants in the Bible, then Jesus came and made it possible for us to make covenants with God and then there wasnt anyone to help us make covenants until Joseph Smith came! So now we can make covenants with God! Mom, her eyes were shining and you could just tell she knew that what she was saying was true! S. Glass and I just about died! How amazing is she? I mean really! There is such a difference from the time we met her until now. Im so grateful to be able to be apart of her story. We dont even have to teach her, she is open and ready for the gospel. She is ready to pay tithing! So incredible. The 4th of July is going to be the best day of my life.
Valentina went home to Napoli to tell her mom that she is going to be baptised. We dont know how it went yet, but her mom is a staunch Catholic and she freaked out when Marco (Valentinas boyfriend) was baptised. We fasted for her and know everything will work out. Im so glad Valentina has such a strong testimony. Her mom and her are SO TIGHT. I really am praying and hoping for her.

I am having problems loading pictures off of my laptop, so I guess I will just load them in another post from my home computer... Until next week!!