Wednesday, April 23: 🌷🌷🌷

I'm convinced that the Rome Italy temple in the spring is the prettiest place on planet earth. The flowers are blooming all over the place and the spring brides have started showing up:) I'm so grateful for all of the experiences I've been blessed with while being in the visitors center. It's the most beautiful thing to meet people from all over the world who come here and have their hearts' touched as the Spirit directs our tours. I wish I could share all of them but here are a couple from this week

On Easter Sunday during our evening shift I met 2 couples who live near the temple. They are members of the Catholic church but were impressed by the Christus statue and decided to stop by. As we talked, they told me that the day before their grandson had been baptized. They were so happy and I felt so happy with them! I was reminded, as I have many times during my mission, of all the incredible people there are in the world. Even if these people weren't interested in learning about our church, I felt such a strong spirit with them as we talked about the Resurrected Savior and they were all so full of the light of Christ.

Another one was when our new friend Margherita who we found on the bus came to the vc. Margherita is from Russia but has lived in Italy for 12 years and is the cutest. As we were doing the tour and teaching about baptisms for the dead, she stopped and said "I'm looking for salvation." Well she came to the right place! After we gave her a Book of Mormon in her mother language she asked if she could start reading right there haha. She read the whole testimony of Joseph Smith, pausing to ask us the meaning of the Urim and Thummim, a seer, etc. She said she felt such a peace there and after church on Sunday explained that she usually feels such a weight on her shoulders but she felt it lifted when she came.

ok this one isn't about the vc but for pday we went to this beautiful park in downtown Rome and took a rowboat out on this cute heart shaped lake. All my Notebook dreams came true fr haha. Oh also the Pope passed away this week as y'all probably know so downtown Rome was insanity. Definitely a historic time to be living around here! That night we went contacting in a park in our area and stumbled across a TRACK! I found my place haha I was so happy! We talked with a mom of one of the runners and Laura left with a Book of Mormon and an invite to church!

I love you all! God is so good!

Sorella McCune