Gianluca Just Showed Up At Church

How in the heck are ya?......Well I am in Pavia! So long my Nigerian African brothas, hello old cranky Italians!. Alright, so like I said last week, Pavia is about a twenty minute train ride from Milano. It is definitely a lot lot lot lot lot different than Torino. Pavia is pretty small and there are zero Africans. When we do see Africans they are usually from Togo, Cameroon and don't speak English. This is a wonderful thing! haha. There are definitely a lot of old people here in Pavia. At least they aren't flaky like the African people we taught. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Africans so much but sometimes...sometimes...aghh...I think it was just last week in Torino that we set an appointment up with this guy named Ritchie from Nigeria. Ricthie told us we could come over at 5, so we did. He wasn't home so we called him and he told us he was outside doing something but that we could come back at 7. We come back at 7 and he then tells us that he won't be back until midnight??? haha. Oh well.

Quick update on mission rules before I forget.....We can no longer email anybody but our immediate family. So if you could make that clear to people then that would be great. It will be sweet because now I don't have to worry about taking so much time to write everyone. Letters are better and more sincere anyway. We also got our email time cut in half. We were a little bummed at first but it will just be so much better.

My new companion is just a stud. Anziano Bolnick went to Jordan High School for his junior and senior year after moving from Colorado. He was converted about two years ago and guess who converted him?....Ryan and Colby Fletcher (their family lived in our ward and Tucker played soccer with them). Yeah, so I was going through my memory and just throwing out every name I could remember from Sandy and he knew quite a few of them. He is like best friends with the Fletchers and I think it was Ryan that baptized him. He played hockey with both of them and actually lived with them for a bit. His parents are not supportive of him at all so it's kinda tough. They kicked him out after they found out he was baptized. He is awesome though and just "knows a butt load about the gospel". He speaks really well and I am learning a lot.

The ward here is pretty cool and is medium sized. It definitely isn't as big as the Torino wards but it's really cool. A lot of the ward is related, the Caliò family being the main family. Our bishop, Vescovo Caliò, has 3 brothers in the ward that all have their own families. Our ward mission leader Rubin is pretty cool. He just got back from his mission in England about 3 months ago. Haha. He's always super stressed though because his girlfriend lives in England and he can't talk to her very often. He went back to England to baptize his girlfriend like a week after he got home. haha His mood swings are a direct result of having a long distance relationship.

Our apartment seems to be in good shape. Anziano Bolnick said that when he arrived in Pavia 3 transfers ago that it was the craps. He said literally everything was broken and it was just a mess. They even had to move out into the assistants apartment for a week or so while the church cleaned the place up. Right now it is in pretty good shape though. The church is looking for a new apartment for us to move to though. I don't know when we would move though.

I haven't been able to read the Lorenzo Snow article yet, Ive been a bit preoccupied with missionary work haha. Just kidding, but really. I was actually thinking about reading it though sometime soon. This week has been really fun though, a lot of funny and cool experiences.

So we have this lady Simona that has been investigating for a long time and they finally got a baptismal date with her right before I arrived. She has Schizophrenia though and is a little out there(more towards, really out there). She is always super nice though, she just ask us for our help all the time. The other day we spent our entire morning helping her out. She called us asking if we could do her shopping for her because it has to be done at a certain store. We asked why she couldn't do it and she said because the people that worked there are just bad people. So we go to the store and she isn't there. We call her and she says she is at a different one so we go to that one. She isn't there and so we finally get to the right store and get everything. We were a little annoyed because we wasted a lot of finding working time but we thought, its OK, we will be blessed for this.

Previously in the week we had found 3 college students(all girls) that said we could come in and teach but we couldn't because there was no man. They then invited us to dinner two days later and said they would bring a guy friend so we could come. So now, it's the day we helped Simona with her shopping. Before we went to the dinner appointment we found a really cool guy and got a return appointment. Now he is an investigator. We then went to the dinner and found that the girls had brought other friends. It was pretty cool and we got to teach a sweet Restoration lesson with them all. So we ended up getting like 10 new investigators that day. I don't think all were super interested or anything but we will see. It is just super cool how the Lord blesses us for certain things. Like helping Simona, we knew something good would come out of it.

We also have this really cool guy named Gian Luca. Gian Luca just showed up at church the Sunday before I arrived. We started teaching him and he had already read the Book of Mormon, looked up tons of info on the church websites. He is so ELECT its not even funny. He has a small problem with smoking but he is already making great strides in overcoming it. We had a really cool Plan of Salvation lesson the other day. He has a bum leg and limps a lot so at the end of the lesson we read the scripture about how "every hair on our head shall not be lost" and he loved it.

This area is really growing and making big progress regarding missionary work. I really am super excited to be here. It sucked to miss Helen's baptism but its not about me. Obviously, the Lord has his own plans. He knows what is best for me better than what I think is best for me. I know I am supposed to be here at this time and I couldn't be happier.

Yesterday I couldn't write because we had Leadership Training. Our whole zone and a few other went and it was super cool. We learned a "butt load about the gospel." Our new "Teaching to Find" way of teaching is exploding. The mission is already seeing tons of progress and the effects of it are amazing. The use of principles, testimony and question(and simplicity)in EVERY aspect of our teaching is changing the mission. The misisonaries, including me, have more confidence and faith in what we are teaching.

During the conference we were told about Nehemiah and when he was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. Many people told him while he was starting to build it that he was wasting his time They told him to come down from the wall and give up. His response is awesome. (Nehemiah 6:3). He says something like, "Why shall I come down while this Great Work stops?". The new rules that have been set in the mission are for our benefit. Why should we stop this great work by emailing all our friends, taking Culture Days, calling other missionaries. President Wolfgramme has really been inspired with this and with Teaching to Find. Everyone is excited and just pumped. Yeah it could be hard to give up some stuff but if we remember in our call letter, something like.... "as you set aside all other personal affairs and focus on the work, you will find success."

The conferences we have are so money. Every time we have them, whether it's interviews, zone conference, leadership training, I get spiritually recharged. We always come away just being wowed.(wowed?). Anways...Thank you all for the emails. Sorry, I can't write back anymore, but it's for the best. Keep on trucking with ward ball Dad. Mom sorry about the cold. Andy come on dude.....seriously. haha. Hill, keep playing hard in soccer, I keep hearing good things, keep it up. Ashley....good luck with dance. Supercallofredulisticexpealodocious....Sawyer...what the heck dude? Write me sometime ya lazy dog!

Here is another novel to the collection...Enjoy!

How is Utah handling the DWILL news?...I'm thinking not to good. Aunt Carrol sent another letter to my first apartment. Maybe you should tell her i have changed locations.