Try asking more questions next time.....just kidding. Well, this week had its ups and downs but we managed to get through it. I think we were both a little burned from working so hard last week. We got some good solid work in though this week as well. We have had more appointments set up this week then last so we don't have as much time for finding. You asked a little about my companion. He is like 25 years old and is a really good teacher. He was born in the church and yeah I'm starting to improve in the language. We have been speaking Italian a lot more than I have in the past transfers. Aside from lessons, I have probably spoken more Italian this transfer then the other three combined. I'm in my 4th transfer wow. Anziano Marino can cook pretty well, and hopefully I will learn some new cooking tricks. It can definitely get super stressful at times because his English is so so. There are times when we can't express to each other our thoughts about stuff. Overall it isn't too bad though, and we are learning to really work together and get through those minor obstacles. He is teaching me Italian and I'm teaching him correct English.
So yeah, this week, like I said had its ups and downs. It started out super sweet with our interviews with president this week. Our assistants are awesome and always have awesome advice on how to better the work and ourselves as missionaries. I think I forgot to mention to that about half my group from the MTC, the Milano missionaries anyway, are training. When I saw Anziano Glowa at the train station during transfers he looked like he was going to poop his pants. I was giving him such a hard time but at the same time I was assuring him he will do fine. He had an awesome trainer who really pointed him in the right direction. Plus he is already a good missionary. I totally saw it coming because he has killed the last two transfers and was put with some really really difficult missionaries.(killed vuol dire-- means-- missionaries on their last transfer. There were two other Anziani (Elders) and a Sorella (Sister) from my group that trained. I felt pretty left out of the bunch...hahaha... psyche. All those missionaries are super,super good though. I was excited for them.
The baptism went super awesome this week. We had it after church and it went off without a hitch. There was a slip though. haha. So we had left the font up from last week and when I got in it just seemed super, super slippery. I thought too myself, OK I will just have to power stance this. I get through the baptismal prayer and all 100 of Domingos names(he is from Santo Domingo). OK, actually it was only like 5. So I get him under the water and pull him up. I bring him all the way out and then his feet just slip out from under him and since he is holding on to me, I went down with him. So basically I got to go for a little swim. haha. It was cool though and we didn't need to do it over again. Apparently, though afterward everyone was coming up and joking, "Anziano Neff you're are really strong". I guess when I pushed him down I really slammed him into the water haha. They all said it seemed better that way though. I guess I took what they say literally, Baptism by Power and Authority right?
Saturday we had some bad news though. Lourdes, the Peruvian lady, called us and basically told us she is done listening to the lessons. We talked on the phone for about 15 minutes about why. Basically she said she prayed all night and felt that she is "sto bene cosi", which means I'm content with my life. She said she doesn't want to change religion and what not. She had had some difficulty comprehending the meaning of all the commandments though. I wasn't very surprised when we got the phone call either. She was never really committed to our invites either, such as coming to church. That is the problem with many of the people we teach. They don't really have that DESIRE to KNOW. They don't take Moroni 10, 3-5 seriously which is, pray to know with a sincere heart, real intent, having faith in Christ. It sucks but now we can focus on finding those people that do want to know. We are hoping she will be able to feel the emptiness of the spirit our lessons bring in her life. Dropping people, or getting dropped by people, is the best thing to help people progress.
On a happier note, Daniel is progressing. Monday, during my scambio (exchange) with Anziano Cluff(who is struggling mightily) we taught Daniel. Just imagine this in your head, Daniel doesn't speak to great of Italian, Anziano Cluff doesn't, I speak just enough and understand just enough. haha It was an interesting lesson. I was able to lead the lesson though, alhtough there is definitely room for improvement. The Plan of Salvation is pretty tough, haha, for me anyway. Practice makes perfect though right? It was a fun experience. I was able to give a lot of tips to Anziano Cluff about how he can start learning the language and improving his teaching. I think a major flaw I found was that he has read the BOM 4 times already in the mission. I finished for the second time just the other day. I was like "dude....you gotta start reading Preach my Gospel". Obviously its good to read a lot from the BOM, Joesph Smith himself said that it is the most correct of any book on the earth. It was a fun scambio though and we both learned a lot. I learned that I can start learning to take part more in teaching, asking better, inspired questions and many other things. Oh yeah, I was talking about Daniel. He is doing awesome! His wife looks like she is going to explode. She is super pregnant.
The Spring weather has been great. It is the perfect mix of cool and hot. The only thing that sucks is that I have been sneezing non stop for the past two days. I have never had allergies in my life but I guess Italy isn't Utah...oh well. Thanks for the emails and the updates. Love you all and am so lucky to have you as family.
Any luck on the address of Jonny Madison?
Oh yeah, we are allowed to SKYPE for mothers day so....how do I do it, what do I need to do? I have no clue.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
We Get Home Dead Tired, But I'm Loving It
Buon giorno tutti! Wow, this week has been uniquely different then any of the others in the mission thus far. Anziano Marino is such a hard worker. I think I said last week that he is from Pisa, so he lives in his mission and actually has a girlfriend in the Torino ward. It is kinda funny because he basically can't serve in both the firenze and torino zones. He doesn't care too much though because he lives here and has seen it all. I am so glad I got someone that likes to work hard though. I have definitely worked hard with my other companions but we would do stuff that was definitely not productive for the work. In my head I've known all along what hard work means but I kind was just following the senior companion and not wanting to put in my say about how we could work harder. It is really good though with Anziano Marino he hates the senior comp, junior comp thing and now we both just do it together. He is on his 7th transfer and speaks English. It isn't very good but its "abastanza bene" (well enough).
Well long story short about the baptism with Domingo, it didn't happen this week. I don't want to point fingers but basically we have a depressed and lazy Ward mission leader that forgot to do just about everything(put together the font, make a baptismal program). This was all after I called and reminded him multiple times throughout the week. Domingo was totally cool about it all though. We are instead having the baptism this Sunday. We probably could have still had the baptism after church as opposed to before like it was planned. Our bishop thought that it would just be better next week.
So yeah, I bought a really cool journal from a bookstore a couple weeks ago for like 20 euro. I also bought a companionship tie with anziano bolnick last week. Those are probably what you saw. I will be sure to notify you when I buy stuff. I don't plan on buying any suits or anything really really expensive(atleast for now). I couldn't write yesterday because I guess the myldsmail was down all over Europe.
Anyways, this week me and Anziano Marino have been just killing ourselves. We have been teaching lessons, doing casa (tracting), inviti(street contacting), and we get home dead tired but I'm loving it. We are really pushing to use every second of our day wisely. We might even switch to bikes pretty soon because the buses just don't come soon enough for us. It has really been a cool team thing that we are just pushing each other in every aspect of the work. We are seeing small little miracles everyday and I really feel the work can get even better. The last transfer was a real break out transfer for Pavia. We saw more success in Pavia last transfer then it had seen for awhile. I feel that this transfer is going to be so so so much better.
A really cool thing happened on Monday. We chose this area a little ways from our apartment. We did casa in that area for a couple hours and didn't see any success. I was dead tired and literally felt like I couldn't walk another step haha seriously. I said "anziano, we gotta sit down for a mintue". We walked to a park that was super close and found a bench to sit down at. We made our daily phone calls to set up appointment and what not. After about 10 minutes and our daily calls I followed Anziano Marino to a street really close by. It was a small little circle and he asked, " how do you feel about this street?". I immediately just knew which one I wanted to do. I pointed to a palazzo (building) and we did it. We found this lady who was at first hesitant to keep the door open after introducing ourselves but we talked for like 10 minutes. We set up an appointment for the next day and went on just being spiritually edified the rest of the night.
It was super cool and the lesson on Tuesday with her went really well. Her name is Lina and is from the Ukraine. She is super,super nice and doesn't have a real big religious background. We bore strong testimony of having a loving Heavenly Father and talked about the Book of Mormon. She asked, "how can I feel and know that this is true?". We explained through prayer and study of the scriptures. It was super spiritual and you could really see the desire in her eyes and in her words of wanting to really know the truth.
It is good to hear from you all and to see how you are doing. I hope Andy can do well in the marathon!, dance is going well and that Hill's team is getting better. Sorry I haven't written much, my hands are so tired haha. Keep up the good work everyone, and know I pray for you all as well. Give Sawyer boy some Eskimo kisses for me.
Ciao.
Well long story short about the baptism with Domingo, it didn't happen this week. I don't want to point fingers but basically we have a depressed and lazy Ward mission leader that forgot to do just about everything(put together the font, make a baptismal program). This was all after I called and reminded him multiple times throughout the week. Domingo was totally cool about it all though. We are instead having the baptism this Sunday. We probably could have still had the baptism after church as opposed to before like it was planned. Our bishop thought that it would just be better next week.
So yeah, I bought a really cool journal from a bookstore a couple weeks ago for like 20 euro. I also bought a companionship tie with anziano bolnick last week. Those are probably what you saw. I will be sure to notify you when I buy stuff. I don't plan on buying any suits or anything really really expensive(atleast for now). I couldn't write yesterday because I guess the myldsmail was down all over Europe.
Anyways, this week me and Anziano Marino have been just killing ourselves. We have been teaching lessons, doing casa (tracting), inviti(street contacting), and we get home dead tired but I'm loving it. We are really pushing to use every second of our day wisely. We might even switch to bikes pretty soon because the buses just don't come soon enough for us. It has really been a cool team thing that we are just pushing each other in every aspect of the work. We are seeing small little miracles everyday and I really feel the work can get even better. The last transfer was a real break out transfer for Pavia. We saw more success in Pavia last transfer then it had seen for awhile. I feel that this transfer is going to be so so so much better.
A really cool thing happened on Monday. We chose this area a little ways from our apartment. We did casa in that area for a couple hours and didn't see any success. I was dead tired and literally felt like I couldn't walk another step haha seriously. I said "anziano, we gotta sit down for a mintue". We walked to a park that was super close and found a bench to sit down at. We made our daily phone calls to set up appointment and what not. After about 10 minutes and our daily calls I followed Anziano Marino to a street really close by. It was a small little circle and he asked, " how do you feel about this street?". I immediately just knew which one I wanted to do. I pointed to a palazzo (building) and we did it. We found this lady who was at first hesitant to keep the door open after introducing ourselves but we talked for like 10 minutes. We set up an appointment for the next day and went on just being spiritually edified the rest of the night.
It was super cool and the lesson on Tuesday with her went really well. Her name is Lina and is from the Ukraine. She is super,super nice and doesn't have a real big religious background. We bore strong testimony of having a loving Heavenly Father and talked about the Book of Mormon. She asked, "how can I feel and know that this is true?". We explained through prayer and study of the scriptures. It was super spiritual and you could really see the desire in her eyes and in her words of wanting to really know the truth.
It is good to hear from you all and to see how you are doing. I hope Andy can do well in the marathon!, dance is going well and that Hill's team is getting better. Sorry I haven't written much, my hands are so tired haha. Keep up the good work everyone, and know I pray for you all as well. Give Sawyer boy some Eskimo kisses for me.
Ciao.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
We're Excited That President Monson Gave the Rome Temple A Shoutout
What a wonderful week. It seems that every week is a wonderful week when you are a missionary. There are a lot of question to answer and updates to make. Man, wasn't conference just electrifying? From listening to Elder Perry answer our questions about the importance of the sabbath day to getting my personal questions answered about how to recognize revelation. There were so many awesome talks given and I didn't even get to see the last session. On Saturday we watched just one session which was the morning session. It was cool to hear the announcement of the Winnipeg, Canada temple( I bet Kippy is sure excited), Fort Collins, and Idaho temples. The earth is truly being flooded with temples. Me and my companion seem to think that a Milano temple will be announced in the near future. For now we are just excited that President Monson gave the Rome temple a shout out. I was thinking when he talked about it, "man, everyone back home is probably thinking of me now", haha or not.
I definitely had my favorites talks of conference though. On Sunday we watched the Priesthood session, Saturday afternoon session and Sunday morning session. They don't show the last session because it would be too late. Anyways, Sunday was a really fun day. Anziano Poulson and his companion were having a baptism for this 10 year old girl, during the breaks between conference. Since Anziano Poulson forgot to put a program together, me and my companion had the luxury of giving talks. I was a little annoyed but I put myself aside and threw together a 2 minute talk about the blessings and importance of the Holy Ghost. Conference on this day was very very exciting though. I also really loved President Ucthdorf's talk on living above our calling. The "do it" switch analogy was pretty sweet huh?.
Elder Oaks talk about having righteous desires was pretty awesome. Unfortunately I forgot to bring all my notes to expound a little more on all the talks I liked, oops. The talk given about Christ-centered families was also one that really hit me hard. Doing all we can to continue family traditions such as prayer, scripture study and FHM. I liked how he explained that we don't always remember what we learned in the scriptures or what was taught during FHM but that we remember that we had it. I think that was awesome because it's so true. I could honestly never remember what we read during the week, or what was taught for FHM. Obviously we should try to remember and apply those lessons into our lives but remembering we are together and united as a family is what is important. So thank you Mom and Dad for always pushing us to do those family activities.
Elder Bednar's talk about receiving revelation answered a question I had previous to conference. Something the assistants have been teaching in the mission is to have questions. Have a question that we want answered written down before conference, church or any spiritual setting and it will be answered. It honestly works and I encourage you guys to do it as well for church or any other church type event. Finally, President Monson's talk on marriage was pretty sweet. haha I feel kinda helpless though as a missionary. We were all joking with Anziaino Poulson about it because he is going home Thursday. It was a sweet talk though and I thought it was cool how many of the speakers mentioned temple marriages and getting married. I bet Andy is feeling pretty happy with himself now.
We got transfer calls the other day and I am staying in Pavia. Anziano Bolnick is going to Torino 2 and reopening my copia (companionship) from when I was with Anziano Poulson. He will be training this transfer as well. I will be with Anziano Marino, an Italian missionary!...pretty sweet huh? He is about on his 7th or 8th transfer and is fluent in Italian (haha). He is like 25 years old so that should be interesting and is from our mission. I think he is from Pisa. It will be super sweet though, I'm totally gonna be fluent in Italian. Helen's grandson was baptized a week or two ago I think. The weather here has been pretty nice the last couple weeks. It has been really warm and I can tell this summer is gonna be super hot. We have to continue wearing our jackets until the 15th of this month though haha and it kinda sucks.
More about our area though. Domingo is set for his baptism this week! He originally wanted Anziano Bolnick to baptize him but he won't be here so I will be baptizing him. We are super duper excited for him. Our bishop was very hesitant for him to be baptized because not a lot of the ward knows him yet and he has only come to church once. It kinda sucked having conference last week because it is far away and we didn't have church. We feel that he is ready now though so we are going forward and being guided by the spirit. Our bishop said as long as we feel he is ready then he is fine with it.
Lourdes is continuing to read and pray. We were able to do our fast with her last week and it was awesome to see the blessings from it. She hasn't been able to come since she works so much but she just got her new schedule and she has the next 3 Sundays off from work. Pretty cool huh? We really feel that by coming to church it will really push her off the edge and really want to be baptized. Gerard is still just trudging along. We are really trying to increase his desire with everything. We call him every night and give him scriptures to read so we can maintain contact since we can only see him once a week. We have been doing lots of casa (tracting) lately and not had much luck. haha We haven't found a whole lot of people the last few weeks to teach but its ok. We have been blessed tremendously this transfer with everyone we have right now.
Gianluca will get the priesthood this week and get called as the Assistant to the Secretary of the bishopric haha. I'm wondering if they made that calling up. haha oh well.
Gianluca's Baptism (last week)
Thanks again for your updates; it is awesome to see how you are all doing and all the things going on in your lives. Dad, it is definitely a good thing that the Jazz suck for now. My desire to hear about them has dropped significantly, maybe it will be like that with the Cardinals as well. We will just have to see. Ute football? I don't think that will change much haha. We will see.
Love you all so much,
Tuck
I definitely had my favorites talks of conference though. On Sunday we watched the Priesthood session, Saturday afternoon session and Sunday morning session. They don't show the last session because it would be too late. Anyways, Sunday was a really fun day. Anziano Poulson and his companion were having a baptism for this 10 year old girl, during the breaks between conference. Since Anziano Poulson forgot to put a program together, me and my companion had the luxury of giving talks. I was a little annoyed but I put myself aside and threw together a 2 minute talk about the blessings and importance of the Holy Ghost. Conference on this day was very very exciting though. I also really loved President Ucthdorf's talk on living above our calling. The "do it" switch analogy was pretty sweet huh?.
Elder Oaks talk about having righteous desires was pretty awesome. Unfortunately I forgot to bring all my notes to expound a little more on all the talks I liked, oops. The talk given about Christ-centered families was also one that really hit me hard. Doing all we can to continue family traditions such as prayer, scripture study and FHM. I liked how he explained that we don't always remember what we learned in the scriptures or what was taught during FHM but that we remember that we had it. I think that was awesome because it's so true. I could honestly never remember what we read during the week, or what was taught for FHM. Obviously we should try to remember and apply those lessons into our lives but remembering we are together and united as a family is what is important. So thank you Mom and Dad for always pushing us to do those family activities.
Elder Bednar's talk about receiving revelation answered a question I had previous to conference. Something the assistants have been teaching in the mission is to have questions. Have a question that we want answered written down before conference, church or any spiritual setting and it will be answered. It honestly works and I encourage you guys to do it as well for church or any other church type event. Finally, President Monson's talk on marriage was pretty sweet. haha I feel kinda helpless though as a missionary. We were all joking with Anziaino Poulson about it because he is going home Thursday. It was a sweet talk though and I thought it was cool how many of the speakers mentioned temple marriages and getting married. I bet Andy is feeling pretty happy with himself now.
We got transfer calls the other day and I am staying in Pavia. Anziano Bolnick is going to Torino 2 and reopening my copia (companionship) from when I was with Anziano Poulson. He will be training this transfer as well. I will be with Anziano Marino, an Italian missionary!...pretty sweet huh? He is about on his 7th or 8th transfer and is fluent in Italian (haha). He is like 25 years old so that should be interesting and is from our mission. I think he is from Pisa. It will be super sweet though, I'm totally gonna be fluent in Italian. Helen's grandson was baptized a week or two ago I think. The weather here has been pretty nice the last couple weeks. It has been really warm and I can tell this summer is gonna be super hot. We have to continue wearing our jackets until the 15th of this month though haha and it kinda sucks.
More about our area though. Domingo is set for his baptism this week! He originally wanted Anziano Bolnick to baptize him but he won't be here so I will be baptizing him. We are super duper excited for him. Our bishop was very hesitant for him to be baptized because not a lot of the ward knows him yet and he has only come to church once. It kinda sucked having conference last week because it is far away and we didn't have church. We feel that he is ready now though so we are going forward and being guided by the spirit. Our bishop said as long as we feel he is ready then he is fine with it.
Lourdes is continuing to read and pray. We were able to do our fast with her last week and it was awesome to see the blessings from it. She hasn't been able to come since she works so much but she just got her new schedule and she has the next 3 Sundays off from work. Pretty cool huh? We really feel that by coming to church it will really push her off the edge and really want to be baptized. Gerard is still just trudging along. We are really trying to increase his desire with everything. We call him every night and give him scriptures to read so we can maintain contact since we can only see him once a week. We have been doing lots of casa (tracting) lately and not had much luck. haha We haven't found a whole lot of people the last few weeks to teach but its ok. We have been blessed tremendously this transfer with everyone we have right now.
Gianluca will get the priesthood this week and get called as the Assistant to the Secretary of the bishopric haha. I'm wondering if they made that calling up. haha oh well.
Gianluca's Baptism (last week)
Thanks again for your updates; it is awesome to see how you are all doing and all the things going on in your lives. Dad, it is definitely a good thing that the Jazz suck for now. My desire to hear about them has dropped significantly, maybe it will be like that with the Cardinals as well. We will just have to see. Ute football? I don't think that will change much haha. We will see.
Love you all so much,
Tuck
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)