Baptism Isn't Everything, It's the Only Thing

Yes dad, you were right, transfers are coming up. I'm leaving Pavia!....Don't think I'm excited to leave though. I've just spent about half my mission in Pavia and it has been AWESOME!.....I really saw myself change dramatically as a missionary both spiritually and physically. Physically in the sense that I can speak relatively well. There are still many phrases, words and things I need to learn and perfect. Many, many things but....I can at least speak the things I want to say so that others understand. You are probably thinking..."yeah yeah yeah....who cares about the language, I just want to know where he's going." Alright geez...I will tell yeah take a chill pill. I'm heading to MODENA!

I will be leaving my nice little shell, which I loved oh so much, as junior companion and will be senior companion to Anziano Hutchinson. He is a group below me and I was actually his zone leader in the MTC so I know him fairly well. Anziano Barnes actually trained him so that's kinda interesting. I will also be put into a position in which I will have to really stretch and grow my faith as President asked me to be the district leader.....YIKES!.....as he says in Rookie of the Year...."Oh boy..OH boy....". Don't worry I'm only a little nervous. I'm actually really excited because not only will I be able to help grow other missionaries with this calling, but I will grow too. I think i will probably do more growing because I will have rely on the Lord a lot,lot,lot more than I have in the past. Before if I couldn't speak or teach something I just let it slide to the senior comp haha. Now iIkinda just have to dig down deep and kick butt with my partner in crime, Anziano Hutchinson.

From what I have heard so far from some of the members here in Pavia, I will eat super well in Modena. The Ferrari and Lamborghini(not spelled right) factories are also in this area so that should be cool. That is all I know about Modena so far(dad is already looking up all the facts as he's reading this...I just know it).

So yeah we have been kicking butt here in Pavia the last couple weeks. We finished up last week with 23 lessons, beating our previous record which was fun. Obviously numbers aren't everything but we are called to teach the gospel and that's what we plan to do. Already we have taught about 11 or 12 lessons this week which is super fun. We just got done doing a scambio with the traveling assistants and I learned a crap load about a bunch of stuff I can do better to be better. One miracle that we saw was Monday morning with Anziano Newton(traveling assistant). We got let into the first door of the first palazzo we did. We exited that door having two baptismal dates set. haha it was super cool. One of the things I learned was that we can and we should be inviting people to be baptized the first time we meet them. Baptism isn't everything...IT'S THE ONLY THING...(something we learned in Zone conference a few weeks ago.) Without baptism nobody can enter into the kingdom of God. We should be letting people know what our purpose is right from the very beginning and we need to invite them to follow Christ. Obviously it may not go like that every time where they accept but they need to know what we expect. The entire scambio was very very fun and an awesome learning experience.


TUCKER and ANZIANO BARNES in PAVIA














The Africans are all doing very well. We are teaching them almost every day and they are all progressing. Some are progressing more than others, partly because of the language barrier(some only speak twi). We have others though that translate for them and they are progressing slower than the others. We feel that most of them will be ready for baptism though, the 10th of July. It is too bad I won't be around to see them get baptized. They are awesome though.

It is awesome to hear that you are all doing great. From Andy's email it sounds like he is doing just great with life and that he's loving it. That is great that Ash did well in her recital and that Hill is having fun with soccer.

We have still been riding the bikes quite a bit, last week we logged over a 100 miles again. We actually don't get too much gelato though. Anziano Barnes is a super healthy eater(doesn't even eat egg yokes haha rookie). He's teaching me a thing or two though about what is good and whats not. Sometimes I just could care less and I eat whatever. We run for about 20 minutes every morning though so I'm keeping my weight in check....for now.

Dad I do have PMG in Italian. And yes we teach the Restoration often. It is the first lesson in PMG and we are basically commanded to teach it. After all, it is the most important thing we have to teach and share with others. It is why we are different from any other religion in the world. The principles of this lesson are

God is our Loving Heavenly Father
The gospel blesses families
The gospel is revealed in every dispensation
Christ's earthly ministry and atonement
Great Apostasy
Restoration(Joseph Smith story)
Book of Mormon
Praying to know the truth

This is the Restoration lesson and we are taught to teach it to everyone in any situation. Pretty sweet huh?

That is very shocking the jazz drafted a 7 ft European, did see that coming....hm.......Kosta Koufas...Fezenko....?.....that will complement other big white guys, Curtis Borchardt, Rafael Araujo, Mehmet Okur, Ostertag....haha come on....just kidding....maybe it will work out this time.

Well haha...pray for me...I certainly am, well at least for those in my district. Haha hopefully I can keep it from falling apart. Just kidding. But really, you can pray for me.

I love you all

Ciao Tutti