haha I'm gonna apologize ahead of time for this crappy email. We just got back from our doing all our P day stuff. We went to Verona today and we just got back so we don't have tons of time to do email. Our train got back late and I am just zonked right now haha just completely tired haha. Yesterday we did a scambio here in Modena with our Zone Leaders, Anziani Nielson and Andersen. I got to take the day with Anziano Nielson who is just a stud. Luckily for us we got to walk the entire day while my comp and Anz. Andersen rode the bikes. Haha I was so tired last night when I got back and then we walked around Verona all day today. I will try to stay awake while I type so yeah!
Verona was incredible! It is a like a two our train ride so it really ate up a ton of our P day, but was totally worth it. Next week I will send some pics for sure. We got to see the mini Colosseum there, Juliet's balcony which was super cool and this super tall tower that overlooks all of Verona. I got a ton of dope pictures. There were actually like a bunch of missionaries that all went for their P days. There were like 3 sisters companionships, and like 4 elders companionships. Of course, we were only with the other elders. Anziano Glowa was there which was super sweet. If i hadn't told you he is one of the other district leaders in our zone. We just had a blast hanging out together all day.
Yesterday we had this super cool lesson with this guy named Fredrick. He is from Ghana, but has been raised her in Italy and basically speaks Italian. We had met him the other day and had a short little lesson but today was the first legit planned lesson. Everything this guy was saying was exactly in line with the message of the Restoration. He already new about Apostasy, just not the phrase Apostasy. He already believed the original church had been corrupted and changed. It was awesome!. All we had to do was introduce Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and GAME OVER!....done deal. Ok not quite, but it went awesome and he totally accepted what we said. We invited him to be baptized and even though he didn't accept the date we gave him he told us that he wants to read, pray and know if this message is really true. He is a stud and I think he will go really far with this.
Aside from going to Verona, having awesome scambios, teaching the Gospel and kicking butt nothing much is going on here. I got to hear some Michael Buble today walking through the streets of Verona. haha that was cool. I think I forgot to tell you all but the last week in Pavia I got my haircut on P day. While I was waiting to get it the most unexpected song came on. The place just started blasting Grease music haha it was too funny.
Well I was jealous last week to hear you would be going to the Cabin. Right now I'm not as jealous because I went and had an awesome time in Verona. True, true there is nothing quite like the cabin, but Verona is SWEET. I'm glad to hear you all had a blast.
DAD, I apologize again because I forgot to get our address again. I'm kicking myself right now because I want the UTAH football review so bad!!! NEXT WEEK I promise. I love you all and love hearing from you every week. Sorry this email kinda stinks but I'm gonna go pass out after just kidding....we actually gotta a lesson in like 5 minutes so I gotta go.
Love you all
BUON SETTIMANA!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Five of the Africans in Pavia Were Baptized
What's Upsys everyone?
Come state? Questa settimanna è andato molto bene per noi. Abbiamo insegnato quasi venti lezioni ma portroppo non abbiamo riaggunto la nostra meta per la settimanna. La cosa bella è che cela facciamo la prossima! Questa meta di venti lezioni è molto divertente perchè ci aiuta a lavorare con tutta la nostra forza. Ci aiuta a andare oltre la nostra capacità e mettere la nostra fede nel Signore Gesù Cristo. Quindi questa settimanan insegneremo venti lezione sicuramente. Mi piace questa meta anche perchè ci aiuta a milgiorare i nostri insegnamenti e aiuta a diventare migliori insegnanti.
Communque.....It was great to hear from you all. This last week has gone pretty well like I was saying. We had some really cool things happen for us. I think I mentioned that we had started teaching the son of a women who was just baptized about a week ago. We set a baptismal date with him, Ettora, last Monday! He will hopefully be baptized the 6th of August. We aren't quite sure though; we originally planned to do it the 13th but Ettora will be on vacation those days. We aren't sure if we have enough time to teach him everything so were debating if we will do it when he gets back from vacation. Obviously the sooner the better right? Don't procrastinate the day of repentance.
On Sunday evening we were doing finding work and my phone started ringing. I looked down and saw on the phone "President Wolfgramm"...immediately I thought, "uh oh....crap" haha. The only time President Wolfgramm calls is basically when there will be a space transfer. Luckily he was not calling to transfer either of us. He was calling to tell us that he was in Pavia Sunday morning and was able to see 5 baptisms! So this last week I think 5 of the Africans that me and Anziano Barnes found and taught were baptized! I was so excited when he told me. It was super cool. President also told me that if all goes well then two more of the Africans will be baptized this next week. They are probably the ones who didn't understand English either and needed the other Africans to translate. So awesome though!
Tucker's African friends in Pavia
So Andy came down with a little fever? That is great to hear that he is doing better. I can't imagine having to get a huge needle put into my spine. I bet that hurt a ton. Where are Andy and Clara gonna be moving?
I haven't noticed anything super different about the food here. I'm not one that is good at judging quality or anything like that. I just eat what is there and if I like it then I like it haha. It is either good or bad haha so I don't really know what to tell ya about the food. I also totally forgot to figure out what our address is but since you mentioned sending sports stuff I will not forget next week. That is a promise.
I got to admit I'm a little jealous that you're all going to the cabin. You will have to send a few pics my way after you get back. If that place ever gets sold I will be so bummed. Too many fun times and good memories. Italy is just better than ever though right now. This last week has been super,super hot. Today and yesterday though have been nice. Yesterday it rained and today it is super fresh and cool outside. PERFETTISSIMO! At the same time you can already see the city of Modena starting to empty as people leave on vacation. haha it will be an interesting August.
Well thanks for the sports updates. Hopefully the Cards can just blow everyone out of the water during the second half. Dad, I'm looking forward to much news about Ute football. Yes dad, I said much news. Good luck with work; I'm super stoked for you. Mom I'm stoked for you too becasue now you don't have to worry about everyone in the ward...as much. Good luck with your new calling what ever it may be.
Well I love you all and will talk to you next week!
Ciao
Come state? Questa settimanna è andato molto bene per noi. Abbiamo insegnato quasi venti lezioni ma portroppo non abbiamo riaggunto la nostra meta per la settimanna. La cosa bella è che cela facciamo la prossima! Questa meta di venti lezioni è molto divertente perchè ci aiuta a lavorare con tutta la nostra forza. Ci aiuta a andare oltre la nostra capacità e mettere la nostra fede nel Signore Gesù Cristo. Quindi questa settimanan insegneremo venti lezione sicuramente. Mi piace questa meta anche perchè ci aiuta a milgiorare i nostri insegnamenti e aiuta a diventare migliori insegnanti.
Communque.....It was great to hear from you all. This last week has gone pretty well like I was saying. We had some really cool things happen for us. I think I mentioned that we had started teaching the son of a women who was just baptized about a week ago. We set a baptismal date with him, Ettora, last Monday! He will hopefully be baptized the 6th of August. We aren't quite sure though; we originally planned to do it the 13th but Ettora will be on vacation those days. We aren't sure if we have enough time to teach him everything so were debating if we will do it when he gets back from vacation. Obviously the sooner the better right? Don't procrastinate the day of repentance.
On Sunday evening we were doing finding work and my phone started ringing. I looked down and saw on the phone "President Wolfgramm"...immediately I thought, "uh oh....crap" haha. The only time President Wolfgramm calls is basically when there will be a space transfer. Luckily he was not calling to transfer either of us. He was calling to tell us that he was in Pavia Sunday morning and was able to see 5 baptisms! So this last week I think 5 of the Africans that me and Anziano Barnes found and taught were baptized! I was so excited when he told me. It was super cool. President also told me that if all goes well then two more of the Africans will be baptized this next week. They are probably the ones who didn't understand English either and needed the other Africans to translate. So awesome though!
Tucker's African friends in Pavia
So Andy came down with a little fever? That is great to hear that he is doing better. I can't imagine having to get a huge needle put into my spine. I bet that hurt a ton. Where are Andy and Clara gonna be moving?
I haven't noticed anything super different about the food here. I'm not one that is good at judging quality or anything like that. I just eat what is there and if I like it then I like it haha. It is either good or bad haha so I don't really know what to tell ya about the food. I also totally forgot to figure out what our address is but since you mentioned sending sports stuff I will not forget next week. That is a promise.
I got to admit I'm a little jealous that you're all going to the cabin. You will have to send a few pics my way after you get back. If that place ever gets sold I will be so bummed. Too many fun times and good memories. Italy is just better than ever though right now. This last week has been super,super hot. Today and yesterday though have been nice. Yesterday it rained and today it is super fresh and cool outside. PERFETTISSIMO! At the same time you can already see the city of Modena starting to empty as people leave on vacation. haha it will be an interesting August.
Well thanks for the sports updates. Hopefully the Cards can just blow everyone out of the water during the second half. Dad, I'm looking forward to much news about Ute football. Yes dad, I said much news. Good luck with work; I'm super stoked for you. Mom I'm stoked for you too becasue now you don't have to worry about everyone in the ward...as much. Good luck with your new calling what ever it may be.
Well I love you all and will talk to you next week!
Ciao
"Cartoline Italiane" (Italian Postcards)
July 14 e-mail
Hey yall what is happening in SLC?
Well, I just got back from the Ferrari factory like an hour ago, and yes, it was awesome. Don't be jealous.
We really had a super cool week this week. Sorry for writing on Friday last week but we were super busy all week. We had our scambio with the assistants during our p-day so we had to break our p-day up into segments over the week. It was super fun though and we found tons of people like i explained in the last email.
First....Dad! i was sooooooooooooo stoked to hear you got a full-time job. That is so incredibly ridiculously awesome. It is something i have prayed for as well over the last while so I'm super glad. Heavenly Father is the man. Well you asked a bunch of question so i will try answering them. First, I am not sure what our address is right now and my companion doesn't remember either. Next week I will send it though. The ward here is abastanza grande (big enough) but there aren't a whole lot of families which kinda sucks to tell the truth. There are quite a few old people and many single adults. We actually just got ripped on by our Bishop this past week because he thinks we are teaching too many Africans and he wants us bringing Italians. Of course we would love this too. This is what he told to the sisters anyway and apparently he was kinda rude about it.....boh. When they told him they had two more people with baptismal dates(who are actually super, super solid investigators from Africa, he just sighed and walked away). Ward Council tonight should be very....interesting. I will be prepared though(repent ye repent ye!)
It makes it a little harder to get the whole member missionary work program me and Anziano Barnes were doing kinda difficult. It also is harder because we have a pair of Sister missionaries in our ward too. Sorella Bowman lives in the Provo area, I think, and Sorella Johnson is from Michigan. They are both super cool and are just awesome missionaries. Their work is just going awesome right now and I'm super jealous. haha.
Anziano Hutchinson(Douglas Hutchinson) is from Bountiful and went to Viewmont high school. haha and yes...I am taller than he is. He was on the football in high school and I know he wrestled for Viewmont too. He is just always full of energy and ready to go so its super fun. I started realizing at the beginning of this transfer that I've put on some weight, luckily not too much. We have been running every morning and then we come back and do P90X(I'm coming home with a 6 pack just watch).
The apartment is pretty big but when I got here it was super dirty and unorganized. Of course I spent a bunch of time the first week organizing and cleaning just about everything. Right now it is in pretty decent shape.
I heard from President Wolfgramm that about 4 of the Africans in Pavia had their baptismal interview. I have yet to find out if they were baptized yet but I assume they were. I'm sure the others will come but there were a few coming along a little slower.
It has been so hot this week and we literally just sweat gallons every day. We sleep with fans about a foot from our faces haha. We are drinking plenty of water every day though so no worries. The city is just super cool and I really like it a lot.
As of now we are teaching many Africans. We had a cool experience the other night. We had a member come with us to a lesson with a guy from Ghana named Phillip. The member was Castro who is also from Ghana. We were teaching the Restoration and Phillip just wasn't understanding it all too well even though we were teaching relatively simple. We then started having our new convert start translating for us and it was awesome. Then the answers the guy started giving us were much more defined, in depth, and intelligent. Although we weren't able to set a baptismal date, the guy made huge huge strides in terms of interest and progression. Bringing people we speak the same language truly does work wonders. Africans may speak English but it is so so much better in their mother language.
We are also teaching a few Italians but they are coming along a lot slower. I don't have any stories or anything to tell about them so maybe next week.
It seems like you are all doing super cool and super awesome. Keep it up. Thanks for the updates. I got an email from Connor this week so that was kinda cool. He said he is gonna be writing a letter...so we will see if that happens.
Love you all and keep on keeping on.
Tuck
Cartoline Italiane is a 1987 Italian drama film directed by Memè Perlini. It was screened at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
Hey yall what is happening in SLC?
Well, I just got back from the Ferrari factory like an hour ago, and yes, it was awesome. Don't be jealous.
We really had a super cool week this week. Sorry for writing on Friday last week but we were super busy all week. We had our scambio with the assistants during our p-day so we had to break our p-day up into segments over the week. It was super fun though and we found tons of people like i explained in the last email.
First....Dad! i was sooooooooooooo stoked to hear you got a full-time job. That is so incredibly ridiculously awesome. It is something i have prayed for as well over the last while so I'm super glad. Heavenly Father is the man. Well you asked a bunch of question so i will try answering them. First, I am not sure what our address is right now and my companion doesn't remember either. Next week I will send it though. The ward here is abastanza grande (big enough) but there aren't a whole lot of families which kinda sucks to tell the truth. There are quite a few old people and many single adults. We actually just got ripped on by our Bishop this past week because he thinks we are teaching too many Africans and he wants us bringing Italians. Of course we would love this too. This is what he told to the sisters anyway and apparently he was kinda rude about it.....boh. When they told him they had two more people with baptismal dates(who are actually super, super solid investigators from Africa, he just sighed and walked away). Ward Council tonight should be very....interesting. I will be prepared though(repent ye repent ye!)
It makes it a little harder to get the whole member missionary work program me and Anziano Barnes were doing kinda difficult. It also is harder because we have a pair of Sister missionaries in our ward too. Sorella Bowman lives in the Provo area, I think, and Sorella Johnson is from Michigan. They are both super cool and are just awesome missionaries. Their work is just going awesome right now and I'm super jealous. haha.
Anziano Hutchinson(Douglas Hutchinson) is from Bountiful and went to Viewmont high school. haha and yes...I am taller than he is. He was on the football in high school and I know he wrestled for Viewmont too. He is just always full of energy and ready to go so its super fun. I started realizing at the beginning of this transfer that I've put on some weight, luckily not too much. We have been running every morning and then we come back and do P90X(I'm coming home with a 6 pack just watch).
The apartment is pretty big but when I got here it was super dirty and unorganized. Of course I spent a bunch of time the first week organizing and cleaning just about everything. Right now it is in pretty decent shape.
I heard from President Wolfgramm that about 4 of the Africans in Pavia had their baptismal interview. I have yet to find out if they were baptized yet but I assume they were. I'm sure the others will come but there were a few coming along a little slower.
It has been so hot this week and we literally just sweat gallons every day. We sleep with fans about a foot from our faces haha. We are drinking plenty of water every day though so no worries. The city is just super cool and I really like it a lot.
As of now we are teaching many Africans. We had a cool experience the other night. We had a member come with us to a lesson with a guy from Ghana named Phillip. The member was Castro who is also from Ghana. We were teaching the Restoration and Phillip just wasn't understanding it all too well even though we were teaching relatively simple. We then started having our new convert start translating for us and it was awesome. Then the answers the guy started giving us were much more defined, in depth, and intelligent. Although we weren't able to set a baptismal date, the guy made huge huge strides in terms of interest and progression. Bringing people we speak the same language truly does work wonders. Africans may speak English but it is so so much better in their mother language.
We are also teaching a few Italians but they are coming along a lot slower. I don't have any stories or anything to tell about them so maybe next week.
It seems like you are all doing super cool and super awesome. Keep it up. Thanks for the updates. I got an email from Connor this week so that was kinda cool. He said he is gonna be writing a letter...so we will see if that happens.
Love you all and keep on keeping on.
Tuck
Cartoline Italiane is a 1987 Italian drama film directed by Memè Perlini. It was screened at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
Friday, July 8, 2011
"Sono Fotogenico" (I'm Photogenic)
We just received a cd full of photos. Here's a few.
Around town in Torino.
Kingsly in Torino
Domingo's Baptism In Pavia
Around Milano
Tuck and Anziano Bolnick in Milano
Around town in Torino.
Kingsly in Torino
Domingo's Baptism In Pavia
Around Milano
Tuck and Anziano Bolnick in Milano
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Right From The Start I Knew We Would Have Success
Well, our first week in Modena together has been nothing but miracles. Anziano Hutchinson is a stud. I think I already told you all but he is from Bountiful and is in the transfer below me. He has only been here in Modena for one transfer though. Combined we don't know like any of the ward and we don't know the city very well. Haha but.....we plan on getting to know all of the members by teaching them and helping them to help others find the Restored Gospel.
I have seen quite a bit of Modena already and it is amazing. It is a relatively big city and there are many Africans here(haha I love Africans). Neither of us know of the history here, so Dad, you will have to fill me in on that stuff. It is super cool though. Oh yeah... my camera is a Nikon camera. I remembered to check it this week.
I can definitely say I have been a bit stressed out(really not too bad) about being district leader. I was more stressed out about what I would plan for our first district meeting but it went super, super well and was really fun. I don't think I have prayed so much in the mission to this point haha. The sisters that also work here in Modena, and are in my district, are awesome. They are just tearing it up right, and have like 5 really solid people ready and getting baptized soon.
When I got here the first thing I asked my companion was how the work was going. haha. He told me that it was ok. I soon found out that it was a bit less than ok haha. I found out that we had only a couple investigators and that they were all pretty flimsy. They are all kinda taking themselves out of the picture. Seeing this only helped my faith and my excitement grow. Right from the start I KNEW that we would have success. Right from the beginning I felt that within no time we would have investigators, we would have people with baptismal dates and people wanting to learn about the Restored Gospel. We have already seen so much success together in the week we have been together. We have a few people with baptismal dates, and we have so, so so many people wanting to hear the message of the Restored Gospel. It is so amazing to see how with faith, miracles happen.
This week we have been doing a scambio with the traveling assistants. They usually go to the younger missionaries and especially because I'm a new district leader that has no clue what I'm doing ... haha. I was with Anziano Duersh though who is just a stud. My companion was with Anziano Bolnick (yeah,yeah my old comp is a one of the traveling assistants). I have heard so much about him (Anziano Duersh) already during the mission about how great of a missionary he is. We had just finished a lesson the other night and started to walk to our planned working zone. As we were walking we stopped this African and immediately started talking about Jesus Christ and how we can become closer to him in this life. The African immediately said "no no, I'm really tired and I have heard enough people say these exact same things." We said well ok, and we asked for his number so that we could maybe call him another day and speak with him. I handed him a Book of Mormon pass-along card and then proceeded to write his number down. While I was writing it down, he asked, "what is this book?". We then proceeded to explain what it was and he then said "well, I guess we could talk for like 15 minutes." This then led to him telling us we could come to his house which was very close and explain more about this book and where it comes from. We went on to have an awesome lesson in which he asked tons of amazing questions that were all answered by the message of the Restoration. He said he felt prompted to let us come and speak with him. He had also told us how he hadn't prayed in a very long time, but at the end of the lesson he agreed to say the pray. Immediately after the pray there was the strongest presence of the spirit. It was so awesome!
It was amazing how powerful the message of the Restoration is and how our message is so unique. It went from him telling us that he was too tired and wanted to go home, to having a super awesome lesson in which he prayed for the first time in 7 months. This is all because we gave him a pass along card of the Book of Mormon.
We have seen so many miracles this week it is ridiculous. My small amount of stress I have had getting used to my new duties has turned into stress over having too many interested people to call. Seriously! haha really I'm not stressed, but its been difficult the past couple of days trying to schedule time for all these people. It is so awesome how great faith brings so much success.
Mom, I haven't been able to think of any gelato flavors for you. If I could give you my favorite it would probably be Nocciola but that could be hard to make. Thanks for the pictures and the story about Ruby haha. All we did for the 4th was do missionary work!!!!! and make cookies. We have a golf driving range close to our apartment so we might hit that up next week for P-day...or maybe the Ferrari factory or maybe Verona?...who knows what fun lies ahead?
I love you all and I look forward to inform you how the work is going next week. Thanks so much for the emails.
Siete Bravissimi (You're Awesome).
I have seen quite a bit of Modena already and it is amazing. It is a relatively big city and there are many Africans here(haha I love Africans). Neither of us know of the history here, so Dad, you will have to fill me in on that stuff. It is super cool though. Oh yeah... my camera is a Nikon camera. I remembered to check it this week.
I can definitely say I have been a bit stressed out(really not too bad) about being district leader. I was more stressed out about what I would plan for our first district meeting but it went super, super well and was really fun. I don't think I have prayed so much in the mission to this point haha. The sisters that also work here in Modena, and are in my district, are awesome. They are just tearing it up right, and have like 5 really solid people ready and getting baptized soon.
When I got here the first thing I asked my companion was how the work was going. haha. He told me that it was ok. I soon found out that it was a bit less than ok haha. I found out that we had only a couple investigators and that they were all pretty flimsy. They are all kinda taking themselves out of the picture. Seeing this only helped my faith and my excitement grow. Right from the start I KNEW that we would have success. Right from the beginning I felt that within no time we would have investigators, we would have people with baptismal dates and people wanting to learn about the Restored Gospel. We have already seen so much success together in the week we have been together. We have a few people with baptismal dates, and we have so, so so many people wanting to hear the message of the Restored Gospel. It is so amazing to see how with faith, miracles happen.
This week we have been doing a scambio with the traveling assistants. They usually go to the younger missionaries and especially because I'm a new district leader that has no clue what I'm doing ... haha. I was with Anziano Duersh though who is just a stud. My companion was with Anziano Bolnick (yeah,yeah my old comp is a one of the traveling assistants). I have heard so much about him (Anziano Duersh) already during the mission about how great of a missionary he is. We had just finished a lesson the other night and started to walk to our planned working zone. As we were walking we stopped this African and immediately started talking about Jesus Christ and how we can become closer to him in this life. The African immediately said "no no, I'm really tired and I have heard enough people say these exact same things." We said well ok, and we asked for his number so that we could maybe call him another day and speak with him. I handed him a Book of Mormon pass-along card and then proceeded to write his number down. While I was writing it down, he asked, "what is this book?". We then proceeded to explain what it was and he then said "well, I guess we could talk for like 15 minutes." This then led to him telling us we could come to his house which was very close and explain more about this book and where it comes from. We went on to have an awesome lesson in which he asked tons of amazing questions that were all answered by the message of the Restoration. He said he felt prompted to let us come and speak with him. He had also told us how he hadn't prayed in a very long time, but at the end of the lesson he agreed to say the pray. Immediately after the pray there was the strongest presence of the spirit. It was so awesome!
It was amazing how powerful the message of the Restoration is and how our message is so unique. It went from him telling us that he was too tired and wanted to go home, to having a super awesome lesson in which he prayed for the first time in 7 months. This is all because we gave him a pass along card of the Book of Mormon.
We have seen so many miracles this week it is ridiculous. My small amount of stress I have had getting used to my new duties has turned into stress over having too many interested people to call. Seriously! haha really I'm not stressed, but its been difficult the past couple of days trying to schedule time for all these people. It is so awesome how great faith brings so much success.
Mom, I haven't been able to think of any gelato flavors for you. If I could give you my favorite it would probably be Nocciola but that could be hard to make. Thanks for the pictures and the story about Ruby haha. All we did for the 4th was do missionary work!!!!! and make cookies. We have a golf driving range close to our apartment so we might hit that up next week for P-day...or maybe the Ferrari factory or maybe Verona?...who knows what fun lies ahead?
I love you all and I look forward to inform you how the work is going next week. Thanks so much for the emails.
Siete Bravissimi (You're Awesome).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)