"People This Prepared Are Just Awesome And I've Been Blessed To Have Found So Many"

From January 4, 2012 E-mail

Happy New Year!...

Well...This certainly will be a wonderful year. I agree with what you said dad about having an awesome last half of the mission. I can hardly believe the success I had in the first half of the mission. I also believe the next nine months will be even better and more rewarding as I do my best. I have felt like I worked hard the first 12 months but I could have done much better. I studied the language pretty well then it dropped off a lot. With becoming senior companion and district leader I often found myself very occupied and too busy to really focus on the language. One of my goals is to diligently study the language every single day. I have a long way to go 'til I come within being fluent.

The bigger goals though are exactly those three things you mentioned in your email, 1. obedience, 2. faith, and 3. loving my companions and those I teach. I've made huge strides at trying to be exactly obedient and working hard. I'm so excited to keep getting better and setting a trend for the rest of my life. After all the things we learn as missionaries are applied directly to our lives after the mission.

This week has gone relatively well. It wasn't full of great miracles but it was successful. Our apartment is finally looking really good. It was painted and fixed up last week and after our whole day of cleaning on Saturday it's looking good....Real good. Saturday we just had to throw out old junk and rearrange the place. Other missionaries are going to be jealous that they can't live here. They won't be jealous of the bathroom because it still stinks. The pipes are old and probably coated in poopy. We stayed inside all day Saturday because we aren't allowed to go outside(too dangerous on New Year's). I even had enough time to make a new table which we needed a lot. We had an old closet thing that we were gonna throw away and some old wooden chairs. I put the bases of the two chairs together with the legs of one pointing in the air, did the same to two other chairs, and put the closet door on top of the legs of the chairs. I also put other pieces of the closet around the structure and it now looks like a legit table....just though I'd tell you

Davide is doing GREAT! We have been able to to see him twice since we last talked and taught him the Plan of Salvation. It is just amazing to be able to teach someone who already understands it(having read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we left him). His desire to learn and know is incredible. Talk about finding someone already prepared by the Lord. It makes my life so easy haha. I kid, but really people this prepared are just awesome and I've been blessed to have found so many(Domingo, Gianluca, Chen, Antonio, Ettore...etc) They are all amazing. David though is loving the kindness of all the members. We've taught him with multiple members and he's really finding a home in the church(not literally, he's doing OK financially haha). He was divorced and recently just left his girlfriend, but he's finding warmth in the church. He's loving church and has come the last three weeks.

We've been struggling with his friend Fabio he seems less and less capable of holding commitments or at least understanding them. We aren't sure if he has the mental capacity to be baptized. We will try our best though and keep praying about him. We are sure that it was the right thing to start teaching him because through him we met Davide.

We passed by the Mendoza family last night but they were busy and seemed surprised to see us(obviously because we didn't call). They haven't answered our calls but we saw them last night and left them the Restoration DVD so we hope it will soften their hearts and help them.

My teeth are doing a little better. I'm trying to not brush as hard even though I thought I was already doing it softly. I have only done the salt water thing once....I should do it more than that though, I just haven't remembered to do it.

Thanks so much for everything!

I'd love those soft toothbrushes....I guess i could just buy a children's toothbrush here, they are soft right?. Plus they have them with Spiderman, Superman, Batman designs/ stickers.....can't beat that.

I will try finding the time to get more pics to you all. The district is doing great. They are all such hard workers but you need to pray to help me be better so I can help them.


Ciao tutti