Mom, this is an answer in response to your question "why do you respond to Dad's emails?". Well because I read yours first and then dad's so it's just easier to respond because I'm already viewing the respond button. So really if you think about it, I'm favoring your emails.
That's sad about Kelly Astle, but yeah like you said they are a strong family. How recently was she diagnosed with cancer? Are there any predictions about how bad it will be? I'm clueless about the cancer stuff. It's always a great blessing to know that as long as we hold firm to the iron rod that everything will be OK. I've really gained comfort in the Plan of Salvation because we know that death is not something to fear. It's sad, but at the same time it's wonderful. Many people don't understand this, and it's great to bring them this comfort about the Plan of Happiness.
This week has been a week that's brought us lots of happiness and hope. We passed by the Mendoza's last week and totally caught them by surprise. They hadn't responded to our phone calls for about a week and a half so we decided to take matters into our own hands. Charlie (husband) was kind of like "oh hey...." while the wife came to the door and said "why did you call us?". They weren't mad in any way, maybe just caught off guard and surprised. We told them we had brought the Restoration DVD (we knew they wanted to see it) so we left it with them. We called them a few days after and they said we could come over tomorrow! We are really praying they will be able to see us more often and come to church.
We also had a Peruvian lady show up during sacrament meeting this week. At the end I introduced myself and started finding a little bit about her. She didn't speak super well but enough to communicate well enough. I come to find that she is a member but didn't know the church was here. She is living in a city where there used to be a branch(Lucca) and lives with her non-member siblings. Her name is Yolanda and she's probably about 40ish. It was awesome though to see how church just brought a glow into her. You could see that it was something she was missing. In fact, she told us that she had passed by last Friday to see if it was open but nobody was there so she left a note. Hopefully we can start visiting her and teach some of her family!
Davide is doing great! The lessons are going great and he's had no problems with what we've been teaching. He's just "feasting upon the words of Christ" and letting it enter into his heart. We recently taught him the Word of Wisdom and he was so in line with it. Of course he was a little confused about the coffee but he accepted it none the less. We are still working to his date of the 21st of this month!
We've found some other potentials this past week so we are hoping to see them and get them into the "followers of Christ" mix. We've recently started trying to jump-start the member work here in Pisa. It's a bit different because many of the young...well not old people live outside of Pisa. We want really start trying to get investigators through them though and see the blessings that we've been promised.
Our training meeting yesterday in Milano was super fun and we learned a "butt load about the gospel". We learned about how to better our studies, invites and member work so we are excited to start improving in those areas. The district is doing really well and I'm hoping that they are learning from me.....haha I'm trying to be a good example that they can follow. I ain't perfect but hopefully they can learn a thing or two. I know I am. It's kind of weird being the oldest in the district. It feels like not too long ago I was the youngest in all my districts.
Dang..I want to go to the West Indies!....Guess what? I finally got a letter from my friend....what's his name....uh....oh yeah Connor. It was funny because he starts the letter saying "dude I'm so sorry I haven't written I'm sorry bro"...haha then halfway through the letter you can tell that he stopped for awhile and again it says..."dude I'm sorry I've taken so long I'm sorry" haha....oh well....it was good to hear that he's doing well.
I'm reading in Helaman right now and i recently read a great chapter. The number isn't coming to mind while I'm typing but it talks about how Helaman had been a righteous person who followed Christ. About one verse later it talks about his children Nephi and Lehi and how they grew up unto the Lord. I felt very impressed while reading that this was because they had an awesome example in their father. I applied this first to me and how I would want to raise my future kids and it brought peace to me. I then thought well this can be applied to missionary work as well. I had a great couple minutes pondering about how much my example for younger missionaries can do for them. It again brought a great peace to my heart and to my spirit.
As I continued reading it went onto speak about the power with which these two brothers had in preaching the gospel. I again applied to us as missionaries. I have a renewed sense of duty to those in my district and in the mission, and how important it is that I try to be as perfectly obedient as possible but also that I must be diligent and hardworking. It was a great 10-15 mintues of study that day.
Well...I love you all a lot and I will sign off now.
Ciao!....Tuck
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