E-mail on December 14, 2011
Ciao Babbo! e tutti gli altri.....Mama ti ama anche, non ti preoccupare. (Hi dad, and everyone else ... Mom, I love you, too ... so don't worry)
Well this week went really well for us. We had a good amount of success and we are gearing up for Natale (Christmas). Well I will just start by answering some of the questions you all raised. I have not yet received your Christmas presenta. Was it sent to the mission office or to an apartment? We haven't had any conferences for awhile but we will this next Tuesday. So if you sent it to the mission office I will pick it up Tuesday(just in time for Christmas).
Are you planning on having any family over to skype with us?
Well we did find out about transfers the other day. We are going to stay together for this next transfer. It was a big surprise for us because it will be Anz. Scheurn's 5th transfers here. Presidente Wolfgramm even told us that he doesn't usually keep missionaries there that long but he felt like he should. I have yet to do 4 transfers in a city haha. My companion was wanting to stay for Christmas because he loves the members, but he's a bit tired of Pisa. I don't really blame him though. We will have a couple new faces in the district as well. Our district leader was transferred and I was asked to be the new one. Should be fun.
Well Wong went back to China so he's not around anymore. Apparently he has the church though in his city so that will be really great. Lin and Chen are just doing awesome. We brought them to a couple appointments this week with an investigator. After that appointment we met with a less-active guy, Carlos from China and it was super cool. They talked a bit in Chinese and we got to hear about how Carlos became a member. We weren't able to get him to church but I think it sparked his desire a bit. I think he'll come to the Christmas party on Saturday. Cross your fingers.
It's so awesome being able to teach them though. They seriously are so smart and remember every detail about what we teach. I think Lin is a lot more spiritual then Chen but he's been a member longer and understands the language better(both Italian and English). Chen is great though and is just always so happy. You wouldn't be able to see it in the pictures because they just don't smile in pictures haha. Me and my companion are convinced that millions will be baptized when China is opened up. I love just being able to teach them and have them accept everything we say because they can feel the truth of it. They don't let what the world has to say interfere.
I'm gonna try sending some pictures again but if it doesn't work I'm gonna smash my camera.
Well this week we finally met with the Mendoza family. We met them doing casa a little bit over a week ago. Tehy were so nice and just an amazing family. The wife is Catholic but the husband isn't. They are both from Ecuador and have been here about 10 years. The husband, Charlie said he was actually almost baptized in Ecuador when he was 15 years old but he moved and lost contact with the church. He remembers very little but is very open. The wife kind of surprised us because when we first met them she didn't want us to have their number.
When we met with them last night she was doing the dishes as we began teaching. After a few minutes she came and sat down. We kind of got to know them at first and asked them about their beliefs. We brought up the importance of the family and kind of glided into the Restoration when the wife asked question about the church. She told us that all her family is Catholic and really hasn't had the desire to change religion or even listen to another one. It was awesome to see her just warm up to us and get interested. Their kid, Mattia age 6 was so cool. He was the nicest just coolest little kid. He was just smiling the whole time while playing with their nativity set under the Christmas tree. Every so often we'd ask him a question or listen to what he was saying.
We invited them to read the BoM and they said they would. It went so great and was really guided by the spirit. Charlie works a lot! But he said they would try coming to the party on Saturday. We are hoping to see them again in about 3 or 4 days. The Lord is really just blessing us though in small ways. We still don't have lots of investigators but we have a lot of new converts to help integrate into the ward as well as less-actives to juggle. We really have to balance out the work though so that's sometimes a challenge.
Other than that nothing much is going on. I'm gonna get to have a pretty warm Christmas so that will be great! I don't like the cold much. Tell me what time is best for you guys and we will try working around that.
I'm thinking in the range of 3-5pm. That's what we got so far......sorry.
Love you guys a lot though.
Ciao
Tuck
Thursday, December 22, 2011
"You Can Just Feel the Truth of It As the Words Leave Your Mouth"
December 7, 2011 e-mail:
Well this week had it's ups and downs but we got through it on a very good note. The baptism went really well despite some minor difficulties. We realized when we arrived at the church around 11 AM that the faucet for the baptismal font was running slower than a snail in the desert. After going on a search for a garden hose, to run form the kitchen sink into the font, we returned to the church. There was no garden hose so we started the process of bucketing water. Don't worry it took all of about the next six hours to fill up the font. When I say fill up the font I mean fill it up to my knees haha.
We actually had Lin and Chen both come to the church around 1 pm to eat lunch with them. Boy it was just not our day because me and my comp left them to fill up the font while we searched for pizza. Who would have though that everything would have been closed. We finally found a place that was selling super expensive pizzas but we had to give in. It was fun though even with the difficulties. His baptism was very great and I got to do it 3 times! Man the water was so low!
Branch President, Tucker, Chen & Anziano Scheurn
Chen was just happy all day though and was so grateful to be there. His confirmation the next day was also very awesome. Me, my companion, the ward mission leader and the branch president all participated. I later translated it for him because it was in Italian(the person who confirmed him didn't speak English. haha don't ask me why he didn't want someone doing it in English so he could understand). It went great though.
Well Sunday night we had a string of success. We taught this kid from Casablanca, Morocco that we met a few weeks ago. We kind of forgot about him until just the other day so we called him up and he was very reluctant to meet with us. We come to find out that he isn't Muslim, and in fact went to church activities in Sardegna. He talked bout how he has a great love for the family and wants to have a happy family, unlike his own. We were able to bear strong testimony about how gospel blesses the family. It was really cool and we are excited to teach him more. It was also great though to be able to testify about I have seen the gospel bless our family and promise specific blessings that come from it.
I think one of the great blessings as a missionary is that we get to see how much the gospel has blessed us. I didn't get to fully realize the full power of it until I got to bear testimony of it to others. As you bear testimony you can just feel the truth of it as the words leave your mouth. It's something I've really come to enjoy and love as a missionary. It's interesting to see the missionaries who let the thoughts of home devour their mission. I'm not talking about my companion but just missionaries I've seen. I honestly love doing finding work even though it's not the funnest thing in the world. Icould be playing B-ball, watching ESPN, Airborne, listening to music but honestly they don't bring true joy. haha I still want to do those things, but for now I'm happy as a missionary doing the things the Lord wants me to do and doing the things I want to do.
We also ran into an Ecuadorian family that didn't have time to talk with us, but that wanted to in the next week or so. The wife was kind of sketchy and didn't really want to give us their number but the dad stepped right up and basically was like, oh sure elders, come by next week in the night because I work until 8pm. He then gladly gave us his number. As we went home we ran into an Ethiopian man by our house who was so open and willing to talk. We were abe to recount the Joseph smith story. Afterward he said, "well many people claim to have seen visions or things like that, how can I know if this is true?".....ding ding ding....Book of Mormon. He was really interested and said well if it doesn't go against the Bible I'm game. We are praying he will call us because he doesn't have a telephone. You could see the diference though in someone who really does want to know the truth. This guy was very elect. It was funny because right after we finished saying a prayer(we were outside) the rain just start pouring. It was cool how Heavenly father just led us right to that guy.
The next day after seeing some miracles we were faced with a trial. We came back from district meeting early Monday morning and our bikes were gone.....aghagh....we were ticked. We were already late for a funeral of two twins that died at birth. I was supposed to be playing the piano for the funeral but we weren't able to get there in time. We found out though the next day that our bikes had been taken by the police because apparently they were in no parking zone. So we went and paid the price to get them back. haha of course when we got on them we realized that basically every wheel was bent the crap out of place.....They were unrideable. The police basically just beat the crap out of them. Luckily the bike place we usually go to gave us a good deal to fix them...
haha so that was my week. The ward has taken well to the Chinese and we are really working well with them. We need to start getting the less-actives back to church because there are many....too many. I'm excited though for the challenge. Our transfers are coming up next week and I'm probably getting a new companion....yes another. Anz. Scheurn has already been here for six months so he will most likely go.
Our address is Via Vittorio Vento #18 int. #10...I'm not sure of the area code but I will get it to you soon.
I'm planning on skyping so I need to get a new account because I forgot my last one.
Also try and get me Jake's mission address. We wrote a few times while he was in the MTC, and I still owe him a letter.
Love you a lot
XX00xxooXXXooo
Tuck
Well this week had it's ups and downs but we got through it on a very good note. The baptism went really well despite some minor difficulties. We realized when we arrived at the church around 11 AM that the faucet for the baptismal font was running slower than a snail in the desert. After going on a search for a garden hose, to run form the kitchen sink into the font, we returned to the church. There was no garden hose so we started the process of bucketing water. Don't worry it took all of about the next six hours to fill up the font. When I say fill up the font I mean fill it up to my knees haha.
We actually had Lin and Chen both come to the church around 1 pm to eat lunch with them. Boy it was just not our day because me and my comp left them to fill up the font while we searched for pizza. Who would have though that everything would have been closed. We finally found a place that was selling super expensive pizzas but we had to give in. It was fun though even with the difficulties. His baptism was very great and I got to do it 3 times! Man the water was so low!
Branch President, Tucker, Chen & Anziano ScheurnChen was just happy all day though and was so grateful to be there. His confirmation the next day was also very awesome. Me, my companion, the ward mission leader and the branch president all participated. I later translated it for him because it was in Italian(the person who confirmed him didn't speak English. haha don't ask me why he didn't want someone doing it in English so he could understand). It went great though.
Well Sunday night we had a string of success. We taught this kid from Casablanca, Morocco that we met a few weeks ago. We kind of forgot about him until just the other day so we called him up and he was very reluctant to meet with us. We come to find out that he isn't Muslim, and in fact went to church activities in Sardegna. He talked bout how he has a great love for the family and wants to have a happy family, unlike his own. We were able to bear strong testimony about how gospel blesses the family. It was really cool and we are excited to teach him more. It was also great though to be able to testify about I have seen the gospel bless our family and promise specific blessings that come from it.
I think one of the great blessings as a missionary is that we get to see how much the gospel has blessed us. I didn't get to fully realize the full power of it until I got to bear testimony of it to others. As you bear testimony you can just feel the truth of it as the words leave your mouth. It's something I've really come to enjoy and love as a missionary. It's interesting to see the missionaries who let the thoughts of home devour their mission. I'm not talking about my companion but just missionaries I've seen. I honestly love doing finding work even though it's not the funnest thing in the world. Icould be playing B-ball, watching ESPN, Airborne, listening to music but honestly they don't bring true joy. haha I still want to do those things, but for now I'm happy as a missionary doing the things the Lord wants me to do and doing the things I want to do.
We also ran into an Ecuadorian family that didn't have time to talk with us, but that wanted to in the next week or so. The wife was kind of sketchy and didn't really want to give us their number but the dad stepped right up and basically was like, oh sure elders, come by next week in the night because I work until 8pm. He then gladly gave us his number. As we went home we ran into an Ethiopian man by our house who was so open and willing to talk. We were abe to recount the Joseph smith story. Afterward he said, "well many people claim to have seen visions or things like that, how can I know if this is true?".....ding ding ding....Book of Mormon. He was really interested and said well if it doesn't go against the Bible I'm game. We are praying he will call us because he doesn't have a telephone. You could see the diference though in someone who really does want to know the truth. This guy was very elect. It was funny because right after we finished saying a prayer(we were outside) the rain just start pouring. It was cool how Heavenly father just led us right to that guy.
The next day after seeing some miracles we were faced with a trial. We came back from district meeting early Monday morning and our bikes were gone.....aghagh....we were ticked. We were already late for a funeral of two twins that died at birth. I was supposed to be playing the piano for the funeral but we weren't able to get there in time. We found out though the next day that our bikes had been taken by the police because apparently they were in no parking zone. So we went and paid the price to get them back. haha of course when we got on them we realized that basically every wheel was bent the crap out of place.....They were unrideable. The police basically just beat the crap out of them. Luckily the bike place we usually go to gave us a good deal to fix them...
haha so that was my week. The ward has taken well to the Chinese and we are really working well with them. We need to start getting the less-actives back to church because there are many....too many. I'm excited though for the challenge. Our transfers are coming up next week and I'm probably getting a new companion....yes another. Anz. Scheurn has already been here for six months so he will most likely go.
Our address is Via Vittorio Vento #18 int. #10...I'm not sure of the area code but I will get it to you soon.
I'm planning on skyping so I need to get a new account because I forgot my last one.
Also try and get me Jake's mission address. We wrote a few times while he was in the MTC, and I still owe him a letter.
Love you a lot
XX00xxooXXXooo
Tuck
Sunday, December 4, 2011
"She Was Just Full of Light and Happiness."
Well my week just kinda wend down the drain now that the Utes lost......wah wah. Alright I'm kidding but at the same time I'm not. Championship in the first season in the PAC-12 woulda been suhhhhhweeet. Colorado really?
Well enough about that. We have had a really great week this week! We almost reached our goal of twenty lessons last week but fell just a bit short. We were able to teach 19 lessons so it was a great improvement from other weeks. We are finally back in our house and getting things in line. It's been really nice to be able to teach people around 8pm instead of having to wait at the train station. We are still trying to find lots of people to teach, but piano, piano (slowly, slowly) we are growing the work.
Chen is getting baptized this Saturday! He actually asked me if I would baptize him so I'm really excited. We were hoping he would choose his friend and new convert Lin to do it. We were a bit bummed about that, but it's what he wants right? Chen is really excited, in fact, every time his baptism has been mentioned in church, institute or the young single adults activities he gets the biggest smile on his face. It's been such a great experience getting to teach him because he just remembers everything we teach him, and he feels that it's all true. We asked him the other day what faith was and his answer was just pin point. It's also been really great having Lin here to help us along the way.
Other good news is that we were finally able to meet with Catherine. If you don't remember, Catherine is Wong's(new convert) friend. She came to church and had a great experience a few weeks ago. Anyways, we met with her Friday and it was amazing. We sat down and started doing our "how to begin teaching" lesson(from PMG). It basically consists of these 10 bullet points in PMG that promise blessings and get across our purpose as missionaries. They are super awesome and bring the spirit in great abundance. Anyways we kinda just asked her what she's seeking in her life, and she told us how she just needs peace and tranquility. She told us how she basically had a guy(probably a long time boyfriend) leave her(in a very rude way) and that she's felt bad from it. She talked about not really being able to forgive him, and that it's just been hard on her. We talked about how through Christ she could heal and be able to forgive this guy.
It was amazing to see how she responded to what we told her. She was just full of light and happiness. You could see hope in her eyes and it was awesome. She expressed her gratitude and basically accepted with open arms the things we taught. We talked about how following Jesus Christ was how we could receive these blessings. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes! We still don't have a date but it'll come. We are excited to start helping her to have the gospel bless her life.
Well, Thanksgiving dinner was amazing!!!! The Trexler family is just amazing. The food was amazing. Root beer is amazing. My stomach afterward was not so amazing. haha I was so full afterward. Guess what? Who would have thought that I could make a pretty mean pumpkin pie?...yeah that's right. It kicked butt! They also had some eggnog that was just buonissimo(of course).
Well we are just really excited for the baptism. We went with Chen, Lin and the Livorno missionaries to Firenze today and it was really fun. We saw lots of the cool stuff there and just had a blast. We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and had some pretty dang good hamburgers. Purtroppo we didn't have time to buy some really inexpensive ties and trinkets because we had to catch the train....darn.
I do want to wish Ashley a very very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 14 years old? Holy smokes rAsh Attack! I keep hearing that you are just an amazing dancer; sorrry I'm gonna be missing the performances and what not. I hope yesterday was a great day! I love you lots!
Well.....the Utes lost....lame.....haha Colorado?....Well I hear the Packers are undefeated?....not too shabby....Will I miss another super bowl championship?....oh well
Well enough about that. We have had a really great week this week! We almost reached our goal of twenty lessons last week but fell just a bit short. We were able to teach 19 lessons so it was a great improvement from other weeks. We are finally back in our house and getting things in line. It's been really nice to be able to teach people around 8pm instead of having to wait at the train station. We are still trying to find lots of people to teach, but piano, piano (slowly, slowly) we are growing the work.
Chen is getting baptized this Saturday! He actually asked me if I would baptize him so I'm really excited. We were hoping he would choose his friend and new convert Lin to do it. We were a bit bummed about that, but it's what he wants right? Chen is really excited, in fact, every time his baptism has been mentioned in church, institute or the young single adults activities he gets the biggest smile on his face. It's been such a great experience getting to teach him because he just remembers everything we teach him, and he feels that it's all true. We asked him the other day what faith was and his answer was just pin point. It's also been really great having Lin here to help us along the way.
Other good news is that we were finally able to meet with Catherine. If you don't remember, Catherine is Wong's(new convert) friend. She came to church and had a great experience a few weeks ago. Anyways, we met with her Friday and it was amazing. We sat down and started doing our "how to begin teaching" lesson(from PMG). It basically consists of these 10 bullet points in PMG that promise blessings and get across our purpose as missionaries. They are super awesome and bring the spirit in great abundance. Anyways we kinda just asked her what she's seeking in her life, and she told us how she just needs peace and tranquility. She told us how she basically had a guy(probably a long time boyfriend) leave her(in a very rude way) and that she's felt bad from it. She talked about not really being able to forgive him, and that it's just been hard on her. We talked about how through Christ she could heal and be able to forgive this guy.
It was amazing to see how she responded to what we told her. She was just full of light and happiness. You could see hope in her eyes and it was awesome. She expressed her gratitude and basically accepted with open arms the things we taught. We talked about how following Jesus Christ was how we could receive these blessings. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes! We still don't have a date but it'll come. We are excited to start helping her to have the gospel bless her life.
Well, Thanksgiving dinner was amazing!!!! The Trexler family is just amazing. The food was amazing. Root beer is amazing. My stomach afterward was not so amazing. haha I was so full afterward. Guess what? Who would have thought that I could make a pretty mean pumpkin pie?...yeah that's right. It kicked butt! They also had some eggnog that was just buonissimo(of course).
Well we are just really excited for the baptism. We went with Chen, Lin and the Livorno missionaries to Firenze today and it was really fun. We saw lots of the cool stuff there and just had a blast. We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and had some pretty dang good hamburgers. Purtroppo we didn't have time to buy some really inexpensive ties and trinkets because we had to catch the train....darn.
I do want to wish Ashley a very very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 14 years old? Holy smokes rAsh Attack! I keep hearing that you are just an amazing dancer; sorrry I'm gonna be missing the performances and what not. I hope yesterday was a great day! I love you lots!
Well.....the Utes lost....lame.....haha Colorado?....Well I hear the Packers are undefeated?....not too shabby....Will I miss another super bowl championship?....oh well
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
"Back in Pisa and Grinding Out Some Good Casa and Street Contacting Hours"
November 22, 2011 e-mail:
Hey everyone......happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Well....the good news is that our district destroyed the other districts in the Firenze Zone for football. Basically it was just an interceptionfest. The bad news is that the next day we literally....literally couldn't move. We actually went straight from doing the pre-Thanksgiving turkey bowl to doing a scambio. We got to go to La Spezia for a day while the Capi Zona stole our house and did a scambio with the Livorno missionaries. I probably had the coldest nights sleep ever that night haha.
Anyways our apartment in Pisa had been cleaned. We actually moved back into it today but the company will have to come back in a week or two to respray our bedroom. We are excited though to be back in our own place. We were super crammed in the Livorno apartment and basically had no place for our clothes or study materials. We also will be able to start working a lot more since we don't have to commute back and forth. It was very expensive because we also had to bring the bikes which also add to the cost.
I personally am very excited for this extra time because unfortunately it took away from our finding time. Our teaching pool is probably as thin as it could get. We have Chen but other than him we have like nobody......agh. haha. We have lots of new converts that need teaching so that keeps us busy, but now we will get to start grinding out some good casa and street contacting hours.!!! I actually am quite excited ... I'm not being sarcastic. I get to the point when I'm not finding that it feels like I'm being lazy or ineffective. We read a really cool talk the other day about being a sacred missionary rather than a honorable missionary and a social missionary. It really helped me think about how much better I can be. It's helping me refine everything I do and how I think. There is a lot of room for improvement and I'm excited to get started.
Well tomorrow we will be eating with the Trexler family at their house for Thanksgiving! It should be really fun especially because they are half American. Root beer is another plus. So who's all gonna be down in Cali with you guys this week? What are you gonna do for dinner? Any news about Connor or what he's up to?
Funny story...so we had a couple American families in sacrament meeting this week. All together there were about 15 people which really filled the chapel! Anyways, I asked the parents if they would like me to translate and they politely declined. As I'm walking away their grandfather says, pointing in front of him, "I think my granddaughter would like you to translate for her"(typical move that I just know my grandfathers would pull too because as he said it he was laughing/smiling and his grandaughter was very embarrassed). Like she was a very pretty girl and I did not want to translate for her haha but I couldn't say....hm...no I can't actually....so I went and sat by her and her siblings to translate. Don't ask me why but I was very nervous and I stuttered quite a bit in the translating process. It was funny though and I actually was asked to bear my testimony for sacrament meeting. I felt really good getting to bear my testimony especially because when I arrived here I wasn't able to (lost my voice the first week).
Well I'm very excited to hear about how your trip went. So the Utes have decent shot at getting to the PAC 12 championship game? That'd be sweet. Well I'm going to go and put our apartment in order...it's filthy. I know it's like a month until you can skype me, but don't get too excited alright?
Love you all and hope you're all doing great.
Hey everyone......happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Well....the good news is that our district destroyed the other districts in the Firenze Zone for football. Basically it was just an interceptionfest. The bad news is that the next day we literally....literally couldn't move. We actually went straight from doing the pre-Thanksgiving turkey bowl to doing a scambio. We got to go to La Spezia for a day while the Capi Zona stole our house and did a scambio with the Livorno missionaries. I probably had the coldest nights sleep ever that night haha.
Anyways our apartment in Pisa had been cleaned. We actually moved back into it today but the company will have to come back in a week or two to respray our bedroom. We are excited though to be back in our own place. We were super crammed in the Livorno apartment and basically had no place for our clothes or study materials. We also will be able to start working a lot more since we don't have to commute back and forth. It was very expensive because we also had to bring the bikes which also add to the cost.
I personally am very excited for this extra time because unfortunately it took away from our finding time. Our teaching pool is probably as thin as it could get. We have Chen but other than him we have like nobody......agh. haha. We have lots of new converts that need teaching so that keeps us busy, but now we will get to start grinding out some good casa and street contacting hours.!!! I actually am quite excited ... I'm not being sarcastic. I get to the point when I'm not finding that it feels like I'm being lazy or ineffective. We read a really cool talk the other day about being a sacred missionary rather than a honorable missionary and a social missionary. It really helped me think about how much better I can be. It's helping me refine everything I do and how I think. There is a lot of room for improvement and I'm excited to get started.
Well tomorrow we will be eating with the Trexler family at their house for Thanksgiving! It should be really fun especially because they are half American. Root beer is another plus. So who's all gonna be down in Cali with you guys this week? What are you gonna do for dinner? Any news about Connor or what he's up to?
Funny story...so we had a couple American families in sacrament meeting this week. All together there were about 15 people which really filled the chapel! Anyways, I asked the parents if they would like me to translate and they politely declined. As I'm walking away their grandfather says, pointing in front of him, "I think my granddaughter would like you to translate for her"(typical move that I just know my grandfathers would pull too because as he said it he was laughing/smiling and his grandaughter was very embarrassed). Like she was a very pretty girl and I did not want to translate for her haha but I couldn't say....hm...no I can't actually....so I went and sat by her and her siblings to translate. Don't ask me why but I was very nervous and I stuttered quite a bit in the translating process. It was funny though and I actually was asked to bear my testimony for sacrament meeting. I felt really good getting to bear my testimony especially because when I arrived here I wasn't able to (lost my voice the first week).
Well I'm very excited to hear about how your trip went. So the Utes have decent shot at getting to the PAC 12 championship game? That'd be sweet. Well I'm going to go and put our apartment in order...it's filthy. I know it's like a month until you can skype me, but don't get too excited alright?
Love you all and hope you're all doing great.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Modena Memories
Anziani Hardy and Neff with Antonio
Tucker in front of the Duomo
Tucker in Centro
Tucker in front of the Ghirlandina (Tower)
"They Truly Are Just Open-Hearted"
November 15, 2011 e-mail:
Man.....I'm missing out again on the soccer tournament...I remember how bummed I was last year. I think this year it's kinda just whatev though. haha it's been a back and forth week again but we are putting in our best effort. Luckily we are getting support from our branch. It's apparent already that this branch is very strong. Compared to others I've seen I think this is one of the best. They are really good at trying to know what's going on and getting things figured out, whatever it may be.
Pisa is really an interesting city. There is a huge river that runs right through the middle of it and it's really neat. There are lots of really interesting churches, but of course the tower, duomo, and baptistery are the coolest. My companion is pretty sick of it though seeing as how we pass by them almost every day. He has been here for about six months but I don't think I'll get sick of it. I still need to get a picture with it, but we have seriously not had any time do it.
Sunday was really fun because our new convert Wang Zany(Wong) brought a friend to church. She had actually participated in a lesson with Chen the other day through skype. Anyways she came to church and it was super cool talking with her before sacrament meeting. She talked about how she needs a change in her life. She explained how she feels like she lacks something and even doesn't sleep well at night because of it. I translated for her during the meeting(well for her and Chen) and it was amazing. I had to actually summarize because both I'm not a pro at translating but also because they don't have a Christian background. Anyways she kept commenting about how peaceful it was, how beautiful the hymns were.
It was kinda funny(kinda weird too) because there was a family behind us with a new born baby and Catherine(the Chinese friend of Wong) kept saying something about it. She said once, "oh I want to be married or that she wanted to have a kid someday". haha I didn't really know how to respond to the baby one but I just kinda said ya ya OK. It will be awesome though when we can teach her the Plan of Salvation. We are excited to start teaching her though. She is super elect though just like Chen. More than anything they are just super humble! They truly are just open hearted which is something you don't see a lot of here.
Chen is doing GREAT! He is accepting everything and really just soaking it in. At church he even felt really bad when we explained that the sacrament is something we do after baptism to remember Christ and our covenants at baptism. He said...."oh then I should not have eaten it last week?.... I broke the rules." haha I told him it was ok and he didn't need to worry about it. He is awesome though and we are shooting for the 26th of November.
We were in Modena yesterday for Leadership Training. I found out from Anziano Hardy that Antonio's baptism went really well and that he's doing great!.....I also saw an investigator who we'd been teaching at the end of the conference. He was at church to have his baptismal interview. He will be baptized in about two weeks! It was super fun. We watched an awesome movie during the conference. It was seriously so dang awesome. It's called 17 miracles and it's about the pioneers....watch it.
Anyways, everything is going great here. We don't know when we will be back in our apartment but for now we will just keep going forward. I was pumped to hear the Utes pummeled UCLA. Now they just need to "take out the trash", (Mighty Ducks 3)
and beat Colorado and Washington State. I got a bunch of articles from Aunt Carol. haha of course lots of Utes stuff and tons of Cardinals stuff.....agh.....next year....they will win it next year.....
again...anyways....that is crazy that Danny is basically married....I swear I was just writing him while he was still in the mission with 4 months left. Crazy...I still haven't heard a gosh darn thing from CONNOR...what's his deal? Dad maybe you need to give him a little squirrel tap and just tell him what's up. I got an email like 3 months ago but it was like a sentence long....
Allora.....Vi amo....alla prossima settimana (Well ... I love you ... until next week).
Man.....I'm missing out again on the soccer tournament...I remember how bummed I was last year. I think this year it's kinda just whatev though. haha it's been a back and forth week again but we are putting in our best effort. Luckily we are getting support from our branch. It's apparent already that this branch is very strong. Compared to others I've seen I think this is one of the best. They are really good at trying to know what's going on and getting things figured out, whatever it may be.
Pisa is really an interesting city. There is a huge river that runs right through the middle of it and it's really neat. There are lots of really interesting churches, but of course the tower, duomo, and baptistery are the coolest. My companion is pretty sick of it though seeing as how we pass by them almost every day. He has been here for about six months but I don't think I'll get sick of it. I still need to get a picture with it, but we have seriously not had any time do it.
Sunday was really fun because our new convert Wang Zany(Wong) brought a friend to church. She had actually participated in a lesson with Chen the other day through skype. Anyways she came to church and it was super cool talking with her before sacrament meeting. She talked about how she needs a change in her life. She explained how she feels like she lacks something and even doesn't sleep well at night because of it. I translated for her during the meeting(well for her and Chen) and it was amazing. I had to actually summarize because both I'm not a pro at translating but also because they don't have a Christian background. Anyways she kept commenting about how peaceful it was, how beautiful the hymns were.
It was kinda funny(kinda weird too) because there was a family behind us with a new born baby and Catherine(the Chinese friend of Wong) kept saying something about it. She said once, "oh I want to be married or that she wanted to have a kid someday". haha I didn't really know how to respond to the baby one but I just kinda said ya ya OK. It will be awesome though when we can teach her the Plan of Salvation. We are excited to start teaching her though. She is super elect though just like Chen. More than anything they are just super humble! They truly are just open hearted which is something you don't see a lot of here.
Chen is doing GREAT! He is accepting everything and really just soaking it in. At church he even felt really bad when we explained that the sacrament is something we do after baptism to remember Christ and our covenants at baptism. He said...."oh then I should not have eaten it last week?.... I broke the rules." haha I told him it was ok and he didn't need to worry about it. He is awesome though and we are shooting for the 26th of November.
We were in Modena yesterday for Leadership Training. I found out from Anziano Hardy that Antonio's baptism went really well and that he's doing great!.....I also saw an investigator who we'd been teaching at the end of the conference. He was at church to have his baptismal interview. He will be baptized in about two weeks! It was super fun. We watched an awesome movie during the conference. It was seriously so dang awesome. It's called 17 miracles and it's about the pioneers....watch it.
Anyways, everything is going great here. We don't know when we will be back in our apartment but for now we will just keep going forward. I was pumped to hear the Utes pummeled UCLA. Now they just need to "take out the trash", (Mighty Ducks 3)
and beat Colorado and Washington State. I got a bunch of articles from Aunt Carol. haha of course lots of Utes stuff and tons of Cardinals stuff.....agh.....next year....they will win it next year.....
again...anyways....that is crazy that Danny is basically married....I swear I was just writing him while he was still in the mission with 4 months left. Crazy...I still haven't heard a gosh darn thing from CONNOR...what's his deal? Dad maybe you need to give him a little squirrel tap and just tell him what's up. I got an email like 3 months ago but it was like a sentence long....
Allora.....Vi amo....alla prossima settimana (Well ... I love you ... until next week).
Monday, November 14, 2011
"I Am Ready to Say the Prayer"
haha....what a week. This week has been yet another hectic week full of fun experiences as well as frustrating ones. Well, I moved into the Pisa apartment pretty easily last week. It was cool to figure out during our morning run that we live about 5 minutes away from the Leaning Tower. We will be seeing it a whole lot the next while. My companion actually seems quite sick of it haha.
My companion anizano Scheurn is from Gilbert, Arizona. He's a pretty big kid and just loves working out so maybe he can get me back on the working out train. I've been pretty bad the last six weeks. I think you can start to see it in my face now. Well anyways he about killed me on our run the other morning; I was so out of breath. I haven't run again until this morning but that's because I got kinda sick. Bummer huh? It wasn't anything that kept me from going outside and doing missionary work but I was struggling enough as it was. I decided to not work out because my body was soo drained of energy already.
The other hectic events to make this week just so great were the bed bugs. So our apartment has lots of mosquitoes. So the first night I thought the itching and scratching was because of them. Then on Sunday morning I woke up and my forehead was just covered with bites. Apparently bed bugs bite in lines of 3 or 4 and we had that.
We called the office and basically we're told to move in with the Livorno missionaries. They are about a 15 minutes away in train. We also had to spend a butt load to wash every single item of clothing we have and either take it to Livorno or bag it up and tie it and leave it in our apartment. So we will be living in Livorno for a while until our apartment gets sprayed !!Yay!!! haha
Well besides that Pisa is really cool. The work isn't going like super well right now but no worries it'll get going if we can just get the whole coming and going to Livorno everyday down. We lose lots and lots of time everyday and it gets frustrating let me tell you. It is more frustrating for my comp, but no worries. He is one of the funniest kids I've met, holy crap. He quotes and knows movies better than I do. I am gonna have to buckle down a little more to help us concentrate better and work hard.
So yeah right now we have about 3 or 4 investigators. Up until now I have only met 2 of the 4. Well actually one of those we found the other day and is so legit. So basically the ones I know are Gi Gi and Chen. Gi Gi came to church for the first time in five years this Sunday. That was pretty sweet. Apparently he's been an investigator for a long time but I still have yet to teach him. Chen is the friend of two Chinese new converts(Lin and Wang Zang). These two new converts are sooooooo awesome. They are seriously two of the coolest people I've met. They are students here and were found by my companion and his last companion. They are so solid in the gospel and just love the church. Anyways they brought Chen to church on Sunday. We taught Chen Sunday night and talked all about the Restoration. It was a really strong spiritual lesson and was just incredible. We taught him how to pray and we gave him the instructions located in the Restoration pamphlet to read. After about 5 minutes of reading it, he looked up and said "OK I'm ready". We then asked him what he was ready for and he said "I'm ready to say the prayer". It was so awesome. He said the best prayer and said it perfectly.
He's only about 19 years old, but he looks like he's 12. It was so awesome though to see how much he lit up when we were teaching him. We taught him again with Lin and Wang Zang at a members house. We taught him about Jesus Christ and the importance of following him. Again he would just light up when we were teaching. He kind of laughed with joy when we invited him to be baptized. He accepted but also said he would need to think about it a little more. He told us at the end of the lesson, "I've known from the first time we met that this is what I need to do". He is seriously like a little kid, but he is so smart. He was also asking us for a CTR ring because he saw that Lin had one. So that was one of the cool miracles for us this week.
We also have an American living in our branch. His wife is Italian and he has about 3kids. One of them actually just got back from the SLC mission(Trexler family. They also just set up a huge football tournament. He got President's permission to have it on the army base, and to have our entire zone come!!!! How sick is that? I also heard that I can get some hook ups on American food....oh yeah.
Well, I love you all and hope everything is going good. I'm stoked to get things going here. haha Don't worry about our misfortunes. We will survive.
Love you all,
Ciao
My companion anizano Scheurn is from Gilbert, Arizona. He's a pretty big kid and just loves working out so maybe he can get me back on the working out train. I've been pretty bad the last six weeks. I think you can start to see it in my face now. Well anyways he about killed me on our run the other morning; I was so out of breath. I haven't run again until this morning but that's because I got kinda sick. Bummer huh? It wasn't anything that kept me from going outside and doing missionary work but I was struggling enough as it was. I decided to not work out because my body was soo drained of energy already.
The other hectic events to make this week just so great were the bed bugs. So our apartment has lots of mosquitoes. So the first night I thought the itching and scratching was because of them. Then on Sunday morning I woke up and my forehead was just covered with bites. Apparently bed bugs bite in lines of 3 or 4 and we had that.
We called the office and basically we're told to move in with the Livorno missionaries. They are about a 15 minutes away in train. We also had to spend a butt load to wash every single item of clothing we have and either take it to Livorno or bag it up and tie it and leave it in our apartment. So we will be living in Livorno for a while until our apartment gets sprayed !!Yay!!! haha
Well besides that Pisa is really cool. The work isn't going like super well right now but no worries it'll get going if we can just get the whole coming and going to Livorno everyday down. We lose lots and lots of time everyday and it gets frustrating let me tell you. It is more frustrating for my comp, but no worries. He is one of the funniest kids I've met, holy crap. He quotes and knows movies better than I do. I am gonna have to buckle down a little more to help us concentrate better and work hard.
So yeah right now we have about 3 or 4 investigators. Up until now I have only met 2 of the 4. Well actually one of those we found the other day and is so legit. So basically the ones I know are Gi Gi and Chen. Gi Gi came to church for the first time in five years this Sunday. That was pretty sweet. Apparently he's been an investigator for a long time but I still have yet to teach him. Chen is the friend of two Chinese new converts(Lin and Wang Zang). These two new converts are sooooooo awesome. They are seriously two of the coolest people I've met. They are students here and were found by my companion and his last companion. They are so solid in the gospel and just love the church. Anyways they brought Chen to church on Sunday. We taught Chen Sunday night and talked all about the Restoration. It was a really strong spiritual lesson and was just incredible. We taught him how to pray and we gave him the instructions located in the Restoration pamphlet to read. After about 5 minutes of reading it, he looked up and said "OK I'm ready". We then asked him what he was ready for and he said "I'm ready to say the prayer". It was so awesome. He said the best prayer and said it perfectly.
He's only about 19 years old, but he looks like he's 12. It was so awesome though to see how much he lit up when we were teaching him. We taught him again with Lin and Wang Zang at a members house. We taught him about Jesus Christ and the importance of following him. Again he would just light up when we were teaching. He kind of laughed with joy when we invited him to be baptized. He accepted but also said he would need to think about it a little more. He told us at the end of the lesson, "I've known from the first time we met that this is what I need to do". He is seriously like a little kid, but he is so smart. He was also asking us for a CTR ring because he saw that Lin had one. So that was one of the cool miracles for us this week.
We also have an American living in our branch. His wife is Italian and he has about 3kids. One of them actually just got back from the SLC mission(Trexler family. They also just set up a huge football tournament. He got President's permission to have it on the army base, and to have our entire zone come!!!! How sick is that? I also heard that I can get some hook ups on American food....oh yeah.
Well, I love you all and hope everything is going good. I'm stoked to get things going here. haha Don't worry about our misfortunes. We will survive.
Love you all,
Ciao
"I've Been Blessed with Some Really Awesome Companions"
From Tucker's November 1, 2011 E-mail:
Crazy week here in Modena! Well we had a very stressful week full of excitement and fun. So last week one of the missionaries asked the ward mission leader if we would be having a Halloween party. He told us he wasn't sure so one of the missionaries proposed we do it. Well our bishop approved(because it was on family night and a few of the families in the ward were opposed to it) and actually invited us to plan the party! Yay.....actually I was more like ugh....
Haha I feel as a missionary I already have a full plate especially with a baptism the following week(I will speak of that later). Anyway, we were running all over the place doing our regular missionary affairs and trying to plan this party. We had a budget of about 30 euro, yikes I know, and it didn't go very far haha. Well we spent much of stake conference in Verona trying to invite all the members to the party. Monday we had to teach some lessons then rush to the church to set up for the party.
We finally got it all set up with some games and a small little spook alley. We had bobbing for apples, musical chairs( fun right?), and a couple other things. Well 6 pm rolls around haha and hardly anyone was there. Nobody started really showing up until around 7 ish but finally around 8pm there was quite a few people. Most of the people weren't members actually haha so that was kinda cool. Castro brought a bunch of his friends and some of the very few members that were there also brought non-members. We all had a lots of fun though. We were dead tired though by the end of the night.
Anyways......I'm leaving Modena! I put the exclamation point not for excitement and not for being angry or upset, just because it needs emphasis haha. I got the call yesterday from Il Presidente saying that I will be leaving to Pisa. Pretty cool huh?. I was pretty surprised with that, but I'm actually pretty excited to go the Pisa. I will get to be in the Firenze(Florence) Zone. I will be senior companion to an Anziano Scheurn; I think he's about two transfers below me. 8th companion in 9 transfers?? I was also informed that he's been in Pisa for awhile so he will likely leave after next transfer. haha So yeah, maybe by the end of my mission I will have served with everyone. It should be super fun though because Pisa is a branch and actually Anziano Marino's family lives there. I will be able to go to Firenze, Siena(even though Ir's far) and the Cinqueterre, which is probably the most beautiful place in Italy....so I've heard. Oh yeah I forgot, Anziano Barnes is gonna be my new Zone Leader haha. Also many of my past companions have been called in some of the recent transfers as Zone Leaders, Anziani Dean, Barnes, Bolnick, and Marino. Not that having a leadership position really means you're better or anything, but I've been blessed with some really awesome companions. I'm pretty bummed to be leaving Anziano Hardy after just one transfer. Next to Anziano Glowa(who will be doing his 5th transfer in Mantova haha) Anziano Hardy has been one of my favorites. He's a stud.
I feel like I just got to Modena though, holy smokes! I can't be leaving already. Well, everything is all set for Antonio's baptism this Saturday! He's a really cool guy, a bit weird haha, but he has a strong desire to change and follow our Savior. Unfortunately, I won't be able to see it but it'll go fine. The work is going pretty good right now. I have felt super stressed with the party thing and the fact that we had to plan it all. I really disliked doing it because our responsibilities as missionaries are a lot more important. It was fun though and over.
Oh yeah, so everyone in my apartment, Anziani Hardy, Frustaci, and Owens are all staying put. My companion is going to become senior companion to someone else and Frustaci will take my spot as DL. haha This transfer was a whole lot of fun, but I'm glad to get out of being in 4 and going back to he normal ways of being just two missionaries in an apartment.
Well right now the work is going good. Tammaro is still struggling a bit now with the Word of Wisdom. He smokes a decent amount, drinks just a little but also drinks coffee. haha Coffee always seems to catch people really off guard. He has a lot of stressful things going on in his life and smoking is his "thing" that helps him relax. We are trying to replace that with prayer and scripture study, the perfect replacement. It brings even more peace and we get to obey at the same time, double the points!
CARDINALS!!!!!haha so dope! Of ourse I missed it. Lame....oh well..That's good that the Utes finally beat someone! Hopefully they can win out and salvage the season. It doesn't look like they have a tough schedule at all the rest of the way.
Anyways, holy smokes everyone you all so awesome! Keep hanging in there. I know it's hard not having your favorite person in the world around(ME). The coach is calling me up from the bench to pinch hit(been called to the mission field). I'm coming up with bases loaded(the fields are all ready to harvest) and I've got bring-em in so we can beat the Chicago Cubs(adversary) in the bottom of the 9th(Latter Days). It all depends on me( missionaries) to hit them in to win the ball game(bring some souls unto Christ). If I don't get a hit right here then those helpless souls on 1st, 2nd and 3rd base are gonna be left there all alone. It's time to get down to business and focus on the task at hand. Satan is going down(Carlos Zambrano will not strike me out).
Yeah that will be either a super cool analogy or just super dumb.....oh well.
Love you all and thanks for all your prayers. We all need to be anxiously engaged in a good cause in everything we do.
Ciao
Crazy week here in Modena! Well we had a very stressful week full of excitement and fun. So last week one of the missionaries asked the ward mission leader if we would be having a Halloween party. He told us he wasn't sure so one of the missionaries proposed we do it. Well our bishop approved(because it was on family night and a few of the families in the ward were opposed to it) and actually invited us to plan the party! Yay.....actually I was more like ugh....
Haha I feel as a missionary I already have a full plate especially with a baptism the following week(I will speak of that later). Anyway, we were running all over the place doing our regular missionary affairs and trying to plan this party. We had a budget of about 30 euro, yikes I know, and it didn't go very far haha. Well we spent much of stake conference in Verona trying to invite all the members to the party. Monday we had to teach some lessons then rush to the church to set up for the party.
We finally got it all set up with some games and a small little spook alley. We had bobbing for apples, musical chairs( fun right?), and a couple other things. Well 6 pm rolls around haha and hardly anyone was there. Nobody started really showing up until around 7 ish but finally around 8pm there was quite a few people. Most of the people weren't members actually haha so that was kinda cool. Castro brought a bunch of his friends and some of the very few members that were there also brought non-members. We all had a lots of fun though. We were dead tired though by the end of the night.
Anyways......I'm leaving Modena! I put the exclamation point not for excitement and not for being angry or upset, just because it needs emphasis haha. I got the call yesterday from Il Presidente saying that I will be leaving to Pisa. Pretty cool huh?. I was pretty surprised with that, but I'm actually pretty excited to go the Pisa. I will get to be in the Firenze(Florence) Zone. I will be senior companion to an Anziano Scheurn; I think he's about two transfers below me. 8th companion in 9 transfers?? I was also informed that he's been in Pisa for awhile so he will likely leave after next transfer. haha So yeah, maybe by the end of my mission I will have served with everyone. It should be super fun though because Pisa is a branch and actually Anziano Marino's family lives there. I will be able to go to Firenze, Siena(even though Ir's far) and the Cinqueterre, which is probably the most beautiful place in Italy....so I've heard. Oh yeah I forgot, Anziano Barnes is gonna be my new Zone Leader haha. Also many of my past companions have been called in some of the recent transfers as Zone Leaders, Anziani Dean, Barnes, Bolnick, and Marino. Not that having a leadership position really means you're better or anything, but I've been blessed with some really awesome companions. I'm pretty bummed to be leaving Anziano Hardy after just one transfer. Next to Anziano Glowa(who will be doing his 5th transfer in Mantova haha) Anziano Hardy has been one of my favorites. He's a stud.
I feel like I just got to Modena though, holy smokes! I can't be leaving already. Well, everything is all set for Antonio's baptism this Saturday! He's a really cool guy, a bit weird haha, but he has a strong desire to change and follow our Savior. Unfortunately, I won't be able to see it but it'll go fine. The work is going pretty good right now. I have felt super stressed with the party thing and the fact that we had to plan it all. I really disliked doing it because our responsibilities as missionaries are a lot more important. It was fun though and over.
Oh yeah, so everyone in my apartment, Anziani Hardy, Frustaci, and Owens are all staying put. My companion is going to become senior companion to someone else and Frustaci will take my spot as DL. haha This transfer was a whole lot of fun, but I'm glad to get out of being in 4 and going back to he normal ways of being just two missionaries in an apartment.
Well right now the work is going good. Tammaro is still struggling a bit now with the Word of Wisdom. He smokes a decent amount, drinks just a little but also drinks coffee. haha Coffee always seems to catch people really off guard. He has a lot of stressful things going on in his life and smoking is his "thing" that helps him relax. We are trying to replace that with prayer and scripture study, the perfect replacement. It brings even more peace and we get to obey at the same time, double the points!
CARDINALS!!!!!haha so dope! Of ourse I missed it. Lame....oh well..That's good that the Utes finally beat someone! Hopefully they can win out and salvage the season. It doesn't look like they have a tough schedule at all the rest of the way.
Anyways, holy smokes everyone you all so awesome! Keep hanging in there. I know it's hard not having your favorite person in the world around(ME). The coach is calling me up from the bench to pinch hit(been called to the mission field). I'm coming up with bases loaded(the fields are all ready to harvest) and I've got bring-em in so we can beat the Chicago Cubs(adversary) in the bottom of the 9th(Latter Days). It all depends on me( missionaries) to hit them in to win the ball game(bring some souls unto Christ). If I don't get a hit right here then those helpless souls on 1st, 2nd and 3rd base are gonna be left there all alone. It's time to get down to business and focus on the task at hand. Satan is going down(Carlos Zambrano will not strike me out).
Yeah that will be either a super cool analogy or just super dumb.....oh well.
Love you all and thanks for all your prayers. We all need to be anxiously engaged in a good cause in everything we do.
Ciao
Monday, October 31, 2011
"No Drums, Singing, and Dancing in Sacrament Meeting?"
From Tucker's October 26, 2011 e-mail:
Hey everyone!....thanks for the emails this week it was fun hearing about all your lives. I gotta say this last month has just flown by. It went from being super nice at the beginning of the month to freezing cold. It has been raining for the past 3 or 4 days now. It has rained non-stop for the past two days. Overall though it isn't too bad we just had to switch to our winter gear super fast. haha It is definitely making it hard to go out and run in the mornings. I have been absolutely terrible at it this transfer haha. We are making a stand this week though and gonna force ourselves to get moving.
So Danny is getting hitched soon? haha that is crazy. Who's the girl that he's marrying? Anyone I know? What kind of car did Andy and Clara buy? I would definitely go with the superman costume for Sawyer. How did the other cousins do in their football seasons? Ben...Jack, Sammy, Andy's team? Is Ben tearing it up in high school ball?
Well we are coming to a close for this transfer. Right now it's mid-way through week #5 and my roomies all think I'm gonna be moved somewhere else. I had not even thought about going somewhere else. For me it feels like I just arrived here even though it was more than 4 months ago. I would really like to stay for another transfer but unfortunately it's not up to me. I would really love to do another transfer with Anziano Hardy. I think we've worked really well together this transfer, and it's been a lot of fun. It's been fun serving with so many companions, heck I've had 7 companions in 8 transfers. It's 8 companions if you include the MTC. It's difficult to really teach with great unity in only 6 weeks of living together. I think thus far I've handled it pretty well, and adapted to the constant changing. After all it's not what I want but what the Lord wants and I'm perfectly fine with that.
This week has been pretty fun though. Our English class is going well and we are getting lots of people coming and learning. We do need to adapt a little bit of our church's message into the other stuff. We start with prayers, most of the time and sometimes end with them. Usually that all depends if the members are there helping us teach the class. It's really fun though and I'm enjoying it a lot.
Our new convert Edmond has been struggling a lot lately. His financial situation is not improving seeing that he has no job. His landlord is threatening to kick him out for not having money to pay rent. We've been praying a lot and trying to help but assuring him everything will be OK. He is doing a great job of hanging in there, but it's definitely hard on him.
Ettore and his family are doing really well. They struggle to get to church sometimes because they don't always have a car. Ettore's stepfather has one but he is not a member and usually takes it on Sundays leaving them with no way to get to church. The members have been good though with trying to provide rides. They are both super awesome and Ettore has really meshed well with the GANZ(young single adults). He participates often in the activities that they do.
Antonio is doing GREAT! We are also gearing up for his baptism(will I be around for it, who knows?) He has a great friend already in the ward in Mario, who helps us often with his lessons. Tammaro is doing OK but still his problems from his failed marriage and not having money just keeps interfering with our teaching. It's obviously great to listen to them and their concerns but the gospel of Jesus Christ is what will help them through their problems. If they would just be patient and listen then they would certainly be blessed. I also realize how much we need to be patient and just love them. I realize everyday how much more I need to grow my love for everyone.
It was great to see our long-time investigator Steven finally come to church! He's the 18 year old who is very involved in his other church. He called us early Sunday morning to inform us(he actually called and said "I'm calling to inform you that I will be coming today") that he'd be coming with his friend, new-convert, Castro. The next time we met with him though he was confused to the fact that there were no drums, loud singing, and dancing in our sacrament meeting...AGHHHHHH...haha. Apparently there is a verse in the Bible talking about King David, and how there was dancing and drums and what not....Steven likes that verse a lot..haha. His constant "examples"(which do not EVER relate to the topic of discussion) are never ending. His questions that do not relate in anyway sometimes are just more funny than anything. We are continuing to work with him though because he has a desire to know and follow our Savior Jesus Christ. Charity and love are the keys. Without them we are nothing, as it says in Corinthians 13(i think it's 13)
Hope the Cards win.....lame the Utes suck.....Packers! yeah......Jazz? Chissà (who knows)?
Well I love you all.
Ci sentiamo la settimanna prossima (Until next week)
Hey everyone!....thanks for the emails this week it was fun hearing about all your lives. I gotta say this last month has just flown by. It went from being super nice at the beginning of the month to freezing cold. It has been raining for the past 3 or 4 days now. It has rained non-stop for the past two days. Overall though it isn't too bad we just had to switch to our winter gear super fast. haha It is definitely making it hard to go out and run in the mornings. I have been absolutely terrible at it this transfer haha. We are making a stand this week though and gonna force ourselves to get moving.
So Danny is getting hitched soon? haha that is crazy. Who's the girl that he's marrying? Anyone I know? What kind of car did Andy and Clara buy? I would definitely go with the superman costume for Sawyer. How did the other cousins do in their football seasons? Ben...Jack, Sammy, Andy's team? Is Ben tearing it up in high school ball?
Well we are coming to a close for this transfer. Right now it's mid-way through week #5 and my roomies all think I'm gonna be moved somewhere else. I had not even thought about going somewhere else. For me it feels like I just arrived here even though it was more than 4 months ago. I would really like to stay for another transfer but unfortunately it's not up to me. I would really love to do another transfer with Anziano Hardy. I think we've worked really well together this transfer, and it's been a lot of fun. It's been fun serving with so many companions, heck I've had 7 companions in 8 transfers. It's 8 companions if you include the MTC. It's difficult to really teach with great unity in only 6 weeks of living together. I think thus far I've handled it pretty well, and adapted to the constant changing. After all it's not what I want but what the Lord wants and I'm perfectly fine with that.
This week has been pretty fun though. Our English class is going well and we are getting lots of people coming and learning. We do need to adapt a little bit of our church's message into the other stuff. We start with prayers, most of the time and sometimes end with them. Usually that all depends if the members are there helping us teach the class. It's really fun though and I'm enjoying it a lot.
Our new convert Edmond has been struggling a lot lately. His financial situation is not improving seeing that he has no job. His landlord is threatening to kick him out for not having money to pay rent. We've been praying a lot and trying to help but assuring him everything will be OK. He is doing a great job of hanging in there, but it's definitely hard on him.
Ettore and his family are doing really well. They struggle to get to church sometimes because they don't always have a car. Ettore's stepfather has one but he is not a member and usually takes it on Sundays leaving them with no way to get to church. The members have been good though with trying to provide rides. They are both super awesome and Ettore has really meshed well with the GANZ(young single adults). He participates often in the activities that they do.
Antonio is doing GREAT! We are also gearing up for his baptism(will I be around for it, who knows?) He has a great friend already in the ward in Mario, who helps us often with his lessons. Tammaro is doing OK but still his problems from his failed marriage and not having money just keeps interfering with our teaching. It's obviously great to listen to them and their concerns but the gospel of Jesus Christ is what will help them through their problems. If they would just be patient and listen then they would certainly be blessed. I also realize how much we need to be patient and just love them. I realize everyday how much more I need to grow my love for everyone.
It was great to see our long-time investigator Steven finally come to church! He's the 18 year old who is very involved in his other church. He called us early Sunday morning to inform us(he actually called and said "I'm calling to inform you that I will be coming today") that he'd be coming with his friend, new-convert, Castro. The next time we met with him though he was confused to the fact that there were no drums, loud singing, and dancing in our sacrament meeting...AGHHHHHH...haha. Apparently there is a verse in the Bible talking about King David, and how there was dancing and drums and what not....Steven likes that verse a lot..haha. His constant "examples"(which do not EVER relate to the topic of discussion) are never ending. His questions that do not relate in anyway sometimes are just more funny than anything. We are continuing to work with him though because he has a desire to know and follow our Savior Jesus Christ. Charity and love are the keys. Without them we are nothing, as it says in Corinthians 13(i think it's 13)
Hope the Cards win.....lame the Utes suck.....Packers! yeah......Jazz? Chissà (who knows)?
Well I love you all.
Ci sentiamo la settimanna prossima (Until next week)
"We Trusted in Him and He Delivered"
Tucker's E-mail from October 20:
Why........does the sporting world have to be going so well right now? Packers undefeated and the Cards in the World Series? what more could a sport junkie be missing? haha and I'm only sort of kidding.
Anyways I laughed for a good couple minutes at Andy's costume haha. What was he thinking? I definitely loved the shark and shrimp? costume of Ruby and George. George looks so happy to be wearing it. haha
We've been making some strides lately to increase our teaching pool and find the time to find. We've been teaching Antonio, Tammaro, Steven, Edmond and others so much that we have been finding it hard to find others to teach. Having to say that we are teaching too much would sound crazy to almost anyone here in the mission. We have really been striving though to plan better and more effectively so we can fit in more time to do strada, casa and parco. haha It's a feeling I've never had before that I'm not doing enough finding work. We have some pretty solid people in our teaching pool right now and it's awesome. I think as we really exert ourselves though and strive to find more of God's elect children that he will bless us and guide us to them.
Edmond has been just awesome. He has really felt the blessings already of being a baptized member with the Holy Ghost. He just seems more happy and more enthusiastic about everything. He's started becoming friends with the other African new converts in the ward. We are currently working to really integrate the African new converts into the ward. Frankly the ward doesn't do a good job at all of calling them if by chance they couldn't come to church. They don't really look out for each other at all. I feel so blessed to live in Utah where the wards are strong and united. Me and my district need to just create our Title Of Liberty and hoist it around church the next couple months until they get the idea. We need to hit them with something so that when they aren't helping each other and loving one another they will feel it in their lives and feel prompted to do something on their own(without having the missionaries having to push them constantly along).
Anyways, Ettore is doing OK I guess. He's been coming to a few of the ward activities but has not come the last couple weeks to church. He works a lot and is super awesome but we really need to talk about the importance of weekly church attendance and the blessings that come from it. His family, Anna, Richie, and Chris are all doing well and yeah they are pretty strong. We visit them weekly and the mom Anna is such an awesome lady.
Well as far as the investigators go, we are teaching Antonio, Tammaro, Andy and Steven still. Antonio is progressing very well to his date on Nov 5. He loves meeting with us and seeing us often. We might have some problems though because there is some sort of issue to whether or not he has the ability to make decisions for himself. Before you start laughing or something, the guy is pretty normal. One of the members who's been helping us out with every lesson has told us that Antonio has a card saying he can't make decision on his own(the whole thing is super complicated). Antonio seems relatively normal though to us, and, in fact, there are others we are teaching that are probably more weird.
Tammaro is about 45 years old and he is always talking about the problems with his ex-wife who is apparently crazy now or something. We struggle at times to teach him because he will interrupt and talk about his problems. We are coming up with a way to talk first about all his problems and then teach him the missionary lessons. When we do teach him it takes a lot of guidance from the spirit. He is really cool though and is really open with us.
Everyone else is still in the "works" and coming along slowly but surely. We have about 4 or 5 others who are investigators but finding the time to see us is difficult for them. We are hoping they can make some big strides in the next couple weeks.
It seems to me that a lot of Africans come to Italy because they are looking to make money. I wish we could just send an African back to Africa so he could tell the rest that there aren't any jobs. They all come looking for work and they all never find any. They also think that because the Euro is better than their currency they will make lots of money but they just don't get it. There are no jobs for them and who wants to hire somebody who doesn't speak any Italian?....it doesn't make sense sometimes. It doesn't bother me at all that they are here because they are awesome people. The only thing I would say is that they are seriously better off economically in Africa.
Well we had a really cool miracle story this week while we were doing casa. We started doing finding work around 5pm last Monday. After the first hour we just felt the area we were at wasn't going very well. We then prayed and decided to go to our back-up area. We got there and then said another prayer to decide which palazzo we should enter. We then both felt inspired to do the pink palazzo instead of the other two big green and red palazzi.
After knocking on the second door we were welcomed by and elderly Italian couple. After introducing ourselves and we started to speak to them about Jesus Christ. They told us they were Catholic and then invited us in. They told us that they were not really interested in changing religions but would listen to our message. They talked to us about their family and how their son had recently been married and we talked to them about the Restoration. After thanking them for their time and kindness we proceeded down the palazzo to the other doors.
After knocking on another floor we found ourselves talking with a lady in her 60's. We talked a lot about the confusion in the world about religion. She explained how great it would be if we could all be united. We agreed! We talked back and forth about the blessings of the gospel and there was an awesome presence of the spirit. Before we could even extend an invite to here, she invited us to join together and come to her church. We politely declined but gave an invite to here to pray about what we'd said.
After saying bye to the elderly lady we were able to enter in and speak with a small group of youth in their early to mid-twenties. Again we were able to speak about the Restoration of the gospel and present them with a Book of Mormon. They were super funny and nice about it all but didn't have too much interest. We left though having placed a BoM and receiving one of their phone numbers.
As we got to the bottom of the palazzo we met an African women in her 40's or 50's. We did a quick presentation and she told us she was tired and didn't have time to speak with us. I quickly asked where she was from and she told us she was from Ghana. I talked about how I hear it's a wonderful place and we sort of transitioned into how the Gospel blesses the family. She told us how her young daughter had recently died and how it's really hard on her. We came soaring back to give a quick but strong testimony of the Plan of Salvation. Immediately we saw the glow in here eyes of hope and she told us we could come inside. Two minutes ago she was just telling us how tired she was and how she didn't have any time!
As we entered she left into another and came back with her older sister. We introduced ourselves again and they introduced themselves. We then started talking about the Plan of Salvation with Agnes and Abigail. It was super powerful and super spiritual being able to bear testimony to them about how Abigail could see her daughter again. We were able to set up another appointment with them and get their numbers.
We soon exited the apart in shock of what had just happened. Two hours earlier we had entered the palazzo not really knowing what to expect. What a great miracle we had just experienced. I had had one other experience in which I entered 3 times while doing casa but besides that nothing. It was such a testimony for me to see how Heavenly Father guided us to that specific palazzo. We trusted in him and he delivered.
Well I love you all so much and I will just end on that.
If you are thinking about stuff to send me for Christmas...hot chocolate would be a good idea.
Love you all.
Go Cards.........who woulda thought?.....me!
Why........does the sporting world have to be going so well right now? Packers undefeated and the Cards in the World Series? what more could a sport junkie be missing? haha and I'm only sort of kidding.
Anyways I laughed for a good couple minutes at Andy's costume haha. What was he thinking? I definitely loved the shark and shrimp? costume of Ruby and George. George looks so happy to be wearing it. haha
We've been making some strides lately to increase our teaching pool and find the time to find. We've been teaching Antonio, Tammaro, Steven, Edmond and others so much that we have been finding it hard to find others to teach. Having to say that we are teaching too much would sound crazy to almost anyone here in the mission. We have really been striving though to plan better and more effectively so we can fit in more time to do strada, casa and parco. haha It's a feeling I've never had before that I'm not doing enough finding work. We have some pretty solid people in our teaching pool right now and it's awesome. I think as we really exert ourselves though and strive to find more of God's elect children that he will bless us and guide us to them.
Edmond has been just awesome. He has really felt the blessings already of being a baptized member with the Holy Ghost. He just seems more happy and more enthusiastic about everything. He's started becoming friends with the other African new converts in the ward. We are currently working to really integrate the African new converts into the ward. Frankly the ward doesn't do a good job at all of calling them if by chance they couldn't come to church. They don't really look out for each other at all. I feel so blessed to live in Utah where the wards are strong and united. Me and my district need to just create our Title Of Liberty and hoist it around church the next couple months until they get the idea. We need to hit them with something so that when they aren't helping each other and loving one another they will feel it in their lives and feel prompted to do something on their own(without having the missionaries having to push them constantly along).
Anyways, Ettore is doing OK I guess. He's been coming to a few of the ward activities but has not come the last couple weeks to church. He works a lot and is super awesome but we really need to talk about the importance of weekly church attendance and the blessings that come from it. His family, Anna, Richie, and Chris are all doing well and yeah they are pretty strong. We visit them weekly and the mom Anna is such an awesome lady.
Well as far as the investigators go, we are teaching Antonio, Tammaro, Andy and Steven still. Antonio is progressing very well to his date on Nov 5. He loves meeting with us and seeing us often. We might have some problems though because there is some sort of issue to whether or not he has the ability to make decisions for himself. Before you start laughing or something, the guy is pretty normal. One of the members who's been helping us out with every lesson has told us that Antonio has a card saying he can't make decision on his own(the whole thing is super complicated). Antonio seems relatively normal though to us, and, in fact, there are others we are teaching that are probably more weird.
Tammaro is about 45 years old and he is always talking about the problems with his ex-wife who is apparently crazy now or something. We struggle at times to teach him because he will interrupt and talk about his problems. We are coming up with a way to talk first about all his problems and then teach him the missionary lessons. When we do teach him it takes a lot of guidance from the spirit. He is really cool though and is really open with us.
Everyone else is still in the "works" and coming along slowly but surely. We have about 4 or 5 others who are investigators but finding the time to see us is difficult for them. We are hoping they can make some big strides in the next couple weeks.
It seems to me that a lot of Africans come to Italy because they are looking to make money. I wish we could just send an African back to Africa so he could tell the rest that there aren't any jobs. They all come looking for work and they all never find any. They also think that because the Euro is better than their currency they will make lots of money but they just don't get it. There are no jobs for them and who wants to hire somebody who doesn't speak any Italian?....it doesn't make sense sometimes. It doesn't bother me at all that they are here because they are awesome people. The only thing I would say is that they are seriously better off economically in Africa.
Well we had a really cool miracle story this week while we were doing casa. We started doing finding work around 5pm last Monday. After the first hour we just felt the area we were at wasn't going very well. We then prayed and decided to go to our back-up area. We got there and then said another prayer to decide which palazzo we should enter. We then both felt inspired to do the pink palazzo instead of the other two big green and red palazzi.
After knocking on the second door we were welcomed by and elderly Italian couple. After introducing ourselves and we started to speak to them about Jesus Christ. They told us they were Catholic and then invited us in. They told us that they were not really interested in changing religions but would listen to our message. They talked to us about their family and how their son had recently been married and we talked to them about the Restoration. After thanking them for their time and kindness we proceeded down the palazzo to the other doors.
After knocking on another floor we found ourselves talking with a lady in her 60's. We talked a lot about the confusion in the world about religion. She explained how great it would be if we could all be united. We agreed! We talked back and forth about the blessings of the gospel and there was an awesome presence of the spirit. Before we could even extend an invite to here, she invited us to join together and come to her church. We politely declined but gave an invite to here to pray about what we'd said.
After saying bye to the elderly lady we were able to enter in and speak with a small group of youth in their early to mid-twenties. Again we were able to speak about the Restoration of the gospel and present them with a Book of Mormon. They were super funny and nice about it all but didn't have too much interest. We left though having placed a BoM and receiving one of their phone numbers.
As we got to the bottom of the palazzo we met an African women in her 40's or 50's. We did a quick presentation and she told us she was tired and didn't have time to speak with us. I quickly asked where she was from and she told us she was from Ghana. I talked about how I hear it's a wonderful place and we sort of transitioned into how the Gospel blesses the family. She told us how her young daughter had recently died and how it's really hard on her. We came soaring back to give a quick but strong testimony of the Plan of Salvation. Immediately we saw the glow in here eyes of hope and she told us we could come inside. Two minutes ago she was just telling us how tired she was and how she didn't have any time!
As we entered she left into another and came back with her older sister. We introduced ourselves again and they introduced themselves. We then started talking about the Plan of Salvation with Agnes and Abigail. It was super powerful and super spiritual being able to bear testimony to them about how Abigail could see her daughter again. We were able to set up another appointment with them and get their numbers.
We soon exited the apart in shock of what had just happened. Two hours earlier we had entered the palazzo not really knowing what to expect. What a great miracle we had just experienced. I had had one other experience in which I entered 3 times while doing casa but besides that nothing. It was such a testimony for me to see how Heavenly Father guided us to that specific palazzo. We trusted in him and he delivered.
Well I love you all so much and I will just end on that.
If you are thinking about stuff to send me for Christmas...hot chocolate would be a good idea.
Love you all.
Go Cards.........who woulda thought?.....me!
Friday, October 28, 2011
"What Baptism? ... My Baptism"
E-mail from October 13, 2011 Hey everyone! what's cooking?
We we have had a really inspiring, fun, kick butt week. It included companions getting sick, setting more baptismal dates, having a baptism etc....We did have a baptism this week though it was very hectic, very stressful in a way, but overall a great spiritual experience.
So the baptism was set to be around 7 pm. We got a call from Edmond early in the morning saying "Why did you choose Felix to baptism me?". Earlier in the week he had asked us if Felix could baptize him. Anyway, we were like "uh....because you wanted him to do it." He went on to tell us how he would prefer someone else to do it, preferably me or my companion. We were a little shocked and confused with this but finally after talking with him we decided to have my companion baptize him. Apparently he didn't want a Nigerian baptizing him. We had to make an awkward call to Felix saying that Edmond didn't want him to do it. I felt so bad too because Felix was super super excited to do it. Anyway, 5 PM rolls around and we get a call from Edmond saying "I'm locked out of my house and my roommates aren't answering their phones". haha He went on to tell us that if they didn't come back before the baptism that we should just move the baptism to next week. haha We were like "NOOO....Edmond if they do not come back by 6:30 just come straight to the church. He told us OK and that he would.
Finally it got to be around 6:30 so we called him and asked if he had gotten inside yet and he told us no. We told him to come to the church, but he told us that his friend had taken his bike and he didn't have a way to get to the church. haha By now I was just like aghhhhhh. haha Of course all this would happen. Luckily we had a brava member there who said we could go in her car and pick him up. So we dashed over there and he was there waiting in his church clothes. Apparently his friends had just gotten home and he had just enough time to change. He even brought along his older brother who is not a member. haha The dude had the coolest "African" suit ever. The baptism went really well and Edmond just kept saying how happy he was.
I was able to do my first confirmation the following day as I conferred upon him the gift of the Holy Ghost. haha Man I was soooo nervous but it went pretty well. He has already started his role as a member in helping others come unto Christ. We had a lesson set up with him the other day and right before the lesson he gave us a call asking if we could come early. He went on to say that he had brought friends to his house to listen to us, but they had to leave soon. He wanted us to hurry so we could teach them.
One of the other cool fruits from Edmond's baptism is based around Andy. Andy has been coming to church for about 2 months. He really likes church but every time we try to set somethings up he doesn't have time. This last Sunday after the confirmation of Edmond, he came up to me and started saying..."sooo...the baptism". Remembering that I'd forgotten to invite him to Edmond's baptism I said "Oh I'm so sorry, this week has been really busy and I spaced it, man, I'm so sorry". He said it was OK then again he said "soo..the baptism". This time I was kinda confused so I asked him "Andy, what baptism?". He then responded, "my baptism!". I laughed and said Andy that is great but dude, we have to teach you first. I pulled out my planner and showed him all the lessons we would have to teach him. We then fixed a day to see each other that week and we set a baptismal date. haha The guy is super, super cool and we are excited for him.
We also had success in setting a date with this older man, Moreno for the 5 November(can you believe it's already November?). He is very quiet and I think he might have a speech problem. Antonio is making lots of progress as well and we've been able to teach him quiet a lot. We are thinking he will be ready to be baptized by the 5th of November as well. He is probably more ready than anyone else at this point. His desire to be baptized is really strong as well. We are really trying to help him with forgiveness though because of some family issues. He is making lots of changes in his life and is seeing many of the blessings from it already!
Well lately we've really been focusing a lot on the Book of Mormon. We have been taking seriously the talks of the Apostles and of our leaders. I've spent a lot of time the last few weeks in district meetings to discuss the importance of the Book of Mormon and the way we can use it in our missionary work. It is great to hear you are all striving to be better at reading and finishing the Book of Mormon. I know I've been trying to kick my butt into gear and reading it a lot more. With all we do and with how crazy missionary life can be I sometimes find it hard to find good quality Book of Mormon reading time. It is one of my biggest goals right now. Of course, I read when studying for lessons but it's a little different. I'm looking forward to really dedicating myself to reading intently daily.
Unfortunately, I haven't really been able to remain in great contact with any of the people I have baptized. I kinda just spaced all of that when I would leave a city. I never remembered to get their addresses and what not. I will have to get my butt into gear and get them from other missionaries. I do keep hearing though that Biyao is doing great and is just awesome. I heard Domingo is doing awesome but from the other I haven't heard any news. The 8 africans are gonna be tough because they all live in a hotel. I will probably just send letter through other missionaries to them or something.
It sounds like you all doing great. That is too bad that Oly lost. I bet Lisa was very, very sad seeing as she couldn't even play. Hopefully she doesn't blame herself for the loss. I did get a pretty good laugh about the story with Mark and the pistol (elk hunting). haha. I can just see that happening.
Well, that is super cool the Cards made it past the Phillies; man I hate the Phillies ... and Yankees and Red Sox. Hopefully they can go all the way! I kinda guessed the Utes would get torched this week. Does the new quarterback show any promise?
Well, I love you all and will talk to ya next week.
We we have had a really inspiring, fun, kick butt week. It included companions getting sick, setting more baptismal dates, having a baptism etc....We did have a baptism this week though it was very hectic, very stressful in a way, but overall a great spiritual experience.
So the baptism was set to be around 7 pm. We got a call from Edmond early in the morning saying "Why did you choose Felix to baptism me?". Earlier in the week he had asked us if Felix could baptize him. Anyway, we were like "uh....because you wanted him to do it." He went on to tell us how he would prefer someone else to do it, preferably me or my companion. We were a little shocked and confused with this but finally after talking with him we decided to have my companion baptize him. Apparently he didn't want a Nigerian baptizing him. We had to make an awkward call to Felix saying that Edmond didn't want him to do it. I felt so bad too because Felix was super super excited to do it. Anyway, 5 PM rolls around and we get a call from Edmond saying "I'm locked out of my house and my roommates aren't answering their phones". haha He went on to tell us that if they didn't come back before the baptism that we should just move the baptism to next week. haha We were like "NOOO....Edmond if they do not come back by 6:30 just come straight to the church. He told us OK and that he would.
Finally it got to be around 6:30 so we called him and asked if he had gotten inside yet and he told us no. We told him to come to the church, but he told us that his friend had taken his bike and he didn't have a way to get to the church. haha By now I was just like aghhhhhh. haha Of course all this would happen. Luckily we had a brava member there who said we could go in her car and pick him up. So we dashed over there and he was there waiting in his church clothes. Apparently his friends had just gotten home and he had just enough time to change. He even brought along his older brother who is not a member. haha The dude had the coolest "African" suit ever. The baptism went really well and Edmond just kept saying how happy he was.
I was able to do my first confirmation the following day as I conferred upon him the gift of the Holy Ghost. haha Man I was soooo nervous but it went pretty well. He has already started his role as a member in helping others come unto Christ. We had a lesson set up with him the other day and right before the lesson he gave us a call asking if we could come early. He went on to say that he had brought friends to his house to listen to us, but they had to leave soon. He wanted us to hurry so we could teach them.
One of the other cool fruits from Edmond's baptism is based around Andy. Andy has been coming to church for about 2 months. He really likes church but every time we try to set somethings up he doesn't have time. This last Sunday after the confirmation of Edmond, he came up to me and started saying..."sooo...the baptism". Remembering that I'd forgotten to invite him to Edmond's baptism I said "Oh I'm so sorry, this week has been really busy and I spaced it, man, I'm so sorry". He said it was OK then again he said "soo..the baptism". This time I was kinda confused so I asked him "Andy, what baptism?". He then responded, "my baptism!". I laughed and said Andy that is great but dude, we have to teach you first. I pulled out my planner and showed him all the lessons we would have to teach him. We then fixed a day to see each other that week and we set a baptismal date. haha The guy is super, super cool and we are excited for him.
We also had success in setting a date with this older man, Moreno for the 5 November(can you believe it's already November?). He is very quiet and I think he might have a speech problem. Antonio is making lots of progress as well and we've been able to teach him quiet a lot. We are thinking he will be ready to be baptized by the 5th of November as well. He is probably more ready than anyone else at this point. His desire to be baptized is really strong as well. We are really trying to help him with forgiveness though because of some family issues. He is making lots of changes in his life and is seeing many of the blessings from it already!
Well lately we've really been focusing a lot on the Book of Mormon. We have been taking seriously the talks of the Apostles and of our leaders. I've spent a lot of time the last few weeks in district meetings to discuss the importance of the Book of Mormon and the way we can use it in our missionary work. It is great to hear you are all striving to be better at reading and finishing the Book of Mormon. I know I've been trying to kick my butt into gear and reading it a lot more. With all we do and with how crazy missionary life can be I sometimes find it hard to find good quality Book of Mormon reading time. It is one of my biggest goals right now. Of course, I read when studying for lessons but it's a little different. I'm looking forward to really dedicating myself to reading intently daily.
Unfortunately, I haven't really been able to remain in great contact with any of the people I have baptized. I kinda just spaced all of that when I would leave a city. I never remembered to get their addresses and what not. I will have to get my butt into gear and get them from other missionaries. I do keep hearing though that Biyao is doing great and is just awesome. I heard Domingo is doing awesome but from the other I haven't heard any news. The 8 africans are gonna be tough because they all live in a hotel. I will probably just send letter through other missionaries to them or something.
It sounds like you all doing great. That is too bad that Oly lost. I bet Lisa was very, very sad seeing as she couldn't even play. Hopefully she doesn't blame herself for the loss. I did get a pretty good laugh about the story with Mark and the pistol (elk hunting). haha. I can just see that happening.
Well, that is super cool the Cards made it past the Phillies; man I hate the Phillies ... and Yankees and Red Sox. Hopefully they can go all the way! I kinda guessed the Utes would get torched this week. Does the new quarterback show any promise?
Well, I love you all and will talk to ya next week.
"You are doing an amazing work, keep going and preaching the word"
From Tucker's October 5, 2011 E-mail:
The Utes' loss has left me in such a traumatized state that I really don't feel like writing this week. I wish I could say that but nah...it didn't really affect me at all. I can say I am super excited when they win but when they lose it does nothing....Sounds like I'm becoming a real missionary huh?
I also just hit my hump day! I have come to realize that I am pretty content with where I'm at language wise. I still have a long ways to go 'til I can really master it but I have an entire year. I just need to keep pushing myself to study the language and practice, practice, practice. Living in four is soooooo hard haha. It's not that we are apostate in any way it's that we love to just talk with each other during our lunch period or when we come home at night. We are figuring how to work it out though and limit our conversation so we can study and continue are regular missionary schedule.
Well, the work is really coming along here in Modena. The new companionship of missionaries that just opened here are really flourishing. They are just kicking some Italian butt and really doing awesome. We are also doing very well and we are preparing for Edmond's baptism this weekend. He originally asked me to baptize him but I persuaded him that it'd be better if a member did it. He's super pumped and actually called me the other morning to tell me he had a dream about me??? haha He called and just started telling me how I was amidst all these people and I was preaching them the word of God. He said they were all listening to me and were cheering or something. haha After he got done telling this short little synopsis of the story he says " So yes, I just wanted to tell you that you are doing an amazing work, keep going and preaching the word". He's super cool and we are excited for him.
We'll conference was really super cool eh? It was awesome for us because we had about 6 investigators come(four Italians). We watched in English while they sat next to members watching in Italian. They all said how much they loved it and thought it was super amazing. None of them watched all of conference but they all watched at least one or two sessions. Our only problem with these Italians is that they are all single men. haha they are all a little bit awkward/weird. They aren't super weird or anything, but it's no mystery why they are single. We are having a blast though teaching them often and helping them know of the restored gospel and the wonderful blessings that come from it.
I wrote down in my journal some of my favorite talks from conference but I didn't bring it with me so I can't remember real well. I do know that I loved Elder Callister's talk about the Book of Mormon. He brought up so many awesome points and it was just super bold. The man from the Seventy who talked about "Looking Up" gave a really cool talk as well. I think he said at the end something like Look Up, Step Up and then Cheer Up. Elder Holland was also very bold in inviting the young men to get ready for their missions because we need "battalions of misisonaries". My other favorite was Elder Christofferson's on repentance. There were a lot of talks I really loved so I look forward to reading them when we get the Liahona.
Well....that's about it with everything here. Let's hope Hill and her team can kick butt in state. How's everything going with Andy and Clara? Do you think I should send an email to them and express my sadness that Clara has yet to write me a single word?...haha I might have to.
Sounds like everything is going great. I think my biggest goal right now is to just become better at teaching. I am able to use the language I just need to become a better teacher. It's something that seemed really hard to develop because I couldn't speak before but now I have no excuse. It's time to turn on the after burners and start declaring repentance unto God's children with power and authority, no fear and with a desire for the welfare of their souls....I think it's a good goal...what do you think?
Think up some funny pranks I can pull on Anziano Frustaci's companion, Anziano Owens. He dumped a bucked of ice cold water on me last week and then this morning we all woke up to find our fingernails and toenails painted red. haha freaking nerd told us he stayed up 3 hours last night trying to do it. The kid is hilarious though.
Well I love you all...Talk to ya next week. Dad, just cause the Utes lose doesn't mean ya don't have to send an article. I would still enjoy it tons....grazie...
Ciao
The Utes' loss has left me in such a traumatized state that I really don't feel like writing this week. I wish I could say that but nah...it didn't really affect me at all. I can say I am super excited when they win but when they lose it does nothing....Sounds like I'm becoming a real missionary huh?
I also just hit my hump day! I have come to realize that I am pretty content with where I'm at language wise. I still have a long ways to go 'til I can really master it but I have an entire year. I just need to keep pushing myself to study the language and practice, practice, practice. Living in four is soooooo hard haha. It's not that we are apostate in any way it's that we love to just talk with each other during our lunch period or when we come home at night. We are figuring how to work it out though and limit our conversation so we can study and continue are regular missionary schedule.
Well, the work is really coming along here in Modena. The new companionship of missionaries that just opened here are really flourishing. They are just kicking some Italian butt and really doing awesome. We are also doing very well and we are preparing for Edmond's baptism this weekend. He originally asked me to baptize him but I persuaded him that it'd be better if a member did it. He's super pumped and actually called me the other morning to tell me he had a dream about me??? haha He called and just started telling me how I was amidst all these people and I was preaching them the word of God. He said they were all listening to me and were cheering or something. haha After he got done telling this short little synopsis of the story he says " So yes, I just wanted to tell you that you are doing an amazing work, keep going and preaching the word". He's super cool and we are excited for him.
We'll conference was really super cool eh? It was awesome for us because we had about 6 investigators come(four Italians). We watched in English while they sat next to members watching in Italian. They all said how much they loved it and thought it was super amazing. None of them watched all of conference but they all watched at least one or two sessions. Our only problem with these Italians is that they are all single men. haha they are all a little bit awkward/weird. They aren't super weird or anything, but it's no mystery why they are single. We are having a blast though teaching them often and helping them know of the restored gospel and the wonderful blessings that come from it.
I wrote down in my journal some of my favorite talks from conference but I didn't bring it with me so I can't remember real well. I do know that I loved Elder Callister's talk about the Book of Mormon. He brought up so many awesome points and it was just super bold. The man from the Seventy who talked about "Looking Up" gave a really cool talk as well. I think he said at the end something like Look Up, Step Up and then Cheer Up. Elder Holland was also very bold in inviting the young men to get ready for their missions because we need "battalions of misisonaries". My other favorite was Elder Christofferson's on repentance. There were a lot of talks I really loved so I look forward to reading them when we get the Liahona.
Well....that's about it with everything here. Let's hope Hill and her team can kick butt in state. How's everything going with Andy and Clara? Do you think I should send an email to them and express my sadness that Clara has yet to write me a single word?...haha I might have to.
Sounds like everything is going great. I think my biggest goal right now is to just become better at teaching. I am able to use the language I just need to become a better teacher. It's something that seemed really hard to develop because I couldn't speak before but now I have no excuse. It's time to turn on the after burners and start declaring repentance unto God's children with power and authority, no fear and with a desire for the welfare of their souls....I think it's a good goal...what do you think?
Think up some funny pranks I can pull on Anziano Frustaci's companion, Anziano Owens. He dumped a bucked of ice cold water on me last week and then this morning we all woke up to find our fingernails and toenails painted red. haha freaking nerd told us he stayed up 3 hours last night trying to do it. The kid is hilarious though.
Well I love you all...Talk to ya next week. Dad, just cause the Utes lose doesn't mean ya don't have to send an article. I would still enjoy it tons....grazie...
Ciao
Thursday, October 27, 2011
I Don't Think I've Had a Better Sunday in the Mission
From September 28, 2011 E-mail
Ciao Famiglia Mia,
Questa settimanna è stato uno che mi piacuto tantissimo. (It was a great week) Ho ricevuto una collega che già mi piace e che mi aiuterà molto con questo grande lavoro che facciamo ogni giorno. (I got a companion that I like already and that will help me a ton in this great work that we do every day)
So Anziano Hardy is from Las Vegas, just like Anziano Frustacci who is in our apartment. He is a tad bit taller than me at 6'5.......haha....fun stuff. He's starting his 5th transfer while I am starting my 8th!!!! Yeah I am pretty amazed that tomorrow is my year mark! Me and Anziano Frustatci are trying to think of something we can do. I dunno though...We'll think of something. My companion is a stud though and is coming from Treviso where he was his first 4 transfers. He is coming from a rather lazy missionary from what I've heard so he is anxious to get started. He speaks really well and I'm rather jealous of the accent that he's already learned. We will be able to teach each other a lot this transfer.
This week our miracle was having all three of our baptismal dates in church! Edmond, Antonio and Piero all came Sunday. We had another cool African come to church for the fourth or fifth time but we haven't been able to sit down and teach him yet. If we can I think we can bring him into the kingdom of God. It was amazing to see all three of them in church learning about the gospel outside of the lessons we teach as missionaries. They are mingling, talking and getting to the know the members and it's AWESOME! I don't think i have had a better Sunday in the mission. One of them even told me his mother had died that morning but he felt he needed to come to church. We were actually able to teach him after sacrament meeting our planned lesson which just happened to be the 2nd part of the plan of salvation. He was edified and we were edified with the spirit. I know that he left church that day knowing that he could see his mother again. It was also finally a relief to have my companion translate for Edmond this week. I have had to translate the last 4 or 5 weeks for him.
Today we finished doing a scambio with the Zone Leaders which was super fun. I was able to go with Anziano Armenise(Italian). He is about 27 yrs old haha and is about as mature as I am haha. I really learned a lot and I got to get some awesome Italian practice in. It is just so hard to SYL(speak your mission language) with another American outside of lessons and other things. haha English is so much easier. We will get it going though. Anyway, I realized how awesome it would be to serve in your own country....He is an awesome misisonary. I think it helps just a tad when you don't have to worry about the language and just focus on teaching the message of the restored gospel. It was hilarious listening to his English though haha. I taught him to say "hey home slice" and told him to say it to the other missionaries when we got back to the apartment. When we finally got home at the end of the night I told him to say it and it came out like this "hey how's life" haha.
Tucker, Elder Hardy and the ZLs
Well the work is going great. We had Edmond, Antonio and Piero in church Sunday and they are all doing great. They all want to be baptized and members of the church. I think for Piero we still got to help him understand the overall importance of our message and of the Atonement of Christ. He is super cool though, we are trying to get him involved in the ward more because he seems a little too attached to us, the missionaries and not the message(just a bit).
As far as Modena goes....I'm happy to be here for another transfer. I really do like Modena a lot. As far as comparing it to the other cities....I like the ward of Pavia the most but I like the city of Modena better than Pavia(it's bigger). Torino is awesome but I just feel like everything that happened in Torino was a blur haha. I would love to go back to Torino though but I think the only way that will happen is if I'm a zone leader there. Modena was built on a swamp apparently so sometimes we will be walking and turn a corner and that particular street will just stink super bad. It isn't too bad but every once and awhile it will just stink really bad haha.
My clothes are holding up relatively well. Both my suits are in pretty good condition. I have been keeping the extra pair of pants packed away and am just using one pair. I will probably try and do that until the end of the mission unless they start falling apart. Hopefully the suit coats can endure the second year. My two other pants that I have that aren't apart of the suits(the ones I wear practically everyday during the summer) are getting worn out. I'm thinking about going to a Chinese store and buying some cheap ones. My shoes are doing so so. They look ok on the outside because I shine them every so often but inside they are just so so. I think I can get through the mission with them but I'm not positive. I really don't want to spend money on clothes unless I have to. Don't worry about clothes though, I will take care of that stuff if I need to.
Christmas is coming up.....I'm not really sure if I will be here for Christmas. I would love to get some goodies though(treats). If I'm gonna get some treats though it has to be some good stuff. I think I will do ok with Pezzz...sun flower seeds and drink mixes.
It is great to hear how you are all doing. It's awesome to see the pictures of the cousins and see how they are growing. haha. Little Sammy in his football gear..such a stud. I'm pumped that the Utes are about to jump into the thick of things. It'd be cool too if the Cards made the playoffs.
I hope all is going well with everything else. Anybody get married that I would know? Anyone die? Any family members coming to church that weren't in the past? How's Connor doing? He said he was gonna send me a letter but I have yet to get one.
Oh yeah...I found a cool little giraffe thing that was like 1 euro. I bought it cause when I saw it I just laughed and thought how Amy Christensen loves giraffes. So I will try sending that home with some other crap around Christmas or something.
Ci Sentiamo e Vi Amo un millione, specialmente Sawyer boy
Ciao Famiglia Mia,
Questa settimanna è stato uno che mi piacuto tantissimo. (It was a great week) Ho ricevuto una collega che già mi piace e che mi aiuterà molto con questo grande lavoro che facciamo ogni giorno. (I got a companion that I like already and that will help me a ton in this great work that we do every day)
So Anziano Hardy is from Las Vegas, just like Anziano Frustacci who is in our apartment. He is a tad bit taller than me at 6'5.......haha....fun stuff. He's starting his 5th transfer while I am starting my 8th!!!! Yeah I am pretty amazed that tomorrow is my year mark! Me and Anziano Frustatci are trying to think of something we can do. I dunno though...We'll think of something. My companion is a stud though and is coming from Treviso where he was his first 4 transfers. He is coming from a rather lazy missionary from what I've heard so he is anxious to get started. He speaks really well and I'm rather jealous of the accent that he's already learned. We will be able to teach each other a lot this transfer.
This week our miracle was having all three of our baptismal dates in church! Edmond, Antonio and Piero all came Sunday. We had another cool African come to church for the fourth or fifth time but we haven't been able to sit down and teach him yet. If we can I think we can bring him into the kingdom of God. It was amazing to see all three of them in church learning about the gospel outside of the lessons we teach as missionaries. They are mingling, talking and getting to the know the members and it's AWESOME! I don't think i have had a better Sunday in the mission. One of them even told me his mother had died that morning but he felt he needed to come to church. We were actually able to teach him after sacrament meeting our planned lesson which just happened to be the 2nd part of the plan of salvation. He was edified and we were edified with the spirit. I know that he left church that day knowing that he could see his mother again. It was also finally a relief to have my companion translate for Edmond this week. I have had to translate the last 4 or 5 weeks for him.
Today we finished doing a scambio with the Zone Leaders which was super fun. I was able to go with Anziano Armenise(Italian). He is about 27 yrs old haha and is about as mature as I am haha. I really learned a lot and I got to get some awesome Italian practice in. It is just so hard to SYL(speak your mission language) with another American outside of lessons and other things. haha English is so much easier. We will get it going though. Anyway, I realized how awesome it would be to serve in your own country....He is an awesome misisonary. I think it helps just a tad when you don't have to worry about the language and just focus on teaching the message of the restored gospel. It was hilarious listening to his English though haha. I taught him to say "hey home slice" and told him to say it to the other missionaries when we got back to the apartment. When we finally got home at the end of the night I told him to say it and it came out like this "hey how's life" haha.
Tucker, Elder Hardy and the ZLs
Well the work is going great. We had Edmond, Antonio and Piero in church Sunday and they are all doing great. They all want to be baptized and members of the church. I think for Piero we still got to help him understand the overall importance of our message and of the Atonement of Christ. He is super cool though, we are trying to get him involved in the ward more because he seems a little too attached to us, the missionaries and not the message(just a bit).
As far as Modena goes....I'm happy to be here for another transfer. I really do like Modena a lot. As far as comparing it to the other cities....I like the ward of Pavia the most but I like the city of Modena better than Pavia(it's bigger). Torino is awesome but I just feel like everything that happened in Torino was a blur haha. I would love to go back to Torino though but I think the only way that will happen is if I'm a zone leader there. Modena was built on a swamp apparently so sometimes we will be walking and turn a corner and that particular street will just stink super bad. It isn't too bad but every once and awhile it will just stink really bad haha.
My clothes are holding up relatively well. Both my suits are in pretty good condition. I have been keeping the extra pair of pants packed away and am just using one pair. I will probably try and do that until the end of the mission unless they start falling apart. Hopefully the suit coats can endure the second year. My two other pants that I have that aren't apart of the suits(the ones I wear practically everyday during the summer) are getting worn out. I'm thinking about going to a Chinese store and buying some cheap ones. My shoes are doing so so. They look ok on the outside because I shine them every so often but inside they are just so so. I think I can get through the mission with them but I'm not positive. I really don't want to spend money on clothes unless I have to. Don't worry about clothes though, I will take care of that stuff if I need to.
Christmas is coming up.....I'm not really sure if I will be here for Christmas. I would love to get some goodies though(treats). If I'm gonna get some treats though it has to be some good stuff. I think I will do ok with Pezzz...sun flower seeds and drink mixes.
It is great to hear how you are all doing. It's awesome to see the pictures of the cousins and see how they are growing. haha. Little Sammy in his football gear..such a stud. I'm pumped that the Utes are about to jump into the thick of things. It'd be cool too if the Cards made the playoffs.
I hope all is going well with everything else. Anybody get married that I would know? Anyone die? Any family members coming to church that weren't in the past? How's Connor doing? He said he was gonna send me a letter but I have yet to get one.
Oh yeah...I found a cool little giraffe thing that was like 1 euro. I bought it cause when I saw it I just laughed and thought how Amy Christensen loves giraffes. So I will try sending that home with some other crap around Christmas or something.
Ci Sentiamo e Vi Amo un millione, specialmente Sawyer boy
It's Salvation for Goodness Sake
From September 20, 2011 E-mail
Well I'm definitely excited that the Utes smoked BYU. It will be even better when I get to rub it in the face of Anziano Frustacci(my group) tomorrow. We got transfer calls on Monday so I will quickly give you the scoop. My companion will be leaving to Treviso. The sister missionaries in my district and here in Modena are getting kicked out and President Wolfgramme is bringing in anziani instead. My companion is going to be Anziano Hardy(not Frank or Joe Hardy) who is two or three groups below me in the mission. Anziano Frustacci will be coming with his new companion Anziano Owens as well. We four will be sharing the apartment so it should be fun. Being in four is always interesting. I will still be the district leader and it will just be us four in our district. I'm pretty excited because Anziano Frustacci speaks super super good so hopefully i will pick up a lot.
On another note....THAT IS SO AWESOME that Hillary scored the golden goal! I got to admit once I saw that article I forgot all about the Utah football trouncing of BYU. Is she thinking pretty high of herself(I would). It makes it about twice as cool that it was against Skyline. That will seriously be an event to remember, am I right? Portroppo I can't watch the video of it...mission rules. I will just have to wait a year...yeah just one because I've been serving for a year..did u remember...did ya remember... One year....wowzer....nah just messing. That is still awesome though....Chris must look like a genius for moving her up there haha. It's awesome to hear how good Hillary is getting. I got a pretty good laugh when I read that Skyline's main player got hurt by Lisa haha.
Well sorry to hold off on the other good stuff. We had a baptism!!!! Ettore totally got dunked on Saturday. It was super cool and I was pretty excited for him.
The only down thing was that not a lot of members showed up. It was actually pretty lame too because right before the baptism there was a meeting for the leaders in the ward. There was like half the ward in the meeting and immediately after pretty much every one left...how lame? So lame...but....the baptism was awesome! His family will soon have a priesthood holder in the house which will be so sweet.
This week we got a referral from the sisters. About a month ago a man stopped them at the bus stop and started asking about them and what they do. He told them that he'd seen the Anziani a lot and wanted to speak with us. He came to church about 2 weeks ago and we got his number. This weekend we were able to meet with him and have a few lessons with him. The first time we met him he told us...alright so I want to know what I need to do to become a member and in what way your church is different...By the end of the lesson we had an investigator with a baptismal date. He is super cool and even has a friend in the ward. His name is Antonio and we are super excited to start teaching him.
Unfortunately we will not be able to have Edmond's baptism this week because the ward screwed up and didn't announce it in church. They want it to be announced so people can attend so we will now postpone it for like two weeks. Why two weeks and not one? Well next Saturday is general conference. Why can't we do it between sessions..I will tell you..Because of the time change, we don't see the first session until Saturday night. Why don't we do the baptism Saturday afternoon then? Well I will tell you.....Saturday afternoon the young men and single adults are doing a soccer tournament allllll day and they just happened to invited allllll the members.... Therefor will will wait two more weeks to baptize someone who is ready now... I LOVE IT!!!!! Not.
Don't worry I'm not mad or upset about it. It is what it is. We will just keep getting this stud ready. We were just a little disappointed in the ward a little bit. They don't seem to get overly excited for baptisms!!!! and I have no clue why....It's SALVATION!!!1 for goodness sake. haha
Well...I hope Hillary got my birthday card. I thought about sending a present but I could seriously not think of one dang thing to buy. Plus it would have cost a lot because I would have had to buy something then pay another 20 bucks to send it....sorry! Christmas! Maybe.
Well I love you all....I hope you liked the email this week...I certainly enjoyed yours. Ahhhh Utah 54 what a beautiful number. Let me know how those Cards do. I have never been so bummed out about a BYE week....PACKERS!!!!!....yeah....there ya go DAD! I know i don't want to get toooooo carried away with sports but every once and awhile throw in the PAC 12 standings....
Don't worry I don't think about sports really other than P days...for just a bit. I'm focused.
Love you all.....Clam ciaody
Well I'm definitely excited that the Utes smoked BYU. It will be even better when I get to rub it in the face of Anziano Frustacci(my group) tomorrow. We got transfer calls on Monday so I will quickly give you the scoop. My companion will be leaving to Treviso. The sister missionaries in my district and here in Modena are getting kicked out and President Wolfgramme is bringing in anziani instead. My companion is going to be Anziano Hardy(not Frank or Joe Hardy) who is two or three groups below me in the mission. Anziano Frustacci will be coming with his new companion Anziano Owens as well. We four will be sharing the apartment so it should be fun. Being in four is always interesting. I will still be the district leader and it will just be us four in our district. I'm pretty excited because Anziano Frustacci speaks super super good so hopefully i will pick up a lot.
On another note....THAT IS SO AWESOME that Hillary scored the golden goal! I got to admit once I saw that article I forgot all about the Utah football trouncing of BYU. Is she thinking pretty high of herself(I would). It makes it about twice as cool that it was against Skyline. That will seriously be an event to remember, am I right? Portroppo I can't watch the video of it...mission rules. I will just have to wait a year...yeah just one because I've been serving for a year..did u remember...did ya remember... One year....wowzer....nah just messing. That is still awesome though....Chris must look like a genius for moving her up there haha. It's awesome to hear how good Hillary is getting. I got a pretty good laugh when I read that Skyline's main player got hurt by Lisa haha.
Well sorry to hold off on the other good stuff. We had a baptism!!!! Ettore totally got dunked on Saturday. It was super cool and I was pretty excited for him.
The only down thing was that not a lot of members showed up. It was actually pretty lame too because right before the baptism there was a meeting for the leaders in the ward. There was like half the ward in the meeting and immediately after pretty much every one left...how lame? So lame...but....the baptism was awesome! His family will soon have a priesthood holder in the house which will be so sweet.
This week we got a referral from the sisters. About a month ago a man stopped them at the bus stop and started asking about them and what they do. He told them that he'd seen the Anziani a lot and wanted to speak with us. He came to church about 2 weeks ago and we got his number. This weekend we were able to meet with him and have a few lessons with him. The first time we met him he told us...alright so I want to know what I need to do to become a member and in what way your church is different...By the end of the lesson we had an investigator with a baptismal date. He is super cool and even has a friend in the ward. His name is Antonio and we are super excited to start teaching him.
Unfortunately we will not be able to have Edmond's baptism this week because the ward screwed up and didn't announce it in church. They want it to be announced so people can attend so we will now postpone it for like two weeks. Why two weeks and not one? Well next Saturday is general conference. Why can't we do it between sessions..I will tell you..Because of the time change, we don't see the first session until Saturday night. Why don't we do the baptism Saturday afternoon then? Well I will tell you.....Saturday afternoon the young men and single adults are doing a soccer tournament allllll day and they just happened to invited allllll the members.... Therefor will will wait two more weeks to baptize someone who is ready now... I LOVE IT!!!!! Not.
Don't worry I'm not mad or upset about it. It is what it is. We will just keep getting this stud ready. We were just a little disappointed in the ward a little bit. They don't seem to get overly excited for baptisms!!!! and I have no clue why....It's SALVATION!!!1 for goodness sake. haha
Well...I hope Hillary got my birthday card. I thought about sending a present but I could seriously not think of one dang thing to buy. Plus it would have cost a lot because I would have had to buy something then pay another 20 bucks to send it....sorry! Christmas! Maybe.
Well I love you all....I hope you liked the email this week...I certainly enjoyed yours. Ahhhh Utah 54 what a beautiful number. Let me know how those Cards do. I have never been so bummed out about a BYE week....PACKERS!!!!!....yeah....there ya go DAD! I know i don't want to get toooooo carried away with sports but every once and awhile throw in the PAC 12 standings....
Don't worry I don't think about sports really other than P days...for just a bit. I'm focused.
Love you all.....Clam ciaody
Thursday, September 29, 2011
"The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ Brings Happiness"
First.. I am disappointed the Utes lost but....i guess it's USC but still that sucks. They better kick butt against BYU though.
Second. I totally asked mom or dad(don't remember) last week about what I could buy Hillary but nobody responded. That sucks. I'm just gonna send a card. I realized that if i buy something it's gonna cost some amount but with the sending fee...it would just be way to much. Plus I haven't got a clue what to buy. I'm therefore going to send a card! yay.
Well it has actually been a pretty boring week here in Modena I'm not gonna lie. We have worked hard and taught lessons but nothing really exciting. Wah wah... Scusate! We did have Zone Conference which was very fun and full of ideas for things I can improve on. I also got a sack of letters which was soooo sweet. I think there were like 3 envelopes from Aunt Carol full of sports stuff, a few from Dianna, Jake McNeil and one from Lisa(dated back to last February???. I guess it was the lost letter.
We have recently started teaching a less-active member, Fabio. He's been a member for about 1 year and is just super cool. We met with him about two weeks ago and he was in great need of the gospel. He expressed his appreciation for the lesson and invited us to come back again. He's been super depressed lately and actually before our next appointment with him he checked himself into a clinic.
The stress from not having work was too much for the guy. We have started passing by like 3 times a week though and teaching him the gospel. He's super nice and super cool, he's struggling with a few commandments but he wants to change. He even asked us if our bishop could pass by(which was funny because that same lesson we wanted to ask him if he could meet with bishop).
He hasn't been able to come to church yet because he's been in the clinic. We are really hoping and praying that when he gets out that he can just be active again. His family basically doesn't want him around(he's like 26 yrs old and super smart). He told us the first time we met that the ward is basically his family. He needs your prayers!
Something small that has been a miracle for me is the growth of our investigator Ettore. You know we have been teaching him for a little over 2 months now and he's just a stud. Up until the last week or so we just haven't seen any excitement from him about baptism. He's had a date for awhile now but never have we seen the dude really smile or any real emotion toward this baptism.
Finally he is prepared for baptism and it's this SATURDAY! Yeah yeah. We are so excited and HE IS TOO! In the last week or two it's like when we see him in church he's smiling. When we ask him.."are you ready for your baptism?", he smiles and says yes. It has been super cool for me to see this and to see how much happier he seems, following the commandments and changing his life to be in line with that of our Savior Jesus Christ.
I know that it's just a smile but for me it has really shown that he does want to be baptized. It shows me that he knows it will change his life and bring him closer to Christ. We are excited and I know he's excited and it shows. It's simple, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ brings happiness.
Our buddy Edmond(Ghana) is also progressing too. He has come to church the last couple weeks and we have been teaching him like crazy. We have a date for him for the 24th! We are hoping he can be ready for that date. His only problem is that he can't meet with us super often so were having to teach lots of lessons in little appointment. We are hoping it wont overwhelm him. If we have to we will move his baptismal date but who knows yet.
It sounds like everyone is doing great! Oly soccer is kicking butt, Savannah is just owning everyone it seems like, that is super dope. I bet Lisa loved how in the newspaper article, it didn't spell her name right.
It sounds like Ashley to be upset about her role. I can't believe (R)Ashley is already in 8th grade and that Hill is turning 17.......This is crazy, this is crazy, as Clark Griswald would say. Well I am praying for you all and hope all is well.
Fill me in next week with the BYU game, how the cousins are doing in football and everything. Let me know if there is anything you want to know.
Next week is transfer ah.....the 29th is my year mark...yikes...I might have another companion..."ohhhhh boy".
Love you alll....clam CIOWDY
PS
Another thing...wow I don't want to complain but being Senior companion sucks ahahahahahahahaha. My Italian totally got better last transfer because I was having to speak a lot lot more but know I have not gotten better at all. haha. I need to just speak more and really work on it, but man it's tough when the person you're with doesn't speak better than you.
Cross my fingers...maybe I will train an italian...DESIDERO (I want to)
Tuck-a-luck
Hold the press......I just got a phone call from the office in Milano...We got a referral and the person's name is BOAT....haaha such a cool name...Boat. I also might be going to FIRENZE next week because my companion has to get his Permesso di Soggiorno (Visa). Firenze has the best deals on cool looking ties so I might buy a bunch for myself and you guys. Pray that I will be able to go hahaha.
Second. I totally asked mom or dad(don't remember) last week about what I could buy Hillary but nobody responded. That sucks. I'm just gonna send a card. I realized that if i buy something it's gonna cost some amount but with the sending fee...it would just be way to much. Plus I haven't got a clue what to buy. I'm therefore going to send a card! yay.
Well it has actually been a pretty boring week here in Modena I'm not gonna lie. We have worked hard and taught lessons but nothing really exciting. Wah wah... Scusate! We did have Zone Conference which was very fun and full of ideas for things I can improve on. I also got a sack of letters which was soooo sweet. I think there were like 3 envelopes from Aunt Carol full of sports stuff, a few from Dianna, Jake McNeil and one from Lisa(dated back to last February???. I guess it was the lost letter.
We have recently started teaching a less-active member, Fabio. He's been a member for about 1 year and is just super cool. We met with him about two weeks ago and he was in great need of the gospel. He expressed his appreciation for the lesson and invited us to come back again. He's been super depressed lately and actually before our next appointment with him he checked himself into a clinic.
The stress from not having work was too much for the guy. We have started passing by like 3 times a week though and teaching him the gospel. He's super nice and super cool, he's struggling with a few commandments but he wants to change. He even asked us if our bishop could pass by(which was funny because that same lesson we wanted to ask him if he could meet with bishop).
He hasn't been able to come to church yet because he's been in the clinic. We are really hoping and praying that when he gets out that he can just be active again. His family basically doesn't want him around(he's like 26 yrs old and super smart). He told us the first time we met that the ward is basically his family. He needs your prayers!
Something small that has been a miracle for me is the growth of our investigator Ettore. You know we have been teaching him for a little over 2 months now and he's just a stud. Up until the last week or so we just haven't seen any excitement from him about baptism. He's had a date for awhile now but never have we seen the dude really smile or any real emotion toward this baptism.
Finally he is prepared for baptism and it's this SATURDAY! Yeah yeah. We are so excited and HE IS TOO! In the last week or two it's like when we see him in church he's smiling. When we ask him.."are you ready for your baptism?", he smiles and says yes. It has been super cool for me to see this and to see how much happier he seems, following the commandments and changing his life to be in line with that of our Savior Jesus Christ.
I know that it's just a smile but for me it has really shown that he does want to be baptized. It shows me that he knows it will change his life and bring him closer to Christ. We are excited and I know he's excited and it shows. It's simple, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ brings happiness.
Our buddy Edmond(Ghana) is also progressing too. He has come to church the last couple weeks and we have been teaching him like crazy. We have a date for him for the 24th! We are hoping he can be ready for that date. His only problem is that he can't meet with us super often so were having to teach lots of lessons in little appointment. We are hoping it wont overwhelm him. If we have to we will move his baptismal date but who knows yet.
It sounds like everyone is doing great! Oly soccer is kicking butt, Savannah is just owning everyone it seems like, that is super dope. I bet Lisa loved how in the newspaper article, it didn't spell her name right.
It sounds like Ashley to be upset about her role. I can't believe (R)Ashley is already in 8th grade and that Hill is turning 17.......This is crazy, this is crazy, as Clark Griswald would say. Well I am praying for you all and hope all is well.
Fill me in next week with the BYU game, how the cousins are doing in football and everything. Let me know if there is anything you want to know.
Next week is transfer ah.....the 29th is my year mark...yikes...I might have another companion..."ohhhhh boy".
Love you alll....clam CIOWDY
PS
Another thing...wow I don't want to complain but being Senior companion sucks ahahahahahahahaha. My Italian totally got better last transfer because I was having to speak a lot lot more but know I have not gotten better at all. haha. I need to just speak more and really work on it, but man it's tough when the person you're with doesn't speak better than you.
Cross my fingers...maybe I will train an italian...DESIDERO (I want to)
Tuck-a-luck
Hold the press......I just got a phone call from the office in Milano...We got a referral and the person's name is BOAT....haaha such a cool name...Boat. I also might be going to FIRENZE next week because my companion has to get his Permesso di Soggiorno (Visa). Firenze has the best deals on cool looking ties so I might buy a bunch for myself and you guys. Pray that I will be able to go hahaha.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
"I hope I will be a great member in your church"
From September 7 e-mail
hey everyone!
Well we were able to have a pretty decent week this week. I was actually able to leave Modena and go to Reggio Emilia for a scambio. Our zone leaders felt that since we don't have elders in my district to do scambios with that we could do one. Reggio Emilia is super close but it was super fun. We were able to teach a bunch of lessons, see some really cool investigators and members of the ward there. I was also able to see how much better their apartment is than ours haha.
So a little update on our investigators. Monday night we had a super awesome lesson with Ettore. So basically Ettore had been taught just about everything and was willing to follow the commandments. He'd actually been following them for quiet some time but he was waiting to receive a solid answer to his prayers before being baptized. On Monday though we brought one of the returned missionaries to the lesson and talked all about Alma 32:21. It talks about how faith isn't having a perfect knowledge of things. We applied it to his situation about baptism and invited him to be baptized a week from Saturday and he said yes!! We were soooooooooo stoked for him. Tonight we are putting all the arrangements for the baptism together. We are super excited.
I also talked a little bit about Edmond last week, I think. Anyways he ran into us about a month ago. We started teaching him and came to find out that he went to church when he was in Ghana. He wasn't ever baptized though. Anyways he knows quite a bit about the church, even a little about the temple. We brought him to church last week and were starting to teach him so he can be baptized the 24th. He told us the other day haha, "I hope I will be a great member in your church". We laughed and told him he would.
This week my companion helped me to really realized how much I need to be me. We were just doing casa and brought up the fact about how weird we sound when we speak sometimes. We got talking about our entire casa approach and even just the way we talk. We really realized that we weren't fully being ourselves. We are both super funny and outgoing. Up until that point it didn't feel like we were entirely ourselves. We also realized how when we were teaching we weren't being ourselves either. While it's good to sound like this well-mannered, spiritual, Satan fighting person, we still need to be ourselves. For me I realized how much more I need to put my own personality into this work. I need to be my funny, slightly goofy self. That is one of the things we are working on this week!
So up until this point me and my companion haven't gotten inside a whole lot doing casa. A little of this is due to the fact that we do lots of strada and parco. It just has seemed that we hardly ever get in doing casa. This last Sunday though we planned to do some casa in centro. In the past we have avoided doing this because we both dislike doing casa in centro.
The night before during programming we both felt fine with the thought of doing it. So we started Sunday afternoon by doing casa. After the first small palazzo we exited without meeting anyone. The next palazzo though we got in at the first door. We were able to have a pretty good casa lesson although we left a little rust on his couch. It was really a great example for me because it helps me to know that sometimes we can't just not do certain things because we don't like it. For us we don't usually like centro casa but we both felt inclined to do it and in the end it paid off. We just need to follow the spirit and it'll lead us to the God's elect.
So I got your package yesterday! I was so pumped when I saw it. I tore it open sooo fast. It was actually my companion's birthday yesterday. Kinda funny that I got a present yesterday and he didn't. He was definitely super into it about having it be his birthday. I remember for me it was like something that was so not a big deal but haha I've never seen someone so into the whole birthday thing...I made him German pancakes in the morning so that's about the only thing special that happened for his birthday.
This morning we went to a half-member families house to work in their vineyard! It was super fun and I will send some pictures.
Anyways that is cool the Utes won, hopefully they can pick it up this week verse USC. I'm totally gearing up for another general conference. We also have transfers coming up in a few weeks so I dunno what's gonna happen there. in the words of Lloyd Christmas..."aahhh..uhhh"
Love you guys and can't wait to hear from ya next week. Hope you liked the email!
Tuck
hey everyone!
Well we were able to have a pretty decent week this week. I was actually able to leave Modena and go to Reggio Emilia for a scambio. Our zone leaders felt that since we don't have elders in my district to do scambios with that we could do one. Reggio Emilia is super close but it was super fun. We were able to teach a bunch of lessons, see some really cool investigators and members of the ward there. I was also able to see how much better their apartment is than ours haha.
So a little update on our investigators. Monday night we had a super awesome lesson with Ettore. So basically Ettore had been taught just about everything and was willing to follow the commandments. He'd actually been following them for quiet some time but he was waiting to receive a solid answer to his prayers before being baptized. On Monday though we brought one of the returned missionaries to the lesson and talked all about Alma 32:21. It talks about how faith isn't having a perfect knowledge of things. We applied it to his situation about baptism and invited him to be baptized a week from Saturday and he said yes!! We were soooooooooo stoked for him. Tonight we are putting all the arrangements for the baptism together. We are super excited.
I also talked a little bit about Edmond last week, I think. Anyways he ran into us about a month ago. We started teaching him and came to find out that he went to church when he was in Ghana. He wasn't ever baptized though. Anyways he knows quite a bit about the church, even a little about the temple. We brought him to church last week and were starting to teach him so he can be baptized the 24th. He told us the other day haha, "I hope I will be a great member in your church". We laughed and told him he would.
This week my companion helped me to really realized how much I need to be me. We were just doing casa and brought up the fact about how weird we sound when we speak sometimes. We got talking about our entire casa approach and even just the way we talk. We really realized that we weren't fully being ourselves. We are both super funny and outgoing. Up until that point it didn't feel like we were entirely ourselves. We also realized how when we were teaching we weren't being ourselves either. While it's good to sound like this well-mannered, spiritual, Satan fighting person, we still need to be ourselves. For me I realized how much more I need to put my own personality into this work. I need to be my funny, slightly goofy self. That is one of the things we are working on this week!
So up until this point me and my companion haven't gotten inside a whole lot doing casa. A little of this is due to the fact that we do lots of strada and parco. It just has seemed that we hardly ever get in doing casa. This last Sunday though we planned to do some casa in centro. In the past we have avoided doing this because we both dislike doing casa in centro.
The night before during programming we both felt fine with the thought of doing it. So we started Sunday afternoon by doing casa. After the first small palazzo we exited without meeting anyone. The next palazzo though we got in at the first door. We were able to have a pretty good casa lesson although we left a little rust on his couch. It was really a great example for me because it helps me to know that sometimes we can't just not do certain things because we don't like it. For us we don't usually like centro casa but we both felt inclined to do it and in the end it paid off. We just need to follow the spirit and it'll lead us to the God's elect.
So I got your package yesterday! I was so pumped when I saw it. I tore it open sooo fast. It was actually my companion's birthday yesterday. Kinda funny that I got a present yesterday and he didn't. He was definitely super into it about having it be his birthday. I remember for me it was like something that was so not a big deal but haha I've never seen someone so into the whole birthday thing...I made him German pancakes in the morning so that's about the only thing special that happened for his birthday.
This morning we went to a half-member families house to work in their vineyard! It was super fun and I will send some pictures.
Anyways that is cool the Utes won, hopefully they can pick it up this week verse USC. I'm totally gearing up for another general conference. We also have transfers coming up in a few weeks so I dunno what's gonna happen there. in the words of Lloyd Christmas..."aahhh..uhhh"
Love you guys and can't wait to hear from ya next week. Hope you liked the email!
Tuck
"The Power of Example"
August 31 E-mail:
What's up everyone? What's happening in SLC?
Is everyone gearing up for an incredible season with the UTES in the PAC-12? I bet...I'm even pretty excited and I won't even get to see any of the games. Well things have returned to normal here in Modena. Dad you are right about the weather, it has cooled down considerably. It has gone from being literally blazing hot to nice and cool. It's amazing!!!
I was excited to see some pictures from the cabin. Man I love our cabin!! I think I express that every time it gets brought up. It is hard to think that it's been a whole year since we were there right before I left to the MTC. Everyone says that year two of the mission goes by faster than the second. If this is the case than I'm kinda scared because this first year flashed by. I refuse to believe it has been this long haha.
Well we finally got back in the groove and hit our mark of 20 lessons this week. We also were able to get back teaching Ettore! It was really cool seeing him again and hearing that he has been keeping all the commandments! He really does have a desire to know if these things are true. His only problem right now is that he can't seem to get an answer. We have been trying lots of things to help him to recognize an answer or find his answer. Hopefully our lesson with him tonight will go well.
Giuseppe is really struggling right now. We reset a baptismal date with him this past week and we could really see his desire to be baptized. All of his problems just seem to heavy for him though. We set a smoking plan to help him stop and he basically failed it after the first day and basically hasn't tried. He is basically alone because his wife left him and he doesn't get to see his kids often. He worries about everything and frankly I don't blame him. Right now I think the biggest thing we can do is get members to the lessons and get some support. I strongly feel that the members will be able to provide some much needed support because we as misisonaries can only do so much. Hopefully we can find some stud members to help us out. We got a couple of them in mind.
Well this is more of a miracle for the sister misisonaries in my district I guess but I will tell it anyway. This last Friday we were out doing strada in centro. We had been doing a Fast that day with Ettore(so he coulD get his answer). We we're passing by a market and of course we were hungry so we decided to stop really quick and check it out. We had seen this market a ton but never went inside. We saw some really good dolce that we wanted to buy for after when we ended our fast. While we were waiting in line a lady we had met about a week earlier stopped us and started talking with us. Of course we recognized her because she was super funny and old haha and we had a nice little chat.
The miracle of this story is that during district meeting on Monday the sisters told us that one of their investigators had seen us that day. He told the sisters that he overheard us talking with this lady and was very impressed with us. He said that he's seen us before and that we always had good things to say. The sisters went on to tell us that it really helped him to have the desire to learn more from them and want to be baptized! It was cool for us because we didn't know we were being "watched"(sounds kinda weird) but people really do watch our every move. It helps me to know that we need to always be witnesses of Christ and act like he would. I know that as we do this others will see our example and want to follow.
So that is cool that oly soccer is doing great 4-2-1? not too shabby. Hopefully they can continue to kick butt. I don't know that it is Hillary's birthday on the 17th...I'm not that bad of a brother...Dai!
I spent some time today looking for something to get her for her birthday but I couldn't think of a darn thing. Any ideas? I'm looking at something under 20 euro because it will also cost lots to send it back to Utah. If you mention clothing, try to send me measurements in Italian.
So dad?....you gonna send me some salsa?..?
Also I forgot to mention...I did send the the right address but I left out the number to our mailbox. It isn't a huge deal because the mailbox has our name on it, but it will make it easier....our mailbox number is #15.
I saw some cool stuff this week. The highlight(of coincidences or interesting things that happened) was talking with an African that went to TCU for track and said he'd been to Utah. We also saw a bum walking the street in a UNLV jersey. Just thought I would let you know
Love you guys a ton...are you excited for General Conference? I am in shock that it is already almost conference again. Feels like yesterday that I was in Milano with Anziano Bolnick watching conference.
Well watch some good movies for me. Mi sento la mancanza di vedere le film. è stato già un anno che non li ho visto però addess io ho un macchina di DVD!....haha love you guys so much
CIAO!
What's up everyone? What's happening in SLC?
Is everyone gearing up for an incredible season with the UTES in the PAC-12? I bet...I'm even pretty excited and I won't even get to see any of the games. Well things have returned to normal here in Modena. Dad you are right about the weather, it has cooled down considerably. It has gone from being literally blazing hot to nice and cool. It's amazing!!!
I was excited to see some pictures from the cabin. Man I love our cabin!! I think I express that every time it gets brought up. It is hard to think that it's been a whole year since we were there right before I left to the MTC. Everyone says that year two of the mission goes by faster than the second. If this is the case than I'm kinda scared because this first year flashed by. I refuse to believe it has been this long haha.
Well we finally got back in the groove and hit our mark of 20 lessons this week. We also were able to get back teaching Ettore! It was really cool seeing him again and hearing that he has been keeping all the commandments! He really does have a desire to know if these things are true. His only problem right now is that he can't seem to get an answer. We have been trying lots of things to help him to recognize an answer or find his answer. Hopefully our lesson with him tonight will go well.
Giuseppe is really struggling right now. We reset a baptismal date with him this past week and we could really see his desire to be baptized. All of his problems just seem to heavy for him though. We set a smoking plan to help him stop and he basically failed it after the first day and basically hasn't tried. He is basically alone because his wife left him and he doesn't get to see his kids often. He worries about everything and frankly I don't blame him. Right now I think the biggest thing we can do is get members to the lessons and get some support. I strongly feel that the members will be able to provide some much needed support because we as misisonaries can only do so much. Hopefully we can find some stud members to help us out. We got a couple of them in mind.
Well this is more of a miracle for the sister misisonaries in my district I guess but I will tell it anyway. This last Friday we were out doing strada in centro. We had been doing a Fast that day with Ettore(so he coulD get his answer). We we're passing by a market and of course we were hungry so we decided to stop really quick and check it out. We had seen this market a ton but never went inside. We saw some really good dolce that we wanted to buy for after when we ended our fast. While we were waiting in line a lady we had met about a week earlier stopped us and started talking with us. Of course we recognized her because she was super funny and old haha and we had a nice little chat.
The miracle of this story is that during district meeting on Monday the sisters told us that one of their investigators had seen us that day. He told the sisters that he overheard us talking with this lady and was very impressed with us. He said that he's seen us before and that we always had good things to say. The sisters went on to tell us that it really helped him to have the desire to learn more from them and want to be baptized! It was cool for us because we didn't know we were being "watched"(sounds kinda weird) but people really do watch our every move. It helps me to know that we need to always be witnesses of Christ and act like he would. I know that as we do this others will see our example and want to follow.
So that is cool that oly soccer is doing great 4-2-1? not too shabby. Hopefully they can continue to kick butt. I don't know that it is Hillary's birthday on the 17th...I'm not that bad of a brother...Dai!
I spent some time today looking for something to get her for her birthday but I couldn't think of a darn thing. Any ideas? I'm looking at something under 20 euro because it will also cost lots to send it back to Utah. If you mention clothing, try to send me measurements in Italian.
So dad?....you gonna send me some salsa?..?
Also I forgot to mention...I did send the the right address but I left out the number to our mailbox. It isn't a huge deal because the mailbox has our name on it, but it will make it easier....our mailbox number is #15.
I saw some cool stuff this week. The highlight(of coincidences or interesting things that happened) was talking with an African that went to TCU for track and said he'd been to Utah. We also saw a bum walking the street in a UNLV jersey. Just thought I would let you know
Love you guys a ton...are you excited for General Conference? I am in shock that it is already almost conference again. Feels like yesterday that I was in Milano with Anziano Bolnick watching conference.
Well watch some good movies for me. Mi sento la mancanza di vedere le film. è stato già un anno che non li ho visto però addess io ho un macchina di DVD!....haha love you guys so much
CIAO!
"What Would Jesus Do.... and Don't Lie"
Ooh dad....no no no....I know I'm in Italy but putting more about sports stuff about Italian soccer than Utah football?....strike three and you are out my friend. Devi sempre spedirmi le cose degli uomini. Calcio è un pò feminile, che pensi tu? Mi piace il calcio ma babbo, dai!
Va bene padre mio, ti perdono ma la prossima volta ti aspetto di spedirmi le cose più, diciamo, maschile. ok ok sto scherzando un po. Im super grateful for the sports stuff dad! just giving ya a bit of a hard time. Im excited to get that package you guys sent.
Did you send it to my apartment or to Milano office?
So what's up everyone? You said that Salt Lake has been pretty hot these days?....haha you probably don't realize how hot it is here in Modena. HOLY SMOKES...I'm surprised the city hasn't just caught on fire from his heat. I think the temperature has been floating around 38 to 40 Celsius the past week!!!! Luckily we are still alive but it has been super difficult. The new sister in my district has basically had to stay inside the entire week because she cant take it. We literally step outside our apartment at 10:30 to start the day and within about 5 minutes we are just sweating like crazy haha. HOPE it doesn't sound like I'm complaining! I've managed to just laugh about it quite a bit but still WHEW.......tough work I'm telling ya. We have had bike problems the last couple days. I've never appreciated having a bike so much in my entire life.
Haha well other than being hot....the work is going so so. Ferragosto was pretty tough on us this last week but we managed to get through it. We were basically confined to working in centro the entire week because there was literally just nobody around. The people are starting to trickle back into Modena though. I don't have lots to tell this week because really not much happened. We only taught about 10lessons this week. haha we set up about 30 lesson but about 2/3 of them all cancelled. I don't think we had any lessons this week with our investigators. They were all with members, new converts and a couple new people we met in the parks and what not.
It was really an awesome week for us though to see what our weaknesses were as a companionship. We figured out that we need to really work on our street approach and overall ability to be personable with people. We had the opportunity to do a blitz with the Zone leaders which really helped a lot. I was with Anziano Andersen and it was amazing to see how much better I can be. The dude can just teach but at the same time talk and really get to know people.
Well we had planned to have Ettore baptized this week but unfortunately we still haven't been able to see him for awhile. He got back from vacation last week but has been "busy" and what not. We can just tell by talking with him on the phone his desire has kinda vanished. We are seeing him tonight though and we fill it will be an awesome lesson. We're hoping to get back on the baptism train...CHOO CHOO!
well we've really been trying hard to find some investigators this past week. We weren't able to teach a whole lot of lessons because about 2/3 of every lesson we set ended up getting cancelled. Our Red Zone finding time from 6pm-8pm expanded to an all day process of finding! Even with all this time to find people to teach we couldn't find a single person. It was like this for about 3 days straight.
We were working yesterday for awhile in the park trying to find people. We were able to have a few lessons with people we met. We had already had about 2 lessons cancel so we were trying to make up for them to reach our daily goals. It got to be about 6 pm which was the time we scheduled to do casa.
We got to the street we chose and we both felt prompted to skip it and go to the next adjoining street. From afar they were just these big palazzi that we hadn't done yet. When we got to the front of the building we realized we had already done it.
We both decided to go and do this palazzo anyway and after a couple doors we were greeted by a family from Africa and had an awesome lesson. They were super interested, they weren't the normal "African" investigator that responds to every question with "ya ya Jesus Christ is our Savior" even when that answer has nothing to do with the question. It was just cool to see how we were prompted to divert from our programmed street and yet we found success. I know that as we try to really listen for these promptings we will find even more success.
Mom you asked about what new insight and also about the scriptures. Hm....your kinda putting me on the spot....I have really been able to focus a lot on baptism this past week and why it's important. Of course there are so many reasons for instance...we make covenants that bring us blessings, we can receive the holy ghost after and have its guidance, we have to be baptized to reach the celestial kingdom. There are many reasons but the one that has really hit me a lot the last week is this....2 Nephi 31:5(basically 5-12). The thing I've realized is that Christ was baptized. We are here on the earth to follow our Savior Jesus Christ and do the things he did. Christ was perfect but yet he was baptized so that he could show us the way. Of course there are many excellent reasons to be baptized but for me the main one is that by being baptized we follow Christ. I just think it's as simple as that. Christ tells us in these verses to follow him, in Italian it says "Seguiteme, seguiteme...follow me". So for my investigators maybe I should just ask "what would Jesus do? and don't lie!"
I'm stoked that Hillary is playing really good. So what is the team's overall record and how do you think they are doing up until now? That is kinda lame that the Xardinals are dropping off...I guess I chose a great time to come into the mission huh?. Keep on keeping on. I can tell by reading the emails you're all very busy but "Cela FATE!"
Love you all and am excited to hear from you next week.
Ciao
Va bene padre mio, ti perdono ma la prossima volta ti aspetto di spedirmi le cose più, diciamo, maschile. ok ok sto scherzando un po. Im super grateful for the sports stuff dad! just giving ya a bit of a hard time. Im excited to get that package you guys sent.
Did you send it to my apartment or to Milano office?
So what's up everyone? You said that Salt Lake has been pretty hot these days?....haha you probably don't realize how hot it is here in Modena. HOLY SMOKES...I'm surprised the city hasn't just caught on fire from his heat. I think the temperature has been floating around 38 to 40 Celsius the past week!!!! Luckily we are still alive but it has been super difficult. The new sister in my district has basically had to stay inside the entire week because she cant take it. We literally step outside our apartment at 10:30 to start the day and within about 5 minutes we are just sweating like crazy haha. HOPE it doesn't sound like I'm complaining! I've managed to just laugh about it quite a bit but still WHEW.......tough work I'm telling ya. We have had bike problems the last couple days. I've never appreciated having a bike so much in my entire life.
Haha well other than being hot....the work is going so so. Ferragosto was pretty tough on us this last week but we managed to get through it. We were basically confined to working in centro the entire week because there was literally just nobody around. The people are starting to trickle back into Modena though. I don't have lots to tell this week because really not much happened. We only taught about 10lessons this week. haha we set up about 30 lesson but about 2/3 of them all cancelled. I don't think we had any lessons this week with our investigators. They were all with members, new converts and a couple new people we met in the parks and what not.
It was really an awesome week for us though to see what our weaknesses were as a companionship. We figured out that we need to really work on our street approach and overall ability to be personable with people. We had the opportunity to do a blitz with the Zone leaders which really helped a lot. I was with Anziano Andersen and it was amazing to see how much better I can be. The dude can just teach but at the same time talk and really get to know people.
Well we had planned to have Ettore baptized this week but unfortunately we still haven't been able to see him for awhile. He got back from vacation last week but has been "busy" and what not. We can just tell by talking with him on the phone his desire has kinda vanished. We are seeing him tonight though and we fill it will be an awesome lesson. We're hoping to get back on the baptism train...CHOO CHOO!
well we've really been trying hard to find some investigators this past week. We weren't able to teach a whole lot of lessons because about 2/3 of every lesson we set ended up getting cancelled. Our Red Zone finding time from 6pm-8pm expanded to an all day process of finding! Even with all this time to find people to teach we couldn't find a single person. It was like this for about 3 days straight.
We were working yesterday for awhile in the park trying to find people. We were able to have a few lessons with people we met. We had already had about 2 lessons cancel so we were trying to make up for them to reach our daily goals. It got to be about 6 pm which was the time we scheduled to do casa.
We got to the street we chose and we both felt prompted to skip it and go to the next adjoining street. From afar they were just these big palazzi that we hadn't done yet. When we got to the front of the building we realized we had already done it.
We both decided to go and do this palazzo anyway and after a couple doors we were greeted by a family from Africa and had an awesome lesson. They were super interested, they weren't the normal "African" investigator that responds to every question with "ya ya Jesus Christ is our Savior" even when that answer has nothing to do with the question. It was just cool to see how we were prompted to divert from our programmed street and yet we found success. I know that as we try to really listen for these promptings we will find even more success.
Mom you asked about what new insight and also about the scriptures. Hm....your kinda putting me on the spot....I have really been able to focus a lot on baptism this past week and why it's important. Of course there are so many reasons for instance...we make covenants that bring us blessings, we can receive the holy ghost after and have its guidance, we have to be baptized to reach the celestial kingdom. There are many reasons but the one that has really hit me a lot the last week is this....2 Nephi 31:5(basically 5-12). The thing I've realized is that Christ was baptized. We are here on the earth to follow our Savior Jesus Christ and do the things he did. Christ was perfect but yet he was baptized so that he could show us the way. Of course there are many excellent reasons to be baptized but for me the main one is that by being baptized we follow Christ. I just think it's as simple as that. Christ tells us in these verses to follow him, in Italian it says "Seguiteme, seguiteme...follow me". So for my investigators maybe I should just ask "what would Jesus do? and don't lie!"
I'm stoked that Hillary is playing really good. So what is the team's overall record and how do you think they are doing up until now? That is kinda lame that the Xardinals are dropping off...I guess I chose a great time to come into the mission huh?. Keep on keeping on. I can tell by reading the emails you're all very busy but "Cela FATE!"
Love you all and am excited to hear from you next week.
Ciao
"A Mission Pays Off"
August 17 E-mail
Man....Italy is just awesome. Sorry you can't all be here enjoying the fun with me. It was a nice mix of updates from you guys this week. Keep the mix coming and I will be set. I'm excited to receive the package that you all sent. I can never get enough sports. Aunt Carol has been sending envelopes full of clippings every so often which is also really fun.
That is super cool though that Oly was able to hang on to tie Bonneville. It's too bad they couldn't have won though. So how is the team looking right about now? You said that a bunch of girls chose not to play this year, was it just a few? Is Connor helping to coach? Is Hillary looking like one of the better players on the team? Sì o no?
I'd like to announce that my hard work and diligent efforts of seeking for loose change on the ground has paid off once again. Last night we were riding home and I caught a glimpse of some pink paper on the ground. I immediately kinda said loudly to my comp..."heck yeah"...confused he was like what?...I put my bike down walked straight to the pink paper and held up £10. I'm so good! Anyways I will have to put it to good use.
We had an addrestramento yesterday which was really fun(basically a zone conference). We really learned a lot and got to do lots of role plays. It was fun to hear from President as he was talking to us about how the mission is having lots of success right now. He mentioned how Pavia had 8 baptisms last transfer. haha I immediately heard the missionaries behind me saying.."oh dang...Anziano Barnes is awesome, he is the man"..haha I wanted to turn around so bad and say....well actually I was there last transfer.... haha luckily I got over my prideful self and stayed quiet. haha. It was cool though to hear that the other 3 Africans got baptized. The mission is really just killing it though. I think as a mission last month there were 41 baptisms total.
This week for us has had it's ups and downs. We weren't able to meet our mark of 20 lessons again but we hit 19. We had some really cool thing happen though. Sunday night we had an awesome lunch and lesson with our bishop. His kids were down in the South this month but we ate with him and his wife. We just clicked though. We probably spent a little too much time with them but it was well worth it. The whole African thing is way in the past. We did this cool lesson though with the Alma 50 chapter vs 1-4. Comparing the fortifications of the cities to commandments and the family. We have a whole example with pictures and everything it was dope (something I inherited from Anziano Bolnick). Afterward Vescovo Carrus told us how much he loved the lesson. He told us that next Sunday he was gonna announce to the ward to try and invite us over so we could do this lesson. What better way to work with members than to have the bishop invite everyone to do so....I was just like...that would be fantastic!
Later that night we we're able to have cool lesson with this Romanian guy. We talked about finding happiness and having faith in Christ to overcome our problems. It was difficult for him because he felt like he's followed Christ in his life and things just got worse. He wanted to know how he could be happy if he didn't have food for his children. We were a bit empty with a solid answer but we talked about how this faith does help. I can't remember exactly what we told him but he told us how he felt good about what we'd said. We fixed an appointment for the next day but he didn't ever show up.
We are currently working with an African named Steven who is really cool. He goes to Bible study classes and stuff like that. We currently have a baptismal date set with him for September 3rd. He is just hte nicest kid ever and loves learning. We just got solidify him a little bit. He has stood us up a few times because he has fallen asleep or something. Africans do that fairly often because they just forget everything..it's bad sometimes. Oh well. Steven is really cool though and were excited for him. No news on Ettora but we think he got back from vacation today. I have a feeling this vacation will have taken him back a few steps in terms of him thinking he is ready.
So what was the whole, mom not happy about the pictures of me in the apartment?...I don't think i quite understood. I am glad you liked the other pictures at least. The weather is just dandy here about this time. It isn't like overly hot but it's hot. I come home with a damp collar every night haha. I can't believe it's already almost September! This summer has flown by.
UTAH FOOTBALL!!!! PAC 12!!! You do realize, dad, I'm gonna need a weekly update, right?.. Let's hope the Utes don't get thumped by USC. It will be an interesting season that I wont see. Oh well.
Man....Italy is just awesome. Sorry you can't all be here enjoying the fun with me. It was a nice mix of updates from you guys this week. Keep the mix coming and I will be set. I'm excited to receive the package that you all sent. I can never get enough sports. Aunt Carol has been sending envelopes full of clippings every so often which is also really fun.
That is super cool though that Oly was able to hang on to tie Bonneville. It's too bad they couldn't have won though. So how is the team looking right about now? You said that a bunch of girls chose not to play this year, was it just a few? Is Connor helping to coach? Is Hillary looking like one of the better players on the team? Sì o no?
I'd like to announce that my hard work and diligent efforts of seeking for loose change on the ground has paid off once again. Last night we were riding home and I caught a glimpse of some pink paper on the ground. I immediately kinda said loudly to my comp..."heck yeah"...confused he was like what?...I put my bike down walked straight to the pink paper and held up £10. I'm so good! Anyways I will have to put it to good use.
We had an addrestramento yesterday which was really fun(basically a zone conference). We really learned a lot and got to do lots of role plays. It was fun to hear from President as he was talking to us about how the mission is having lots of success right now. He mentioned how Pavia had 8 baptisms last transfer. haha I immediately heard the missionaries behind me saying.."oh dang...Anziano Barnes is awesome, he is the man"..haha I wanted to turn around so bad and say....well actually I was there last transfer.... haha luckily I got over my prideful self and stayed quiet. haha. It was cool though to hear that the other 3 Africans got baptized. The mission is really just killing it though. I think as a mission last month there were 41 baptisms total.
This week for us has had it's ups and downs. We weren't able to meet our mark of 20 lessons again but we hit 19. We had some really cool thing happen though. Sunday night we had an awesome lunch and lesson with our bishop. His kids were down in the South this month but we ate with him and his wife. We just clicked though. We probably spent a little too much time with them but it was well worth it. The whole African thing is way in the past. We did this cool lesson though with the Alma 50 chapter vs 1-4. Comparing the fortifications of the cities to commandments and the family. We have a whole example with pictures and everything it was dope (something I inherited from Anziano Bolnick). Afterward Vescovo Carrus told us how much he loved the lesson. He told us that next Sunday he was gonna announce to the ward to try and invite us over so we could do this lesson. What better way to work with members than to have the bishop invite everyone to do so....I was just like...that would be fantastic!
Later that night we we're able to have cool lesson with this Romanian guy. We talked about finding happiness and having faith in Christ to overcome our problems. It was difficult for him because he felt like he's followed Christ in his life and things just got worse. He wanted to know how he could be happy if he didn't have food for his children. We were a bit empty with a solid answer but we talked about how this faith does help. I can't remember exactly what we told him but he told us how he felt good about what we'd said. We fixed an appointment for the next day but he didn't ever show up.
We are currently working with an African named Steven who is really cool. He goes to Bible study classes and stuff like that. We currently have a baptismal date set with him for September 3rd. He is just hte nicest kid ever and loves learning. We just got solidify him a little bit. He has stood us up a few times because he has fallen asleep or something. Africans do that fairly often because they just forget everything..it's bad sometimes. Oh well. Steven is really cool though and were excited for him. No news on Ettora but we think he got back from vacation today. I have a feeling this vacation will have taken him back a few steps in terms of him thinking he is ready.
So what was the whole, mom not happy about the pictures of me in the apartment?...I don't think i quite understood. I am glad you liked the other pictures at least. The weather is just dandy here about this time. It isn't like overly hot but it's hot. I come home with a damp collar every night haha. I can't believe it's already almost September! This summer has flown by.
UTAH FOOTBALL!!!! PAC 12!!! You do realize, dad, I'm gonna need a weekly update, right?.. Let's hope the Utes don't get thumped by USC. It will be an interesting season that I wont see. Oh well.
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