We Get Home Dead Tired, But I'm Loving It

Buon giorno tutti! Wow, this week has been uniquely different then any of the others in the mission thus far. Anziano Marino is such a hard worker. I think I said last week that he is from Pisa, so he lives in his mission and actually has a girlfriend in the Torino ward. It is kinda funny because he basically can't serve in both the firenze and torino zones. He doesn't care too much though because he lives here and has seen it all. I am so glad I got someone that likes to work hard though. I have definitely worked hard with my other companions but we would do stuff that was definitely not productive for the work. In my head I've known all along what hard work means but I kind was just following the senior companion and not wanting to put in my say about how we could work harder. It is really good though with Anziano Marino he hates the senior comp, junior comp thing and now we both just do it together. He is on his 7th transfer and speaks English. It isn't very good but its "abastanza bene" (well enough).

Well long story short about the baptism with Domingo, it didn't happen this week. I don't want to point fingers but basically we have a depressed and lazy Ward mission leader that forgot to do just about everything(put together the font, make a baptismal program). This was all after I called and reminded him multiple times throughout the week. Domingo was totally cool about it all though. We are instead having the baptism this Sunday. We probably could have still had the baptism after church as opposed to before like it was planned. Our bishop thought that it would just be better next week.


So yeah, I bought a really cool journal from a bookstore a couple weeks ago for like 20 euro. I also bought a companionship tie with anziano bolnick last week. Those are probably what you saw. I will be sure to notify you when I buy stuff. I don't plan on buying any suits or anything really really expensive(atleast for now). I couldn't write yesterday because I guess the myldsmail was down all over Europe.

Anyways, this week me and Anziano Marino have been just killing ourselves. We have been teaching lessons, doing casa (tracting), inviti(street contacting), and we get home dead tired but I'm loving it. We are really pushing to use every second of our day wisely. We might even switch to bikes pretty soon because the buses just don't come soon enough for us. It has really been a cool team thing that we are just pushing each other in every aspect of the work. We are seeing small little miracles everyday and I really feel the work can get even better. The last transfer was a real break out transfer for Pavia. We saw more success in Pavia last transfer then it had seen for awhile. I feel that this transfer is going to be so so so much better.

A really cool thing happened on Monday. We chose this area a little ways from our apartment. We did casa in that area for a couple hours and didn't see any success. I was dead tired and literally felt like I couldn't walk another step haha seriously. I said "anziano, we gotta sit down for a mintue". We walked to a park that was super close and found a bench to sit down at. We made our daily phone calls to set up appointment and what not. After about 10 minutes and our daily calls I followed Anziano Marino to a street really close by. It was a small little circle and he asked, " how do you feel about this street?". I immediately just knew which one I wanted to do. I pointed to a palazzo (building) and we did it. We found this lady who was at first hesitant to keep the door open after introducing ourselves but we talked for like 10 minutes. We set up an appointment for the next day and went on just being spiritually edified the rest of the night.

It was super cool and the lesson on Tuesday with her went really well. Her name is Lina and is from the Ukraine. She is super,super nice and doesn't have a real big religious background. We bore strong testimony of having a loving Heavenly Father and talked about the Book of Mormon. She asked, "how can I feel and know that this is true?". We explained through prayer and study of the scriptures. It was super spiritual and you could really see the desire in her eyes and in her words of wanting to really know the truth.

It is good to hear from you all and to see how you are doing. I hope Andy can do well in the marathon!, dance is going well and that Hill's team is getting better. Sorry I haven't written much, my hands are so tired haha. Keep up the good work everyone, and know I pray for you all as well. Give Sawyer boy some Eskimo kisses for me.

Ciao.

We're Excited That President Monson Gave the Rome Temple A Shoutout

What a wonderful week. It seems that every week is a wonderful week when you are a missionary. There are a lot of question to answer and updates to make. Man, wasn't conference just electrifying? From listening to Elder Perry answer our questions about the importance of the sabbath day to getting my personal questions answered about how to recognize revelation. There were so many awesome talks given and I didn't even get to see the last session. On Saturday we watched just one session which was the morning session. It was cool to hear the announcement of the Winnipeg, Canada temple( I bet Kippy is sure excited), Fort Collins, and Idaho temples. The earth is truly being flooded with temples. Me and my companion seem to think that a Milano temple will be announced in the near future. For now we are just excited that President Monson gave the Rome temple a shout out. I was thinking when he talked about it, "man, everyone back home is probably thinking of me now", haha or not.

I definitely had my favorites talks of conference though. On Sunday we watched the Priesthood session, Saturday afternoon session and Sunday morning session. They don't show the last session because it would be too late. Anyways, Sunday was a really fun day. Anziano Poulson and his companion were having a baptism for this 10 year old girl, during the breaks between conference. Since Anziano Poulson forgot to put a program together, me and my companion had the luxury of giving talks. I was a little annoyed but I put myself aside and threw together a 2 minute talk about the blessings and importance of the Holy Ghost. Conference on this day was very very exciting though. I also really loved President Ucthdorf's talk on living above our calling. The "do it" switch analogy was pretty sweet huh?.

Elder Oaks talk about having righteous desires was pretty awesome. Unfortunately I forgot to bring all my notes to expound a little more on all the talks I liked, oops. The talk given about Christ-centered families was also one that really hit me hard. Doing all we can to continue family traditions such as prayer, scripture study and FHM. I liked how he explained that we don't always remember what we learned in the scriptures or what was taught during FHM but that we remember that we had it. I think that was awesome because it's so true. I could honestly never remember what we read during the week, or what was taught for FHM. Obviously we should try to remember and apply those lessons into our lives but remembering we are together and united as a family is what is important. So thank you Mom and Dad for always pushing us to do those family activities.

Elder Bednar's talk about receiving revelation answered a question I had previous to conference. Something the assistants have been teaching in the mission is to have questions. Have a question that we want answered written down before conference, church or any spiritual setting and it will be answered. It honestly works and I encourage you guys to do it as well for church or any other church type event. Finally, President Monson's talk on marriage was pretty sweet. haha I feel kinda helpless though as a missionary. We were all joking with Anziaino Poulson about it because he is going home Thursday. It was a sweet talk though and I thought it was cool how many of the speakers mentioned temple marriages and getting married. I bet Andy is feeling pretty happy with himself now.

We got transfer calls the other day and I am staying in Pavia. Anziano Bolnick is going to Torino 2 and reopening my copia (companionship) from when I was with Anziano Poulson. He will be training this transfer as well. I will be with Anziano Marino, an Italian missionary!...pretty sweet huh? He is about on his 7th or 8th transfer and is fluent in Italian (haha). He is like 25 years old so that should be interesting and is from our mission. I think he is from Pisa. It will be super sweet though, I'm totally gonna be fluent in Italian. Helen's grandson was baptized a week or two ago I think. The weather here has been pretty nice the last couple weeks. It has been really warm and I can tell this summer is gonna be super hot. We have to continue wearing our jackets until the 15th of this month though haha and it kinda sucks.
More about our area though. Domingo is set for his baptism this week! He originally wanted Anziano Bolnick to baptize him but he won't be here so I will be baptizing him. We are super duper excited for him. Our bishop was very hesitant for him to be baptized because not a lot of the ward knows him yet and he has only come to church once. It kinda sucked having conference last week because it is far away and we didn't have church. We feel that he is ready now though so we are going forward and being guided by the spirit. Our bishop said as long as we feel he is ready then he is fine with it.

Lourdes is continuing to read and pray. We were able to do our fast with her last week and it was awesome to see the blessings from it. She hasn't been able to come since she works so much but she just got her new schedule and she has the next 3 Sundays off from work. Pretty cool huh? We really feel that by coming to church it will really push her off the edge and really want to be baptized. Gerard is still just trudging along. We are really trying to increase his desire with everything. We call him every night and give him scriptures to read so we can maintain contact since we can only see him once a week. We have been doing lots of casa (tracting) lately and not had much luck. haha We haven't found a whole lot of people the last few weeks to teach but its ok. We have been blessed tremendously this transfer with everyone we have right now.

Gianluca will get the priesthood this week and get called as the Assistant to the Secretary of the bishopric haha. I'm wondering if they made that calling up. haha oh well.



Gianluca's Baptism (last week)

Thanks again for your updates; it is awesome to see how you are all doing and all the things going on in your lives. Dad, it is definitely a good thing that the Jazz suck for now. My desire to hear about them has dropped significantly, maybe it will be like that with the Cardinals as well. We will just have to see. Ute football? I don't think that will change much haha. We will see.

Love you all so much,

Tuck

My Comp And I Are Just Having Fun Seeing All The Blessings That Are Taking Place In Pavia

Hello again...
Well, I'm in Milano right now. Anziano Bolnick and I decided to come to Milano for our P DAY with Anziano Poulson and his comp. Anziano Poulson is going home next week, crazy huh? Don't worry, he is happy because he just found out his parents put a $1000 in his account, "just in case he wants to buy a couple things" haha He is such a nerd. It has been super fun having district meeting with him and the assistants in the mission office. We get to see President every week and everyone else in the office. I also just found out that one of the sisters in my MTC district got transferred into the office to do office work. Lucky her eh?..haha. So yeah, today I think we are going to go see the Duomo here so it should be super fun.

This week we had some really cool stuff happen and some really annoying stuff. The annoying stuff we have already gotten over because really it just isn't a big deal BUT I will tell you. So last week we told our ward mission leader about all the preparation for the baptism, like who would speak, pray, ya know, stuff to make a program. We come to find out on like Friday that he wont even be there for the baptism. We were like, well ok that's fine I guess. On Saturday we call him to see if he has called the people who are going to speak, pray and if he has made the baptismal program. He basically says, "no, you guys should just think amongst yourselves what to do". haha We were so mad. We were like seriously?...You have to know too that this guy got home from his mission about 3 months ago and doesn't do anything but sit at home all day. So we ended up making a program out of scratch and made copies and stuff.

The baptism was awesome. Gianluca was super super nervous though. We got pictures with him before he was baptized and his face is just white. The water was freezing! and Gianluca's legs were all over the place haha. We got it the second try though and it was sweet. He bore an awesome testimony and everything. On Monday he kept telling us that like he doesn't have a desire to smoke and that it just feels like all the weight has been lifted of his shoulders. It was pretty sweet. We were also able to get Domingo to come to church although he missed the baptism by about 5 minutes. He was still able to talk with Gianluca though and it was really cool. Gianluca was asking him, "have you been baptized yet? when are you getting baptized?". Domingo had such a good experience at church and the members were awesome at greeting him and talking with him.

Yesterday we were able to have lunch with Domingo after our lesson and it was so good. Basically it was just rice and chicken but it was so awesome to have something out of the norm. Pasta is good but after awhile its just whatev. On Sunday though we were able to go to dinner at a members house, the Carbone's. The dad is the 2nd counselor in the bishopric and is super funny. His wife made such a good pasta though. It was basically a salmon pasta but was awesome. They also had a ton of gelato so we were very content.

Tucker and Elder Glowa (MTC Companion) in Torino.

Well, right quick I will answer some of the questions you guys asked. On Saturday we will be going to Milano later in the day to watch conference. We will also be going on Sunday as well. I think we will probably only miss one session though. We will also get a conference ensign so you don't need to send anything about conference; just your thoughts, likes, dislikes (better not be any of those). Here in Pavia we are riding the bus a good amount but we get a good amount of walking in, too. It all kinda depends on where we are going though, obviously. I read the Lorenzo Snow excerpts and they were really cool. I haven't finished them yet though. My comp and I are just having fun seeing all the blessings that are taking place here in Pavia.

Monday night we had something really cool happen. We had an appointment set up with this man, Daniel, from Togo. We had seen him the other day in centro (downtown) and he was kinda looking at us so we walked up and talked to him. We got his number and then had this appointment set up with him for Monday. So we go to his house where he then proceeds to tell us how a year ago he had met with the missionaries. He had two copies of the book of Mormon, in Italian and French. He really liked our message but he had gotten sick and had to go back to Togo. When he got back he was too scared to talk with us when he'd see us. He knew that the books were special though so he kept them. During our lesson though he kept saying how he wants to follow Christ and follow the 'strada giusta' (the right path). My comp and I were just smiling the whole time, in our heads just thinking, YES YES. We invited him to be baptized and set the date while we were there.

It is truly awesome to see how the Lord places people directly in our paths and how when we are obedient and faithful that we will be blessed. With everything that is happening in our mission it is really keeping us pumped up. It just makes it easier to have such great faith because we almost expect that we will find some. We expect that we will see the blessing when we put in the effort. Obviously it all happens in the Lord's time but with the faith you can do anything. (Moroni 7:33).

President Wolfgramm about a month ago gave us a start chart which basically is a study plan in which we memorize gospel principles and scriptures that go with them. It has been a really good help and has helped me improve a lot as a missionary. Well I hope you are all doing awesome! It is awesome to hear from you all. Love ya. Tuck

"Neff ... Guess What? ... I'm Getting Baptized on Sunday!"

Ciao tutti! It's good to hear from you all. Mom, could kinda get a picture in my head of the story with Ty. haha that kid is such a stud. Being able to hang out with the family and cousins is something I miss a lot but I cant dwell on that stuff too much. The mission is awesome but of course it is natural to miss family members. I'd be lying if I said I didn't.

It is good to hear that the weather is heating up in good old SLC. The weather here in Pavia has also really warmed up a lot this week. It has been very cool in the mornings and evenings, but just about perfect during the afternoons. Last Saturday was an exception though. So we were at an appointment with this African from Ivory Coast(spoke Italian) and it just started pouring. Like it was raining super hard and there was lightning all over the place. At the end of the lesson the guy kept telling us that we needed to call someone for a ride. He didn't want us walking home. We were actually somewhat close to our house, Pavia being a small city, but it was just raining way too much. We called Fratello Almarante to come pick us up(as he always does when we need a hand). He flashed us(called and hung up to save on money) like 3 times. We could not see him anywhere though. Finally, we got got a hold of him and he was saying he went to the wrong palazzo (building), but was super close. The only thing was is that he said his car had broken down. We had suspected as much, his car always sounded like the motor was about to drop out from it. So we had to run through this rainstorm looking for him. We put our jackets in our backpacks and ran like the wind. Finally we found him and we were pretty soaked. We waited in his busted car for like an hour for another member to pick us up. haha it was a sweet experience.

Other than that, this week was pretty sweet. We had to wait an extra week for Gian Luca's baptism because our bishop wanted to have him become familiar with the ward. There were also concerns because he hasn't stopped smoking completely yet. We just got a call from him though like 5 minutes ago saying he had stopped...finito...basta. So that was pretty cool. During our Consiglo di Rione (Ward Council) this week we all knelt down in prayer and prayed that he could stop. It was super cool. There were a lot of members that were saying he should wait longer to be baptized(members who don't even know him or know of his desire to be baptized). It was frustrating at first to convince them that as missionaries we have the gift of discernment for our investigators to know if they are ready or not. So yeah Gian Luca is getting baptized this Sunday!

I got a funny call this Friday. Biyao from Torino 2 called me up and was like....."NEFF...guess what?...(I kinda already knew about it though)...haha what Biyao?....I'm getting baptized on Sunday!"....It was so funny. I was so excited for him though. The zone leaders in Torino who baptized him were telling me that when they set his date, they asked if he would like to invite anyone. The first person that he told them was me haha. It was super cool though. He told me on the phone "NEFF I'm am so excited right now that I'm actually talking to you"..That guy is such a stud. They Capi Zona (Zone Leaders) said that the members just love him.



Baptism of Helen (she was baptized the week Tucker left Torino)

On another note, we had to drop one of our baptismal dates because she just wasn't answering our phone calls. She was basically avoiding us and we were spending way too much time trying to contact her. It was super cool though because in the next two days we set two more baptismal dates. Domingo, from Santo Domingo, and Lourdes. Domingo is such a stud and literally understands everything we are teaching him. He is working two jobs right now, one as a DJ at a discotecca(dance place). Just yesterday though, he told us he is going to quit because he doesn't think he can work in that environment while preparing to be baptized and follow the commandments. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? We didn't even have a problem with him working there. It was just something he feels he needs to do. We are working right now to get his wife involved in the lessons as well. As of now though he will be baptized in about two weeks!

We also had Zone Conference yesterday which of course was a real energizer. It always seems like they come at just the right time. They really focused a lot on asking lots of question to our investigators. Using questions to open them up and using them to teach them. We also talked a lot about our purpose. What are we willing to do as missionaries and why we will do it. It was just a balling conference, like all of them.

We have had a lot of stuff thrown at us by the adversary this week. This last week while seeing lots of success with the investigators we have, we have seen zero success in finding new ones. We took this as our sign of how Satan is working against us. For every good thing there is a bad thing. Just like how without sadness we cannot know happiness. We really pushed ourselves to not dwell on it. I took it to mean that we are just really supposed to focus on our seven investigators that are just super super solid. As long as we are focusing on the good things of this life, we will continue to move forward. We will continue progressing in every aspect of our lives. The adversary throws opposition at us for a reason. Our Heavenly Father allows him to throw these 'fiery darts' at us because without them, how can we progress? We learn through our mistakes and through the decisions we make. After all this is why we have our free agency, right? It is as simple as getting down on myself because I can't speak the language. If I allow that simple things to get me depressed then Satan has won the battle. If we allow ourselves to get down because we haven't found a single person after 3 hours of casa(happened plenty of times this week haha) then Satan has won the battle.

Well I managed to write another chapter to the never ending novel of my life as a missionary. Hope you enjoy it and are doing great. I also managed to write it in half of the time of what I used to do it(I gave myself a pat on the back for that one). I also realized this week that I'm just adding on the pounds, at least by my standards. And another thing, General Conference next week! Yahoo....!...It is like the 6 month mark of my mission, HOLY SMOKES...Don't worry I'm thinking of it in terms that I only have 1 1/2 years left, not 1 1/2 years to go. Crazy crazy crazy.

Love you all...thanks for writing me this week mom. You managed to totally to redeem yourself.