This week has been interesting for the work here in L'Aquila! We
met with the mother of the missionary of one of the missionaries here,
Mattia, I don't remember if I told you in our interview. But, the
daughter (I think her name is Rene) seems to be open to the Gospel, and
has come to church with some members before. The mother is a little
shocked that her son felt the need to go on a mission, and seems to want
to fill the hole he left. In our next visit (hopefully tonight), we'll
get that straightened out.
We got a referral from the Melone family on Sunday.
Their 11-year-old daughter, Naomi, has been bringing a friend to church
the past month or so, and they said she has expressed the desire to be
baptized! We have an appointment to meet with her and her family at a
type of family night at the Melone's house on Friday, so that seems like
it could go really well! The parents are willing, and one came to
conference with the Melone's at Rome and enjoyed it.
Other than that, we're doing good here. We had a
scambio with Pescara starting Monday after DDM and ending today (I
stayed in L'Aquila with Anziano Waters). It went well, and we met some
interesting people. I'm not entirely sure about interest level, though.
We'll see.
Thanks!
Anziano Walker
Hi family!
I
decided to implement Jeremy's idea of writing President first, and then
use that to explain what I did this week, and then I can address every
thing else like this. So much better on me, I feel like!
This past Thursday, we had Zone Conference in Rome
again. I also had an interview with President Kelly (man, I love him,
and am really REALLY sad that next transfer is his last! :( ) That was
just awesome. One big thing is that the assistants to the President
challenged everyone to invite all their investigators to baptism within 2
weeks, so (even with L'Aquila's shortage of investigators) we're trying
to do that! Hopefully, that'll help Paola (Mattia's Mom in the
President's letter) understand what's up.
And Conference works much the same as Kalyn's, it
seems. Saturday morning session at 18:00 Saturday (they often use
military time in Italy), Priesthood session Sunday at 11:00, Saturday
afternoon session Sunday 14:00, and Sunday morning session at 18:00
again on Sunday. Still haven't seen the Sunday afternoon session.
Although, we get the Liahona just about every Zone Conference, so we'll
probably be set with that. Y'all don't need to worry your heads off
mailing an Ensign out.
One theme that seemed to stick out to me was that
"YES, we'll make mistakes, but Heavenly Father allows improvement OVER
TIME." I've been working on being more patient and positive with myself,
so that really stuck out to me. I've also learned, in an in-depth
companionship inventory with Anziano Hoover, that I had developed the
habit of joking negatively at myself, which was a major factor in
causing my mood to worsen over time. I hardly would ever notice it,
even! But I've been working hard these past few weeks to avoid degrading
myself, and only say and think things that I would be willing to say to
others. Funny, the Golden Rule didn't exactly help me out in that
regard. I was doing to myself EXACTLY what I would NEVER do to others!
Dang, I'm super grateful SOMEONE pointed that out! I've been feeling so
much better and happier this past while, and it was surprisingly easy to
basically change that. Heavenly Father really helped me out, I'm sure
of it.
Wow, totally didn't plan on writing all that.
Anywho, lets see if I can address some questions you posed: Yes, there's
a sort of "siesta", but that's the name in spanish. Here, it's just
lunch. And it lasts from about 12ish, 1ish, to about 3ish, 4ish. Some
missionaries try to keep lunch just to 2 1/2 hours, others are a little
more..... liberal with their time. I get antsy whenever we're in the
house past 3:30. It kind of irritates. But then, sometimes we've knocked
on people's houses at 5, and they were angry because we woke them up
from their nap! What the heck?
Anziano Hoover plays piano a lot better than me (he
can sight-read almost any hymn), so he plays in church. But we're still
doing classes, as best we can. Still trying to figure out everything a
bit.
Anywho, another P-day at Pescara. Gotta go!
Ciao ciao!
Anziano Walker
P.S.
- The picture is of Anziano Stewart and Nicole Crupi at her baptism at
Messina, my 2nd week in. I'm still working out how to get pictures onto
the flash drive nicely, it's a little weird that it doesn't let me do
all of them at once. Oh well! :)
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