Ciao Presidente!
This week, we've been working hard. We managed to see Gianni and
Sara again, this time with some members that live nearby their house, to
try to explain the Restoration. The members, the Floris family, did
wonderful. The hard part was Sara, who tried to contradict what we
believed. With things that didn't relate at all. However, there was
evidence of the spirit being felt at times, and especially with Gianni.
We tried to invite them to baptism in the lesson, but it somehow just
didn't get understood, and then the Floris' kind of took over from
there. Oh well. But Gianni specifically said at one point "You guys are
planting seeds with me right now", which I thought was kind of cool. He
seems to really want to understand us, and helps us explain to his wife
what we mean when she doesn't get it. And he explains it well.
There was also a new investigator from last week, Gino Mura, who
came to church. He's progressing in that he follows through on
commitments really well, but we're kind of wondering where understanding
of lessons and importance of the doctrine is. He has said he wants to
make improvements in his life, and we try to help with that, but he kind
of explains his own thoughts and then doesn't allow for any
intervention, unfortunately.
Other than that, we have (these past few days especially) really
made a push to find appointments, especially from the Area Book. We've
been calling people from there and visiting their houses a ton. We have,
if nothing else, been able to talk to people on the street and get them
thinking about the Church a bit.
Thanks Presidente!
Anziano Walker
HIYA!
Ok, so you DO know about the blog. I heard about that all of a
sudden from all the Anziani at Zone Conference, saying that their
parents have all commented on that and how good of a job Sorella
Waddoups is doing keeping it up. I had no idea if you guys knew about
it. But now I do. So...... yeah.
Comunque, I'm 20!!! We didn't do a heck of a lot special, but
Sorella Waddoups called in the morning to say Happy Birthday, and the
Sorelle here made me a cake. Funny, I just realized that the only people
involved in celebrating were sorelle...... Oh well. Va bene. I did,
however, wear a fantastic tie, one of my favorite power ties that I
bought here. Hot pink. Oh yeah. Conservative? Probably not. But it's a
birthday tie! :) We also had a mostra again, we have one or two planned
here for every weekend this transfer. It's different here than in
Messina, cause here it's only a 2 1/2 hour thing in the evening. I feel
like that's a little nicer on Anziano Loertscher, who is still having a
lot of difficulties with the language. But we're still making sure to do
language study together to try to address that.
And to address your last question: no, they haven't distributed it
out yet, although they're pretty sure we'll have it by this Zone
Conference, as all the materials are already in Rome. And they explained
it in Capi Conference, and we are all SUPER PSYCHED for it! It's got
consistent lesson plans, super simple and effective at teaching (geared
more toward conversation than grammar), and is COMPLETELY a finding
tool, with a lesson being about 20-30 minutes (they found that works
better than an hour), and having the option to talk with people more in
depth about the spiritual thought. And what's cool, if people can't
come, it's easy enough (and maybe even better for learning) to go to
their house to teach them english on any other day. They've been trying
it in Rome the past few months, and they said one time they had a 20
minute english lesson, and a 2 hour discussion of the Gospel! It's so
freakin awesome, and what makes it even cooler, we're the first
non-english mission to put it into practice, so people at church
headquarters want to see how this goes. Sweet!
Ok, but enough about advertising. If you can't tell, I really love
doing English Course. And I'm psyched for this program. But this week,
after being inspired to work better and more diligently from Capi
Conference, me and Anziano Loertscher have decided to use the
ex-investigator section of the Area Book to have a little more direction
to our work here. These past few days have been long and tiring, but
really good, because we felt like we had a more substantial goal than
"knock on this many houses, and hope for the best." We've also decided
to stop complaining that there's no work in the summer, and if nothing
else, get referrals for other countries (what with the tourists). I even
met some people from Denmark that were pretty cool.
So that's what's going on over here right now. Really trying hard
to find those people that are looking for the Gospel. One thing people
have been saying to us over and over while looking for those ready is
really annoying, when they almost all say "Well, there's one God for
everyone, so we're all good." This morning, I decided to look up how to
respond to that. While talking with Anziano Loertscher about it, I
realized a few things: 1. Those people probably wouldn't be the ones
we're looking for anyways, and 2. A way to respond may be "Yes, there is
one God, yet no one says the exact same thing about Him. Obviously,
very few people really know Him as He is. We go around to help people
understand how to know that for themselves." I haven't had a chance to
try that yet, but that sounds like it would make people think a little
bit. Funny, this helps me to clarify my purpose here for myself. Funny
how that works, huh?
Anyway, gotta go. A few things before I do: I would like to suggest
a fun little thing for later: a Book of Mormon in Braille. We found one
in the appartment, and I spent the past few days (only my absolutely
free time, though, like before bed or a few minutes after lunch)
learning it, and I literally cracked the code for it. It's awesome! :)
Let's see, what else... oh, I may or may not be using that birthday
money to buy a new suit (it may require more than that, even with the
sales), seeing as I'm down to one. The blue one had a fight with the
corner of a chalkboard, and the chalkboard won. Unfortunately. ****Also
parents (I'm gonna put asterisks before things I'd want you to take out
before blog), a counsellor for missionaries called last week, and he
helped me out a ton, to figure out how to prevent bad moods, instead of
focusing on getting out. It's been super helpful already, and I'm hoping
to keep improving.
Ciao! I love you guys!
Anziano Walker
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