My First Letter As a 45 yr old

Ciao Presidente!

This week has been hard to meet with investigators (the appointments that we had had to be moved or cancelled), but to make up for that we wrote each family a note with a spiritual thought and letting them know we're thinking about them. It was fun to do, but I might have preferred meeting with them.

With what time we've had free last week, we went around to try to see less-actives in the area, to see if they still live there and/or what's holding them back from coming to church. Unfortunately, not a lot are home when we go, but some have at least responded. And then generally said they're not interested. One, however, I think not this past week but the one before, named Gianluca Picci, said he wants to get back in touch, and will come to english course tonight, so we'll see about that, and then follow up a bit.

A couple cool little things from this week: we have a guy that asked us to help him with his english at his house, to be able to understand better for a test he has coming up. We probably won't keep up these house visits for too long, since he seems to want to learn more of the grammar, but he is ok with us giving a spiritual thought at the end. Ok, thinking about this just now, I'm seeing that it may be turning a little more into an english class than a course, these visits, and not being understood that it's so much a missionary tool. Next time, we'll make sure to try to clear that up.

Last night, we were working in Capoterra (after dropping off a letter to Gianni and Sara), and ended up trying to drive back home after about 8:15 to try to make it in time. But we got going the wrong way on a road, and it was going into countryside, with no way of making a u turn. But anyway, we keep driving, and Anziano Woolsey says jokingly "Ok, next house we see, we stop there and there's gonna be someone ready to hear the Gospel." I decide to do that, and eventually we see a house, I park the car, and we go up. The owners were just walking up to the door, and we stopped them to talk real quick. Turns out, they had met with the missionaries like 3 years ago. And had heard all the lessons. And were super nice. And we have an appointment for next Thursday. So, yeah, that was really cool.

Ciao President!
Anziano Walker

HIYA!

Man I'm in a good mood right now. I love writing family! And friends, but it's always special with family. I love you guys, and love hearing about what's going on at home. Even if it is "same old same old". :)

So those new investigators? Yeah, not a heck of a lot from this week. But we do have an appointment with the William, Cristina, Carlo, Vanessa, and S.lla Pistidda this week, which we have high hopes for. We'll see!

I totally planned to send pictures this week, I got them all set on my flash drive and everything, but then I went and forgot my flash drive on my desk. Yeah, my bad....

We had transfer calls on Saturday, and guess what happened: I'm staying here! 4 in one city, what the heck? And my companion is....... Anziano Loertscher! Yep, 3 transfers in a row with the same companion, which is longer than I stayed in any other city, haha! But then Cagliari is gonna be changing after the new people arrive on the island tomorrow (hopefully): there's gonna be a new companionship of Anziani here! And, not only that, but a new companionship of Sorelle! So yep, we're gonna have 8 missionaries over here in one city, each of which is officially out of greenie stage (except for one that will be trained by a Sorella coming in). Apparently, they want this place to boom in a bit.

Although, I think I know a part of the reason. Last week, I totally forgot to mention this, but Sardegna is no longer gonna be by itself. On the 15th of September, it will be a part of the Rome West Stake, along with the Napoli area, and part of Rome. And Cagliari is gonna be a Ward.

Funnily enough, we haven't been able to talk about this with our Branch Mission Leader. He is currently in America, and has been for the past 2 months. We have been kind of floundering trying to work with the Branch here. It's tough. But ho dang, we've got a lot of news for him when he gets back this week!

******And one last thought: I've been learning a lot this past little bit about how I think and what I need to do to deal with hard times. I'm learning a lot that I just never learned how to deal with anxiety well. But recently, especially after talking with that counselor a few times, I'm seeing that a super easy way I've always had to get over it is to connect with somebody. Whether it's companion, Heavenly Father, or someone in a letter, that's almost always how I've gotten over that. So I'm deciding to put that more into practice, and work on making that a full on help for me. I know that Heavenly Father helps me, cause He helped me see that! :)

Bye everyone, and I love you!

Ciao!

Anziano Walker