May 2, 2012

allora buon giorno,  (So Good Morning),

This e mail will be shorter since I only have to make up since Sunday.

Grace can’t see her kids very often so they didn’t come to her baptism!  Pretty sad I know but maybe one day. Anziano d’addabbo is district leader so he does all the interviews for the baptims in our district. He doesn’t do the baptisms.  The picture is Grace’s Baptism.

Torquato came to church again Sunday, but on Monday we brought a member to help teach us and this member ruined everything!  He was just yelling at Torquato and once Italians get going it is extremely hard to stop them! So because of this member we lost a progressing investigator!  Also on Sunday we were blessed even more on my birthday!  This Chinese kid we stopped earlier in the week we had an appointment with him  so we showed up and all of his friends wanted to listen to us  so we were teaching 6 chinese kids about 20 years old, all of them. They spoke a little English and Italian so good thing I’m prepared and always carry multiple languages of the Restoration pamphlet with me and the Restoration DVD with a bunch of languages.  So we just had them read the pamphlet up to the apostasy and watched the DVD.

Monday we went to Reggio Emilia for district meeting and I did another scambio with anziano May, he is a super good missionary and has only been here for a couple of months and speaks better than me.  But he later told me he lived in Italy for 8 months before his mission so he cheated. Then we saw Grace or Graziella; the baptism Saturday was awesome its soo weird all the work you put into baptizing someone and it literally lasts like 30 seconds for them to enter the water then to say the prayer and baptize. But it just makes you feel so good.

Tuesday we rescambied or reexchanged and we went and did casa after we got soaked on our bicylces! This one lady said come on in and said you’re the mormons and we said yes.  She then said this is your book right and we said well yes and we asked how long ago did you talk to the missionaries and she said 20 years ago.  She seemed so awesome at first then she said that she is Jehovahs Witness and let me tell you,  they make no sense,  never let you talk, and put words into your mouth.  That is what has happened in past experiences and  they were no different.  They wouldn’t let us talk and Anziano D’addabbo and I were getting super mad because they just were talking in circles and not making sense.  Then they said that they would never believe in the Book of Mormon with out seeing the plates and Anziano D’addabbo said well today anyone could just make them it doesnt mean they are real and she said if she saw them she would believe.  So I asked her if I went home right now and made the gold plates you would believe me that they were the word of god?  I  couldn’t believe her answer, she said yes! About  an hour and a half later they  still wouldn’t let me talk and I said do you want to know if this book is true and they diverted the question and so I said that is not what I asked, give me a yes or no answer, Do you want to know if this is true?  They still didnt answer so while I was getting upset at them Anziano D’addabbo did something I would have never thought a person of his character would do, haha its sooo funny though, he just put his stuff in his backpack and got up and walked out and left me there. So I told the lady I think I have to go and said nice to meet you goodbye!  We had a great week though!

Here in Italy you never know when things will be closed. They dont know what the definition of work ethic is. We should be able to skype, I will let you know. We arent  not very close to any families here.  No one here in Modena wants to even meet with us. It’s a ward so they don’t really rely on us to do everything. It’s a real bummer, but oh well.

Sorry you missed me soo much, just one more birthday though.

Love ya, talk to you soon!

Pictures of Tower in Modena and the City