February 9, 2011

9 Febbraio 2011

Well, just another week here in Pavia, Italy! Lately Anziano Wiederholt and I have been trying to improve our finding and thinking of new and more efficient ways to do it, so we've been trying to do "whiteboarding." Basically, you write a question on the board, such as "is there life after death" or something simple like that, (a yes or no question). Then you divide it into a yes section and a no section. Then you go to a crowded place, like centro, especially here in Pavia where there's TONS of students and people, and you walk up to them and ask them what they think! It's cool because people are a lot more open to answer a question like that at first and then you can talk about it after, instead of stopping a random person and asking what they think happens after death. They're a lot more open to answering it after the ice is broken. It's been working pretty well! We've found a lot of really cool people these last few days by doing it. One of the Seventies, Elder Kopishke, came to us a couple weeks ago for a zone conference and was talking about how President Monson made the announcement that the world needs more missionaries, and he challenged us to "find our replacement". So we've been basically targeting people around our age, that have the potential to go on missions. It's pretty cool because I can share with them my experience of converting at their age, and now I'm here so, obviously it works --at least sometimes haha. A fun thing we do sometimes just to break the ice and have some fun with it is write AMERICA and INGHILTERRA (England) and ask which is better! About 99 percent of the time people say America, but that's just because it's true. Then we explain that were Americans and state what we're doing here. It works pretty well, and it's all in good fun!

So this Sunday we got to see the baptism of Jose and Alia. Jose is from Peru and Alia is from Venezuela. It was so cool to see that! Here in Italy, it's cool because after the ordinance is done, they have the person go up and bear their testimony and its so cool to hear it coming from these new converts, to see how they've truly been helped and changed their lives, and to see the joy that they now have. It's such a sweet experience!

Monday we had our district meeting, then we went out afterward all together to this Japanese restaurant in Milano, it's 9 euro for all you can eat, and they have sushi and everything, and it's pretty good! Except you have to eat everything, otherwise they make you pay for it and we all ordered so much food and we were trying too hard to eat it all, helping each other out.It was rough, but we did it! Then afterward we did our scambio with the zone leaders, Anziano Jones came to Pavia with me. We had a lot of fun! Unfortunately our night on Monday was just a huge let down. All of our appointments got canceled and we ended up wasting a ton of time. But Tuesday morning we taught Simona and she's doing really well! The interview for her baptism should be next Tuesday and she'll be baptized on the 20th as long as all goes well! Were super stoked! Then we also taught a new contact named Lurdes (also from Peru) and we gave her the baptismal invite and she said she is very open to trying and preparing! We didn't set a date yet because we need to pray and think of when she can be ready, but we will the next appointment!

Well that's about all that's going on this week. It's been pretty hectic lately. We have been super busy and always out of the house. Poor Anziano Wiederholt hasn't had a normal week since he's been in Pavia, and he's getting ready to go home in about 2 weeks! I'm trying to keep him from getting trunky haha ;) Hes doing pretty well, though. Even though he's already been home, so he knows what to expect, and that helps a little bit.

Allora devo andare adess ma volevo lasciarvi con la mia testimonianza personale, che so che questa è la chiesa di cristo, e che egli la guida tramite il suo profeta, thomas monson. Sono contentissimo che posso avere questa possibilità di essere qua e aiutare tutte le persone che sono disposte, a trovare quello che ho trovato io. é triste che ho già finito con quasi una metà della missione, vorrei restare qua per sempre haha, è veramente un meraviglioso il lavoro del signore, e tutto quello che ho la possibilità di vedere. sono veramente grato che faccio parte del vero vangelo del signore, e che ho trovato la mia <> hah, e so con tutto il mio cuore che è la strada giusta. La chiesa è vera! Semplicimente!

Vi voglio tanto bene! Alla prossima!

Anziano Bolnick