March 15, 2011

Buongiorno!

So I'm real short on time this week so I'll try to make it quick!

It's been a great week! We had Stake conference again last Sunday and i got to see a bunch of members and new converts from Merate. It was way cool! The stake president gave a really good talk to the members about helping with missionary work. He invited them all to pray specifically by name for the two or four missionaries in their cities so after the conference all the members came running up to us to write down our names haha it was funny. It was nice to see that they listened tho, the members here can be pretty lazy sometimes ha but hey, that's Italy for ya!

So we got to do another scambio this week. Anziano Poulson in Milano came down here and Anziano Neff, who is on his 3rd transfer, was with Anziano Cluff, who is on his 3rd week haha so they had no idea how to get around Milano or to speak or anything so I'm sure that was interesting. It seems like they did pretty well tho. We taught Gianluca again and we had his baptismal interview right after and he passed perfectly! He's fun to teach because he already knows so much about the doctrines and stuff so he always has these awesome space/deep doctrine questions. The first Sunday he came to church he was like I read the whole book of Mormon and I know about the prophets and how Brigham Young took part in the building of the Salt Lake temple and that there were all these people trying to stop the construction and so on so forth ha so we were just like, who are you? haha. He's awesome tho and he's so ready for his baptism! We taught him again yesterday and went over the program for his baptism and everything. It was funny because he doesn't really know the hymns so when he was choosing them he was trying to find ones on topics like pioneers, the book of Mormon, Brigham Young, and other things haha. He asked me to confirm him and Anziano Neff to baptize him! That will be a funny sight haha. Gianluca is a BIG guy he's like 6'5 or so and Anziano Neff is a little smaller so we'll see how it goes. His baptism should be next week! I'm So stoked for him!

In other news, We finally set a baptismal date with Lourdes! She's been reading the book of Mormon a ton and praying about it and she's feeling more and more that its true so she accepted a date! She's preparing for the 10th of April! We're way excited for her too! She was a little down this past week because she couldn't hear from her family (in Peru) and had no idea if the tsunami had hit there as well so she was a little worried but we helped her through that. She finally got a hold of them so everything's all good now!

The weather has been crappy this past week, cold and rainy. Luckily our heater finally works now so there aren't too many problems. Oh and the church is getting us a new apartment! Even tho by the time we move in I'll probably be gone since this is already my 4th transfer here, but we got to go see it the other day and its pretty nice! It's a little small but pretty! Its got a cool balcony and everything too so it looks pretty legit.

Simona and Gerard are still doing good, We've been having a little trouble seeing Gerard lately because he's been super busy but he's still progressing, so he's doing well! The work here is going super well! I kind of would like to stay in Pavia for another transfer so I can see most of these people get baptized and see the success from the work we've been doing but I think my time is about up here. So, we'll see. Conference is in a couple weeks again tho I can't believe it's already been six months! I'm so stoked! Conference is awesome! For those watching- make sure you have questions before it! Anziano Kopischke of the seventy challenged us to think of any kind of question before any sort of meeting (even church) and he said that if we pray about it, we'll be guaranteed to receive the answer. I'm at the point now where I don't believe that will happen. I KNOW it will- haha. I've done it for church, district meetings, zone conferences, whatever it is, and EVERY time i get the answers to my questions. It's awesome!

Well I better get going now, Hope you all are having a great week!

Alla Prossima!

Anziano Bolnick