March 30, 2011

Sorry this one is gonna be way short! So, Gianluca was baptized and confirmed Sunday! The water was freezing so he was freaking out a little bit, plus he was a little nervous.But after the baptism he was so calm and peaceful and couldn't stop talking about how happy he was. He got up to bear his testimony in church and talked about the liahona and how we all need to have one in our life and always have the right faith to follow the spirit. The members were all shocked haha it was great!

We also set another baptismal date this week! His name is Daniel and hes from Togo. He met with the missionaries in the past and really liked everything. He then got sick and had to go to his country for a bit. We lost contact with him, but he kept reading the Book of Mormon and praying and everything and then the other day I felt like I should stop him on the street. We set up an appointment and the first day set a date with him! So we lost 1 date (which is AWESOME! haha) thanks to a baptism, and picked up another one! It's so sweet!

Well transfers are next week so I'll let you know what's happening with me! My guess is I'm going out, but it is also kinda possible that I stay with everything that's been going on here so we'll see! Anyway I gotta get going. Have a a great week everyone! Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Bolnick

Transfers on the way!

It's been a pretty sweet week here in Pavia! We've been facing a lot of difficulties, but seeing a lot of success on the other hand!

We've been doing a good amount of finding work and basically haven't found anyone over the past week. It's been pretty tough. BUT! We set another baptismal date! His name is Domingo! He is awesome, too...We took a member to a lesson we had with him and the member was shocked by how much this guy already new about the gospel just reading through the bible. We had a super strong and spiritual lesson and set a date with him for the 10th of April! He's doing real well, too. We went to see him a few days ago, and he said he is quitting his job as a DJ because the things that go on in his club are not good for him and against the Gospel, which we never even thought to talk to him about or ask him. Ha- it's crazy!

Gianluca is also doing really well! His baptism should be this Sunday, but they're doing it before church, which is kind of stupid, so it has to be at 8:30 in the morning ha but that's ok because the important thing is he's getting baptized!

Gerard, Simona, and Lourdes are also doing pretty good. We're helping them in every way we can!

So yesterday we had Zone Conference, which was sweet, It's always a sweet super spiritual boost-- ha it's so awesome. I always learn so much! We always sing our mission hymn too which is soo cool! I have a video of it I'll try to get sent somehow because it's seriously way cool!

So not too much else has been going on this week. We've just been working hard to get everyone staying on the right path and progressing. So even tho we haven't had tons of luck finding people. We've seen huge progress with those we do have. We have about 7 or 8 investigators right now that are progressing, and 5 of them have a baptismal date. Hopefully we'll be losing one this week- although ;) haha we'll be gaining a new convert! I'm so stoked for him. He has made some pretty big sacrifices for the Gospel: he quit smoking, drinking tea, coffee etc...It's amazing how the power of a testimony can bring people so far and help them to overcome any sort of trouble. I know that one can not truly come to an understanding or comprehension of the atonement of Christ, until actually living and experiencing its healing and helping power. That is the greatest gift that we all have here on the Earth and I know that we can do anything through it.

Well, a cool scripture for the week is Nehemia 6:3.

For those who don't know the story, Jerusalem was destroyed, and the wall surrounding it was completely broken. Nehemiah knew the importance of reconstructing the wall because he knew what it meant to the Lord and the construction of his Kingdom, So he began to rebuild the wall. As he was in the process of building it, he says this:

"And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?"

He knew the importance of building the wall. Nehemiah had rebuilt the entire wall is 52 days. The entire wall. Because He knew what it meant, and he knew how important it was. He wasn't going to stop, not for anything. I am doing a great work, so that i cannot come down. Why should the work cease whilst i leave it to come down to you. Like Nehemiah, I know how important this work is. I know that I am also partaking of building up the kingdom of God, and like Nehemiah, I will not come down. I will not stop. I will go until every person on the earth has heard the "good news," until they have felt of the spirit and accepted the Gospel. This work is so important, And I can never back down. None of us can. Because of Nehemiah's faith, he built the whole wall of Jerusalem in 52 days, a project that would take years. With faith we can do ANYTHING. We just can never stop trying.

Well, I better get going now, We have a lot to do today. I hope all is well for all of you wherever it is you are in the world, i pray for you all and hope the best for you! Statemi bene!

Anziano Bolnick

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

Transfer 8 week 2!

Well, not too much for this week honestly! Plus we got a lot to do today so I'll make this one a little shorter, sorry!

So last week was the start of Carnevale ( a popular holiday here, i think its for the beginning of lent?) and we had a party in church on Friday, it was pretty fun but kinda lame at the same time ha. We had a couple investigators show up which was cool, hopefully they had fun. Sunday after church we went to a members house with Gerard and ate fou fou again- haha Anziano Neff was a little surprised at it. They had these peppers that were soooooooo hot haha, i probably lost a couple pounds just tasting one of them ha. That's was fun tho, Gerard is doing pretty good. Monday we had district meeting and the assistants were telling us that we had one of the best weeks recorded in the mission- ha- according to the amount of new investigators and lessons we taught and everything so that was pretty cool!

Monday we did an exchange with the Milano Anziani, and I was with Anziano Giove, he had just been transferred up there about a week ago, it was pretty fun. Right afterward tho yesterday they got a call from president and there is a missionary that is going home for some reason so Anziano Giove is going to take his spot in Merate! So Anziano Poulson (the missionary that's still in Milano) is getting another guy who is on his first transfer that also wanted to go home but decided to give it another chance, so he'll be training again ha. This will be the 4th missionary he's trained haha (that's a lot!).

Our investigators are doing well, we had a good lesson with Gianluca yesterday. We told him about the importance of coming to church yesterday and what it means for his baptism and how important it is that he tries to come every week, and he stood up in a super epic moment, took out his pack of cigarettes and smashed them , said "I am quitting. I am doing what i can to be baptized" then threw the cigarettes away. it was super cool. So hes doing really well.

Well, i gotta get going, sorry for the short update. Things are going great tho! Until next week!


Io

March 3, 2011

Well today is the official one-year mark. It honestly doesn't seem like it at all, it doesn't even feel like I've been here for 6 months and yet I'm half way done. I cant believe how fast time goes! Anyway this last week was great! There's a lot to write about this week- haha.

So I'll start with transfers. Dropped Anziano Wiederholt off and he headed home, and picked up my new comp- Anziano Neff-- he's from Salt Lake and lived by Jordan so he knows most of my friends. He's on his 3rd transfer and he's a baller! He's still struggling with the language, but he's working real hard with it! Anyway we've been working way hard since he's been here, and we've seen a lot of success! We have a high vision for this transfer and I know we're gonna be able to accomplish it!

So his first day here, we got to see this young new family, the Realis, they're awesome! There's Paola and Alessandro, and they have a one year old named Lucia, they're soo cool! They said they were going to try to come to church this Sunday so were hoping for them! Then that same night we were doing casa and these students opened up and we talked with them at the door for a little bit and they invited us over for dinner another day and we could all talk-- I love food, so I agreed instantly haha. It was three girls that we talked to and they said they would invite a couple of their friends as well, so we were stoked for that. I'll get to what happened with that later!

The next day we had an appointment scheduled with Simona in the morning, and she called us to cancel. 5 minutes later she calls back asking if we could do her shopping for her because there is some good place with good deals but the people there are mean or something, so she didn't want to go in. I don't really know why, but anyway she asked us if we could do it for her and we told her of course because a little service never hurts anyone. So she tells us to meet her at the carrefour, that's the name of the store, so we go to the one close by and wait there for a little bit. We go inside and grab an ad so she can tell us what she wants, and we wait longer.

After a little while, she calls us asking where we are and she tells us that we are at the wrong one, and that she was at the carrefour near Eurospin- another grocery store right by our house, so we go to the carrefour thing that is near our house and do the exact same thing as we had done before, only to receive another call from her. At this point it had been about an hour and a half or so, waiting for buses and what not. So she tells us that she's at one that's not even in Pavia, so were like great, what do we do? We had already wasted a good amount of time and we hadn't even gotten to do anything yet so we were like ok, we'll still come help you just have to wait for us to get there.

So we wait about a half hour more for a bus to come then FINALLY get to the right one, grab the ad thing and walk around the store for about 10 or 15 minutes while she marks the things she wants. When we go back, she's pointing to what she wants and then says that we have to spend a certain amount of money and buy all these complicated phone cards and refills and shenanigans that I don't even know. So i just acted like I understood and we commenced the voyage to get all her things. We walked around the store for about an hour waiting in line and getting everything that she wrote down while she's calling us every 10 minutes to see where we are. Then we finally get out of the store and give her the stuff (we just didn't buy the other complicated things she wanted because we had no idea what to do. It was some Italian thing that they don't have in America, so we were lost and didn't wanna mess that up). She got mad at us for not getting everything right. Its a good thing I've learned patience in the mission- haha. Anyway, that was how we wasted a good amount of morning time -trying to help one of our baptismal dates, but it's ok because we were blessed for it...

Monday, we reaped the rewards! We taught a bunch of lessons and found some new investigators, then we went to the dinner thing with the students. There were 9 other people there and us. They're all part of some Catholic thing and were interested to hear what we have to say. So the entire time throughout dinner they're all completely focused on us while we try explaining the restoration and our message. Poor Anziano Neff is still having some problems understanding and talking in Italian, so I did most of the talking. But it was SO Cool! We taught a super powerful lesson about the restoration, then a couple more people came and we taught a second one even stronger and then taught about the book of mormon.

We gave them all a copy of it and promised them that if they read it and sincerely asked God if it were true, that He would answer them. There were about 12 people or so in the room and after we had born our testimonies it was just completely dead silent and I know that the spirit pierced the heart of everyone in that room. They were all open to trying and seeing because they had seen how much it meant to us and how its helped us in our lives. We set up another appointment with them and committed them to coming to church. That day we had 10 new investigators. The standard of excellence (which is high as it is) is 5 new investigators a week, we doubled it in a day :) It was awesome. They're all about 22 or 23 I'd say and I don't even remember there names haha. But I'll let ya know once we find out more!

So we recently started doing service at a soup kitchen kinda thing called the caritas, and its way cool! We basically help prepare food, serve it, and clean up afterward, the food is all free and is given to whoever comes to the place. It's way fun and a great way to help people! It definitely brings a great joy to your life when you help others! Especially those who are in need more than others.

Yesterday we also had a leadership training which was awesome! They announced a few rules like we can no longer take culture days, or write to other people than immediate family for emails, but it all makes perfect sense and I agree with them completely! This time is so short that we have as missionaries. Its ONLY 2 years. I wish it were so much longer. I know that I need to give everything possible to fulfill my purpose and to help others come unto Christ and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to do so, because I've seen the great blessings and rewards that come from sacrifice as it is. people change, they better their lives, they come unto Christ. And that's what brings the greatest of joy.

It's just like the sons of mosiah in the book of mormon, their faith was so strong and they knew so surely of their purpose- to being souls unto Christ- that they were willing to do anything to make it possible: " E abbiamo sofferto ogni sorta di afflizioni, e tutto ciò per poter forse essere il mezzo per salvare qualche anima; e noi supponemmo che la nostra gioia sarebbe stata completa se fossimo forse potuti essere il mezzo per salvarne qualcuna." (alma 26:30) They were willing to die, to help their bretheren come unto their redeemer. Whatever it took. Because they knew that there message was so important. And that message is the exact same one that i talk about here today in Italy, and it still has the EXACT same importance, and i, like them, am willing to do whatever it takes to help them. Sacrifice brings the greatest blessings. Sacrifice comes by dedication, and dedication comes through faith. And with faith, ANYTHING is possible. This is absolutely the greatest experience i have ever had in my life, and It brings tears to my eyes that the hourglass has been flipped for the last time. I love my mission. And I know that what im doing here is greater than anything else that will ever exist in this world. Their are many ways in life, but the right way is the way of Christ, and i "rejoice exceedingly" when i see others taking that way.

Anziano Neff and I are working harder than i ever have in my life and i know that were going to see great blessing come from it, we set a high vision and i know were going to accomplish it. Our other investigators are doing great, Gianluca, Lisette, and Gerard are still preparing for baptism, and I hope that i can see the effect the spirit has on all of them while I'm still here, I'll keep you updated tho with what goes on with all them as well as the other investigators! Until then, statemi bene!

Alla prossimo,

Anziano Bolnick