Hellllllooooooo dwellers of America! (and anyone who
happens to not be in America right now due to missionary service or for any
other reason, I salute you as well) This was quite the week! Many an adventure,
but not quite as hectic as last week to say a little bit. Not that this week
wasn't interesting, I just didn't happen to snap any toe bones against
unsuspecting bathtubs in the middle of the day.
The Stats!!
Pizzas devoured and digested: 71 (That's a lot of
dough)
Gelati coned and consumed: 54 (That's a lot of brain
freeze)
Books of Mormon beautiful and blue: 95 (That's a lot of
truth)
Monday was an absolutely awesome start
to the week because we were told that we were to start effective today a brand
new missionary proselyting schedule that would dictate us rising an hour
earlier and then going on to studying an hour sooner in the morning and overall
giving us that extra hour to be outside and sharing the gospel in the form of
proselyting and service to the Italian people. I love the new schedule and can
testify of the miracles that just a little more time in the day can bring if
you actually apply yourself in that time. Something about obedience brings
blessings but exact obedience brings miracles and the like. Other than that,
the normal pday activities occurred, and then the day ended.
Tuesday! District council to start us
off and also a scambio with the Zone leaders. The start of this scambio was
marked with a lunch at a Japanese sushi place where we ate until we nearly
burst and then waddled down to the bus stop where we rode home and then had
language study. It was fun because we live together, so we just switched desks
for the hour and then we left to go and do our different things. Anziano Smartt
and I went to the house of a member who will be living in Italy with us for the
next two months while she works at the temple and we dedicated her apartment so
that she could feel the love of the Lord for her there. We then saw where
Ceasar was stabbed and then we made it to the church to plan Ricardo's baptism
with Ricardo.
We came up with a program and then we
told him we would have some paperwork for him on Thursday along with a chance
to really meet the bishop for more than just three minutes at a church
function. He was OK with this, and so we created the program and then we taught
English course to finish off the night. But, because we were still on scambio,
we all decided to have a big ol' sleepover in one room of the house where we
the piled mattresses on the floor and promptly fell asleep.
Wednesday the scambio continued and we
went about the new schedule as one would do any other day of the week and we
did so by studies and then clearing out some of our paper area book. When lunch
rolled around, Anziano Taylor and I were back together after a harrowing
journey down the hall that only one of us had to make. Sometime in the morning
however, I and Anziano Taylor were asked to help a sister in the ward with some
window repairs, but we didn't know how to get there, so the Sorelle took us to
her house and we showed up in a group of Anziani and Sorelle.
The sister that we helped used to be a
Muslim, and she told us her conversion story shortly after our arrival. It was
long, but she told it relatively quick and it was also full of heartache and
sadness but that was canceled out by the joy of finding her savior (her words
not mine) and having us as her adopted family. So, we are considered to be her
children according to her. She's an old Italian lady though so it's expected.
What she ended up needing repaired was some mosquito netting that she couldn't
reach due to her short stature, and so that's why she wanted the anziani to
come over.
Dad, you'll love this because the system
they use here to apply the netting in the windows is exactly the same one we
used to apply the insulating plastic in our windows for the winter cold. A
piece of very long, double-sided sticky tape that adheres to the mesh and the
window frame as well. Although, it was velcro more than sticky tape, the
principle is the same. Because I've done this before, I had it fixed in about
ten minutes in the entirety of the house. Then, I fixed her cordless land-line
and showed her how to work it all the while she made us lemonade and Egyptian
dessert (seeing as that was where she was born and hence why she was Muslim at
the start of her life) before we left to teach a man who speaks only Spanish at
the church about the plan of salvation.
Two hours after we arrived at the
church, we finished teaching the whole plan of salvation, and that was only
thanks to the sorella who could speak Spanish and translated everything we
taught, along with bearing her own powerful testimony of the truthfulness of
the gospel. The man we taught is also very elect and nearing baptism, seeing as
he quoted a few Doctrine and Covenants verses from memory to us that were
pertinent to the lesson. Great guy overall.
Thursday was simple and consisted mostly
of Baptismal planning and our meeting with Ricardo and the bishop. Neither of
them could make it tonight, so we just taught English course instead and then
told our English class to bring some food that hils from their home countries,
along with the recipes for those dishes in English, and we would do the same
for them. So, we are expecting to have some food at English course and then a
chance to talk with one another about said food. That's always a good way to
learn!
Friday was interesting only because we
spent a majority of the day at Termini which is a little outside of my current
area, but it's fine because we had a missionary purpose to be there today. A
week or two ago my companions cellphone was stolen and he has been skating off
of mine for that time. Today, we met a man after much trial and error to buy
another phone for my companion at termini because it was a halfway point fr the
both of us.
Once we bought the phone, we came back
to our church and attempted to install the governing app that the church uses
on a ll it's devices called Maas360 which basically gives administrator access
and privileges to our president and there's nothing we can do about it.
However, it wasn't downloading on this phone for some reason, so we called it a
night because we tried to get this phone to work for a while and it wouldn't.
The whole event took the day, and we ran into quite a few members from Utah
whilst at termini,as well as from Italy. One of these families bought us
breakfast, and then lunch at McDonald's. I love the member attitude towards the
missionaries here! Lot's of support and the like.
The only thing that we really didn't
feel too good about was how Ricardo started to text us about some doubts that
he had about his baptism tomorrow, and said he wasn't sure he was ready for
that so we sent him some texts and bore testimony to him about the correctness
of his choice, and we were mostly left on read but we did get him to promise
that he would pray again. That's how we ended our day.
Saturday. Was. Interesting.
Mostly this was because we decided that
the phone we bought yesterday wasn't the one we actually wanted, so we listed
it on marketplace and it sold within the first two hours of it's listing. We
listed it just before lunch, and as soon as someone told us they would meet us
to buy it, Ricardo texted us and said that he wanted to call off the baptism
for today. He didn't feel prepared yet, but didn't say that he didn't want to
get baptised at all. So we told him that was OK, we can meet during the week
that follows because he's tied up with college stuff at the moment. It would've
been super cool had he been baptised today, because that is to the day the
anniversary of my first baptism in the mission. Exact same day, one year apart.
It didn't happen, but that's fine because I'm not worried about it just yet.
We're still praying for him, so we'll see whare that leads us.
We met the people by the metro station,
they bought the phone and we then got on that same metro to head to termini to
buy the second phone in just as many days. We ended up buying it and then
installing Maas360 on it before the people who bought the phone from us felt
buyers remorse and then asked if they could have their money back. We explained
ot them that we didn't have it anymore and because they are Italian, we had to
block a lot of angry Italian numbers randomly calling and texting us for the
remainder of the day. Anziano Taylor and I then bought a metre pizza so that we
could comfort ourselves e to the canceled baptism.
That's a week in the life of a
missionary! if you have any other questions, please do ask! I love to hear
them!
P. S. Pictures to follow in a sperate email.
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