May 8, 2012

In the Locker Room at the Inter FC Milan Stadium

Yep Mothers day is here! Although it seems only yesterday that we spoke on Christmas. Just crazy how the time flies... I especially enjoyed the comment at the beginning of your email! Put a big smile on my face. The younger two boys just really did pull the short end of the stick didnt they?. No Just kidding ;) As for skype call specifics. My scheduled time to call will be from 4-6 pm Italy time 8-10am Utah time. Should that work for you? I hope it does. Then my companion will talk with his family after. So will Grandma and Grandpa be there as well to do skype? oh and I won't be in the same place that I was last time I called. I will be at the Dos Santos house, In fact, they are very excited to meet you. Hopefully this will be a better set up to do skype. At least the camera angle won't be as bad as last time, only catching one side of my face. I think things will go much smoother this time.

It was awesome hearing about your experience in the temple this last week. I can't wait to get to go back to the temple. I really am needing that these days.

This week, I had the opportunity to go to Verona and conduct a baptismal interview to one of the baptismal canidates of the Verona Anziani. I was a lil nervous, being the first interview I've conducted but it turned out great. The candidate passed his interview and will be baptized this Friday. I tried my best to make the interview a spiritually uplifting experience for him and I hope I was successful.

After the interview, I used the time in Verona to do another Scambio with Anz. W*****. We had a busy busy day. Appointment after appointment. I've always enjoyed my scambios with Anz. W*****, we don't always see exactly eye to eye (5 months in the same district) but we always seem to have powerful teaching experiences together that help my own personal testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Restoration. Our last appointment was with a man named C*******, a timid man who had a baptisimal date and was making some great progress. We sat down in the church for the lesson and right off the bat he tells us that he's
not convinced, he doesn't want to be baptized and he wants to remain Catholic. Kind of a big opening statement. We responded with a series of questions to see where he was at and ended up on the BOM, He then told us he had finished the BOM and knew it was true, That he new Joseph Smith was a true prophet. However, he still wanted to remain a Catholic. We talked to him for almost an hour about how if the BOM is true than the Church is true and that all the rest aren't. He still didn't seem convinced. At the end I told him. "sai una cosa che
possiamo fare? Proprio Adesso ci inginocchiamo e preghiamo e non ci alziamo finchè la tua risposta non viene data. Translation: You know what we can do? right now we will kneel down and pray and we won't get up until you receive your answer.) So that's what we did, we were all on our knees for maybe 20 minutes. He offered a beautiful prayer but at the end wasn't convinced. And we were forced to leave it at that. Such a shame to see people who know the church is true but not follow it.

The work is going along here, We've met a few cool people and hope to continue to see them. Mantovani are just very closed towards us.

It's great to hear that the boys are stepping it up and helping out while dad is gone. I'm proud of them. Give them my best and tell them to prepare themselves for the mother's day call.

I love you all so much and will talk to you Sunday!

Anz. Mendel

May 1, 2012

Good morning Family,

So highlighs for this week, after another very successful District meeting this Tuesday. Anz. P****** came down to Mantova and we had a great lil scambio. It was fun talking about old times in the Bologna apartment. He is a very inspiring missionary and every time I learn lots from him. It's funny to see how much I've grown in my missionary skills since the last time we scambiod over 6 months ago, Mostly just language skills is what I noticed. He left me with a strong desire to get out and work hard and always do my best. We need to find some more investigators and I feel pumped and ready to do it. This will most likely be my last transfer here and I want to leave it a lot better than I found it. On our scambio we just got poured on! It just let loose. But luckily today there are sunny skies. On our Ri-scambio, we went to Bologna and played some basketball with the 4 Anziani there. Lots of fun. 

So we stopped teaching ***** this week. As in he's not an investigator anymore. He's making no real progress. This last month of teaching him he has accepted everything we have said, come to church and has been reading the BOM but none of it has been sticking. He still believes in Islam and won't let it go. The lesson when we decided that it wasn't working was just crazy, Him and I pretty much just argued for over an hour. I was telling him he needed to change his ideas and start exercising some faith if he wants to turn his life around, and he just wasn't listening. He went on to tell us that we are real disciples of Christ because we receive money from the church to live while we do this work. That's when I got upset and we starting really arguing. I was chastized by the spirit after but sorry, I don't accept people telling me I am a thief stealing money from Christ to do missionary work. So yeah... We aren't teaching him anymore. All he wanted was money and help with his documents from the Church, Just leading us on the whole time. 

So besides C**** which by now is almost a dead end we don't have any investigators. However, This week something pretty cool happened, About 3 weeks ago we found this awesome guy in the park named M******. It was the weekend before Easter. We taught him on a bench the restoration and showed him the Resto Pamphlet. He seemed really interested and really wanted to see the restoration movie, We exchanged numbers and set up an appointment for the Tuesday after Easter. Then.... Nothing. We couldn't get a hold of him for all this time. Almost a month. Then this monday, riding our bikes through a busy Centro we saw him. He actually stopped us. We talked with him for a lil bit. He told us he went on Vacation down south and that's why he didn't answer. It was awesome to find our cool contact again. 

For the mother's day call, Honestly I should be open all day to do it... From 3:00 to 9:00 Italy time. So I will have to talk with my comp when his parents are down to do his and then we can organize ourselves next week. But I should be open that whole day. We will be at the Dos Santos' house this time so we should be open. 

I hope you have all had a great week. That pretty much says it for my week. I'm sorry to hear that Justin is still having some issues with the seizures. Give him my best. Love you all so much. Have a great week. 

April 24, 2012

Hey Mom/Family:

Thanks for the email this week. It's always so nice to be able to expect an email from you every week. Not all missionaries are this fortunate to have an email from their mothers every week. So thank you. 

As with you my week wasn't all that interesting. Not much happened. And I'm sorry if this email will be short. I dont have a ton of time to write. 

This week we have been focusing a lot on this ward missionary activity. Having an open house in the church and making these posters to describe the church. And with of course everything else here in Mantova the major part of the work gets placed on my shoulders. I've never been in a city this long before. For next transfer I am excited to go to a ward with more members. I do love it here though and am happy I stayed. 

Everything is good with the comp and the rest of the district. We had a really good district meeting this week. It was nice to have Anz. P***** back in the District. I talked about baptism from 3 Nephi 11. And then showed a slide show of the reflections of Christ. A DVD that I inherited from someone. It was really spiritual and fun. 

Our investigators are doing good. We made some progress with *******, who needed a new baptsimal date. He has been to church 3 times now. So this last week we read a lil from Mathew 26 when Jesus institues the sacrement and then read the sacrement prayers and talked just mostly about Jesus and Baptism. That's what we have been focusing on mostly these last couple weeks. Seeing as he doesn't come from a Christian background. I think he's made some great progress. We set his bap date for the 25th of May. 

I'm doing good. I know! Mothers day is realing sneaking up on us... Can't wait. 

Love you all. Have a great week. 

Love Anz. Mendel