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