April 18, 2012

Wow you were right, Josh looks like a midget next to his comp. He must be huge. That is so funny that he ran into Anz. Hardy's mom. Small world indeed. I hope Josh is doing good and that he will be able to make his way to Mexico soon as possible... I'm sure it must be tough to have a reasignment like that. If he ends up having to stay in Las Vegas, when I get home I will definitely be making a lil road trip with Landon down to see him!

So transfer news, as expected I will be staying here doing my 4th in Mantova with Anz. Owens. I'm really excited to stay. I love Mantova and really wasn't up for another change. Having to move all my stuff is just a nightmare. And then getting a new comp is always interesting. It makes time go so slow when you are in those first few weeks and still trying to get to know each other. Other transfer news, my French friend is being transfered to my baby Ferrara. So that is really cool. Oh and remember Anz. P***** from Bologna? He is coming to Verona to be a ZL again. So he will be in my District! I'm super excited about this. Anz. P***** is the best missionary I've ever worked with. Just an amazing guy.

This week has been just really normal. The Branch here is trying to plan an open house in the church to try and encourage people to learn about the church. We will be making posters and flyers to display principles of the church and stuff like that. Just that the branch here
is really small and no one knows what they are doing. So the Branch President pretty much threw the entire thing on my shoulders to plan. We had a 3 hour meeting on sunday with all the leaders of the church to try and plan this thing. Mamma mia some of the suggestions for the activity were just crazy. I would imagine you get this sometime in your calling...  Yeah. So I'm trying to put all this together. We have a youth activity tonight where we will start making some progress on the whole thing. Hopefully the whole thing will work out.

This week with *******, we made some headway... my comp used the excuse of being new and not knowing his whole story to blunty ask him why he isn't baptized. He told us that he agrees with lots of the doctrine of the church and believes it's a great place but doesn't believe in the word of wisdom and for that he doesn't want to get baptized. Not even like he has an addiction to any of it. He just likes to drink wine and then get a coffee with his friends once and awhile. This sort of problem is tricky to get around. Because you can't just teach word of wisdom to get around a word of wisdom problem. It's more a matter of Faith. For me most of it comes down to a testimony in the Book of Mormon which he doesn't have. Mostly because he won't commit himself to read it. Any suggestions?

Z***** is good. Making baby steps towards baptism. He is just really confused and has super weird ideas about things. Every lesson I need to get bolder and bolder with him. He goes off on crazy huge tangents and it's hard to get back on course. It will be a long process for him
to be baptized but doesn't mean it's not possible. We just need to find some new people to teach. The Mantovani (locals) are really hard headed. Every so often we meet an amazing italian who lets us in, listens and interacts with us then at the end says. "Tengo la mia" direct translation mean "I keep mine" just means really that they wont change and will always be a catholic. And why not right? Being Catholic is just too easy for these people. Why change to a "harder" religion.... (sarcasm)

Well Love you All! Good luck with the busy work schedule dad! Thanks for everything you do!

Anz. Mendel