Christmas News!!

Hey!!!

This week has been a weird week for me. Let’s just say that all the miracles I had last week didn’t carry on to this week. Haha, everyone that we met stood us up so this week was a finding week again, which I don’t mind because I know that I’m doing the Lord’s work.

THURSDAY

After I wrote to you, we were going to go to Seberga (I think that is how it’s spelt). It’s a castle and it was a nice day but we ended up doing other stuff and would have had time to go but we went to the Torino 2 ward and played ping-pong with other missionaries. It was fun. Later that night we just did casa but didn’t find anyone.

FRIDAY

We did a super split; the zone leaders from Torino 2 ward came to Collegno and we blitzed the city. I went with one zone leader and my comp went with another and all 4 of us stayed in Collegno and did casa. Together, we taught 4 lessons and found 2 more investigators so that was a blessing.

SATURDAY

In the morning we just did casa and tried to find some people. That night we had our Christmas party/dinner. It was fun; we watched the Christmas message by the first presidency. I didn’t understand a lot of it because it was in Italian but I got the jest of it.  Then the young men and young women did a presentation thing where they sang and read quotes and scriptures; it was really nice.  Afterwards we had dinner and it was good but it was more just like snock stuff. Not really like 5-course dinner or anything but nonetheless it was good because it was Italian. Haha I love the food here!!!

SUNDAY

We went to church like always and I’m talking to more and more members. The unity between the missionaries and the members is amazing. That night we did casa and this Atheist let us in and we just talked and he was very open he was a cool guy but its hard to get return appointments for anyone now because it’s the holiday season and the Italians like to drag on the holidays as long as possible! Haha but my comp and me haven’t given up on finding investigators but we decided that we are just going to find members instead, haha. We were leaving the apartment of the Atheist and we saw this women and she was like you're Mormons right? And we were like yeah how do you know us? She was like “I was baptized 4 years ago but I don’t go anymore,” so we got her number and we'll meet her next week. Haha so that was a cool experience.

MONDAY-TUESDAY

Nothing really happened. We did a lot of casa and didn’t really find anyone. We had a bunch of pass bys but we got stood up on all of them but that’s okay. We all have trials for a reason; we may not be able to see them all right now but we will sooner or later.

I’ll tell you what my plans are for Christmas. So I will sleep in until I wake up and then we have lunch at the bishop’s house. Then we have a dinner appointment at a member’s home that night we will get there at like 5. After we eat, we will watch a Disney movie and then head home and get ready to work the next day.

I love you all and I’m so grateful for your love and support and I will talk to you on Saturday! :) I love you

Love Anziano Glowa

Italian Christmas Miracles!!

Hello to all,

I’ll start off my e-mail by telling you that we found 8 new investigators! :) It’s really a miracle how it happened.

I thought this week was going to be another hard week of not finding anyone haha, but the miracles started on Saturday. Because we got bikes on Friday, we decided to bike into Torino because we have a little chunk of it.  We decided to do this huge apartment building and found no one, haha no problem, we went across the street and the same thing…no one.  We decided to walk up the street and my companion had his eyes on these huge apartment buildings so we headed there. While walking I looked to my right and saw this small nothing of an apartment that had 4 people in it, not really worth trying to get in but I felt we should. So I told my comp and he agreed with me. The first 3 doors resulted in nothing and I was ready to give up but then I knocked on the last door and a little girl answered. I asked her “are your parents home?” She ran away and got her dad haha and spoke in my broken Italian and said “can we speak to you for 5 minutes about a message we have about the family?” With no hesitation, he said yes and invited us in, and to sit down.  We sat down and asked if his wife was home and if she wanted to join us, which she did. In no time at all we had 3 new investigators, the parents and the little girl who I think is 9.  It was a beautiful short lesson where we promised blessings and said we can come back Thursday at 7 so that’s tonight haha I’m really excited!

Next, we found another apartment and tracked it. We found another family!! And there were another 3 there but we already went back and they weren’t there, so well have to try again.  On Sunday we were doing casa and we were just about to head back when my comp decided to do one more so we did and we found this really cool family. The mom is probably in her 60's and the son in his 30's the mom is Christian and the son is Atheist but both really receptive and wanted to hear more. We are meeting with them on Sunday, so there you have it! Eight new investigators in 2 days!! I know that the Lord is truly preparing people for us to find.

I’ll go through my week with you now:

THURSDAY:

After I wrote you guys last week, we did our shopping and then headed to Torino to hang out with the other missionaries.  When we got there we ate at...drum roll please..........MCDONALDS!!! And it tasted soooo good; I didn’t know how much I missed it hahaha. Anyway, so then we went to Centro (its a part in Torino) and we walked around went into some stores and some Catholic churches. It was pretty sweet to see the culture, I pulled a Rockie move and forgot my camera but I won’t today so no worries. Also I can send pictures through the computer so I’ll do that next week. That was pretty much all we did on pday. After we had a DA with my first member family the Tribastonis. They're awesome! They got baptized 2 years ago and I had a real Italian meal. First we started with cheese and bread, then with pasta, and then with the meat and salad, and for desert fruit and cookies. I was sooo stuffed I thought I was going to die but it was so good!!!!!!!!

FRIDAY:

Friday we didn't do much casa because the first half of the day we do weekly planning and then after we had to get bikes. I have this pretty sweet blue one and my comp got the same model but red. We also have matching helmets haha we look soooo cool!!!! Not hahaha! It’s still fun. Don’t worry, you will get pictures next week hahaha and that’s really all we did. We got the cheapest bike there but it’s not bad. That night we went to the Bishop’s house for some Italian cake and just to talk about the mission work. He’s a really cool guy. I like him and his family a lot, he and his wife served in the south Italy mission.  Also, while we were there they invited us to have Christmas lunch with them so we are so going to be doing that.

SATURDAY&SUNDAY:

We found 8 investigators and also had church. All of the member are so nice and we have this really old sister that just brings us food every week. Haha it’s pretty sweet because we don’t have to buy so much food ourselves haha.

(If i dont mention a day its because all we did was track haha)

TUESDAY:

We tracked the first part of the day and then we had a lesson with our recent convert Vanessa. We spoke about temples and the work we do there and why they are important.  After that we had English class, which we teach and it is sooooooo funny!!!!! I taught the differences between there, their and they're and then we played the game pyramid.  That’s when we write a bunch of words on the board and one person is facing the board and the other isn't and they have have to describe the words to them. Haha we put Jesus as one of the words and the description that was said was "the Son of God" and the guy just replied I don’t know! It was so funny, maybe you had to be there but it was just hilarious hahaha! Then we went and I got a Kebab, which is a Greek food or something. It’s really good; it’s like what they serve at Amir’s but I like it a lot better hahaha.

WEDNESDAY:

We had zone conference, which is why I’m writing on Thursday again.  It was really effective and good we learnt on how to use to Book of Mormon more and why it’s important. It was really spiritual and really uplifting, this zone conference probably changed how I’m going to do missionary work now.

And that was my week pretty much. Now I’ll answer the questions you had:

How is your weather?

It’s sunny everyday, which is weird because usually its cloudy and it doesn’t get much colder then -4, which is nice.

Do you need boots?

No I’m good. There isn’t any snow for now and if it does snow I’m on a bike and it shouldn’t snow too much.

So yesterday at Zone conference I did get the package. The tap was ripped as if the Italians opened it but I don’t think they took anything because everything was wrapped so we got lucky there. Don’t forget to start putting Mother Mary pictures on the packages hahaha. :)

Anyway, that’s it for me for now Sorry if I missed a question of something. I love you so much and I will talk to you next week.

I LOVE YOU!!!! :)
Elder Glowa

P.S Thanks for the pictures they're awesome and I love where the tree is! :)

Finally in Italy !!!!

I AM FINALLY IN ITALY!!!!!!!!!!
Hello my family,
So I arrived safe and sound as you already know because you talked to my mission presidents wife. So mom my town doesn't start with a P it starts with a C I'm serving in a small town 20 min west of Torino ,I'm in Collegno!!! :) It's so tight, we have a ward of 50 people and our church building is only 6 years old so its brand new its awesome.  My trainer is such a stud his name is Anziano Meszaros,  our unity is awesome we're pretty much best friends. He's super tall ,he's 6'6 he reminds be of Patrick haha .He was born in Canada and moved to Utah when he was 6.  Are you ready for the surprise? He's only been in Italy for 3 full transfers I'm his second comp and he is training me ,it's so awesome. He's really good with the language because his trainer was a native.  We're both young but because of our faith and because we have no fear we are going to see miracles happen, as we like to say "we're going to destroy Collegno" :)

I'll go day by days so I can tell you all that I've been doing:

WEDNESDAY-I arrived in Italy and had dinner at the mission home with the mission pres and his wife and then we went and stayed in a hotel for our first night nothing too special.

THURSDAY- We woke up and went to the Milan's two church building(its called Milan two because there are 3 wards in Milan) We went there to meet our trainers and find out where we were going. That's where I met my super cool trainer:) Then we had lunch and we were off to our new city.  To get from Milan to my city you have take a 2 hour train ride to Torino and then either take the metro and a bus or just a longer bus ride but either way it takes 20 mins. On the metro on my first day there was a guy there and I felt like I should talk to him. As you know my Italian isn't the best yet but I tried my best. I explained where I was from and why I was here and so on . I then  went on to say since it was my first day ,would he mind if i practice my Italian? He said sure so I taught him that God is our loving Heavenly Father and how the Gospel blesses families .I would have continue but it was time to get off so I said bye. By the time we got back to the apartment it was later so we only had time to knock on a few apartment buildings.

Let me tell you about my apartment.  The location is amazing and I'm sure I'm going to make you jealous when I explain how awesome our apartment is. The apartment is  right in the middle of the town ,so its close to everything. Also we live over a bakery and the baker and  everyone that works there love us ,so we sometimes get free stuff it's so awesome . Italian i LOVE IT!  My town is called Collegno but we also have other little towns to take care of . We have Rivoli and also Grugliasco or something like that.  A week before I got there our bikes got stolen so I need to buy a bike this week so it should cost no more then 200 £ just to be safe . For this whole week we've been walking everywhere which I don't mind anymore I'm really used to it but that was my first real day. Also we got the best pizza ever!!!!!!! and then we ate gelato and it was the BEST Coconut EVER!!!!!! Italian food rocks!!!! :)

FRIDAY-  We planed for the whole week so for example we make goals and stuff for how many people we want to talk to and how many lessons we want to teach. Then we spent the rest of the 6 hour day doing casa( casa means tracking and that just going from apartment building to apartment building) at first I was nervous but now it's not big deal. I just talk to whoever hahaha. It was hard and long but fun. Then at 7 we had a lesson with this guy named Encrio. We taught him half of the 2nd lesson. He's doing well and he understands and agrees with all we are teaching him. For the moment he's the only person we're teaching which means we do casa every other time of the day.
SATURDAY-this day was rough but fun we did casa for like 8 to 9 hours ,it was fun though. I'm just glad I have a companion who I get a long with ,it just makes things so much easier and more fun.

I'll tell you how my days go; I wake up at 6:30 get ready and eat till 8 . Then personal study ,so studying the scriptures from 8 to 9 and then from 9 to 10 its with my comp .We learn together, plan lessons etc. Then from 10 to 1 we go do casa or if  we have an appointment and then from 1 to 3 we have lunch/language study/power nap!!(pres said he was a fan of power naps so we eat for half an hour study for an hour and then nap for half an hour)! I never knew I was going to get to power nap. Any ways then we do "casa" from 3 to 8 and then from 8 to 9 we do "strada". We just walk to streets and find people to talk with because after 8 its too late to be ringing door bells. Then from 9 to 9:30 we plan for the next day makes goals and plans. Then 9:30 to 10:30 is hangout ,talk and get ready and then go to bed.  I love being here it's so awesome. I wake up in the morning and can't believe that I'm here it's amazing.

SUNDAY- We have church at 9, church was super fun I met all the members and they are way nice and awesome. I explained that  it was my first week and they understand when I speak to them haha !! I gave an opening prayer and that was fun ,I wasn't nervous at all and then I went up and introduced myself and bore testimony. I hope they will be able to trust me as a missionary and know that I can do this even if i don't speak the language as well as I would like to hahaha .Then during Sunday school we taught a new member that got baptized November 20th. We taught about the importance of church on Sunday and so on and then we had priesthood 3rd hour I didn't understand a lot because it was just a lot lot lot lot lot lot lot of talking in Italian but it was still awesome.

MONDAY- We had to start my temporary residence forms for being in Italy for 2 years so we had to go to Torino, that was at 10:00 and it went fast and then we had District meeting at 11:00. That's when our district has a meeting and we talk about investigators that we're having a hard time with and just ask for help on how to fix situations and so forth. There are 4 people in my district(very small) there is me, Meszaros, Dean and our district leader Gammel.  after district meeting I went on splits and stayed in Tornio with Gammel. it was fun I got to stay in Torino and see what Tornio was like. It's pretty ghetto but cool I sure like Collegno way better I love it because there are only Italians no immigrates like in Tonino ,its hard to find an Italian in Torino. We got pizza and we got gelato and it was AWESOME!!!!

TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY- we pretty much just did "casa: and work hard its fun but hard because we're not finding anyone. Our effort and attitude is there so it's just a matter of time before we see a miracle. This week we're going to try some new finding methods should be awesome :) Oh also yesterday was "Immaculate Conception" day for Italians its a famous holiday. No one works ,   I guess it's just another day for Italians to take off work hahaha !!

Anywyas that's it for me this week tell me if you want more detail and give me questions of things you wanna know haha all right I love you all have a good week !!!!!!!!!!!

Love Anziano Glowa

Anziano Glowa is now in Italy

Here is how you can write Anziano Glowa now . 

By Mail:Here is how you can write Anziano Glowa now

Anziano Glowa 

Milan Italy Mission 

Via Gramsci, 13/4 20090 Opera (MI),, Italia 

By Dearelder:

Anziano Glowa

Milan Italy Mission

By email:

benjamin.glowa@myldsmail.net

Although you can email Ben now. I think he would still prefer dearelders,

because it comes in letter form and he can keep them and answer them any time.