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! :)