I LOVE MANTOVA!!!!!

hey!!

 

So I'm here in Mantova and it's sooooo beautiful. I really love it. I don't think it's hit me that I've been in Italy till now. Not that I don't love Collegno because I do. Collegno will always be in my heart but being in Mantova it really feels likes I'm in Italy. I've already taken like 100 pictures and I'm going to wait another week or so before I mail pictures but just so you know that Montova is just such a beautiful place :) 

 

My companion is Anziano Reynoso I don't know if I talked about him last week or not. But he is from California. He is my first non Utah companion :) :) :) haha He is such a great kid, I really love him. He is on his second transfer and he just really wants to work and do the will of the Lord. I'm really grateful for him and his willingness to learn, he is such a stud.

 

my week...

 

THURSDAY-we went to the train station it was weird to leave Collegno but at the same time I needed to. haha When we got to the train station and I saw all my missionary friends it was great.  Then I met my companion and took a train to Mantova, it was about 2 hours. Just like it would take from Milan to Collegno.  When we got there we had time to shop for some food and all that fun stuff. Then we had an appointment with this guy named Alessandro. He believes that the his church and our church are right and that there are 2 true churches anyways. I'm pretty sure we will drop him after trying to teach him maybe 2 more times.

Anyways then we went to this Brazilians home (in Mantova there are many emigrants, most of them from Brazil) anyways so they are members and they moved here 2 months ago. They don't know Italian that well. So we go over 2 times a week to help them with Italian, so that the father can get a better job. I really love them, they are so great. It was a good first day in Mantova.

 

FRIDAY- pretty much did weekly planning and we have a bunch of investigators which is awesome. We are just going to go and visit these people and baptize them this transfer. We made our vision and we have a goal to baptize 5 people. I really think we can do it and I know that the Lord will help us achieve our goal.  Later on we were riding our biking to the Brazilian family and I got a flat tire.How it works in Mantova is that all or most of the members live outside the city so we were like stuck on the highway. So we locked my bike up and we rode one bike together to this members home haha. It was not the funniest thing in the world especially because I was in the back haha. anyways we get there and explain the situation and he agrees to drive us to the other bike that we locked up after. So I got to ride on this guys scooter and my comp had to bike like 40 kms/hour hahah It was so funny anyways we were able to get a tire and fix it the next day.When we got to the bike we just walked home it was like 10 mins not too bad hahaha so a little bit of bike trouble but nothing too big haha.

 

SATURDAY-  we had English class at 10:30. I got on the bike and it wasn't working like there was this grinding sound so we had to double all the way to church which is like a 20 min ride haha. It was pretty painful and people we even taking pictures of us in Centro hahahaha. Anyways in our English class we have this older woman named Carla and she is way awesome. The missionaries have never tried inviting her to learn more, but she just recently started coming to church and she asked if she could come to our stake conference which was the next day so that was awesome. After English class we were leaving and there was this Muslim guy that I stopped on the street and invited him in the church so that we could teach him. He agreed and was very open but wasn't interested. It was cool that he was so open. We met this way cool less active who isn't really less active. she is because she doesn't or actually can't come to church because she takes care of her husband's sister who has cancer. Her name is Margharita, and she is just so awesome and fun to talk to. We talked to her about Christ and that through Him we can over come all our trials. It was a really good day.

 

SUNDAY- so we went to Verona which is where Romeo and Juliet was taken place, so that was cool. We met Carla at the train station and she came with us to stake conference it was way sweet.Carla said she liked it a lot and that she agreed on many of the principles. Anyways little did we know there was a train strike and so there were no trains going back to Mantova and so we took this other train to the city over and from there took a bus that went to Mantova. But the bus only left at 5:30 and we got there at like 2 haha so we had like a few hours to chill and it was way hot and I was way hungry but it was Sunday so I couldn't buy anything haha. Anyways I was surprised because Carla asked about the restoration, she hadn't heard it, she had been coming to English class for 2 years and no one told her. So I explained it to her and she took it very well, she wants to continue to come to church and we will try to continue to teach her. Anyways by the time we got home all the time we had was to go to our apartment and eat something because I had no energy because I hadn't eaten anything all day and so we spent the whole day with Carla talking about the church it was awesome and also there was this dog show thing in the park at this city of dogs doing tricks and saving people so we just watched that too it was pretty sweet.

 

MONDAY-  my first district meet, it went really well I presented the district vision which was 4 principles which were faith, obedience, worthiness, and unity. I delegated people to talk about those things, it was really awesome and spiritual and I promised our district that if they did these things they would see there vision come to pass it was awesome. So for my first district meeting i think it went well :) Then we did scambio, and Anziano Bolnick from my district's last transfer came to Mantova and something really sweet happened. We were walking in Centro talking to people and then we decided to leave and we headed to the bikes and then once we were there we decided to take our scambi picture. When we were leaving this woman came and ran up to us and asked us if we were missionaries. We said yes and asked her where she knew us, she began to talk about how her and her boyfriend in Rome got lessons from the missionaries. And how they love reading the book of Mormon and said she moved to Mantova and didn't know there were missionaries. Her boyfriend is still in Rome but she lives in Mantova so we will baptize her. It was way awesome! Also that night Anziano Lesa and Portolano from Siena came to Mantova because Anziano Lesa needs to re-new his permesso so they slept over that night.

 

TUESDAY-  we re-scambied pretty early in the morning and then Anziano Reynoso and I went to teach a lesson but the person wasn't there so we went and did a pass by to some one else who was there. We got in and taught a lesson about the book of Mormon. One problem, he was from Brazil and didn't speak  anything Italian so it was way hard to teach him. We will bring members next time. Anyways after lunch we did a scambi and I went with Anziano Lesa to his appointment for his permesso. We just had such a fun time. He is such a great person and he is way good at singing, like way way good and we just talked about our lives. He is such a good missionary too. Anyways that night I went to fratello Campo's house another Brazilian family he is the ward mission leader. He is way awesome and I asked him to teach me Portuguese, so I'm going to take this opportunity to learn Portuguese. Obviously I will still practice Italian, I will get an Italian/Portuguese dictionary and learn Portuguese from Italian. There are so many Brazilian here that I need to learn and fratell Campos said he will teach me....aren't you so excited :) so pretty much the Campos family is sweet and the mothers name is Fatima just like another person I know :)

 

Anyways I love Mantova it's so sweet and I know that miracles will happen here. Thanks for all your love and support and thank you for all you do, I love you all so much and I'm so excited to do the Lords work.

 

Love Anziano Glowa

 

if there are any questions just write me and ask me :)

 

some other little stuff is that Mantova is a branch of about 30 people and yeah anything else oh also I ride a bike and its way fun! I LOVE MANTOVA!!!!!