Nutella spaghetti

May 1, 2012


Hey my family,

so how's is everyone doing? I'm so glad that you were able to talk a
little to sister Boshi. I really love her and her son Gabry he's sooo
awesome, I'm grateful that the Lord has sent me here to Firenze, I LOVE
MY MISSION!

The situation hasn't really changed with our investigators, Danilo is
still planned for the 11th of May and Francesca hasn't said yes to
baptism yet, but I have faith that things will change. Other then that
we have a bunch of investigators that aren't very committing to meeting
us and such. So this week our main focus is find find find, we are
going to go out and find them people that the Lord is preparing for
us.

The young men are doing well, I love my calling, I can see myself
being a young men's president for the rest of my life. I think its
something I really enjoy. Yesterday I went to one of the youths houses
to help him with English his name is Moroni. His little brother
Kevin was there with no homework so I made him get his duty to God to
work on, so I was helping one with English while I was helping the
other with the duty to God, I love these KIDS!!!!

The reason I took my pday today is because its a holiday here and Gabry
doesn't have school so we agreed to hang out with him :) We are going
to have nutella spaghetti and maybe go bowling, it should be a fun
day.

I hope I get to finish my mission here, I don't think its tooo likely.
I do know that the branch president loves us and is grateful for
the work we are doing, he came up to us and said that we are the best
young men's presidency he's seen in a long time. We have kinds coming to
things that haven't in a long time. He's already written President
Wolfgramm an email and he also said he was going to call him to see if
he can get me and Anziano Weller to stay together and finish our
missions here. That would be sooo great! I love the members here and I
love that they love me, the work is going so well and its because of
the relationship between us and the members. So DAD if you want
success in the YSA get tight with the missionaries.

Anyways that's it for me this week, I love this church and I love this
gospel. This mission has changed my life! You can tell Mordecai that
this is better then any anime he will ever watch! I feel so prepared
and I really understand my purpose in life. I know what I want to
become. I will never be able to thank you enough for raising me in the
faith, and for being such great examples. I love you all much, Jesus
is the Christ, Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ face
to face, the Book of Mormon is the word of God and if all of this is
true then...WHAT ELSE MATTERS! I love you all have a great week.

Love Anziano Glowa

My life is going great, our investigators are doing so well,

April 26,2012

My life is going great, our investigators are doing so well, 

DANILO- has almost just about quit smoking, he smokes like 1 everyone like 3 days or something. He's doing great, we moved his baptism to the 11th of May because there is an activity on the 12th. He's on the path, and he's going strong, he has been prepared so well, he just understands everything so well and just studies more then I've ever seen.

FRANCESCA- she has been receiving answers left, right and centre, she reads the book of Mormon everyday. I asked her how she feels when she reads it she said its like cotton all around her and that waves are inside of her... If that's not an answer I don't know what is haha. She knows she needs to be baptized, she's having a war with her heart and mind...her heart says yes and her mind has doubts like her parents and family and stuff like that... but she is just so amazing!! 

Those are our most progressing investigators. I don't know if I've told you a lot about one of my most favourite families on the mission the Boschi family. Sister Boshi is amazing and her 16 year old son Gabry is awesome. He reminds me of when I was with Elder Merrell and Gould. He is just soooo awesome, yesterday for pday we had such a good time together. He has such a strong testimony and is just so strong. Sister Boschi is separated from her husband and she is just such a great example of personal strength. I love them soooo much!!! You'll be able to talk to them on mothers day because we will be doing the phone call at her house. she speaks English very well and I would love for you to talk with her a little haha, she is just amazing! 

Other then that, we have been working hard, with being zone leaders to being the young men's presidency haha . Life just doesn't get better!! I love my mission so much, if I could give one piece of advice to the youth it would be to SERVE A MISSION. Here I thought I would be going to help so many people. I am doing that, but I didn't know how much I WOULD grow. Or how much the mission was for ME, I don't know what I would do without the mission or where I'd be, I'm so grateful for this mission, I love the Lord and I love my mission 

I'm sorry my email isn't longer I know I've been slacking. Just know that I'm trying my best, haha. And know that I'm working hard, and that I love serving the Lord. The mission is the best thing that has ever happened to me... I love this church, and I KNOW THAT ITS TRUE! I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ face to face and I know that through Joseph Smith they restored their church. I love this work and I can't express more then that. I know I am a servant of Jesus Christ and I am an instrument in His hands. I love that song, I'm trying to be like Jesus, its so humbling to be a representative of Him. I represent Jesus Christ, I put His name on my chest everyday, He is my Lord and my Master and I will never stop. I will never stop, He's done so much for me, the most I can do for Him is to NEVER STOP! I love this church with all my heart and I grateful for you and the examples you've given me, I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!!

and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen

I love you family, you're the best,

Love ANziano Glowa

Amazing things are happening here,

April 18th,2012


Hey my family!!

How are is everyone doing?? I'm doing great! dad is sounds like things are going good with your new calling, I'm so proud of you :)

I don't have too much time sorry, but amazing things are happening here, I won't be surprised if we baptize 3 to 4 people this next transfer.

First off anziano Weller and I are staying the same I'm so happy I prayed that we would. And I found out, that anziano Mitchell my last companion is going to Pisa so I'll be able to do scambi with him.

I'll tell you about our legit investigators

FRANCESCA- a 27 year old Italian girl, from Ancona but is living here in Firenze, she needed a place to stay and found out that the famiglia Boschi (Gabrys house) had room. So when we went over we met her and they referred us to her. She is sooooo elect, she has a friend that served a mission and a few friends are members of the church, anyways she came to church last Sunday and we have taught her the restoration and the book of Mormon and last night we taught her again. It was one of the most spiritual lessons on my mission. We wanted to establish our purpose, how do you do that, invite to baptism haha so thats what we did. First its important to note that Francesca is very sensitive to the spirit and has already said things like "when I walk into the Boschi home I just have a good feeling" and then she also said "when you guys come over or when I talk to you(us the missionaries) I feel good energy". Anyways so we started the lesson by talking about that and then read Alma 7:11-14, every sentence she read she was like "wow" and then she started to shake, the spirit was so thick, we invited her to baptism and she agreed. We just asked her if she wanted to feel like this always, we didn't give her a date, we asked her to pray about it and we will talk about it on Friday. We had sorella Boschi who is like a mother to me I love her. You will get to talk to her on mothers day :) sorella Boschi talked about her conversion and it just helped Francesca know that it was the right thing, it wasn't awkward. Talking about baptism I mean, and now she's going to get baptized and she knows our purpose. She is one of the cooler investigators I've had, im excited.

DANILO- he is the ex-boyfriend of one of the members I told you he called us asked to meet with us. He could get baptized, he is amazing, he reads the book of Mormon with the student manual, he has all the LDS apps on his ipad haha and he has a date for baptism for the 12th of May, he is soooo LEGIT!!! we are teaching him again tonight

STEFANO AND CATIA- we set the law, they have to get married or not live together to get baptized, the ball is in their court. Catia has expressed to us that she knows that this is the road for her. Stefano says he hasn't goten an answer yet but we all think he has he just doesn't want to say he has. We have to find out what his true problem, is.

Those are our legit, we have other that we have meet with and its too early where things will take us but those 4 people i just talked about are sooo legit, especially Francesca who we met last Friday not even a week haha and Danilo! 

Now about the young men, you can tell Patrick that we have frustrating young men here too haha  But I really feel like we are making progress, we have about 5 active youth and we are working to re-activate 3 they are all awesome. We don't have mutual tonight because we have an activity on Saturday, we are going to this mountain to play capture the flag. It should be fun the young women are coming too. Things are just gong great, new transfer, I'm just pumped to get things done and to baptize its been a while... but I'm stoked. 

Also I love getting packages but customs are so expensive, they take the money off of our church card... anyways they are asking parents to not send packages but to just give us money, because if you buy  60 dollars worth of stuff and then it costs 60$ to send it here and then 60$ in customs, you can just put 200$ on my card and i can get stuff here. It makes sense and I'm coming home soon anyways so I can wait to have candy and such, like for my birthday just give me money so I can buy like shoes and a suit and stuff I love you guys! :)

I love you all, I know that Christ lives, I love putting the name of Christ on everyday, its so humbling to think that I represent him. I love my mission, which brings me to my next point...I will be extending, I have goten spiritual confirmation, the only thing that would stop me is if President thinks it would be better if I go home, which would only happen if me staying would make the mission odd numbers. It would only be for one transfer so I would come home the 15th of November. I love this work, its the best and I know we will all get blessings because of this I love you so much. Just know I want to extend, I feel its what the Lord wants me to do, and I feel if I didn't i would regret it and if I stay there are no regrets so I'm going to stay :) I love you all 

Love Anziano Glowa

PS Happy Birthday Ashley !!! I wish you were still living there when I got home !!!

We had probably the biggest miracle ever yesterday.

April 11,2012

hey my family,

How are you all doing?? I miss ya'll so much!!! I cant believe about dad, I'm so happy for him. I know that you'll do great dad, I wish I was there and I could support you :) You don't need a young men's president, but if you did you would know where to look ;) haha  I'll give you one piece of advice, and that is to let the missionaries know that you love them, invite them over and be involved in there work. Its made the difference of my mission when I would get a call from the bishop asking if there was anything I could do for them, or how they were doing. Invite them over for dinner, make sure they are allowed because you don't want them to be disobedient. But I would say if you get in with the missionaries, they will do anything for you and that will help them branch a lot. I like how you want to focus with the less actives and that all ties in with using the missionaries. That is my advice go far and beyond what the missionaries expect of you and you will find they will do the same for you. Like I said its made the difference when my bishops didn't just see me as a missionary but as someone they could work with. I hope that makes sense, if not I can clarify next week.  Its weird that no one goes to Lasalle Ward anymore... its all about the YSA haha I don't know how long Courtney and I will be in the YSA when I get home ;) haha so use her while you still can :P 

My missionary work is going well, I'm very good at balancing my Calling with my missionary work. They don't conflict at all, so no worries. I'm not getting stressed or anything, the Lord knows me and knows that I'm capable :) I'm having so much fun though, there is this young man named Bruno, he's such a cool kid. He wants to go on a mission, the only thing is he plays b-ball, Sunday or Saturdays, and has practice every Wednesday, so for sure he cant come to mutual, and he'll be able to come to church every once and a while, but he has such a good heart. His ball is done in June so its not that much longer. I actually had Easter with him. I had Easter at the Boschi family, they have a son named Gabry, one of my favourite youth of all time! He reminds me of me when I was 16. He's best friends with the missionaries, its kinda how things were when Elder Merrell and Gould were here, anyways we and Bruno went there with his mom because Gabry and Bruno are best friends. Bruno came to church that morning and blessed the sacrament also.  I love the youth I feel so close to them and tonight we have mutual with them we will be diving straight into Duty to God, there is a new manual, its a good thing i know how to read in Italian, haha. I had to read it to find out how the new booklet works, so we will go over it. I know I completed it when I was a youth because of the push you gave me. I dont think these kids have that same push so to start them off and get them excited about it, we will do it every week for 20-30 mins at the start of every mutual. That way I can help and answer questions and they can see that if they do that they will complete it :) So we will do that and then I am going to teach them how to give a short explanation of the book of Mormon and we will do some role plays, like if I friend goes to their house and they see a book of Mormon they will know how to explain in simply and clearly. I LOVE MY CALLING!!!

Now to talk about the reason I came to Italy, my missionary work. We had probably the biggest miracle ever yesterday...we got a call from this guy named Danilo, he is the ex-boyfriend of a member named Ester. Anyways Danilo has been coming to church but never wants to meet with us, yesterday he called us and said, Anziani I need to meet with you, its regarding my baptism, I want to be baptized! Anyways we don't know if he's doing it for Ester or because he wants to be closer to God, but whatever it is we will help him be ready and get baptized for the right reasons. So we are meeting with him tonight so you'll find out more about that next week.  We are still working with Stefano and Catia and they have such strong testimonies! We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they both said that this was there favourite thing of all the religions because it just makes sense :) They are awesome, they "have" a date for the 14th but it wont happen. They are still living together non married, we are meeting with them Thursday to explain Chastity and that they either get married or move out, or they cannot get baptized, and they want to get baptized. I think Catia more then Stefano but they both want it. Other then that we are teaching this new guy named Femmy, he's from Nigeria. He's not like other Nigerians haha he knows English, Italian, and Russian fluently and knows Japanese, he is studying business and will be going to Canada to get his masters and he also has a job anyways he is very educated. He is 32 and was studying medicine before then but didn't like it so he changed, he is so cool. He has a date for the 5th of May, he accepted, and we prayed at the end of our first visit and he said it, the spirit was so strong he got freaked out. He kept saying, I've never felt like this before... it was awesome. He already believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet its awesome. We are contacting people and trying to set up appointments, we are teaching 20 lessons weekly, and working hard, I love the mission. 

I love you my family have a great week, know you are always in my prayers! 

Love Anziano Glowa

Conference was amazing!!

April 6, 2012

Hey my family!!

So Conference was amazing!! Unfortunately I didn't bring my notes so I don't know what to tell you. Obviously I have the speakers I liked a lot like Anziano Bednar, and I loved Anziano Oaks. President Uchtdorf's there are just so many, I took notes like always. Dang I'm grateful that you taught Jason and I to talk notes. There were missionaries who just wouldn't take notes... how are you going to remember if you don't take notes... Anyways I'm grateful I did :) Everything has really changed for me, like conference for example. I could watch conference forever! or listen to other talks or firesides. It used to be like after church the tv is one, but I'm going to make the goal for myself that I try not to watch tv on Sundays. To do more productive things like listen to talks or read my scriptures more thoughtfully, and things like that. Its weird how I'm the same person but I'm also different, does that make sense? I've also made other goals for myself that I'm going to do to ensure that I keep the spirit as I do on the mission. Because if I don't have a plan I'll just go back to how i was before. Which isn't the worst but I feel like that's not something I want to do. Like get ready for when I get home because I don't care what you do we are reading the book of Mormon and praying everyday together. If we have to wake up at 5 in the morning to do it we're doing it :P haha I have other goals, like FHE, not just like going to see a movie but like real, good messages :) I have a list of things that I am going to put into practise to make the transition from missionary to RM smooth :) I LOVE THE GOSPEL!!!!

The young men are doing well, I need to change things around, no one came to YMS last Wednesday night, except for Gabri. One of my favourite youth I've meet on the mission. He's 16, he reminds me of myself. He's soo awesome!! Hahahah !! We have about 5 active youth and about 4 that we need to work on that just aren't motivated, but things are going to change. I've already called all the parents of the active parents hounding them to push their children to come and telling them that we have mutual now and the time that we have it so we will see how many people come.  This Sunday I have to prepare a lesson for them, I'm just excited to get the ball rolling and to show the kids that its different then the past. Before they never had mutual, they didn't do anything, like I experienced once, but I'm going to make sure that things get done and things change! These young men will go on missions!

The week went slowly, my comp was still sick for the later part of the week and then we did a blitz at Prato. Then we stayed there and watched conference, it was awesome! Then Monday we had district meeting and then had to plan for the week and then we went to visit one of our less active youth. He's soooo awesome his name is Bruno. He's 17 and his problem is basketball every Sunday and every Tuesday Wednesday and Friday so he doesn't have time. He's born in the church and has a testimony when we went over and shared a message, he had his book of Mormon open reading and answering questions. He's just let basketball take over his life, which isn't the worst, but also isn't the best, he finished in June. But before then we are planning on moving mutual on to Thursdays if all works out with other kids and he doesn't play ball every Sunday just most and then he's too tired to go to church... but I feel we started things off well for him and we will continue to work with him, he will serve a mission. 

As for our investigators. 

XIOMARA- will not be baptized due to parents... but the Lord has a plan for all his children, we will be patient, and continue to try and work with the situation, I have faith that she will get baptized, it may not be when we want but it will be when the Lord needs her to be baptized.

STEFANO & CATIA- are sooo legit but couldn't come to conference and they just are busy with work all the time. We can't meet with them as often as we want and they are still not married, they wont be getting baptized the 14th but I know they are progressing, they read the book of Mormon like 3 times a day, morning lunch and dinner, haha they are so awesome, 

Other then that we have a bunch of contacts that we are trying to make appointments with and now that we are both health again we will be able to go out and baptize everyone!

I am so grateful for my mission, I love my mission with all my heart, and I'm honoured to wear the Saviours name on my chest everyday. I think that will be the hardest thing to do is take off the tag for the last time... my mission means everything to me. Thing I heard that I like a lot is, the mission is the best 2 years FOR my life, instead of the best 2 years of my life.... It's true to mission shapes everything and I feel like I said before I'm different. I hope that's okay but I feel like its a good change. I'm so grateful for you guys and that you taught me to prepare to serve. I'm so grateful for that, I see missionaries who are here because it was a last  choice, they don't know the scriptures, or even why they are where. It's great that they are here and learning and growing but I feel so grateful that I made the decision to serve when I was so young. I've been truly blessed to come here and to learn so much more and to grow my testimony. With the testimony that I have now makes me feel like i didn't even have one before. That's how much its grown haha. I'm so grateful for the Saviour and for his love for us, we must follow His example and love each other as He loves us.  I love you all so much and just know that I'm giving these last 6 months everything I have because iI know that's what Heavenly Father would have me do. I love you guys have a great week :)

Love Anziano Glowa