Another week, a lot of stuff and I have no idea where to begin.
How about with investigators and how the work is doing there.
Start off with D since she is doing super awesome. In fact, she is doing so well that she will be baptized next Thursday! She wants to be baptized for the reason of knowing that this Church is true and so she is pushing her baptism from June 25th to April 5th to get baptized here. That will be really cool. Kinda weird though because this will mean all of the baptisms I have seen here have been of strainieri. No Italians..... Portuguese, Houndurian, Hungarian, Phillipian, Romanian..... Guess I was sent here to help non-Italians instead of Italians.
A.... Has been dropped because she won't quit smoking or drinking. Yes she has made progress in lessening her intake of these things but won't go any farther. For this we have decided to go from teaching her 4 times a week to only once until she is able to make enough progress to only drink 1L of wine a day or 1 pack of cigerettes. We hope she is able to do it.
I continues to do well. He knows these things are true but he has a few irrational fears about being baptized. He thinks he will baptized and then choose to be baptized in another church later. Any advice on what we can tell him about this? That it isn't really that big of a problem but he just thinks it is.
G..... I don't know what to do with her so I need some help. Mom, dad, I'm sending another email to you about her and what help I could use.
Other than that, the work goes on well. We had a super awesome miracle one hour before an appointment. Right in the morning too when everything is weird to do. Do we do area book? Do make phone calls? No. We decide to walk the 15 minutes to the park, do 10 minutes there and then walk back for our ride to the appointment. What does God do with this 10 minutes you may ask? He blesses us with a young couple who are looking for direction and peace in their life. When we get in the way, God puts people right in front of us.
Pretty sweet miracle and there are many more just like it everyday!
Besides that, we did a scambio this week and I got to do some work with Anziano Stanley again. We are doing a scambio with the ZLs tomorrow and that should be good.
The branch here is super awesome and we love them to death. They do way too much for us. In fact we haven't had a WML for a while now but the branch still helps us and they are seeing the work we are doing ourselves. Because of this, they are doing more missionary work and trying to do the most they can. Just all around miracles.
Today we are in Florence and we are just going to walk around. I sent the package last Thursday and they said it would arrive by this Thursday. So expect that in the mail. Next zone conference is coming up this next month, so I'll get the package you sent finally. Just missed it by a few hours. Besides that there isn't anything new going on. Just living life and doing work.
Buona settimana a tutti e ci sentiamo mercoledì,Anziano Rockwood
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Legal for 1 more Year
Uh oh! Where do I start? There has a lot been going on and you are probably wondering where I am!
We had another conference yesterday in Florence so we didn't get the chance to write emails. Therefore I am writing today. It was probably the best zone conference ever and I'll write about it later. But the surprise was ruined since you already saw the pic with me and Elder Allen. That was super cool.
Anyways, this week has been fun. I had to renew my permesso. Went a lot smoother this time than last time since they spelled my name right. It costs €140 to renew my permesso. Crazy expensive to just be LEGAL here! In a few weeks we are going to go to the questura (police station) to get my fingerprints done. So at this point I think the Italian government has more information about me than the American government. Should I be concerned?
Friday and Wednesday we went to the comune to help Italians learn english. That is a blast. We show them pictures, ask questions about their family, answer questions, etc. A great way to serve and the people are super awesome. The people taking these classes don't have work so they take these free courses from the city to gain skills to find work. Good program overall. The guy who runs it, Fabio, basically treats us as kings. I've never seen so many cookies, cakes, or baked goods in my life!
We are continuing our 20 lesson streak. Have to work our butts off to get it this week since we are only at 10 lessons so far. Worst day was Monday because I caught a bit of cold and we had to cancel most of our lessons in the morning. But we rescheduled them for later this week so it shouldn't be a problem. Still have a bit of a sore throat though. The investigators are all going pretty well.
"A" still needs to stop smoking and drinking. She has huge problems with this and has flatlined to "I'll be ok with only having faith in Christ and making small minor changes in life." So today we are just going to break boxes and get her back on board with everything. Otherwise we have to drop her. In terms of her reading the BoM, praying, and coming to church she is doing fine. Just commandments. Why does everyone have such big problems with commandments?
"G" continues to have problems with her husband and we are still not sure what to do. We had a breakthrough though with the fact that the 1st Counselor in the branch presidency has been playing some calcio with G's husband. Hopefully that starts to turn him around and let her get baptized. Praying fervently for this one.
"I" is on the quit smoking program and is doing well at it since he doesn't smoke too much to begin with. In fact I'm surprised he didn't stop before. He should be on track to be baptized if he starts coming to church! "Just come to church!"
"D" is also doing well. Only she wants to get baptized in the Phillippines. We just need her to realize that she should get baptized here and then perhaps her and her boyfriend could go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead or something. But we are just not sure how to change her mind!
That's the progress of our simps (simpatizante [investigators]). So the work is going fine. The only problem is finding finding time to get new ones since we have all these progressing!
Funny story time. We had 3 hours of open finding time that got destroyed because we did what Jesus would do. About 10 minutes into the finding, we get a text from the only Chinese member in our branch, "L", saying "Help! My body is sick! Accompany me! Can we come to hospidal? If you free!" So we find him near the hospital and we ask him what is wrong. He first said "Allergia!" And then made sneezing motions.
We said, "Ok, anything else?"
"Blood!"
"Blood.... where?" we asked.
"Blood! SH**!" he replied.
At this point I walked away to get the bikes and just started laughing while Bartholomew just went along with it being the Saint he is. So we take him to the hospital right to the emergency room and get him signed up. Now the thing about emergency rooms in Italy is that people go for anything. Stomach-aches, head-aches, stubbed toes, missing arms, allergies, being offended, etc, etc. Then no matter what reason you go in for, after waiting for 2 hours in the waiting room, they will tell you to go to a specialist. So for L they set him up for a proctologist and got him some prescription allergy medicine. We take him out to get the stuff for his appointment and the medicine. The allergy medicine is a spray that is very similar to asthma medicine but L had a hard time believing you put it in your mouth. He just wanted to put it in his nose! Then the medicine for the proctologist appointment had interesting......... illustrations on how to properly use it. So we got him all that and then on Tuesday we took him back for the appointment. I don't know what the doctors did in the room but L did not sound like he was having fun. And in the end we learned he just needed to drink more water so that his poop doesn't scratch him upon departure. But the good news is, thanks to socialized health care, he didn't have to pay anything! Miracles of waiting forever to be told something dumb.
Besides that story, our district is cursed. Anziano Winward's eye started to swell from allergies, Anziano Mina started to get tongue cancer from a lead filling, and I had a cold. Just not a good week I guess.
Zone Conference was good. We met Elder Allen, Bishop Allen's dad, who is the director of everything missionary. He was the one who put Preach My Gospel together. He told us some very profound things and we were sorely chastised as a mission. But it was all for our good. We also met Brother Lusvarde (he is the dad of my zone leader from last transfer), who is the director of Church historic sites, vistor centers, and pageants. So he owns the Sacred Grove, Nauvoo, Temple Square, Hill Cumoroh, and all those other nifty things. He was in Italy to get the Rome visitor center ready with Elder Allen. You know the Christus? That huge statue in the Salt Lake visitor center? They are making one of those for the Rome one and they are doing something even more special. The sculptor who made the original Christus also made statues of the 12 Apostles. So they are putting copies of those in the Rome visitor center as well. We learned that the Peter statue has a large key in his hand representing the Priesthood. It should be really cool! Other than that we learned how to manage our time better and reach 20 lessons a week. Very uplifting and one of the best conferences yet!
However, I did not get the package! Just going to have to wait. But speaking of packages. The mission is advising us to warn you about not sending too many out or to put multiple packages into one (for example, my Christmas package should have been one from you and Nana and Opa, not two seperate) because Italy is going to pay off their debt using customs. It costs about 50% of the total worth of the package for customs (eg. you send a package worth $50, it will cost $25 in customs). So I guess just one more for birthday and one for Christmas. Letters though are fine! I'm also sending my package today to you guys so it should be there in a few days. Not many gifts inside but more things I just need to send home.
Well, I'll look for some pics to attach and then start writing individual letters. Have an awesome week! Picture is of the tomb of Galileo Gallilei, we went to the church where he was buried last week. Also saw Dante Aligheri's tomb.
Anziano Rockwood
We had another conference yesterday in Florence so we didn't get the chance to write emails. Therefore I am writing today. It was probably the best zone conference ever and I'll write about it later. But the surprise was ruined since you already saw the pic with me and Elder Allen. That was super cool.
Anyways, this week has been fun. I had to renew my permesso. Went a lot smoother this time than last time since they spelled my name right. It costs €140 to renew my permesso. Crazy expensive to just be LEGAL here! In a few weeks we are going to go to the questura (police station) to get my fingerprints done. So at this point I think the Italian government has more information about me than the American government. Should I be concerned?
Friday and Wednesday we went to the comune to help Italians learn english. That is a blast. We show them pictures, ask questions about their family, answer questions, etc. A great way to serve and the people are super awesome. The people taking these classes don't have work so they take these free courses from the city to gain skills to find work. Good program overall. The guy who runs it, Fabio, basically treats us as kings. I've never seen so many cookies, cakes, or baked goods in my life!
We are continuing our 20 lesson streak. Have to work our butts off to get it this week since we are only at 10 lessons so far. Worst day was Monday because I caught a bit of cold and we had to cancel most of our lessons in the morning. But we rescheduled them for later this week so it shouldn't be a problem. Still have a bit of a sore throat though. The investigators are all going pretty well.
"A" still needs to stop smoking and drinking. She has huge problems with this and has flatlined to "I'll be ok with only having faith in Christ and making small minor changes in life." So today we are just going to break boxes and get her back on board with everything. Otherwise we have to drop her. In terms of her reading the BoM, praying, and coming to church she is doing fine. Just commandments. Why does everyone have such big problems with commandments?
"G" continues to have problems with her husband and we are still not sure what to do. We had a breakthrough though with the fact that the 1st Counselor in the branch presidency has been playing some calcio with G's husband. Hopefully that starts to turn him around and let her get baptized. Praying fervently for this one.
"I" is on the quit smoking program and is doing well at it since he doesn't smoke too much to begin with. In fact I'm surprised he didn't stop before. He should be on track to be baptized if he starts coming to church! "Just come to church!"
"D" is also doing well. Only she wants to get baptized in the Phillippines. We just need her to realize that she should get baptized here and then perhaps her and her boyfriend could go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead or something. But we are just not sure how to change her mind!
That's the progress of our simps (simpatizante [investigators]). So the work is going fine. The only problem is finding finding time to get new ones since we have all these progressing!
Funny story time. We had 3 hours of open finding time that got destroyed because we did what Jesus would do. About 10 minutes into the finding, we get a text from the only Chinese member in our branch, "L", saying "Help! My body is sick! Accompany me! Can we come to hospidal? If you free!" So we find him near the hospital and we ask him what is wrong. He first said "Allergia!" And then made sneezing motions.
We said, "Ok, anything else?"
"Blood!"
"Blood.... where?" we asked.
"Blood! SH**!" he replied.
At this point I walked away to get the bikes and just started laughing while Bartholomew just went along with it being the Saint he is. So we take him to the hospital right to the emergency room and get him signed up. Now the thing about emergency rooms in Italy is that people go for anything. Stomach-aches, head-aches, stubbed toes, missing arms, allergies, being offended, etc, etc. Then no matter what reason you go in for, after waiting for 2 hours in the waiting room, they will tell you to go to a specialist. So for L they set him up for a proctologist and got him some prescription allergy medicine. We take him out to get the stuff for his appointment and the medicine. The allergy medicine is a spray that is very similar to asthma medicine but L had a hard time believing you put it in your mouth. He just wanted to put it in his nose! Then the medicine for the proctologist appointment had interesting......... illustrations on how to properly use it. So we got him all that and then on Tuesday we took him back for the appointment. I don't know what the doctors did in the room but L did not sound like he was having fun. And in the end we learned he just needed to drink more water so that his poop doesn't scratch him upon departure. But the good news is, thanks to socialized health care, he didn't have to pay anything! Miracles of waiting forever to be told something dumb.
Besides that story, our district is cursed. Anziano Winward's eye started to swell from allergies, Anziano Mina started to get tongue cancer from a lead filling, and I had a cold. Just not a good week I guess.
Zone Conference was good. We met Elder Allen, Bishop Allen's dad, who is the director of everything missionary. He was the one who put Preach My Gospel together. He told us some very profound things and we were sorely chastised as a mission. But it was all for our good. We also met Brother Lusvarde (he is the dad of my zone leader from last transfer), who is the director of Church historic sites, vistor centers, and pageants. So he owns the Sacred Grove, Nauvoo, Temple Square, Hill Cumoroh, and all those other nifty things. He was in Italy to get the Rome visitor center ready with Elder Allen. You know the Christus? That huge statue in the Salt Lake visitor center? They are making one of those for the Rome one and they are doing something even more special. The sculptor who made the original Christus also made statues of the 12 Apostles. So they are putting copies of those in the Rome visitor center as well. We learned that the Peter statue has a large key in his hand representing the Priesthood. It should be really cool! Other than that we learned how to manage our time better and reach 20 lessons a week. Very uplifting and one of the best conferences yet!
However, I did not get the package! Just going to have to wait. But speaking of packages. The mission is advising us to warn you about not sending too many out or to put multiple packages into one (for example, my Christmas package should have been one from you and Nana and Opa, not two seperate) because Italy is going to pay off their debt using customs. It costs about 50% of the total worth of the package for customs (eg. you send a package worth $50, it will cost $25 in customs). So I guess just one more for birthday and one for Christmas. Letters though are fine! I'm also sending my package today to you guys so it should be there in a few days. Not many gifts inside but more things I just need to send home.
Well, I'll look for some pics to attach and then start writing individual letters. Have an awesome week! Picture is of the tomb of Galileo Gallilei, we went to the church where he was buried last week. Also saw Dante Aligheri's tomb.
Anziano Rockwood
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