District Leader

Well, Transfer calls are in. We actually got ours on Monday because President is changing things around. The district is more or less staying the same. Mina and Smith will be in Siena. Winward stays as district leader in Pistoia with a new guy, Reusch. And Cleveland is staying here with me in Prato. However the reason we got our call on Monday is because I am being bumped on up to district leader as well. The district bounderies are changing and I will have to be the DL of the zone leaders and the Firenze sisters. Not sure if I am quite ready for that. The ZLs and the sisters stay the same from last transfer though so we will see how that goes (3 transfers all of them have been together). The other Firenze copia will be taking our place in the Pistoia/Siena district.
So yeah. Those are the transfers. Any tips on what I can do to strengthen these people in the district? We have to go to Milan next week for a training so that will help. Overall though I'm a bit nervous.
Other than that. There really hasn't been a lot that happened this week. We have just been seening the same people, found two newer investigators, and have been visiting a lot with members. Cleveland and I have actually pretty much been called as the Ward Mission Leader here because there is no one to take the spot. We'll see what happens.
Have fun in California. I'll send you a talk I found in another email about why I'm not too worried about what happens at death or in the Spirit World anymore. Grandma Johnson is in a way better place than ever now.
We do some district activies on P-Day but not a whole lot. Zone activities are rare since some cities are two or three hours away. Congrats to Tori for graduating. Next step is college!
The earthquakes haven't been too bad (or at least we haven't felt them). I think about 7 or 8 people have died. We don't really get that much news here.

Well, here we go to another week. Talk to you all next week!
Anziano Rockwood

The baptism that didn't really work out

Well sounds like it hasn't been a very good week all around for anyone.
Sad to hear that Grandma Johnson died. but she should be doing fine right now. I found a really cool talk about the Spirit World and it honestly sounds like a beautiful place. No worries there then.
Sad to hear you were sick all week mom. I've always been pretty sick lately. Had to stay in the past few days due to huge upset stomachs and lots of bathroom.
As for the baptism...... yeah. Didn't really work out. Long story short, some members called us an hour before the baptism to say that A had smoked (and we knew they were telling the truth because there were 3 witnesses and she smoked inside one of their homes). So we called the members cancelling the baptism. We were going to see A in 20 minutes anyway, so we thought to talk to her face to face. She came with some of her friends. Us and the Branch President took her aside really quick and asked if she smoked. She said no at first and that God wanted her to get baptized. But then we said some members said she smoked inside their home. She fought back a little, admitted to smoking about 5 cigerettes a day, drinking wine everyday, and doing 2 canes (we still don't want to know what those are). So we talked to her about how she needed to be following all the commandments and how it was inappropriate of her to lie to us. She kept claiming revelation that God was telling her to get baptized anyway. We explained worthiness and what God has told us through His authorized servants about baptism. She got mad at that and started to say that prophets were dumb and not needed anymore, that they were good back then when people didn't listen to God but that they are unnecessary now. We told her sorry but she couldn't be baptized. She then told us she would get baptized herself whether or not we were there. We didn't know what to do. So Cleveland, I, and President Ioanna just left the room, explained things to her friends (who were against the baptism anyway since they say her doing these things), and eventually A came around to it. However, the next day she didn't come to Church, called and said she was mad with us and didn't want to see us anymore. Then yesterday she called and said we were right and how she wanted to try again.
Needless to say, I am exhausted and never thought I would have such scary experiences like this on the mission. But I've grown a lot from it and hope that I can take the things I have learned and apply them in my life from now on.
Other than that, I am studying the scriptures a lot more. Loving that. The more and more I think about it, the more and more theology sounds pretty sweet (especially ancient scripture). But again, I'll just wait till I get home to see what I want to do.
Hope everything else is going well. Just send me Tori's essay over email and I'll print it out. I have another package to send out to you all with some things that I can't take with me during transfers. I have money to send that with so don't worry about it. Transfers are next week so we will see if I spend another 6 weeks here or move on to greater things. In many ways I want to try a big city with a big ward since I have only gotten to do small cities (on the bright side of that though, I have seen exactly how the leadership side of the church works. I hope that doesn't mean I get too big of a calling when I go home).
Well, onward to another week. Should be good. Are you all ready for summer?

Anziano Rockwood

"We came all the way from America because we know this message would benefit you."

Hey everybody!

So yeah. Zone Conference was yesterday. It was actually really good. We learned how to overcome problems with baptismal invites for a specific date. We are also learning how to budget our time more efficiently. I guess the hardest thing me and Cleveland have doing is finding work. We are going to try new things out to hopefully see new results. Things like saying to people "We came all the way from America because we know this message would benefit you." "Why do you think we are here doing this work voluntarily?" Things like that to try and get the Italian people moving.

Didn't get the letters yesterday. Not sure when I will get them now since we might not even have Conference or Training next transfer. Might be a while before I get them in that sense. Oh well. Still get emails and stuff.

As far as our investigators are doing. Well...... maybe I'll start by explaining what happened yesterday.

After Conference, President Wolfgramm came to Prato to interview A to see if she was finally ready for baptism. He passed her since she has kept all the invites for this past week. So then we went to consiglio (branch council) to tell them about it. Our Branch President was super concerned still because there have been a lot of members baptized who before had a huge dependency on things then afterward got back into their problems again. He is worried that she will just end up like that and it will all be for not. He is also just super upset with the branch because they do nothing in terms of missionary work or callings (sounds like the same problem you are having in our ward). He made a good point on how we as missionaries should not have to do finding work. When we do finding work, we only find those with problems because they are the only ones walking around on the street, at home during the day, etc. Then we baptize one of these problem people, and their social status is with those of other problem people. So these new converts only bring in more problem people and so on and so forth until the branch has more problems than it can handle. (Yes, this is a bit brutal but it is true) He wants the members to do missionary work because they are able to reach families and those that us as missionaries can't reach. Unfortunately he can't explain it the way he did to us last night (I have given the nice, short, clean version) because some of the members might take it wrong. I imagine it to be very hard as Branch President. All in all, BP wants more members to do work and accept callings, and to just understand why President Wolfgramm passed A. We still need to hear from him on what President Wolfgramm says to know if we go forward with the baptism or not. Really big problems I guess you could say. If there was a baptism, I'll tell you on Sunday.

Other than that, we have a few new investigators that are doing ok but no one really progressing as much as we would like.

D is making good progress I suppose. She accepted the Word of Wisdom and likes everything we say but won't set a date for baptism with us. We're going to try out the new techniques we learned on Wednesday to fissare qualcosa.

G just had another surgery so she is out of the count for a while unfortunately. She just has all these bad things happen to her but she pushes onward anyways. Great example of faith.

S and X have actually disappeared. Wondering where they are now.

Our member missionary work has made some progress though. A lot of members are taking the challenge to give out a Book of Mormon to a friend. Our second counselor in the branch presidency and his wife are preparing for a mission. So we are trying to do a lot of work with them. They have given us tons of legit referrals.

Other than that, we are sitting in Florence again today. Going on another adventure to find some church we always see from Piazza Michelangelo but never have gone to.

For the callings, I'll see if we can go earlier or not. Because Cleveland's dad has to talk in church. That really messes with the time. We'll just have to see when we get on. I tried emailing Jason but got no reply from him, so if you could call and invite him over too.

Onward to another week and in a way another year here in Italy.

Talk to you all on Sunday!

Anziano Rockwood

Festa della Liberazione

Well, it isn't cinco de mayo yet. And we don't even celebrate it here.... However last Wednesday was Festa della Liberazione which was fun.

I'm trying to think of what we did this past week. Everything is just becoming a blur now that I've passed my year mark. Days go faster and now weeks too. I don't get it. I feel like just yesterday I was sitting here emailing you all.

I guess the coolest things this week are that our branch president completely chastised the branch here. A city up north (Bergamo) is opening up another ward. He talked about how they only had 100,000+ people and three wards, while Prato has 200,000+ and only one branch! So he promised the branch that if they would get us 5 referrals, then one of them would be baptized. This totally set us up to show them our new stuff on what we wanted to do for the branch this transfer. We bought a new map and pinned it up with where all the members live (active and less active). We showed that to the branch presidency and they were super impressed. We then signed ourselves up to go search for all the less actives so the branch could spend more time bringing them back instead of looking for them. We also got to show them our flag. For this transfer, our zone is making a "Title of Liberty" with our vision on it (4 baptisms, 2 dates [for our city]) then showing it to members so that they know our goal. Then the members sign it and commit to giving away a Book of Mormon. Really been super cool. The branch presidency loved it and are looking to keep the ball rolling.

We also got to go bowling yesterday with the Tavenari family. They are American and he plays basketball for the team in Pistoia. They love the missionaries and they asked President Wolfgramm if they could take us and Pistoia bowling. It was fun to do something normal for once.

Other than that, we are doing are super fast this weekend (and yes mom, every ward/branch in the world do fast sunday the first sunday, it came from the First Presidency afterall). We are going to be fasting for 3 reasons this time.

1. G's husband will have a softened heart and allow her to get baptized.

2. X's parents will have a softened heart and allow her to get baptized.

3. A will stop smoking and get baptized.

Those are our goals and we are hoping to see major blessings come through.

Today we are back in Florence and we are going to go see Micaelangelo's house. Should be fun.

Still haven't heard from Tori on how her paper is going. Also congrats on the Personal Progress.

Next week is Zone Conference (the 9th), so any letters needed to be sent a few days ago. I won't be emailing until Thursday too. Also will be learning what to do Mother's Day.

Say hi to John for me when he gets home.

I'll add Grandma to our prayer list as well.

Thanks for everything and talk to you next week!

Anziano Rockwood