The Lord's hand in our work

This week I had many great experiences, especially with just following the spirit.

My companion and I have been praying a lot more and asking for guidance from the Lord, where we need to go, who we need to talk to, and its been amazing to see how the Lord has guided us to people that need to hear this message. Instead of searching for 3 hours and finding no one, we are now finding people on the way to lessons or in between things when we have 10 or 15 minutes of down time.

These are some funny pictures I got from my companions from some weeks ago. One of these pictures is us at Tirsos house. There was absolutely no room to lock up our bikes so I had to put mine upside-down in order to get it to fit there.

 One time we had about 30 minutes and so we prayed to be guided where we needed to go. We drove around a bit then felt like we needed to stop in this area where there were some people around, but not too many. We walked forward in faith and started talking to people. The first person that we had a conversation with us was interested a lot, but was studying with another religion and so didn't want to meet with us in the end. We were a bit discouraged but then we kept our heads up and kept going. 

Finally another person we stopped, we asked him, do you believe in Jesus Christ? and he said, about 50 percent. So we laughed a bit and talked to him and discovered he had studied with many religions but never had found something he felt was true. We taught him about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the street and before we could invite him he told us he wanted to meet with us. We were really happy and amazed; we hustled back to our car and got to our next appointment.

Experiences like these have been happening very often and I know the God is guiding us to the people that are ready to accept this gospel. I love seeing the Lords hand in our work, and I know he is there watching out for us.

 Eating la cause , a Peruvian layered potato dish with some Peruvian members. 
It was awesome.

We have also just received a part member family list and a lot of work to do from our ward member Cosimo. He is super excited to help us (he is the ward clerk) and during church a part member family came to church and he literally grabbed us and led us to them and we set up a time we could meet. Its awesome. The members here are so excited to do missionary work, all they need to know is how to share the gospel!

 We also had a great experience visiting two members who have a lot of faith. They literally have nothing, no work, not too much money, and some family struggles, but they have decided to get married in the temple despite all that to show their faith. Its really easy in Italy, because the culture is to be engaged for 5 or 6 years when everything is okay and everything trainquiillo to get married, but they have decided to make this decision because they know its the right thing to do! Thats a lot of faith!

Another Peruvian family we are working with, they are great.

We were also able to give a members mom a blessing this week, and many other things. I am really excited for this transfer and for the awesome things we can do, its going to be truly great.

I’m really excited for this Selvin guy, ( a teenager at home who will be baptized this Saturday.)  Tell him that I say hi and tell him that he is making the best decision he can make in his life!

I love the restored gospel and I know it is true.

Mom I’m praying for you (mom has surgery next week on Tuesday.) I will definitely join in the fast that day of the week, and I will check once or twice a day to see how you are doing.

Family things-

 I’m glad everything went well with the consulate (Mom getting 5 visas for a Brazil trip Camille is going on). I got lucky with my visa stuff, and the Italian government gave me a 2 year permesso where most other missionaries get a 1 year permesso and have to renew it. I hope that everyone has a great experience especially Camille going to Brazil in March.

I’m glad you are getting a new television and im sure dad is happy about that. 

That’s fun Jeremy and Camille did that color throwing stuff, it reminds me of Festival of Colors.

Wow I hope grandpa LaVelle is doing okay (having some health issues). I'm sure he will do well in the end. It's really funny how he likes to play solitaire.  I think it's so funny how back in the days of Atari he would play those games until midnight at night and Grandma would come and see him doing that. He is a great guy. 

  

Anziano Day

Food Report, it must be winter….

Here is a picture of me with a Risotto I made,

 Anziano Torgerson (our canadian in the house) made a sheperds pie , 

But it turned into a sheperds trifle or something was a huge amount of food.

 All three of the older missionaries in our house are really good at cooking, so we are totally going to have an amazing cooking transfer (the next six weeks) . 

I will keep you all posted.