The Full Report- Captains, Storms, Fufu and Conferences

Me and Elder Tymczuk 

We went to a special conference yesterday in Verona which was really inspiring. Elder Kearon of the Area Presidency came, as well as Elder Snow of the seventy and his wife and the managing director of the church history department.  It was very uplifting, Elder Snow and the director talked about how we have recorded our history like no other church in existence. And all of these documents are now being processed to be viewed on Josephsmithpapers.org, which is a great website, you should look it up. 

They testified of the truth of the restoration. Elder Kearon talked about nurturing ourselves and others. How as missionaries we have to be our message, because it is one of joy and love and also how we need to continually nourish people who are baptized in the church, especially right after they are baptized. 

I was also invited and got to participate in a special musical number, 15 men from our mission who are good at singing, we  sang Awake and Arise! (hymn 8 in english)   The hymn is talking about this last and great dispensation of the fulness of times, how the gospel is once again restored to the earth in its fulness. Its a wonderful thing! 

I felt the spirit very strongly during the conference. It was interesting because while the managing director of the Church History Department was an amazing speaker, he talked about how he had handled the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon and has full access to all the church primary records, which was super cool. Still, there was something different about Elder Keaton and Elder Snow, I could tell they were in the seventy of the three men up there before I even knew what their names were. I loved it so much. 

 Here are two photos. one is with my MTC companion Anziano Tymczuk ! and the other is everyone who was in the MTC together. All the Anziani where there, it was really awesome. 

Anziani I trained with almost 2 years ago 

Some miracles this week, one was through an investigator,  a very young african man who wants to convert to Christianity . He has been struggling lately because his work is calling him in on his only free days, Sunday and Monday, so he can't meet with us. He wants to go to church really bad, he has a lot of real intent. We have seen him two times walking around the city which is a miracle in it of itself, and have been able to talk to him and keep in contact in addition to his phone calls. 

The other good miracle of course was the conference yesterday which was very inspiring. I loved especially when elder Kearon talked about retaining converts, and how he said that he was a 2 year on and off investigator. This gave me a lot of hope for our investigators! 

 This week I had a truly amazing scambio two days ago with Anziano Klemm (my old MTC companion, we live together right now!) We were able to bring out with us to teach two youth who are preparing to go on missions, and taught with them as well. The first guy we brought, Farris, we went through some opposition with him because first the appointment cancelled on us, and as we did parco with him a drunk muslim man started coming up and telling us why we were wrong, and then after we talked to a Jehovahs witness who wanted to meet us a different day with more of his friends to discuss our doctrine. Farris seemed really calm and happy still though, even when the muslim man started talking to him and knock part of his cigarette on him. 
The trials then set us up for later success. 

Later during the day we taught the Restoration to a GANS (Giovani adulti non sposati Young Single Adults) age Italian man with a youth in the Italian branch, Peter. Peter bore his testimony strongly, and then Anziano Klemm taught the story of Joseph Smith really powerfully. Unfortunately he had to leave early, but he was very interested and told us he would continue reading in the Book of Mormon. Afterwards we took Peter to talk to some people in the streets. He loved being with us and took notes every time we said something about our experiences as missionaries or any advice or anything it was awesome. We gave away 60 or 70 english fliers (which turned into later fruit when a Polish man who received one came to English class, now we are going to teach him next week!) and also found 2 Africans who were interested in the Restoration as well as a young Brazilian couple who are really legit. It was an amazing miracle day, we of course went to get gelatto with Peter at the end of the day and he thanked us and told us he loved coming with us. It was a great experience; that night when I was praying I really felt the spirit that though i'm not perfect, I did what the Lord wanted me to do that day. 

Centro Vicenza 

Vicenza, by the bridge is near where we live 

Janet, she is a Ghanian member of the ward and really wanted to make us fufu and so she did with a spicy kind of beef soup. Fufu is surprisingly no too hard to make it just takes a good amount of effort. 

The last week we got to go to our ward mission leaders promotion ceremony. He is part of the English speaking Serviceman's branch that we cover.  He is now a captain in the army. It was a really cool experience to see, very official and formal and lots of food after. 

US Army Captain's Ceremony

There was a thunderstorm right before we went to bed and there was tons of lightning, so we took some pictures and tried to catch it on camera. Here is what I got. 

Here is a bunch of Pass along cards we stamped and are determined to pass out, if we do by the end of the transfer we are going to buy a kilo of gelato and eat it. Oh yes.

 This transfer (6 week period) for the district there is a vision to visit all the members in the ward in 1 or 2 transfers. So we put Yes, we can! as the vision with Moroni 7:33. " And Christ hath said: ^aIf ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."

I have seen the power of faith throughout my whole mission. I love the concept of faith in Jesus Christ, something inside of you, that assurance of his divinity and his mission as the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, truly a gift from God. When I act because of my faith I see amazing things happens, when I just go through the motions nothing special happens. I am so thankful for that gift from God. 

This week was awesome because we continued to see tons of our investigators and other people throughout the city.

Love, Anziano Day