07 Aug 13

Well this week was interesting, and full of cool miracles.

First, some fast facts:

I love living in 4. It is the funnest thing ever.

I have come to the conclusion that outter darkness is a giant swarm of mosquitoes. They are the worst things in the world.

Ok story time. So its been some rough going for missionary work. Everyone in Italy takes the month of August off for vacation. So seriously 80% of the shops are closed here, and 80% of the people are gone. So its been really hard to get consistency, in teaching and finding. So I was kinda bummed, because we were having a really hard time finding investigators. I was feeling kinda not like a missionary and more like a guy who walks around in the park all day. Then, Wednesday I lost one of my nametags so I was thinking "Sweet, I dont even have the tag anymore." Thursday night, we taught one of our investigators. It was the first time I had met her, and we went in planning to teach the law of chastity. We get there, and I start feeling "We need to teach the Book of Mormon" so I kinda changed it up last second. I felt a little bad for Anziano Hillyard, because its hard to teach an unplanned lesson when youre new, but he did awesome. We start teaching, and the spirit was SO strong. She was concerned that the commandments would take away her freedom, and make her unhappy. So we taught that she has her choice with everything. They had taught her the Plan of Salvation before, so I drew a little map to each of the three kingdoms, and said the scriptures are the map. She was still concerned that she wouldnt be happy, and I felt "share Mosiah 2:41" and I did, and it is PERFECT for the situation. Seriously one of the coolest lessons. It gets cooler. As were putting our stuff away, I reach into a pocket in my bag and I found the name tag I lost. It had fallen into a closed pocket. No clue how that happened, but MIRACLE!

Second interesting story. Mom, ill make it clear at the beginning I felt safe the whole time. So were doing finding work at a park called Parco Nord. Missionaries have been going there for years. So were going, and we finish teaching a guy on a bench, and two park rangers come up to us and say we cant proselyte there. They start taking our information and stuff to give us a ticket. He gets all my info, and someone goes on the radio and asks where the rangers are. The step back and talk on the radio to explain they were apprehending some American fellins (not really, they just explained the situation) who were proselyting. They come back, and say that theyre not going to give us a ticket, but we still have to leave. MIRACLE! I think its kinda cool that they still have my info, and I will go down in history on the Parco Nord Naughty List for proselyting for The Church of Jesus Christ. Anyways, we go to find a new place to do finding work. We see on our map a big park, so we go to it. Its really just corn fields. So were getting some water, and we talk to the only guy in the park, who is also at the fountain. He doesnt speak Italian (or English) so we give him a pass along card and tell him he can change the language on the website. So he goes, and we go. A few minutes later, he runs into us again and tells us to come with him, because his wife speaks Italian. So we follow him, and I figure hes some farmer. We take some little side path into a forest, and he takes us to a gypsie camp. So were in some gypsie camp with a population of 40 people. So he takes us to his part of the camp, and we teach a group of them the Restoration. So afterwards I called President Dibb to see what we should do, and he told us to invite him to church, and teach him after church. So that was pretty exciting.

Other than that, all is pretty normal. Were praying that itll start raining here, and that the mosquitoes will die. Oh! I met the guy who thinks hes an Avatar. He came to Church with our really solid bap date. He says that im a good person, because he can see it through my eyes.

We were doing some calls in Centro one day, and this four year old girl ran up to us and asked us our name. She told us her name, then ran off. A few minutes later, she came back with two of her friends. They were two boys, and she said "my friends want you guys to play with us." They replied "No we dont!" And she asked if we could play. We said we had to do some work and she said "Ok....after." and ran off. The cutest kids!

Other than that though, pretty normal. I love you all! Dad, ill try and find some good pictures today and send them next week. I dont have a ton of time left on the computer. Sorry about that! Crazy school and football are starting. I did a scambio with my District Leader, Anziano Lockleare from Tennessee, and hes a big football fan so that was fun. Its so fun being a missionary!

I love you! Keep CTRing and reading the scriptures! And way to feed the missionaries! Mom, we'll have a lasagna competition when I get home, ok? I just learned how to make the ragu from scratch, so we'll see how that goes!

Love you!

Anziano Christian Fife McKinnon