Buon Giorno everyone and a Happy New Year! :)
Things here in Rimini are going GREAT! I just love being a missionary! The branch here is so motivated about missionary work, and it is just the greatest atmosphere! We just need to do our best to do our part and find people that the members can help us teach! But the Lord is working miracles in Italy, it is amazing to be a part of.
The weather is B-E-A-utiful today, and has been the past couple days! (And it's a good thing, I am running out of sewing string from the 20 million buttons that have popped off of my winter coat!...bike riding is rough on long coats...but I'm getting to be a sewing pro! haha)
Our investigators are doing great! We are working hard with Morris to prepare him for his baptism on the 28th of March. He is a great man with great faith, and despite many trials he has been relying on the Lord to pull him through....and we actually just recently found out that his parents live in Pesaro, just about 40 minutes away by train from Rimini...and they are meeting with the missionaries there, and have baptismal dates for the 29th! The Lord prepares families and friends together to receive the gospel! :) Christian went to the hospital about a week ago with some kind of lung problem (he told us in Italian, but we couldn't figure out the name in English)...and it turns out it is also contagious...so we haven't been able to meet with him for a while...but we plan on going there in a few days...he said he is almost completely healed! Which is a blessing. He is such a great guy. We are working with Peter still to prepare him to be baptized...but he needs to be a little bit more committed to showing up to our scheduled lessons...or at least calling us to let us know he won't be there...heh. But that's the life of a missionary here in Italy! We call them "Bidone's"...which means like trash can....and we get quite a few of them.
Everything else I can think of is going really well! We have been seeing so many miracles and tender mercies from the Lord. I don't want to jinx it, but I think I am getting used to waking up so early....finally! Because now at least the sun is awake before us... :) The Lord has helped me so much in that regard...whenever I am just totally exhausted, somehow He always gives me strength to make it to the end of the day. It is so marvelous!
Miracle: We had a wonderful miracle this past Monday! Try as we did, we simply couldn't fix any appoinments that day, and so we ended up with 8 hours of finding work. As we planned Sunday night, we decided to try a new finding strategy,-Pray With As Many People As Possible, or as we jokingly call it, PWAMPAP! We decided to offer service to people in the form of prayers, by walking up to them and simply saying "Buon giorno! Noi Siamo servi di Gesù Cristo, e vorremmo offrire una preghiera per voi e la vostra famiglia!"(we couldn't help but think that at least it appeals to the Catholic nature of the general population- priests offering prayers for others...except in this case a different kind of prayer!...and we didn't ask for money after saying it [although we were actually offered it by this sweet old lady: "Thank you for the prayer; Go buy yourselves a coffee!]...we politely declined. :) If they said yes, we would ask their names and ask about their families, and what we could pray for. We figured that after we had done something nice for them, they would be more likely to listen to what we had to say...and it worked! We were blessed by the Lord with the opportunity of praying with 35 people! 16 of those instances resulted in us being able to share the message of the Restoration, or the Plan of Salvation, or one of the other glorious elements of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and 5 of those people agreed to meet with us again to discuss our message! It was a wonderful miracle, and above all we felt good because all people, whether they agreed to listen to our message or not, were left with a positive experience. What a blessing it is to be a missionary!
I am so thankful to be on a mission! It is so hard and so exhausting...but so worth it! Thank you all for your loving support and prayers for me and our investigators. I love you all! Have a great week!
Love,
Anziano Wilson
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