Buongiorno!!!! (Insert witty comment here.) It's good to see...or imagine to see all of your bright and shiny faces! It's a beautiful day outside today! Which is wonderful...but kind of worries me, because it is going to start getting super hot really soon. And Italians don't have air conditioning...hurray!
Today was a wonderful P-day! We had the chance to go visit San Marino, which I guess technically is outside of the country...because it never became a part of Italy... But there are tons of really old towers and castles and statues and super cool ruins up there in the mountains! I felt like I was in the middle of Lord of the Rings. I took some real nice pictures, so don't worry! :)
The work here in Rimini has been going pretty well. We have been having some struggles finding people to teach...and getting investigators to come to church...but overall it has been going well! Christian came to church for the second time this week (for all 3 hours!!), and he loved it! At the end we were like "that was a pretty long block of church wasn't it?" and he was like "No not at all! I am ready for more!" :) He is such a champion.
So we are teaching an investigator named Davide who is just 9 years old, and so when we go over to teach him we can't just do the "normal" type of lesson because he gets super bored...so we have been making it fun! The last time we met with him was super awesome! ...side note...So, in primary I learned how to make these cool origami frogs from one of my friends, and over the years I got pretty good at making them, so they actually jump reallly far! (I may or may not have had some pratice at making them during primary...but of course I was also listening!) But anyways, that obscure skill finally came in handy! We made a bunch of those frogs, and brought them to his house. We read about captain Moroni, and how he fortified all of his cities, and about how when the Lamanites came to battle against these strongholds they were defeated super easily because the cities were prepared. So we gave Davide, his mom, his dad, and us each 3 frogs. We then cut out little squares of paper to be our "cities", and each took a full sheet of paper to "fortify" our cities. We said that you could do whatever you want with the paper except cover the city, just try to make walls to prevent the frogs from getting in. And then we BATTLED! Frogs of all sizes were jumping all over the place. It was such a fun time!
Then we related it to the fact that Satan sends tons of "frogs" at us, in different sizes and styles, but that if we are protected by fortifying ourselves, they won't be able to break through! But that it is important to make sure there are no weak points in our walls (I moved my walls so that there was a little space in between them, and so a bunch of frogs broke through), or else our city will not be protected. And that if we work at it every day to fortify the weakest points in our walls, it will become very strong! (The dad made this hugely tall, elaborate wall, that was totally impossible to break through, even with the huge frog). I thought of a quote that I think Elder Richard G. Scott said once....or maybe I just thought it up...but it is a great quote regardless! "Fortifying the weakest areas of our lives creates increased overall strength." Then we read about what characteristics made Moroni such a great leader. It was one of my favorite lessons I have had so far in Italy. :)
Miracle: We have been seeing so many wonderful miracles here in Rimini. These past few weeks we have been working especially hard to find new investigators to teach, but after many hours of finding we just couldn't seem to get any really solid potentials. As we did some finding work yesterday we were blessed with two miracle-finds of people just so prepared and ready to hear our message. The first was a young man named Pietro. We met him in the park as he was walking his pet Ferret...and as we stopped to stare for a moment at the fact that he had a FERRET on a leash, he came up to talk with us. He said that he recognized us as Mormons because he had been reading a blog of a Canadian video-gamer who had served a mission (It only added to his excitement to learn that my companion is Canadian!), and was really interested to learn more about our church and beliefs! We exchanged phone numbers and set up an appointment to meet with him tomorrow! We are very excited about it!
Our other miracle find was a young university student from China, whose name is Xiaolong. We began the conversation asking him if he believed in Jesus Christ, to which he replied "our culture is different." We started a conversation about the culture in China, and commented that there are even members of the church there. He began to ask many questions about religion and beliefs, including if we had ever had an experience where Jesus had helped us in our lives. We were able to share with him special experiences that we have had throughout trials in life, and his entire countenance changed. He was touched, and said that he had been searching for something to believe in, and asked us if we could meet sometime! Twist my arm! We excited agreed to meet with him! What a wonderful person! The Lord blesses his missionaries so much!
Well, that's about it for this week, congratulations for making it all the way to the end! :) I love you all and thank you so much for your support and prayers and love. I remember you all in my prayers! Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Anziano Wilson
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