Buon giorno!! :)
Greetings from Italy! :) I just love Rimini! The people and members are so great!
We had an amazing last week, and found 8 new investigators and set 3 people with baptismal dates! The work in Rimini is really starting to pick up, and I know the Lord is helping us to find those who have been prepared to hear his message of happiness and love!
It is getting SO HOT outside!!! Oh my goodness, I am baking! And it hasn't even gotten to be the hottest, or even close according to my companion. ...I have heard stories from other missionaries... from putting their sheets in the freezer before bed, to jumping in the cold shower with their clothes still on as soon as they got home just to get out of the heat...and everything in between! So...I'm excited!
My new companion, Anziano Mata'u, is awesome! He is super funny! I have a feeling we are going to get along great! It has just been so stressful this past week, since he doesn't know anything about Rimini...so I have been having to set up and figure out all the stuff for all our investigators and members, and show him where everything in the city is and how we do things here...I'm exhausted! But happy! :)
Miracle: This week was an amazing miracle in itself! I have learned so much about myself in the past few days, and more importantly about what I can and really want to become. I have been reading the "The 4th missionary" talk by Lawrence Corbridge, that he gave to his missionaries in 2002 while he was their mission president.. and it has just totally changed my entire viewpoint of being a missionary. I had always knew that I was out here because I chose to be, not because I am being...I don't know...forced to, or something...but reading that talk, and then re-reading both my Patriarchal Blessing and the blessing I received when I was set apart as a missionary...something just clicked. I am already out here, doing all the things I should, but I need to take it to the next level...or rather, the Lord needs me to take it to the next level...give truly my whole heart and soul and WILL over to the Lord. I just need to say, as it talks about in the talk "Lord, I give up. I surrender. I want to stop fighting your will with my will. All I want is 'Thy will be done' That is all that I want." The Lord has such a different plan for us, and we truly can only realize that potential when we give our entire will to the Lord. I hope and pray that the Lord will help me to do it. That He will mold and shape me into the missionary and man that He knows I can become. Even though it will be hard, and I'm still going to make mistakes and mess up a lot, I know it will be worth it! And that epiphany...has just changed everything for me this week...and I hope forever! What a blessing it is to have access to counsel from so many wonderful General Authorities!
But the miracle in regards to missionary work was a man named Stanley! Stanley is Chinese, a student here at the university. We first met him on Saturday, when we were doing casa...door to door...--he let us in! (never happens!), was very kind, and we shared the message of the Restoration with him. He doesn't have a christian background at all, understandably, because the culture in China is very different, but he has expressed to us multiple times his desire to develop faith and come close to God. "When I think about God...I feel different!"
The very next day after we met him, he came to church!! And he had a wonderful experience, and even sent us a text in the afternoon thanking us for inviting him! It was such a wonderful experience!
And then, on the following Tuesday, yesterday, we met with him in the church, discussed the Plan of Salvation, and his true worth and purpose as a child of God, and he was thrilled. We extended an invitation to be baptized on the 4th of July...and he accepted! He is such a miracle...truly prepared by the Lord. As he offered the prayer (his first prayer....ever!) at the end of the lesson, he concluded and then just stopped and said. "...Whoa." The spirit was so strong, and we testified to him that God had truly heard his prayer, and loves him immeasurably. What a special experience.
I hope and pray that we can teach in such a way, with the Spirit, that we can help lead him to that wonderful day when he can enter the waters of baptism and begin on the path that leads to eternal life in God's presence. What a humbling privilege it is to be a missionary; a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ!
I love you all very much, and thank you all for your support and prayers in behalf of me and our investigators. The work is about to explode in Rimini...I can just feel it! Have a wonderful week!
-Anziano Wilson
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
MAY 14, 2014
Buongiorno!!! :)
Well, first of all it was WONDERFUL to be able to skype home and talk to my famiglia....I love you guys!
Besides that, everything is going really well! It was super cool to be able to go to Firenze for that conference, and to see and learn about the real importance of stakes, and to see how excited the members are to be in a stake! I guess growing up in Idaho you don't really get to appreciate a lot the difference between small branches and big wards....but it really is such a cool experience to be here in Italy, and see how much stakes are cherished. Rimini/Firenze is excited to be the 10th stake in Italy! (I think...)
We ate an awesome Mother's Day dinner at the Canuti's house...they made us pizza! I love Italians!
We have been working really hard to set baptismal dates with all of our investigators (we were looking at our white board the other day, and realized that compared to a lot of other cities, we really do have a lot of current investigators!...like 20 or so), It's just being able to meet them that's the problem here. But we had a wonderful experience with a Nigerian man named Osku yesterday! We met him for the second time, had a powerful Restoration lesson with him. At the beginning of the lesson, right after the prayer, we said "Osku, at the end of the lesson, we are going to ask you to pray and search for an answer, and after you receive that answer, you will want to follow that answer, and follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds the Restored authority of God. So pay close attention to how you feel during the lesson, and we promise that you will be able to answer confidently to that question when it comes." It was a little weird, because we haven't had a lot of practice doing that....but it really works! He payed close attention to everything we said, asking questions to make sure it was clear, and then when we asked him...he said yes! So we are hoping to have another baptism in the beginning of June!
Morris is doing well; we haven't had a chance to meet with him in a while because he has a lot going on right now....but we hope for the best!
Christian is kind of the same story...but he is really making some awesome progress. He just needs to FEEL that he can do it! Thank you all so much for your prayers for him and our other investigators.
I just love being a missionary so much!! It is so exhausting, and so busy...but just so rewarding. The time is flying, it is crazy. I feel like I just got here.
In other news...transfers are this week! I'm becoming the new mission president. Just kidding! But I am staying in Rimini!!!! :) I am so excited! I love Rimini! My companion is leaving though, so there will be a lack of Canadian in the apartment now. He said he's going to leave a big Canadian flag (they pronounce it flayg) in the apartment though. My new companion is Anziano Mataauuooo(?) I have no idea how to spell it. He is from Samoa...or so I hear. So that will be good. He probably doesn't eat a lot...said noone ever about a Samoan. haha.
Miracle: This week we had an awesome miralce while doing finding work. We were walking around the park when we saw two men walking down the street, with a big container of wine in their hands. i thought to myself "oh man, here we go, some more drunk guys." But then I caught myself and remembered that we must look at people not as they are, but as they can become--how they are in Heavenly Father's eyes. We started a conversation with them by asking if they think that God loves them...and before we knew it we were sitting down at a picnic table discussing all of their questions and concerns. One of the men, Matteo, has lived in Italy for many years, after moving here from Canada, where he lived for 7 years. He said that he has always been concerned about all the struggles and trials there are all around him, but that he really wanted to give God another try. We taught him and his friend, Andrea, about the Restoration, and left them with a Book of Mormon and an invite to read and pray about it. Just yesterday we met Matteo again while walking around, and he excitedly told us that he has been reading the Book, and that he really likes it a lot! We set up an appointment with him to talk about it more on Friday, so we are really excited! It just goes to show, you never can whether or not someone will be interesting in our wonderful message, by just looking at them. The Lord truly looks at the heart, and I hope to someday be able to instinctively do the same.
I am really excited though for the new transfer. I have really been trying to become not just a better missionay, but a better person, thoughout all this time. I know that the Lord has taught me a lot, and still has a lot to teach me. I'm ready for it! I love you all and thank you for your prayers and support! You're the best! *points to each reader individually* :)
Love,
Anziano Wilson
Well, first of all it was WONDERFUL to be able to skype home and talk to my famiglia....I love you guys!
Besides that, everything is going really well! It was super cool to be able to go to Firenze for that conference, and to see and learn about the real importance of stakes, and to see how excited the members are to be in a stake! I guess growing up in Idaho you don't really get to appreciate a lot the difference between small branches and big wards....but it really is such a cool experience to be here in Italy, and see how much stakes are cherished. Rimini/Firenze is excited to be the 10th stake in Italy! (I think...)
We ate an awesome Mother's Day dinner at the Canuti's house...they made us pizza! I love Italians!
We have been working really hard to set baptismal dates with all of our investigators (we were looking at our white board the other day, and realized that compared to a lot of other cities, we really do have a lot of current investigators!...like 20 or so), It's just being able to meet them that's the problem here. But we had a wonderful experience with a Nigerian man named Osku yesterday! We met him for the second time, had a powerful Restoration lesson with him. At the beginning of the lesson, right after the prayer, we said "Osku, at the end of the lesson, we are going to ask you to pray and search for an answer, and after you receive that answer, you will want to follow that answer, and follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds the Restored authority of God. So pay close attention to how you feel during the lesson, and we promise that you will be able to answer confidently to that question when it comes." It was a little weird, because we haven't had a lot of practice doing that....but it really works! He payed close attention to everything we said, asking questions to make sure it was clear, and then when we asked him...he said yes! So we are hoping to have another baptism in the beginning of June!
Morris is doing well; we haven't had a chance to meet with him in a while because he has a lot going on right now....but we hope for the best!
Christian is kind of the same story...but he is really making some awesome progress. He just needs to FEEL that he can do it! Thank you all so much for your prayers for him and our other investigators.
I just love being a missionary so much!! It is so exhausting, and so busy...but just so rewarding. The time is flying, it is crazy. I feel like I just got here.
In other news...transfers are this week! I'm becoming the new mission president. Just kidding! But I am staying in Rimini!!!! :) I am so excited! I love Rimini! My companion is leaving though, so there will be a lack of Canadian in the apartment now. He said he's going to leave a big Canadian flag (they pronounce it flayg) in the apartment though. My new companion is Anziano Mataauuooo(?) I have no idea how to spell it. He is from Samoa...or so I hear. So that will be good. He probably doesn't eat a lot...said noone ever about a Samoan. haha.
Miracle: This week we had an awesome miralce while doing finding work. We were walking around the park when we saw two men walking down the street, with a big container of wine in their hands. i thought to myself "oh man, here we go, some more drunk guys." But then I caught myself and remembered that we must look at people not as they are, but as they can become--how they are in Heavenly Father's eyes. We started a conversation with them by asking if they think that God loves them...and before we knew it we were sitting down at a picnic table discussing all of their questions and concerns. One of the men, Matteo, has lived in Italy for many years, after moving here from Canada, where he lived for 7 years. He said that he has always been concerned about all the struggles and trials there are all around him, but that he really wanted to give God another try. We taught him and his friend, Andrea, about the Restoration, and left them with a Book of Mormon and an invite to read and pray about it. Just yesterday we met Matteo again while walking around, and he excitedly told us that he has been reading the Book, and that he really likes it a lot! We set up an appointment with him to talk about it more on Friday, so we are really excited! It just goes to show, you never can whether or not someone will be interesting in our wonderful message, by just looking at them. The Lord truly looks at the heart, and I hope to someday be able to instinctively do the same.
I am really excited though for the new transfer. I have really been trying to become not just a better missionay, but a better person, thoughout all this time. I know that the Lord has taught me a lot, and still has a lot to teach me. I'm ready for it! I love you all and thank you for your prayers and support! You're the best! *points to each reader individually* :)
Love,
Anziano Wilson
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
MAY 7, 2014
Buongiorno a tutti i miei cari amici e familgia! Vi saluto da Italia!
This week has been so wonderful! Talk about miracles! Being a missionary is just so great! Last night as I was lying in bed (about 10 minutes before bed-time....oh man, I never thought I would have a bed-time again...strange.) I was just totally exhausted and thinking "We do some serious work out here in the mission!" It is SO easy to fall asleep these days! :)
Let's see....the summer is coming! Which means there are a bunch of activities and marathons and all kinds of stuff going on here in Rimini. It's a happening place around here these days!
Our district leader told us last district meeting something that I thought was really cool. He said that we, missionaries in Italy, have a special opportunity and priviledge of preaching the gospel here. Because we get to do it like the apostles of old did it! There is just a huge center piazza place in basically every city in Italy, where thousands of people walk every day...and we can just declare the gospel to them! Sure, we get tons of "non mi interesa" 's and "no, grazie" 's, and "NO! NO! NO!" 's from the people we try to talk to....but I'm sure it was the same for the apostles and prophets of old! It's pretty cool to me to think that we are walking the same paths that they walked, and doing the same thing that has been commanded of the disciples of Christ ever since He lived here on the earth. Plus, it just makes the day so much better when you get a smile out of someone who at the beginning looked just angry at the world! The message of the Restoration is a special message, and it truly can and will change the world!
In other highlights....my companion's bike got stolen! (Did I write about that last week?...maybe...but we still haven't found it!) Also, there was a car driving around the block this morning with the windows down, blasting some kind of...either advertisment or protest....the only words we could make out were "knives, cutting products, ham knives, and scissors"..... so...there's that!
I am just so used to living it Italy! There was a car parked in the middle of the road the other day, and we just rode past it on our bikes without even realizing it...and then I thought about it again like "...was that...hmmm. Italians!" haha.
Miracle: We had many wonderful miracles this past week, but the one that sticks out to me the most happened with one of our investigators named Morris. We have been working with Morris for several months now, and it has been up and down throughout the lessons as to his being progressing/ ready to be baptized. He always tells us that he believes everything that we teach, but it just didn't seem to us that he had a real, strong, personal testimony of the truthfulness of what we teach-the kind of testimony that he could look to at any moment when times got tough, and it would help pull him along in faithfulness. To make a long story short, after postponing his baptism several times due to different factors (the biggest of which being his lack of coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon), he was really upset with us, and didn't even accept our phone calls or pass-bys for several days. This past week we decided to give it one last shot, and looked up some wonderful scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants (1:17, 29-30) and Joseph Smith History (1:19), to share with him about the fact that there is only one true and living church on the earth today, led and guided by Jesus Christ Himself. The beginning of the lesson started off a little rough; with him saying that we could just forget about the whole baptism thing, and that he would just continue to go to his old church, that is closer to his house anyway. But the Spirit of the Lord moved quickly in us to help us form a response to his questions and concerns, and after reading those scriptures, and discussing it for the better part of an hour, his entire countenance changed. We asked him at the end of the lesson, "Morris, have you received a personal witness today, from the Spirit, that these things are true?" He paused for a moment to think, and then finally said "Yes. It is written. These are not your words, they are the Lord's. I believe them." We were ecstatic, and we still are! He is now well on his way to being baptized again! The work of the Lord is wonderful!
Everthing else is going wonderfully! Our district is BECOMING A STAKE!!!! So we are all invited to go to Fiorenze (yes!) for a special stake organization meeting! And you know what that means....apostle! We hope at least! But it will be a really special meeting, and I am so thankful that we get to go to that! Our branch here in Rimini is finally becoming a ward!! I'm really excited! Oh by the way, Fiorenze is Florence in English. My companion reminded me that I guess everyone might not understand where that is :)
Thank you all so much for your prayers and love and support, I really am so thankful for all of you. You all have played a big role in my life, and I am better because of it! I am excited to skype home on Sunday! :)
Love,
Anziano Wilson
This week has been so wonderful! Talk about miracles! Being a missionary is just so great! Last night as I was lying in bed (about 10 minutes before bed-time....oh man, I never thought I would have a bed-time again...strange.) I was just totally exhausted and thinking "We do some serious work out here in the mission!" It is SO easy to fall asleep these days! :)
Let's see....the summer is coming! Which means there are a bunch of activities and marathons and all kinds of stuff going on here in Rimini. It's a happening place around here these days!
Our district leader told us last district meeting something that I thought was really cool. He said that we, missionaries in Italy, have a special opportunity and priviledge of preaching the gospel here. Because we get to do it like the apostles of old did it! There is just a huge center piazza place in basically every city in Italy, where thousands of people walk every day...and we can just declare the gospel to them! Sure, we get tons of "non mi interesa" 's and "no, grazie" 's, and "NO! NO! NO!" 's from the people we try to talk to....but I'm sure it was the same for the apostles and prophets of old! It's pretty cool to me to think that we are walking the same paths that they walked, and doing the same thing that has been commanded of the disciples of Christ ever since He lived here on the earth. Plus, it just makes the day so much better when you get a smile out of someone who at the beginning looked just angry at the world! The message of the Restoration is a special message, and it truly can and will change the world!
In other highlights....my companion's bike got stolen! (Did I write about that last week?...maybe...but we still haven't found it!) Also, there was a car driving around the block this morning with the windows down, blasting some kind of...either advertisment or protest....the only words we could make out were "knives, cutting products, ham knives, and scissors"..... so...there's that!
I am just so used to living it Italy! There was a car parked in the middle of the road the other day, and we just rode past it on our bikes without even realizing it...and then I thought about it again like "...was that...hmmm. Italians!" haha.
Miracle: We had many wonderful miracles this past week, but the one that sticks out to me the most happened with one of our investigators named Morris. We have been working with Morris for several months now, and it has been up and down throughout the lessons as to his being progressing/ ready to be baptized. He always tells us that he believes everything that we teach, but it just didn't seem to us that he had a real, strong, personal testimony of the truthfulness of what we teach-the kind of testimony that he could look to at any moment when times got tough, and it would help pull him along in faithfulness. To make a long story short, after postponing his baptism several times due to different factors (the biggest of which being his lack of coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon), he was really upset with us, and didn't even accept our phone calls or pass-bys for several days. This past week we decided to give it one last shot, and looked up some wonderful scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants (1:17, 29-30) and Joseph Smith History (1:19), to share with him about the fact that there is only one true and living church on the earth today, led and guided by Jesus Christ Himself. The beginning of the lesson started off a little rough; with him saying that we could just forget about the whole baptism thing, and that he would just continue to go to his old church, that is closer to his house anyway. But the Spirit of the Lord moved quickly in us to help us form a response to his questions and concerns, and after reading those scriptures, and discussing it for the better part of an hour, his entire countenance changed. We asked him at the end of the lesson, "Morris, have you received a personal witness today, from the Spirit, that these things are true?" He paused for a moment to think, and then finally said "Yes. It is written. These are not your words, they are the Lord's. I believe them." We were ecstatic, and we still are! He is now well on his way to being baptized again! The work of the Lord is wonderful!
Everthing else is going wonderfully! Our district is BECOMING A STAKE!!!! So we are all invited to go to Fiorenze (yes!) for a special stake organization meeting! And you know what that means....apostle! We hope at least! But it will be a really special meeting, and I am so thankful that we get to go to that! Our branch here in Rimini is finally becoming a ward!! I'm really excited! Oh by the way, Fiorenze is Florence in English. My companion reminded me that I guess everyone might not understand where that is :)
Thank you all so much for your prayers and love and support, I really am so thankful for all of you. You all have played a big role in my life, and I am better because of it! I am excited to skype home on Sunday! :)
Love,
Anziano Wilson
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