My first Baptismal Committment! - March 16, 2011

Buon Giorno,

Well, ironically enough, right after hearing about Anziano Cluff's situation last week, we went to Milano for p-day fun, and we met up with our zone leaders, because Anz Jenson is like in love with them or something. Idk. He's crazy. (also a side note, I had my first burger king in milan, right next to the Duomo, which by the way is pretty cool), and it tasted exactly the same, and twice the price. ALSO the Italians taking my order kept trying to correct how I said hamburger. Cause they’re wrong. It was funny.) ANYWAYS, Anziano Cluff and his new companion were with the zone leaders. Apparently that was his first day in Milano, and he had been transferred for some reason or another that he didn’t tell me. But anyways, I got to spend a couple hours with him as we walked around Milano, and made sure he was doing okay. I saw him again (and Anziano Schuern) in stake conference this last sunday, and Anz Cluff said he was doing a lot better, and that he liked this area wayyyy more than his last, so that was good to hear! I kind of feel like although I've been released as their zone leaders, I still have a legitimate ability/responsibility to make sure they’re doing okay, but I like it =)

Claudio. Claudio is awesome. We found him my first week here, and he's about 65-70 yrs old, he's short, and fairly large, and AWESOME! We've taught him about 4x, and he came to church a week ago. The only real thing we've had a problem with, is that he likes to pray using written prayers. And we've talked about praying from the start, and he keeps telling us that he knows he needs to use his own words, but for some reason he doesn’t...  And he's read all the way up to Mosiah in the book of Mormon already, and he loves it. So, this last Saturday we challenged him to baptism. At first we were worried, because at times it has seemed like he doesn’t quite understand what we're telling him, but when we invited him to be baptized, he just laughed. He knew it was important to be baptized like Jesus Christ was baptized, but idk, I guess he thought he was too old or something. And he told us he didn’t expect that at all, and asked us if we were sure (several times) if we really wanted him to be baptized, by immersion, and so he said he'd think about it, and we challenged him to pray about it, and then left feeling slightly discouraged, because apparently this is a fairly normal response for old people. They feel like they’re too old or something. We went to his house again on Tuesday, so we could teach him the rest of the gospel lesson (persevering to the end) and follow up on our invite to pray. We talked more about the Holy Ghost, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost that we receive after baptism, and we talked about how important it is to have so we can have that guidance to help us persevere to the end, and then I challenged him, again, to baptism. He laughed a little bit, and it was silent for about 20 sec, then, he accepted!!! It was so awesome! We know that it's not over yet, that there is still more to be taught, but he will be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint on April 9th! And then, to top it all off, at the end of the lesson, anz Jenson asked if he (Anz Jenson) could say the closing prayer, because we still really need to focus on the prayer dealio, and then, like usual, Claudio misinterpreted or something, and started the prayer himself. Only this time, when he prayed, he used his own words!!! SO, Anz Jenson and I are reallllllly stoked! (we also currently have 6 other baptisms planned for April 9th... .so it should be a pretty epic day!!!)

The bike is just an average decent bike. I don’t have too much faith in it though... But oh well. The Lord will provide. The suit is still gross. I'm wearing it right now because it keeps raining, and there’s no point in getting it dry cleaned and then ruined again, so ya. It sounds like it will always either be a rainy season, or a hot season (if I’m still in this area) and I’m not so sure what all these missionaries consider <<hot>> because Arizonians are the only people on the face of the planet that know what that words means.

We ate with member families twice the first week, and twice since then, so not that often. It sounds like our ward mission leader wants us to have a members house to eat at each sunday though, so that’s pretty awesome! For breakfast I eat about 150g of cereal (everything is measured by weight, so ya) and I’ve found some pretty good fruit+granola cereals, and chocolate flakes+granola, so I'm pretty content. And then we have a very large supply of strawberry jam, so I'll have a piece of toast every once in a while. And at night I'll occasionally eat an orange, or some oreos, or something healthy like that. I even got chocolate cake last week! 5 euros, and it was delicious!

The companionship is going great, we had a scambio on monday, and I became very, VERY grateful for Anz Jenson. But I mean, there are always things that are going to bug me, and it's a little awkward at times because he keeps telling me over and over that he feels he doesn’t even need to train me (because I've <<already got the language down>> and am <<good at teaching>>) and he'll say that in front of other missionaries, but then when it comes down to it, like when we're teaching or planning, and I mention something that we're doing that doesn’t make sense, I just feel like he writes it off or tries to justify it, and I really feel like he doesn’t trust me, but I figure that just means I need to be doing more to gain his trust, so all is well!

vi voglio bene tutti!

la chiesa è vera

-Anziano Bushman