Every Member a Missionary! June 1, 2011

Ciao tutti!

This week has been great!!! We've been starting to work more with the members, and this last week we were able to see 4 families (2 lunches and one dinner) and we also were able to visit a less active family, it's been great! Carlo is progressing great! He is going to be baptized this saturday! I can't tell if he's making any friends in the ward.... We brought a member with us to a lesson with him this last saturday, but Carlo just was all weird the whole time.... Granted, the member we brought is a little strange, they already had talked a lot in past activities, so Carlo already knew he was like that. In fact, I wanna say something about this member. 

His name is Fratello Bressan, and he is about 5ft 2 or something, and has HUGE arms, and is just a super strong guy. He also has a hilarious speech impediment. It's not exactly stuttering, he just regularly gets stuck in the middle of his sentences, and like physically can't spit it out for a second or two. But he's great. And when we called him to see if he would come with us to this appointment with Carlo, he thought we were calling to set up a lesson to teach his daughter who's going to be baptized in a couple weeks. So, we set up that lesson right before Carlo's and then asked if he would come with us to teach Carlo, and his response was just hilarious. I guess no missionary has asked him to help teach in a lesson, because he started asking me why we would want him to come, and was telling us that he can't teach, and wouldn't be good at that, so I just laughed a little and encouraged him that he could do it, and then he agreed to come. 

So first, when we went to visit his family, his two daughters are crazy, and loud. But despite F.llo Bressan's awkwardness in conversation, he knew how important this gospel is, and made sure that his daughters respected the message we had, and made sure that they were learning from it. Also, this man, whom I have known for three and a half months now, and whom I have never heard speak more than a sentence without stopping, when he offered the prayer at the end of the lesson, to bless his daughter to be ready for baptism, he did not stutter once. And as I'm writing this, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but to me it shows that there was nothing that was going to stop him from calling down the blessings of heaven on his family. It was awesome. 

Then, when he came with us to see Carlo, he was super friendly, and did everything just right. He joked around with Carlo, and he even had studied the message we were going to give, and had found some scriptures for us to share with Carlo. No one does that. But it helps so much! When the member studies for the lesson they are going to participate in, it prepares them to share their testimony, and then we have with us a testimony of a normal person, that is currently dealing with all the normal things of life, and it's just so much more powerful, and seems so much more realistic than ours as missionaries, who are not living a normal life AT ALL right now. 

So that's Fratello Bressan. Stud.

Also, we got a new Ward Mission Leader on Sunday so, unfortunately, we don't get to work with F.llo Mollica anymore. But, F.llo Alaimo got called in his place, and he is awesome! We had family home evening with him and his wife this last monday, and it was great! He reminds me of a leprachaun. But, physical appearances aside, he is a lot more available, and way humble! (F.llo Mollica was super humble too, I just wasn't expecting to get another humble leader). He has told us over and over so far that we are going to need to lead him by the hand, and how he's just a neonato. So it's gonna be great. He's a new convert of 8 yrs, and has been the Elders quorum president for the last 7yrs, and he has a strong desire to get the ward involved in missionary work, so we're stoked!

Well, that's it for this week! Thanks for the letters! I love hearing from you all!

-Anziano Bushman

This is our favorite local pizza guy. His name is Rami, and he's egyptian. He moved here like five years ago, and now their whole family is here in Italy. Him and his older brother however own this pizza shop, and it's right between us and the church, so it's way close. It was his 20th birthday last week, so I taught him how to make cookies as a birthday present. It was pretty fun. We're trying to get him to come to church, but it's a little hard because they live in milano. BUT he has told us several times recently that he wants to come to church, we just need to get him there now!