Transfers & Africans! Aug 10, 2011

Thanks for all your emails! And I got your letters on monday through the mail (don't worry, I haven't opened them yet). This letter is going to have to be relatively short this week though, Anziano Bona is getting transferred to La Spezia, and we have to catch a train here in a couple minutes to head to Bologna so we can catch a train in the morning that will take us to milano centrale by 10am. AND, my computer keeps turning off.

So, in short, this week went by great! Luca was baptized saturday night by Anziano Bona, and we had a ton of members show up to the baptism, despite the fact that there weren't even very many in town. It was awesome. Luca's mom and dad, and daughter came to see him get baptized, and the mom was just freaking out the whole time (she's catholic, and is very much against him getting baptized "again"). His son didn't come, but he came to sacrament meeting the next day with his sister when Luca received the Holy Ghost (i confirmed him). So that was way awesome. And then, Luca even bore his testimony in church! He started off by saying how scared he was to be up there, but then he also told us all how peaceful he felt during his baptism right when he went under water and was completely immersed, he said he just felt a huge peaceful feeling, it was awesome.

I have not exactly gotten a pause yet though. Everything's been way hard because my bike tire got stolen last week, so we've been walking everywhere because we don't have time to take it to go get fixed, but that in turn means that we're going to spend a lot more time on foot. So we really need to just schedule a time some day to take it in. So saturday before the baptism I ran and Anziano Bona biked to the grocery store so we could get some vanilla, and then I made easy candy and banana bread for the baptism. It was a little intense making it all, because I only had about an hour before we needed to set off to the church and start filling the font, but I got it done, and everyone loved it and a handful of people made me give them the recipes in church the next day.

As far as Carlotta goes, we tried calling her again a couple days ago, and this time someone answered (I'm not so sure if it was her or not, I've only heard her voice like twice) but when we called, the person that answered asked who we were, and then said that they couldn't hear us, and then hung up. So we tried again, and it was a different voice, but piu o meno the same thing happened. SO, I don't even know. I don't want to give up on her, because she knows that this church is true, but I don't know what to do either.  So, yeah.

Unfortunately, I dont have time to upload pictutres today, but I've got a ton of pictures that I will be sending soon!

One thing that I just realized that I don't think I've told you guys about, is africans. Africans are legit. Most of the time at least. Most of the africans here are from either Nigeria or Ghana. And when you meet an African that uses his head, it's way legit. Columbus, our 2nd counselor in the branch presidency here is super legit. He's from Nigerie, and is a spiritual powerhouse! We went over to his house monday night for Anziano Bona to say goodbye to the family and what not, and Columbus just gave him the pep talk of his life! It was awesome! They speak english as their second language in africa, so they are all better at english than italian, but just the way they talk is awesome. It's almost like they just learned the most epic words, and then they use those all the time. A couple examples: Columbus is the nicest guy in the world, and would never hurt anyone, but he's got a little son that about 3 yrs old that is just a MONSTER, and we could be in the middle of a lesson with them and Columbus will all of the sudden turn to his son (freedom) and yell at him saying "Freedom, I will beat you! Stop that right now or I will beat you!" hahahah Idk, it may be one of those things where you just have to be there, but it's hilarious. And, I'm about to throw this computer in a lake, because it keeps turning off. So I better stop right now while I still have a tad of patience.

I love you all! Thank you so much for the letters and emails! I love hearing from all of you!

Take care, and sempre ricordatevi scegliere il giusto!

mi macate, e vi voglio un sacco di bene!

Anziano Bushman