Anziano Jonathan Bushman: A Fire in Northern Italy! Apr 25, 2012

Man, this week has been straight up crazy! Friday we took a 40 min bus up to Opera where we would start a part-day exchange with the Lodi missionaries so I could do some baptismal interviews for them, but with them being in the office, their schedule is often unpredictable, and they were an hour late to the office and thus an hour late to get the exchange started and whatnot and domino affect and we didn't get back into Opera (where the Lodi missionaries have their apartment, still 40 min away from Pavia) until 11pm. So, President Wolfgramm suggested that we stay the night there and we left in the morning. This normally would have been fine, but the next morning was saturday morning, which was the day of the baptism. I don't know if it's this crazy in America, but a lot of the churches out here in Italy don't have built in baptismal fonts, so setting up the font and filling it up often turns in to quite the big deal. Not to mention we also had a lunch appointment with some members, so yeah, we were pretty beat this weekend.

Oh, and then also, we've been trying to work with our landlord to get the gas company to hook up our gas, and the conclusion is that we will probably be moving =( but it's also pretty exciting! The apartment is not in the best location, so we spend upwards of an hour biking into and from the city each day, so it would save a LOT of time if we lived closer. And we'd have gas, so we'd be able to make all kinds of delicious food =)

BUT, the baptism was super awesome!!!! We didn't have a ton of people there, but we did have a new investigator their who absolutely loved the baptism, couldn't stop saying how we looked like angels, and took all kinds of pictures for each of us! Her name is Wendy, and we actually had our first lesson with her after she had already been to church once, and also a baptism. So, kind of out of the usual order, but still super cool! We talked with her about the restoration, and she 100% agreed on everything, including the fact that authority to do baptism was lost, and that God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith, and that now the authority (cioè the priesthood) is now restored. BUT she still doesn't quite understand that she needs to be baptized in this church. She's very much looking for a church though, and Lizbeth and Yuri are only 3-4 yrs older than her, and they're also all Peruvian, so we're hoping to create some friendships there!

Yeah, and we found a couch! Hahahah it was on the road one day near our house, so we told ourselves that if it was still there on our way back, we'd take it home (we have NO furniture at all) and we did! Hahah you can check out the pictures I sent if you want to understand a little more about how awesome we are.

Well, that's about it for this week. Just one last thing I'd like to mention, there's been some kinda infection going on around the mission, and at first I thought it was just me, but then at district meeting our zone leaders were there visiting, and turns out all of northern Italy is getting it. And I'm not sure what it's called, or if it even has a name, but it's crazy. The only way I can describe it is as a fire. There is something going on with all the missionaries, that all of the sudden we just have this fire, and an overpowering desire to do the Lord's work. It's awesome! And we all can just feel that something big is about to happen.. We're all doing our best to follow our leaders' counsel, and it's awesome! I am so glad to be right where I am! =)

Well, that's it for now, I love you all! Take care!

Anziano Bushman