Finding people & Fortifying Cities! May 2, 2012

Well, this week has been once again pretty crazy. We did get to play soccer though on Pday, so that was super exciting! and pretty tiring... hahah it took me a solid 3 days of stretching before my legs were no longer stiff hahah! WOW I'm out of shape! But some missionary coolness from the soccer: two of the kids that came weren't members, but they were also pretty young, and so I got talking to them during the game and whatnot and we became pretty good friends, and then 3 days later we ran into them on the bus! They said they wanted to come to english class, and so I got their phone number, and we're going to see on saturday if we can't teach their family the gospel after english class! So, yeah! Other than that, we're still just out looking trying to find people to teach. All of our current investigators don't have time to see us, and thus aren't making progress. Even Wendy... Wendy has school in the morning, then work, and then at night she has italian class and then homework. Soooo yeah. 

On the upside, we had a pretty good lesson with a family that is not doing so well together... Bishop wanted us to encourage the members here to hold family home evening, so we devised a lesson plan we wanted to share with all the members. Using the story of Alma 48-50 (about Captain Moroni fortifying the cities) we then talk about fortifying the families, and have them write down all kinds of things they can do to fortify their family. Then taking those pieces of paper we construct a pretty awesome castle type thing and commit them to do what they've said. And with this family especially, it went really well. They invited us to their next family home evening, so we'll even have an opportunity for a follow up. 

Another key lesson we had this week was with Katherine. Katherine (15) has an older borther (Melvin 19) and younger brother (Kelvin 13) who are both members. My companion has been talking about her for 2 months now, and how golden she is, but I have yet been able to meet with her, until yesterday. Yesterday it took a while to get started with the lesson. She doesn't see how God could exist and let so much suffering exist in the world. We finally got through to her, but for one reason or another she just wasn't even willing to "experiment upon our words". At that point there wasn't much else to say. She then asked us why we were so sad (we had previously mentioned that there's always a reason to be happy) and so we explained to her. We explained that it's a pretty sad thing when someone isn't willing to try (at absolutely no cost) something that can grant them the greatest gift of eternity. And that really hit her. We're not going to plan another lesson for her, but we're hoping we'll see her every once and a while because of Melvin and Kelvin. 

Yuri and Lizbeth couldn't be more solid. They're awesome!!!! We're going to talk in ward council tonight about getting them home teachers and the whole shpeel, and once that's in place, they couldn't be better! 

Well, I do believe I have to go. I wish you all the best of luck in these last couple days of school, and would challenge you not to forget God. He's always there for us, especially in these stressful times. So don't forget to seek first the kingdom of God (cioè read the book of mormon each day) and all the rest shall be added unto you.

vi voglio un sacco di bene!!!

Anziano Bushman

Our pet spider just outside the bathroom window. It's actually rather fascinating watching him reconstruct his web and whatnot. We've had him for nearly 2 months now! =)

 A pretty car I wanted. I thought Zac might appreciate this one.