June 1, 2011

Hey all-

  How's it going this week? Tutto a posto? (S'all good?)  I'm currently writing from a little internet point in a town called Reggio Emilia with my companion and another companionship who is based here.  We had a leadership conference in Modena yesterday and we decided to just stay the night in Reggio because it's closer than Piacenza, and we had planned to return to Modena on P-Day to see the Ferrari Factory.  So we're about to head there after this.  Super excited to see some cool cars.

  My companion's full name is Tyson Nielsen and he grew up in Saint George like I said.  He says he doesn't recognize Suzie or Daniel's names though.  I actually forgot to tell you about the Cummings ha.  That first night that we were in Milan when we had the two groups split up, after we had gotten back together Sorelle Bowman and Jones from my MTC district said that had met Erin and her family.  I was upset to have missed them but it was awesome that they saw them at least.  I did get AJ's and Ashley's wedding invite and it was awesome ha.  In fact, I got two so I was double excited.  I'm way jealous about Yellowstone, it sounds so fun.  Those were some crazy numbers though ha, that's a lot of fish!  That's awesome that Cash came to get his letter though... tell him to write back asap!  He can use my Piacenza address if he wants or he can use the Mission Home.. either way.  Like I said though, I should be in Piacenza for a while.

    Dad- I'm loving the area.  It's a lot of hard work, we do a lot of door knocking.  We have like 15 people we're teaching and 3 or 4 people we're trying to re-activate.  Problem is that not a whole lot of them are progressing because they don't have time to meet with us.  Some of them are kinda weefy (popular missionary term for "flaky", I think).  My comp is awesome though, he's not a weirdo or anything.  Lui non è pazzo.  My health is good.  All the stuff from the MTC is gone and I'm feelin good.  Except my stomach ha.  When you don't work out your arms, they don't get fat, they just get small (I'm okay with that).  We ride bikes all over the place, so my legs stay in pretty good shape.  But my stomach.. ha he's not getting any exercise.  Sorry pal.  You just get to the point where there is no energy left in your body to do even 10 sit ups.  Your mind just needs a rest at the end of the day.  And that thing I called you before was "Babbo".  Kind of the italian slang for "Papa."

     Anyways, we had some cool stuff happen on saturday.  We got 3 bidone, which means canceled appointments.  Wait. Maybe I already told you this story?  If so just skip the paragraph ha.  But we got canceled on 3 times and had nothing to do but go knock doors or teach a member.  So while we went to teach this member we got a phone call from this random number.  This African man is on the other side of the line looking for some guy named Pastor Ben.  "Hello Pastor Ben?  Oh this isn't Pastor Ben?  Well, can I talk to Pastor Ben?"  He must have been good friends with Pastor Ben or something.  Anyways, he tells us that he's looking for "men of God". We replied, "Yes, that's us!"  So we meet up with him and his friend at the park and take them to see the Ward Building.  Turns out they are super interested and they asked if they could come to church the next morning.  As we talked there for like half an hour, he was just so eager to share with us his testimony about Jesus Christ.  He was Evangelical I think and he just loved the Savior so much.  The interesting thing was though is that almost everything he said sounded as if was coming out of Preach My Gospel.  It was awesome and he was so willing to stand up and share with the members his testimony about any subject the next morning.  His name was Elias and his friend was Samuel.  Loro sono forti!  I think the coolest part though is that he was trying to call some other pastor, and mis-dialed and happened to call us.  It wasn't a coincidence I don't think.

   Anyways, that's my cool story for the week.  Tell me more about what's going on at home.  I'll be sending home a package hopefully today with some stuff I don't need anymore and the voice recorder. 

   Amo quest'opera così tanto.  A volte è dificile, ma certo.  Ma io so che crescerò da questa.  Io so che mediante questa missione, imparerò tante cose di cui avrò bisogno.  Il mio Salvatore è vicino a me cuando ho bisogno di Lui e Lui sa ogni cosa di cui ho bisogno.  Lui ha sofferto ogni cosa, così che avrebbe potuto sapere come aiutarci.  Sono così grato per il mio Redentor e io so che ci rafforza.  Nel nome di Gesù Cristo, amen.

Andrew