Amo Italia

Ciao Famiglia. Questa volta pensavo che fosse meglio di scrivere in italiano. Così potete imparare un poco. haha.

scherzo.

This week was pretty sweet. We went down to Messina for a zone conference. It was nice to see Anziano Garcia and Sorella Miller there. I haven't seen either of them in a few months, and they're both doing great.

The highlight for this last week would have to be the University of Calabria. We found out about it when we were doing less active work and met Francesco Trausi who used to be a student there. We decided it may be worthwhile to return and do some proseltying. That morning during personal study I decided to pray about who we should try to find while we were at the college. The thought came to me while praying that we should find a friend for Rosangela, and that she would be brunette. So, we had that in mind while we went to the college.

In the morning we took the bus over. It's about a 20 minute bus ride. We sat across from a girl that fit the description but was listening to music. She stopped listening to the music, and we noticed that she read our name tags. We both knew that we needed to talk to her, but it was pretty awkward. Finally we mumbled to each other that we really need to, and my companion asked her if she was going to the college. It's always fine right after you break the ice. We talked with her and taught her about the Plan of Salvation. When we arrived at the college she showed us a good place for us to do proselyting because she said there were lots of people there that need our message. We have a return appointment with her on Saturday with Rosangela!

That was awesome. Later at the college we also met another girl that we told that her Heavenly Father loves her and that really touched her. We are also going to meet with her on Saturday.

There were a lot of chinese there. As we walked by chinese people I knew that I needed to talk to one of them. So finally I just said hi and asked (in chinese) two guys where they were from, and they were some random province of China, and then I explained that we're talking about the plan that God has for us and asked them what they thought about the purpose of life. Basically, one tries not to think about it, but the other one believes in God and Jesus Christ, and we're also going to meet with them this week.

So we had a great day at the college.

This week was pretty crazy though. In Italian there's a word called "Bidone" and last week we got five of them!! It means when someone sets up an appointment with you and doesn't show. It's because we've been going through our old investigators and our potentials. We're definitely figuring out who is and who isn't interested!

One blessing that we had last week is referrals. With 15 members it's difficult to get a lot of referrals, but we got three last week! We're building our way up to four referrals a week, because we also get them from investigators and friends that we have.

Today we went to Sila. You probably haven't heard of it. haha. Apparently it's quite famous in Italy. We went Giuseppe Belsito. He should be setting a baptismal date tomorrow (feel free to help us pray about it). It was a really fun trip. La Sila is only half an hour away from Cosenza, and they have ski resorts and we had a picnic while we were up there. All the water that we use here is from there.

Lunch was pretty good. We just had bread with cheese, ham, and then some fruit afterwards. It's a shame that he forgot to bring salsiccia picante (spicy sausage). I love that stuff. Giuseppe loves it too, and he said that sausage was born in the Calabria. It was a nice P-day.

Lately for lunch we eat a lot of rice and vegetables. We just cook rice and frozen vegetables together, and then I make a sauce out of soy sauce, a little vinegar, a little olive oil, Cayenne Pepper, Rucola (tastes like green onion), and a little flour to make it thick. It's good. I've been getting better at pasta, but we've started getting lazy. We cook the pasta, and then we stir in a sauce that is already cooked (it still only costs about €1) and then we put in a little mozzarella. It tastes good. We switch off between those two every day. For breakfast I've been having Corn Flakes with a banana that I cut into it, and at night I have leftovers from dinner, or a tuna sandwich, and then I drink some herbal tea before I go to sleep.

Just in case you were curious what I've been eating. At meal appointments we eat a lot better. haha. I also have tons of wheat bread and jam (homemade grape)  that I eat quite often.

Have a great week!

You're in my prayers.

Love,

Anziano Banks.

p.s. Today Giuseppe told us that it's easy to be serene, but hard to be happy. Because when you close your eyes everything is peaceful, but when you open your eyes it's like "Madonna!!" because the world's so bad. hahaha.