Sunday, June 6, 2010

Livin’ the high life . . .

 

102_1119

What they say is that the mission is what you make it. I've taken the attitude that I might as well make it awesome, so I do what I can to talk to everyone about the gospel, and help people come closer to Christ. This week we tried something called power street. It's amazing. Basically you split up and each missionary takes one side of the street and you both walk down talking to people. I love it! My companion hates it though...haha. Oh well, I still want to do it whenever we can.

The city has gone down to two missionaries now. Just me and Anziano Halverson. It's alright. I liked having four missionaries, but now we have all of their work on top of ours, so there is tons to do!! With all this work we decided it would be in our best interest to get bikes! They're awesome. We already had one that was from missionaries in the past, and then we went in on buying another one. There was already a great lock for us, a bike pump, and even an extra inner tube!! My mission is becoming a lot more like I expected it (because in Taiwan the missionaries always ride bikes).

I also did a way fun activity in my English Course this week. Me and Anziano Cox taught advanced course (now he's in Siracusa), and we decided to teach our students how to make no-bake cookies!! I thought I was just going to do it, but then Anziano Cox asked Lorenza (one of our students) to be the helper. So we started to put in the ingredients, and I started having my doubts about her cooking skills. First I asked her to put in a cup of sugar, and she filled up the measuring cup part-way and asked me if it was good. I of course told her that it needed to be filled to the top! Then we continued putting in all the ingredients and she started stirring.

102_1106

Then we got to most stressful part of no-bake cookies, at the end when you have to put in the peanut butter and then the oatmeal. The peanut butter went fine, but then we put in too much oatmeal!!! I'm sure you remember that if you put too much oatmeal they're ruined. Or at least I thought they were!! Then Lorenza came through with her natural Italian cooking skills and added some random things (like butter and milk) and saved the cookies!! It was totally amazing, and the cookies were pretty good. : )

It was fun, and I enjoy my English Class. I've started trying to get through to them about gospel principles, but we'll see. Last night I told them about prayer, and I used a lot of scriptures from the Bible about how to pray. I don't really understand how someone could not pray. If God exists, then prayer is the way to get blessings, and so it just makes sense! Plus, if someone doesn't believe in God, prayer is the way they can find out that God does exist. It's such an awesome resource that we have.

Speaking of awesome resources, I'm not sure if all the Book of Mormons in English have this, but the Book of Mormon in Italian has this "Guida alle scritture" in the back that basically has tons of gospel words that it defines and then gives scripture references. It's a really handy resource.

I guess that's about all the news for this week. I also traveled to some little town about an hour and a half from Foggia on Monday and I saw some of the most beautiful scenes I've seen in Italy, but I didn't get any pictures!! I know, that sounds ridiculous, but we were up there with the Bishop visiting some people, and it just worked out so we only passed the ruins and views in the car, so I wasn't able to take photos!! Next time we go there I'm going to ask if we can stop to take a photo or something because it really is awesome.

The weather is getting really warm here, and I'm starting to get a weird tanline from my white collared shirt. It looks pretty ridiculous. haha.

Have a great week! Let me know if there's anything that you need. Like if you know anyone who lives in Italy that you would like to hear the Gospel, because I could always use more referrals! haha.

I guess they would have to live in Foggia for me to visit them though...so that keeps the odds pretty low. haha.

Love,

Anziano Banks

p.s. Anziano Garvin (my companion from the MTC) got transferred into my zone, which means I'll see him in a few weeks!! : )

0 comments: