INN-N-OUT

This week I tried to make myself a Double-Double Animal style. ...
I decided not to take a photo. It didn't even come close. The next day I got a Whopper at Burger King, and I think that's about as close as I can get while I'm here in Italy.

This week we have done a lot of traveling. I've found that most weeks I do. haha. First we went to Panni with our Bishop. That was awesome. We visited a member and his new member wife that are in the hospital there. That city is totally awesome. I really wish I would've gotten a picture from their balcony, but I'm sure we'll go again sometime. Then we went to get water from a pipe coming out of a rock. Apparently that's where all the best water comes from, and we filled about 50 - 2L bottles with Bishop after the appointment. haha.

The next trip was for Zone Conference in Bari. It was the last Zone Conference with President Toronto!! It went pretty well. We had to get a ride from the Assistants back to Foggia to make it in time for our baptism! Angela, the mother of Irene who was just baptized.
She's awesome. She is really...upbeat. After the baptism she gave us each huge Boches. (I'm not sure how to say it in English) After the baptism we also invited the girlfriend of one of the members of the church here to be baptized, and she accepted!! That was awesome.

Right now I'm actually back in Cosenza!! I love this place. Within my first few minutes here I already ran into a member and had a brief conversation. It looks like I'll actually be here a couple days because the Questura may not give out Permessos tomorrow. Basically, I'm here to pick up the card that makes it legal for me to stay in the country!

Summer is here. People are starting to all go to the sea. We're going to end English Course at the end of this month, but I only had two students come to my class yesterday! It still went well though. People like to have more personal help sometimes. Plus it makes for a killer spiritual thought at the end because you can connect with the people more.

The other day we decided to do a little bit of Chinese Hunting. haha. First we passed by a guy that I had talked to before that seemed really friendly and interested. His wife was the only one there. I asked her if she had a chance to read the pamphlet that I left her husband, and she told me that she's buddhist and that they're not interested. That was kind of a bummer. So then we decided to go to another chinese shop where I had met a couple ladies before. I talked to one about how her day was, and then a little bit about religion, and I ended up explaining to her about prophets and Joseph Smith. She told me she would read the pamphlet, call me if she didn't understand anything, and that we were always welcome in her shop!After that I was feeling pretty good. I love it when people actually accept what we say!

With all the trips I've had a chance to talk with a lot of people traveling (which I love). I spoke with one man on the train to Bari. He was very interesting. He told me, "What's better: Being baptized and killing people, or not being baptized, but being a good person"
I said, "Why can't you be baptized and be a good person?!"
He was stuck on his idea. The fact is, a lot of times there is good and bad, black and white, but I think in this case he was definitely choosing between two mistakes. We can either choose Jesus Christ, or we can choose Satan. Jesus Christ was baptized!! He also did good things! I say we should try and do all the things that he did. Anyway, unfortunately I couldn't get through to him at all. You do what you can. He also told me I should be serving a mission in Africa where they need the Gospel. It's funny because a lot of people tell me that I should be in Africa. Speaking of which, we found out that our African member isn't actually a member of our church. She's never heard of the Book of Mormon, and we couldn't find her baptismal records. We don't really want to tell her that she's not actually a member, but hopefully she'll want to be baptized afterwards!

We had stake conference and we had a satellite transmission from Salt Lake. Elder David A. Bednar said some great things to us about revelation. I wish I had my notes with me so I could tell you some quotes. Anyway, basically he told us that usually revelation is like the sun rising. Slowly you see more and more light, and then it breaks over the ridge and you realize the truth! Sometimes it's an overcast sky and it takes a long time for the time to show. He told us an experience that happened on his mission, and he didn't find out until 20 years later that what he did was really what the spirit prompted him to do!! It was really cool. My thought on revelation follows also what he said. We just need to choose the right, do good things, and have confidence that the Lord is blessing us and giving us revelation. I've also found that I usually don't realize it until after the fact.

Have a great week.
Love,
Anziano Banks

P.S. I’ve found that all this travelling I do makes it so I see a lot of great views!!