Salve.

This week went really well. We've continued to do a lot of finding work, and have had tons of success in finding investigators that are totally awesome!!! The only problem is that we've been finding them for other missionaries!!! haha. Check this out:

We were on our way to an appointment when we ran into an African man that stopped us and told us that he's a member! He said that he was visiting from up north. We told him that we didn't have much time, but I still asked him if he knew anyone in Bari that would be interested in learning about the church. He told me that his brother would. We met his brother, got his number, and went to our appointment. The next day I called his brother (Stanley) and we met with him. We taught him all about the restoration, he agreed to read and pray, and he said that usually he doesn't go to the churches here, but he feels good about our church because his brother is a part of it. He also accepted the invitation to meet with us three times a week so we could help him understand our message, and said he would be willing to be baptized if he feels it's true!!! Then I found out where he lives, that it's out of our area, and we passed him off to the missionaries in Bitonto. He waited an hour for the buses to go there for church, but they weren't running on Sunday because of Ferragosto. He's now meeting with the missionaries there. I was a little sad at first when we lost such an amazing investigator, but I got over it.

Yesterday we had an appointment with that guy who stopped us from Venezuela. He actually called us to meet with us! (His name is Massimo) Of course, it turns out he lives in the other missionaries zone, plus his wife doesn't speak much Italian, so we passed him off to the missionaries of his area. He has another appointment with them in two days, and he's going to go to church with them on Sunday.
We have been going through our potential investigators and we had a lady that wanted to meet with us. She was a single lady that we passed off to the sisters.

We had an appointment with another man that when we found out his address, it is in the other missionaries area, so we're going to pass him off to the other missionaries.

Basically, lately we have been doing great missionary work that I feel really good about, but it's all going to the other missionaries!!! hahaha. Don't worry though, we've also been finding some totally awesome potential investigators, and a couple of new investigators. The only problem is that one of them has an EXTREMELY bad smoking problem, and the other one doesn't really believe in God. In fact, when we first started teaching her she just told us that she didn't believe in anything, but by the end she was willing to pray!! It's amazing to see how people's hearts soften.

We also met a man the other day that played at the church TWENTY FIVE years ago! He didn't really remember much about the church, but we explained to him the restoration, and he told us that he wants to learn more. It's really pretty cool how the Lord prepares people and puts them in your path. He also blesses you for your efforts. We have been studying the chapter of Preach My Gospel about finding people a lot this last week, and we've pretty much figured out that when we follow everything that it says, it really works! I'm not sure if it works because we're changing some things, or if it just works because the Lord blesses us for our efforts. I have also gotten really into the Bible lately. It's pretty awesome. It's getting pretty colorful, haha. It's good though because Italians are way worse than me when it comes to marking the scriptures. They always just mark about everything. It's like when I was little, and me and Lia started reading the Book of Mormon together for the first time. I had a scripture marking pencil, and I would just color in everything! I think Lia told me that it was pretty ridiculous, but it seems like everyone here likes to mark their scriptures like that!!

Anyway, things are going great here in Bari. I love this city. It's definitely my favorite city that I've served in. What's not to love!?!

Remember how we have those new converts that I've been trying to find husbands for? well, every week I've started giving Cecilia a different article from random Liahonas about marriage. It's way funny. I always right a little note too. Usually it says something like this °Go to the Single Adults activity! ++The missionaries
or... get married!

I'd type more, but this keyboard is driving me crazy! I think that someone from a random country used it because I'm able to type symbols like this ç L é*ç:_Lç°L

Have a great week.
Se trovate un po' di tempo, imparate Italiano.
Va bene?
ciao ciao
-Anziano Banks!