January 26, 2011

Wow!  What a week!  We now have a bunch more new investigators and we have investigators that are actually making progress!  We had an amazing zone conference with Anziano Capisca from the 70, and we've seen some cool little miracles every day!...

Here's some interesting and amazing people we've met this week:  We found a man, probably 25 years old, from south america who has an amazing testimony of prayer and of going to church, and right now he's looking for a church that he can go to!  He seems prepared to hear the gospel!  We also found another guy, about the same age, but this one is Italian.  He is very catholic in his beliefs, but isn't practicing, and the weird thing is that he wants to listen to us!  He also tried to give us 20 euro that we could give to our church (we told him we can't take money - it's a rule - but if he really wants to donate something maybe we'll see if he can fill out a tithing form or something - we'll see!).  We met a really old couple that are about as catholic as they come, and they let us in their home and listened to us.  Everywhere on their walls are pictures of the Madonna and the crucifixion, and the husband had 3 or 4 different necklaces of the crucifix and other catholic emblems as well as several pins that he wore on his shirt.  Here's the weird part - they knew some missionaries a while ago and they have a book of mormon, and they believe that it is the word of god, and that together with the bible, contains the fulness of the doctrine of Christ.  They were really nice to us, and we're going back - and next time we are going to be really up front and bold about our message and see if they're willing to progress.  Anyway, it was a neat experience with them.  Also, we were doing casa in casa and we had a feeling to go to a different area kind of nearby.  Then, as we got there, we ran into a Nigerian who was just going in to his house (he lived there) - it turns out he was baptized one year ago!  However, he hasn't come to church in a long time, but after a little chat, he says that he'll start coming again, and he wants us to come by and teach him (it sounds like the missionaries in the past didn't finish teaching all of the things after baptism).  I never would have thought we would find a less active new convert doing casa!..We've also been teaching an old couple, the Biancalini Benedetti.  They're a sweet old couple that were served by the Elders in another city many years ago.  They were touched by their love, and for that they first let us in.  Right now they're reading the Book of Mormon, and we're trying now to get them to church!...