Faith is Power

Ciao tutti!

This week has been one of the best (if not the best) of my whole mission thus far.  Why?  It started out not so good... Wednesday evening Anziano Wilkinson got a call from one of the doctors in Germany and, basically, found out that we wouldn't be doing anything for another week.  The doctor told him to basically grow up and get to work.  Both of us were shocked and a little bit angry for a little while.  However, this turned out to be a huge blessing - for both of us.

Anziano Wilkinson hasn't got any better - he continues to get worse every day (as far as energy and soreness are concerned).  He has to fight a battle every morning up until the time we get out to work.  Words can't describe what happens.  When he's working - when he has the Spirit - he can work normally (this week it seems he's been more on top of it than ever).  When we get home and finish planning, he crashes; he's got nothing left at all.  The scripture that comes to mind comes from Moroni 7: "If ye shall have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."  In our case, the thing that is expedient is missionary work - the things that go on from 10 in the morning until 9:30 at night.  In that time, he has power.  He has life (remember, the spirit/light of Christ "quickeneth all things" and "giveth light to all things").  Every thing else, we suppose, isn't expedient.  Our faith has grown tremendously this past week.  We've worked harder and felt better than ever before.  The Lord's power is real.

The coolest miracle of the past week...  A man named Geris.  He's from Egypt.  Last wednesday he showed up to the "family night" that we put on at the church (lots of less active members, a bunch of the strongest members in the ward, and the investigators that we have, all of them come).  How did he find out about it?  Nobody knows.  A few weeks ago the Sorelle missionarie gave him an invitation card for English class (that we do every Tuesday and Thursday).  He came on a wednesday...  Anyway, after that, we got his information.  We had a lesson with him a couple days later.  He came to a baptism (and at the baptism he had an amazing experience - I wish you could have seen the smile that appeared on his face as the people were baptized!).  He came to Church.  We haven't been able to see him since church, but we'll see him again tonight, and we want to invite him to be baptized!

Easter in Italy is very different.  There isn't an easter bunny.  There isn't an easter egg hunt.  However, there still is lots of food!  On Sunday we went to a member's home for lunch.  It was really good.  In Italy, the day after easter (monday) is also a huge holidy (it almost seems bigger than the actual easter day...).  Everyone (literally everyone) goes out of the house - almost every single one of them to go to a park to do a barbeque.  It reminded me a lot of the 4th of July.  They cook meat, and more meat, and more meat, and then eat, and eat, and eat.  Our ward had an activity monday morning/afternoon where the members could bring friends and where less actives would feel less awkward (and there was a really good turnout).  It was a really good activity - everyone was really nice.  A little too nice.  Almost everyone there wanted to feed us.  I've never eaten so much meat in my life (I had more meat than anything else that day...).  It was really good!  Let's just say I wasn't hungry in the least the whole rest of the day (we ate about noon...)!

We've been continuing to teach the members, helping them to prepare their friends to recieve the missionary lessons and learn about the church.  It has been going really well.  These things that we have been doing haven't been us at all - it's all the Lord.  He has something amazing that He wants done.

As I was saying with working harder than ever before, we've been seeing lots of cool little miracles.  We've been giving away lots of Books of Mormon as we travel on the metro around the city.  We run into some amazing people.  Overall, everything just seems to be working out for us.  We really are being blessed for giving our all (in Anziano Wilkinson's case - more than his all!).

That's pretty much my week.

Oh, update on Anziano Wilkinson.  There was some good things that happened.  Our mission president and his wife have been talking with the doctors.  And, finally, they have approved us to be able to go get some tests.  We have an appointment for tomorrow morning, where the doctor will be doing a ton of different tests (and even a bunch that weren't planned in the beginning - Sorella Wolfgramm contacted another doctor and he suggested several other things that we should check for, so maybe that's why we had to do this extra week of waiting...).  We hope we can do something soon!

Thanks for you love and prayers!

-Anziano Barnes