Valentin was confirmed!

Part of the Milano 2nd Ward

Sunset in Milan

Milan from the top of the Duomo

Buon Giorno!

This past week has been pretty good.  Valentin got confirmed on Sunday - he wanted me to do it.  It was a neat experience being able to be guided by the spirit - giving a blessing IN Italian!  We met another guy that is absolutely amazing - Nels.  He's a referral as well.  He's from Congo, is 27 years old, is a student here in Italy, and, now wants to be baptized!  Let me tell the story...

He met the missionaries a couple weeks ago in another part of Milan (and the missionaries assumed that he lived in their area, so they continued to teach him).  WIth them, Nels went to a baptism, and then was taught about baptism and confirmation.  After that, however, the missionaries learned that he lives in our area and so we got his information.  That was 3 weeks ago.  We finally were able to see him for the first time last Thursday.  We taught simply about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy of his own (he didn't have one yet...) with an invitation to read it and pray about it.  During the lesson, we felt that we needed to invite him to be baptized, so we did - he accepted!  We saw him the next day and set a firm date - April 30th - as well as teaching a couple other things.  He said he was going to come to an activity the next night and to church on Sunday.  However, he didn't come and we haven't been able to make contact with him.  We don't know what happened.  But, we'll keep trying.

We also had probably the most productive lesson we've ever had with Fernando (the really smart Italian teacher).  He really has a testimony of the apostasy (as far as the corruption in the catholic church goes).  And, for the first time ever, he prayed TO God!  He said one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard and he did everything that one needs to in a prayer!  In this lesson, he really started to open up to us.  We learned that he has a son who is struggling right now.  He doesn't get along at all with the woman with whom he had this child.  However, he really wants to help his son, but his son is more attached to the mom (who, according to Fernando, is pushing him the wrong direction).  He wants to help his son have "protection" from Satan.  Fernando is going to try to bring his son to some of our lessons (however, his son leaves for the USA for a vacation today, so he'll be gone for a few weeks). ... 

Yesterday we had some really cool inspiration.  We were looking through our agendas at the ideas to find new investigators.  The number one idea that it gives us is to teach the message of the restoration to members in order to get referrals.  In short, we're going to do it.  We proposed our idea to the ward mission leader and he just lit up!  He's excited and wants to help us.  Somehow, this seemed to make something click between us, and he seems to really trust us now - we finally have the relationship we've been working for!

Ciao!

-Anziano Barnes