Transfer to Pavia

Anziano Barnes & Wilkinson with Milano member Fratello Cobelli

Anz. Barnes & Wilkinson with missionary-age member Luca

Anziano Barnes with Milano member Marco Groppi

Anziano Barnes and investigator Efraim

Anz. Barnes & Wilkinson working with less-active Willy

Buon Giorno!

This week has gone by really fast; it's been awesome!  Quick overview: we now have 3 progressing investigators (last week was 0) - Efraim, Luigi, and Indika!  We took a trip to Prato again (and successfully got my permesso this time...).  And, we found out about transfers.  I will be going to Pavia (a city pretty close to Milano)!  Anziano Wilkinson will be staying here and he'll be getting an Italian companion - Anziano Morino (one of the best missionaries in the mission and one of the nicest people I've met).  My new companion will be Anziano Neff (he was in the MTC for 3 weeks while I was there; he's one transfer below me).  So, today I will pack and tomorrow I will go!

So, our exciting news about our investigators:

Efraim was probably the greatest surprise.  He's generally really hard to teach because he likes to dominate the discussion and take it off-track.  Furthermore, he gets distracted really easily and his attention span doesn't last too long.  But, we found the way we need to teach him.  On Saturday, we went over to his house to eat lunch with him and to teach him.  We were there for four hours.  However, it was some of the most productive four hours we've ever had (and we made more progress with him in those 4 hours than we have in the past 3 months...).  We would teach a little bit, and when he'd get distracted, we'd eat.  While we'd eat, we'd let him go off on his life story and the like.  After a bit of eating, he'd get some more food cooking, and we'd teach him some more.  He'd listen really attentively, participate and talk and think about the things that we wanted him to, and then, when the food was done, we'd take a pause and eat some more.  The cycle of teaching and eating went on for the 4 hours.  We learned a lot about why he wasn't progressing in the past - even though he's been investigating for many months, he didn't understand at all what the Book of Mormon was and he wasn't reading it (my companion and I were both under the impression that he knew what it was and why it's important and that he was reading).  We were able to teach him and commit him to read it every day.  We taught him about the word of wisdom and he committed to live it - he gave up coffee and tea that day (and he's been keeping it up since then as far as we know).  He seems much more open to baptism - he even asked (I don't remember whether he said "if" or "when" to begin his phrase...) "if/when I get baptized on saturday, who will be the one to baptize me?"  We hope that a saturday not too far away he will be baptized!

Indika is absolutely amazing as well.  He came to church!  One of the exciting things is that he initially told us that we couldn't teach him in his house because the other people that lived there had made a rule that other people (especially religious) weren't allowed to come in.  However, he talked to them about us and they said that it would be fine for us to teach.  He even said that some of them might be interested in listening the next time we go!  He talked to his wife about us as well, and she's perfectly fine with his investigation and she's willing to learn as well.

Luigi is doing really well as well.  He was unable to come to church last week due to some other commitments, but he was free later sunday evening, so we took him to a special musical fireside about Jesus Christ.  He loved it.  He's reading the Book of Mormon a lot and loves it.  He's also been continuing his research on the Holy Ghost!  We're going to teach him tonight.

The member work has continued to go well.  The whole attitude in the ward towards the missionaries has changed.  Anziano Wilkinson told me that when he first arrived, the missionaries didn't know the members at all and the members didn't know the missionaries.  Now, we work and serve together, and we pray for them and they pray for us (it's so cool to hear the members praying for us by name in the meetings!).  The "fruits" of our member work are still to come.  However, Anziano Wilkinson and I have been praying, studying, and discussing what more we need to do, and we've learned of a few more things that we need to do.  We had forgotten to apply a lot of the things that we always try to do with investigators to the members.  Hopefully this next transfer the ward will see the fruits of our work and efforts.

Our trip to Prato was great.  I got my permesso (I remembered to bring all of my original documents this time!).  We had a couple hours between the time that I got my permesso and before our train left, so we were able to go to Firenze (Florence) for a little bit.  We went to the Duomo, bought some ties, and bought some food (we had some pizza, foccaccia, and a really tasty treat called Pan del Pescatore con Ciocolatto - I thought it was a little circular loaf of bread with chocolate chips in it, but it turned out to be a giant cookie-ish thing; it was the best italian treat, other than gelato, that I've tried).  While we were there, I ran into someone I never thought I would - one of my professors from BYU!  I don't remember her name, but she was my professor for my Honors Civilization 1 class, in the which I was introduced to the ancient/classical italian art!  I was able to thank her for teaching me/preparing me culturally for being in Italy and we were able to speak for a couple minutes.  Who would have guessed!?

Anyway, it was a really good week, and I'm excited to have some more great weeks in Pavia!

-Anziano Barnes