Blanchard the missionary; the pie that didn't burn

Anziano Heninger and Barnes wtih Blanchard and the branch president at the baptism last week.

Apartment in Florence

This week has been another great one! Here's the status:  Blanchard is still doing amazing - he helped us with Michelle this past week and he did amazing once again.  ...Blanchard wants to serve a mission!  He's only 23 right now - so  he's got time.  And, he's already doing missionary work.  He's working with 2 friends right now and one of them is committed to come to church.  When he teaches, he explains the gospel like it is written in Preach my Gospel (we still wonder how he does that...), and it really is his desire to serve God to his fullest capacity!...

Joseph is doing alright.  We set a baptismal date for the 12th of November.  He is still reading and everything, but recently we haven't been able to contact him, so we haven't had a lesson for several days.  However, he talked to his family back in Ghana, and the missionaries have already gone over (we gave them the referral) and have begun teaching!...

And, finally, Godsent has accepted baptism!  It took a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifice, but it happened!  Let me tell the story of how...  We had a lesson set up for him at 3:30 yesterday.  We went home for lunch at 1:00 (planning to take our hour to eat and then do an hour of language study) and we started preparing our food (we were trying a spinach and ricotta pie).  Then, we got a call from Godsent saying that he wouldn't be able to meet at 3:30 because he had to go back to his town earlier.  He did say, though, that if we came then that he'd have enough time.  We were right in the middle of preparing the food and we were starving- we had to decide whether to just leave it or to try to get another lesson at the end of the week.  We decided to leave (we had to throw together really quickly what we had and we put it in the oven on really low heat, hoping that it would cook as we were gone and not burn)!  The lesson went really well and in the end he finally accepted to be baptized...!  Our sacrifice was worth it (and God blessed our pie - it was cooked perfectly when we pulled it out of the oven when we got back, even though it was in there twice as long as it should be - I don't think it was just getting lucky on choosing the temperature...)!

This past week we also had interviews with President Wolfgramm - they went really well.  And, being zone leaders, we were able to talk with him together after everyone had been interviewed to discuss the zone.  I've recieved a lot of direction and inspiration about what I can do to help teach and inspire the missionaries here in Tuscany.  Some of this is really cool because it's fulfilling some of the stuff that is in my Patriarcal blessing and also from my setting apart.  It's so cool to see how everything is unfolding!

This past week, last thursday, we were also able to go to Genova to pick up Anziano Heninger's Permesso di Soggiorno.  It was great!  I was able to eat a lot of food that originates from that area - a special type of foccacia and some pesto genovese - it was so good!  That day, just like last week, we had a cool experience teaching an awesome lady on the train.  It's so great serving the Lord everywhere you go! 

-Anziano Barnes