This week has been great - it's been another one that just flew by!
On thursday we went to consiglio (all of the zone leaders, the APs, the office sisters, and President and his wife - so about 25 people in total) up in Milano at the mission home. It was absolutely spectacular! Just like any meeting where we go with questions, I recieved the exact answers that I needed! I learned a lot about the importance of love. I've learned that sometimes by going too fast (keeping too busy or something), you can miss the most important thing - love. That's something that I'm trying to work on now. It's hard, because I really like being productive and doing as much as I can. But, in the end, I am actually able to do more good if I slow down a bit, finding an "optimal speed," and making sure everything is in its right place. I also learned a lot better what I can do as a zone leader to inspire the missionaries in my zone and help them to be better. I'll be trying to put these things into practice and we'll see how it works!...
On Monday we did a scambio with the missionaries in La Spezia. I was with Anziano Bona - a missionary from my home ward! It went really well. We had a cool miracle with some referrals - we asked for them from one investigator, and he gave us two. One of them he said that the name was Winston, who was the husband of his sister. His sister was in the house and she heard, and said that "no, his name is Wilton." They argued for a little bit and then the doorbell rang. They joked saying that it was probably him - we could ask (it wasn't supposed to be him, though, because he should've returned 2 hours later). Anyway, it was him. We found out that his name really was Wilton. We laughed together, and then we were able to teach him right on the spot! He understood really well the message of the restoration and accepted a soft baptismal invite! After that, we went outside and literally talked to everyone that was physically possible to talk to (almost - there was a couple minutes in the bus, after we had talked to someone and given away a Book of Mormon, when we were talking together evaluating how it went; so, we almost talked to everyone) - it was great! Anziano Bona really liked that - now he thinks that I have no fear (I don't know how true that actually is...). We then were surprised with a dinner waiting for us at a members' home (we told them on the phone a couple hours before that we didn't have much time at all - we wanted a signature for something and we wanted to share a couple minute spiritual thought... they must not have understood that part very well).
Tuesday we were able to go to a training with our mission president. It was spectacular! We learned about the power of helping people commit themselves and helping them discover and share for themselves their own testimony by simply sharing our own and asking good questions. Then, we watched an intense movie. It's called 17 miracles. It's about the Martin and Willie handcart companies. It was amazing! I definitely recommend it.
Okay, time for the amazing miracles. It was tuesday night after the training. We got to the train station 5 minutes after our train left. We had to wait 2 more hours. So, we went out and taught people in Modena. While we were out, we taught a couple lessons. We taught a very well-off African man (who has a family of 5) who has been here in Italy for 18 years. We taught him and he committed to being baptized when he recieves his own witness that the Book of Mormon is true! We definitely set the missionaries in Modena up there! Then, we went back to the station to catch our train. Unfortunately, it was 15 minutes late. That was bad. We had to get a connecting train, and that connecting train left 8 minutes after we were to arrive (if it were on time...). If we didn't catch that train, there would be nothing more that night. We were debating options when Sister Bishop, in our district, suggested that we say a prayer. We had just finished watching a movie filled with ridiculous miracles, so we decided to try our faith and see if we could get one. Right before we said the prayer, the train said that it was 5 minutes later - 20 minutes late. Then, we said a prayer all together. We walked onto the binario, and then the train said that it was actually going to make it just 15 minutes late. It showed up, and we got on the train. We were hoping and praying for a miracle. There's something you should know - trains usually never wait if it is starting point. However, they are often running late if the stop is one of them on the way. We were hoping that it was late. Anyway, we pulled up to the station, jumped out of the train and started running. We saw that the train was 15 minutes late, and it was supposed to be leaving in one minute. We started running, but we had to sprint for a couple minutes since it was on the opposite side of the Bologna station, which is quite large. As we got closer, we heard the announcement that it was departing and saw the train - this was the starting point of the train. I thought to myself that that was very strange. Anyway, we ran up to the train, and the conductor was standing right outside of the last car. As we arrived, he looked at us and asked where we were coming from. We said Modena. Then he smiled and said "siete voi che stiamo aspettando" (oh, it is you that we've been waiting for). We boarded the train with a couple other people who ran over with us from that train, and it took off. Never in my history here in Italy have I seen a train wait that long! It was a miracle!
I love you all! Thanks for all you do for me!
-Anziano Barnes
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