Florence is exploding, 25 new investigators

Anziano Ballif, Droghei, Heninger, Barnes, and Sorella Bishop and Lloyd

WOW!  We had another incredible week here in Firenze!  Our work had hit its low point, but now it is getting ready to explode!  Let me tell you about what happened!...

Sunday was a day of miracles!  We were supposed to have 5 lessons set up with people that day but they all fell through.  We had to find people all day long (after church).  To make it worse, it was pouring down rain.  We decided that we would be as diligent as possible and we gave it our all.  We ended up finding an old investigator that is now making progress again (he had come across some anti-mormon material and we were able to clear things up).  We found a Cuban named Kemuel that seems golden!  He accepted the soft baptismal invite!  Then, at 8:20, we needed to find one more person and teach them a lesson in order to reach our goals for that whole week.  We were riding our bikes and I had just finish praying - feeling a little bit bad because I wasn't at 100% in performance but I felt like my desires and faith were sky high - and then Anziano Heninger said hi to a guy on the street.  This guy responded really friendly so as I approached him I slowed down my bike and stopped him.  He is awesome!  His name is Marco - he's a 21 year old Italian kid that also seems golden.  We were only able to be with him for about 10 minutes because he had to be somewhere, but from what we discovered about him he is incredible!  He lives right next to where they are building a new church building.  He mentioned this new church and said that he would always go to it when it was finished (he had no idea that it was our church).  We made that connection for him and gave him a Book of Mormon.  He is super excited to start reading and to start attending our church!

On Monday I did another scambio.  I was with Anziano Droghei, a missionary in his 2nd transfer that is absolutely incredible.  ... We had a lot of cool miracles together in finding new people and helping the people that they have that are preparing for baptism. We stopped everyone and therefore we were put in exactly the right places and exactly the right times to find a few new people to teach, we helped people open up to us and then get touched by the spirit. Oh, one thing that I should add - we had to sacrifice a lot (but we were blessed later...).  We started the scambio right after district meeting that went a little long, and then we had to ride slow on bikes because his brakes went out, and we had an appointment early in the afternoon. Anyway, we decided that we would skip lunch (and that we'd just have a huge feast after the night was over...) and go close to the apointment and try to find people for the few minutes before the appointment.  Anyway, even though we got kind of hungry, we were greatly blessed.  One of the people we talked with gave us a full Pandoro with chocolate, and the other Anziani surprised us and bought us pizza!  The promises about being blessed both physically and spiritually are true!

I said earlier that our work is about to explode.  Why?  In the past 15 days we have found more than 25 new investigators (I've never come even close to a number like that - I don't know if I've even got to half that amount before).  So many of them seem so golden and ready!  We have couples, full families, and individuals, and they're from all over the world - Italians, south americans, people from the phillipines, people from Africa, and even people from Eastern Europe (we don't have any north americans yet...)!  We hope that we can help at least a few of these people come unto Christ!

I've been continuing to grow exponentially.  I love being with Anziano Heninger - just being with him makes me want to be the very best I can be, and he does so much for my growth just with his incredible positive influence.  My heart is being purified even more and my desires are coming much more in line with what they should be (well, the desires for things that don't matter are getting "choked" as I'm trying to help desires "spring forth" and "flourish" from charity and other christlike attributes).  I'm getting better at realizing the role that Christ's atonement is playing in my own life, and that's helping me have an even greater desire to help others apply it in their lives as well.  In this way I am grateful for my weaknesses and such, for they allow me to put into practice the gospel of Christ by exercising faith and repenting - truly changing who I am to be able to be in harmony with God's will - even though often, in the moment, I wish that the weaknesses would just become strengths right away!  But, it's okay, I'm finding a lot of joy in the process!

-Anziano Barnes