Loving Missionary Work!

Anziano Lusvardi on far left (Justin's companion) and the Montovane family

Sister Boschi and Gabrielle with Anziano Barnes

Christmas Eve with the Zahorsky couple

P-Day...an early morning out on the bikes to watch the sun rise on Firenze (Florence)

Ciao!!!

Now I actually have some time to talk!  These past two weeks have been really good and really hard.  We lost both of the baptismal dates that we had, Massimo and Eze.  But, we now have others that are making wonerful progress! The new investigator pool...

Costantino.  I was on a scambio.  We went to a place to find new people.  We were talking with everyone, but no one was interested.  So, we said a prayer.  In the prayer, I asked that God would help us find 1 person that would be able to progress towards baptism.  The next guy we talked to was Costantino - he was interested!  He's in his mid 30s and he's from Romania.  We taught him and got a return appointment.  The next lesson, we set a baptismal date with him!  He is super curious and super intereste; he has tons and tons of wonderful questions!  However, in our lesson yesterday, he brought up some concerns that could potentially be problems.  He still doesn't quite undertand the concept of gaining a testimony (he's too focused on gaining knowledge and then trying to reason and then make a choice).  However, we know that if he'll really ask God with real intent to know if our message is true, his heart will change.

Greta.  She's a Peruvian that we found several weeks ago.  She came to a baptism and also to the Christmas concert.  She's made some member friends and is now really starting to want to be baptized.  This past week, she started reading the Book of Mormon every day and she's been seeing huge differences in her life!  She just feels so much happier!  After our lesson yesterday, we learned that baptism is her desire, but she has some worries about how her life will be afterwards.  This problem can also be resolved if she'll try to find out for herself, through prayer, if the message is true and as we help her put into practice all of the commandments.

Eric.  He's another friend of Godsent.  He is from Ghana, has a couple kids that live there, and is separated.  He came to church for the first time on Sunday, but got a book of Mormon from Godsent one day and started reading a couple weeks ago.  He wants to be baptized!  If all goes well, his baptism will be on the 4th of February.  His big worry now is that he won't be able to become "righteous enough" by that time.

So, that's pretty much the pool of investigators that are making real progress. Godsent and Joseph still come to church every week and we still see Michelle every once in a while.

My mom asked if we celebrated for New years.  I guess you could say so...  For new years eve, we cleaned the house all day long - basically we just organized everything and threw away all of the "junk" (or "treasures," as my sisters would say).  There is so much more space in our house!  What a celebration!  No, actually, to celebrate we ordered pizzas and I made us a really good cream pie (made with a custard - it was good...).

Right now our house is in major repair mode.  Two guys have come to fix it all up.  One is from Ecuador and the other is from Peru.  They've been taking care of the food for the past couple of days, and let's just say we've been satisfied!

I can honestly say that I love every single aspect of missionary work - I love being a missionary and I love my mission. Even though there is still a lot of refining to be done, I am so grateful and marvel at how far God has helped me come. I recognize how much I need the Spirit.  In the past week it has been so evident to me that I can't do anything without the Spirit, but that when He is working through me, miracles happen.  It is so cool.  I am so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost - I don't know what I would do or who I would be without it!

Grazie!

-Anziano Barnes