Seeing God's influence...

Anziano Osborn with Gianni on his baptism day

Anziani Barnes and Osborn with Nelson, Marvin and Alba

Ciao tutti!

This was another awesome week!  Brief recap: baptism last saturday!  District Leader training last tuesday!  Mission Council with all of the zone leaders on thursday!  Anziano Osborn with a sickness for 2 days! (that probably shouldn't be an exclamation...) Progressing investigators!  And, a baptism tonight!  

Here's how the investigators are doing:

Francisco is doing super well!  We went to teach him on Monday, a bit disappointed because he didn't come to church.  Why?  He didn't have any money.  Here's what he decided - as soon as he gets his next paycheck, he'll go and buy 8 metro tickets (enough for 1 month of coming to church) to make sure that he can come every week!  ...We taught yesterday about the word of wisdom - he had problems with coffee and alcohol.  He drinks coffee about 3 times a day, drinks wine with every meal, and drinks beer on the weekends.  He said that it would be no problem at all for him to quit - there was no resistance whatsoever!  He said that he would never drink alcohol again.  He did tell us, though, that he probably wouldn't be able to quit the coffee right away - he gets headaches of he goes too long without drinking it.  But, he said that he could get himself unaddicted in a couple weeks.  So, we set some goals with him - this next week he'll just be drinking one glass of coffee per day, and next week we'll get him even less so that the next week he can hopefully quit completely!

Nelson, Marvin, and Alba are also doing well - they're finally making more progress!  They didn't come to church again last sunday, so we tried to get on them for that - this time, nobody had an excuse (other than being tired).  They said that they still want to know if these things are true.  So, we gave them a promise - if they will read the Book of Mormon every day (they haven't been consistent in doing it always), pray every day, come to the baptism of Pilar, and then come to church for two weeks in a row, they will get their answer within this two week period.  So far, they've been keeping their part of the promise.  If they'll come tonight, they will definitely feel the spirit, and that may just be the big spiritual push that they've been desiring that makes the whole difference!

The District leader training that we had was incredible!  We tried something completely new for the training - we wanted to have a discussion rather than a "training" or lecture.  We prepared a thing inspired from the "Attribute activity" in preach my gospel, except this one was of the things they are and do as District Leader.  We discussed the points, why they were important, and experiences people had when a leader was like that for them and the difference that it made.  We also did a lot of role plays - these went super well also.  We set them up really well - we had specific situations and roles and information that they could use so that we could help control better what they did and therefore what they learned.  They seemed to love it!  I don't think I've ever felt better at a training - the spirit definitely was guiding me and helping me both in the actual training and especially beforehand -we were inspired and guided so much!

For the mission council, we went over many of the same things that we did with the district leaders because most of the points apply to them as well (to mission leaders in general) and we wanted to help them know how to better help and serve their District Leaders.  We have some absolutely amazing zone leaders right now - I am super excited to be working with every single one of them!

Anziano Osborn had some sort of bug for a couple days and had some stomach problems...  It worked out in the end - I didn't go completely crazy.  I finally had a little bit of time to think about where I'm at and how I can still improve.  There was finally time to think about the mission as a whole and also many of the specific missionaries and figure out how we can better help them.  Mostly, it was cool because God used that time to teach me about something crucial for me - putting Jesus Christ at the center of my life.  It seems kind of weird that I'd say that - right?  All of the things I do are for Him!  I mentioned last week about how I wanted to do things with the right "mindset and heartset" and I realized that the way to do that is to be more conscious of Christ's role in my life.  I'm trying to be more grateful TO God (I've been becoming more grateful, but I think there's been a gap in realizing that it comes from God), I want to rely more on Jesus Christ (I don't feel like I recognize well enough how much I need His help), and I want to always keep in mind how my purpose is to help bring souls unto Christ (my own and all of the people around me - missionaries and the people of Italy).  And, slowly but surely this change of heart and mind has been happening!  It's really cool to see God's influence and how He'll answer prayers and help me change!  The atonement works!  I'm striving more than ever before to do everything and to do it right and to do it in a Christlike way!

Vi voglio tanto bene!!!

-Anziano Barnes