Easter Greetings

I am sending my love and Easter grettings from finally sunny Piacenza! I am so glad to finally see the sun here I believe that I may be seeing the last of winter here in Italy.

 

The week has been really awesome and I hope the same for everyone else besides the deterioration of my English, I have been relatively normal and happy and sempre nell'amore di Dio. Our Easter was really good. It went by very quickly. So I am not totally sure about the rest of the world, but we had our time change on Easter morning. In the States, our phones update automatically when there is daylight savings so we don't have to exert to much effort to make sure you wake up on time. But here in Italy, that is not the case. Anziano Iacovelli and I woke up on that day at 06.30 and went about our showers and preparation and studies like any other normal day.

 

At about 8.30 (when we normally leave for church) we got a call from F.llo Noda asking "Anziani, Dove siete? (Elders, where are you?)".

 

I responded casually that we are at home getting ready to come to church.

 

"Oh" he said in an even tone "Then I suppose that you didn't know that the time changed this morning"

 

"So you mean it's actually 9.30 right now and we are un mezz'ora in ritardo?"

 

"That would be correct"

 

After hanging up Anziano Iacovelli and I rushed aroud everywhere trying to get ready for church and head out the door and we arrived in time for the last 15 minutes of the combined Priesthood, Relief Society Easter message. Everybody made a lot of fun of us for the rest of the church block saying things like "Its such a blessing that the Lord sent us such puctual Elders" or "You look well rested today Anziano" or simply pointing at their watches with raised eyebrows and an Albanian member fixed the clock in our phone for us. I was emarrassing.

 

After church, President Taina took us to his house for lunch and he kept us there for 4 hours. What was good about that was that he invited his friend form English class who ttok a lesson from usso that was good.

 

From Taina's house, we visited Yvonne who seemed kind of down so we gave her a message about Jesus Christ and His Atonemet and a rose and some chocolate that President Taina had with him already.

 

We visted Fred, one of the 3 people that were baptised last transfer. He was watching wrestling on TV. Which I had never seen and lost interest almost immediately. One of his friends asked if it was real or fake and I said that I imagine most of the things on TV are fake and moved on to the lesson.

 

After Fred we saw Sorella Libè who dressed up really nicely for Easter. She is a sweetheart. She kept trying to make sure that we had something to eat for Easter. "Are you sure you've had your Easter meal?"

 

I didn't really realize that I was going to take half your lives describing my Easter. I'll move on now to the rest of my week...

 

On Thursday, we had a lesson with Regina from our English class who has been coming to English for about six months after praying to God to find the true church and finding the advertisement for English class the next day. She asked us to meet with her after trying to grow the courage to ask us the whole time. The whole lesson, she kept saying "This is true, I know it is! This is the word of God!" She is really busy but wants to meet with us and accepted a baptismal invite.

 

Friday was a pretty average day. We had a bunch of different lessons. Nothing in particular comes to mind to describe it to you, except for that the Sister who is responsible for all of the travel coordination including visas and other travel documents for missionaries is in our branch. She told me to call her a s soon as I got my permesso talling her the date I had to renew it. That day she was in Germany so i had to wait. When I did call her I decided to get her heart rate up and play a little joke.

 

I said "Sorella, I forgot to go to my appoinment, what should I do?"

 

"Anziano" she said after a long silence "That is very grave indeed. There actually is not a lot you can do"

 

I told her I was joking and she breathed a huge sigh of relief, telling me that if I had actually missed that appointment, then I would be deported and my mission would be over and that if I  had told her that joke in person she would have hit me. At church on Sunday I showed her the permesso and said "Il scherzo è finito (the joke is over)"

 

Saturday was average.

 

On Monday, we had district meeting in Reggio again.

 

Yesterday, We had an appointment with Marina, our French speaking investigator. She was so excited about the message. She said "I will do anything to serve the Lord. I am so excited to forsake my sins and follow him. You need to teach this to my family. I hope my husband will listen". After, we called her friend, Kadi who we had met with Marina earlier and it seemed that she was losing interest.

 

But on the phone she said "I have been so busy lately, I am so sorry. But in my spare time I am always reading the Book of Mormon and I love it! I hope we can meet later this week!"

 

So that has been my week! Full of miracles and the experience of God's love. One more thing before I go. Lately, we have had a lot of successful finding. When I say that I mean that instead of stopping people and inviting them to hear our message, people have stopped us and asked to hear our message. It started a couple of weeks ago with Regina from English and most recently, a Rabbi whose father is LDS asked when we had services and how he could do Geneological research though our church. It has been amazing to see the tender mercies of the Lord here in Piacenza.

 

I send my love and greetings with utmost sincerity and hope to hear from all of you soon!

 

Love,

Anziano John Colin Cook 

Time is Zooming By!

This week has been really good so far. There was a lot that happened. I have been well and loving life. The time really is zooming by. I don't notice it as it is happening, but I realise that I am rapidly approaching my sixth month mark which means that my mission is almost 1/4 of the way done. which is wierd because I reallly just got here.

 

On Thirsday, we had a round of lessons. Massimiliano, Yvonne's daughter, Lisa, and Marina. It rained a lot that day and we were late to Marina's lesson (the day she wanted to surprise us and show up 15 minutes early because she is always late. Anziano Iacovelli said "Now we are equal" and there has been no problem since.) The lesson with Lisa was good. She totally resonated with what we said especially the Holy Ghost. She said "I felt that once. I have been trying to get those feelings back ever since". She is an artist. A very good one too. She actually work for a local museum, making art and arranging events and expeditions.

 

On Friday, we saw Massimiliano again and visited Osas, and John who were baptised last transfer. It went well. They have been really busy so it has been really hard to see them. But we are working with that.

 

On Saturday, we had a potential investigator come to church to see general conference, and what luck we had but to have our internet not work. We taught him the first lesson and he loved it! He has been really interested in finding the true church and when we told him that we have a living prophet, he asked us where he could see that man. We are planning to show him conference soon

 

Sunday was a total distaster of trying to figure out what to do for conference. All of our plans feel through except for at the end of the day when we caught the final two hours with the Noda family in our ward. The other option was to go to Modena which is about 2 hours away and spend the time with other missionaries which was a really appealing option but we felt that by staying in Piacenza we would be helping our investigators and members the best, but everything fell through. It was insane and at the end of the day, we felt that we should have gone to modena in the first place. So now we are going to try and catch conference with the investigators or just read it when the mission sends us the print versions.

 

On Monday, we had our district meeting in Reggio Emilia which was good. My tire went flat because I ran over a nail which was fantastic and Osas, our new convert kept trying to tell me it was because I was fat despite how much I told him that It was a nail. His response was "You don't have to be embarassed. My tires go flat all the time. I am a big boy too. You don't have to tell me it was a nail." It was a nail by the way and I am still losing weight. We did end up having a lesson with Dario from English class and Marina which rocked.

 

Yesterday, we went to Milan, and came back with a box full of Books of Mormon and other teaching tools that we ordered from the mission office and my arms killed me after. It was rough, but good because we are not running low on anything anymore! I learned a lot from the meeting that will help me to be a better more organized servant of the Lord and a better steward of my time. Anziano Iacovelli was really inspired from it all too.

 

Well that was my week. I have been so happy to see the Lord working though me and in me and changing lives for the better. I love the this work and I am here because I know it is true and I have seen in change people's lives. I thank you all so much for your prayers and I hope that you know you are in mine!

 

I love you!

Anziano John Colin Cook

 

 

Time Flies!

The time just flies. I hear that everywhere and am glad to know that it is not only me. Our week has been really fun. And full of small miracles and success.

 

I have recieved letters from both Gideon and Adrianne and a few others. I am thankful also for them. I will be trying to write back. The sun has come out and it feels like what Washington would call June. It's wonderful, but we are starting to pull out the fans and open the windows first thing in the morning to keep cool and our mission is officially suit jacket free until October.

 

This week has seemed like a blur. A pleasant one not to be mistaken.

 

On thursday, We had a round of lessons. Which was good. Some less actives and an investigator. Nothing hugely notable. But fun none the less.

 

We had a meeting with our branch president on Friday to help discuss meeting the needs of some of the members in the ward and then went with him to drop off some papers at various agencies to help get some people jobs. It was pretty fun. At the end of that day, we went over to Sorella Morriggi's House and had dinner, which was also good. She introduced us to Gorganzola which stinks but tastes pretty descent and I bought some to try a recipe that she gave us. I'm trying it tomorrow, so I will tell you more about that later.

 

We had a day full of finding on Saturday, and we had a really awesome miracle where a guy stopped us and told us that something inside him wouldn't let him pass us. He saw the Book of Mormon and became really estatic! It was awesome. He says he's from Sicilia, but honestly his accent is kind of weird and I think he is probably Albanian or Macedonian, because that is what his accent sounds like. His name is Natale which means Christmas...appropriate I thought. None of the members in church on Sunday believed he was Italian so he brought out his documents proving that he was Italian and that his name really was Christmas. It was entertaining

 

On Sunday, we went to Church and afterwards had a potluck together and literally everyone who stayed after brought something and there were a bunch of left overs which normally wouldn't be possible at an Italian Potluck. We made chocolate covered pinnapple and the members at first stuck their noses up at it but when they tried it loved it and then it disappeared right after.

 

On Monday we had a scambio with Reggio Emilia. Is any of that sounding surprising? I hosted Anziano Divincent and we had amamzing fun! We made the pinnapple rings again for him to try and it rocked. We had spare chocolate and we dumped some master crumble (I am assuming that it only exists in Italy but it is granola) into that and it was also really good. On the train home we ran into one of our Potentials who is always super busy. We set up a lesson with her and geave her a Book of Mormon in Spanish.

 

Yesterday, we had a great time and it felt like 93 lessons, but it was really like 4. We found a guy who was really excitied to know about our church and accepted a baptismal invite. He kept on saying "I am so happy, I am so excited!" It was wonderful.

 

Today our Landlord came over with the senior missionaries and discussed how to improve the appartment. I probably won't see the changes, because I am nearing the end of my third transfer in Piacenza, but who knows?

 

Tomorrow, we are going to Verona for a Zone meeting. and next week Pday will not be on Wednesday, because we will be going to Verona again. We should do it on Tuesday...

 

Everyone, I love you and I want you to know that God makes miracles you just have to look for them!

 

Love,

 

Anziano John Colin Cook

 

 

Snow/Shine/Rain in Piacenza!

Hello from Snowy one day, Sun Shiny the next and raining buckets after Piacenza.

 

Altough a little damp, I am doing well and as always Piacenza rocks even though it begins to look like a lake lately. We got our transfer calls this morning because all of the missionaries phones were down yesterday. Seriously all across the mission. Well the verdict is... ... ... that I am going to... ... ... Train!... ... ... Just kidding. I am staying in Piacenza with Anziano Iacovelli. Though this morning when the phone rang our zone leaders in Verona (where Anziano Thompson is) first told me that I was training and I freaked out and they had me on speaker so I heard Anziano Thompson bust up laughing and saying "I knew he would fall for it!" Training means that I would be responsible for a new missionary from the MTC and have to teach him all about being a missionary. I was scared.

 

 On Thursday, we recieved a text message from the referral center at mormon.org with a lady named Priscilla in Cremona (a city in our jurisdiction that is about 50 minutes away on the bus) asking for us to come visit her and her family the following Saturday. It was really awesome to see because usually we are the ones who do the approaching.When we called her, she said "I am so glad you called! You have answered my prayers. I have been praying for missionaries to come find me and my family and I put my name in mormon.org several weeks ago! I am so glad!" 

 

On Friday we taught two friends from the Ivory Coast who speak French. One of them barely speaks any Italian and the other speaks really well. They were awesome! They accepted the baptismal invite and a date. It was really cool! Also they said that they felt like they finally found an answer to their questions. The lesson was really spiritual and it was in a mix of Italian and French.

 

On Saturday we helped an elderly couple in our branch move and they fed us after. It was pretty good. The craziest part of that was moving a fridge up four flights of stairs with a bunch of rough movers speaking in dialect and from what I understood, none of it was necissarily appropriate language. We went to visit Priscilla and her family that day and found out that Priscilla had joined the church years ago when she was living in the Phillipines and fell away. She wants to become active again and her son Nicolo who is 9 wants to be baptized really badly. When we asked him why, he said "So that I can recieve the Holy Ghost and one day hold the Priesthood!" Anziano Iacovelli and I were blown away! Her husband is Catholic, but Catholic in the way that everyone here is Catholic (went to church as a kid probably long enough to cover all the bases and jump through the hoops and then stopped and now barely believes in God at all.) Their house is really big. One of the biggest I have seen here in Italy and their walls are literally covered in art of many different styles and types. It was amazing. They actually did a good portion of it. They are really cool so we will go see them every Saturday.

 

We went to Church on Sunday and afterward we had lunch with President Taina, our branch president who then decided to accompany us to all of our lessons after with Sorella Libè and Yvonne. They were happy to see him but Sorella Libè seemed a little stressed because President Taina sort of rushed her through the lesson. That was a good day for the most part but it did rain like crazy!

 

On Monday, we woke up to a pile of snow which we rode our bikes in so that I could take my immigration class that is required before I get my Promesso di Sogiorno (green card, residence permit) which allows me to stay in Italy for the next two years. It was way boring but I just bit the bullet and took the class. It was a video of an American woman and an Englishman talking about all the laws and requirements and things the Italian government think people need to know to integrate into Italian culture and be happy here. None of it was super useful to me or missionary work and they didn't even cover the rules for people here on religious motive visas even though they said they would. It was really funny becasue I was the only American, male, over 18 person in the entire room and one of the girls in the room turned to the other and said "I am so bored! What is your number so I can text you?" They proceeded to text through the entire class and at the end added each other on facebook. I guess it is good to make friends to make immigrating easier.

 

Yesterday, We cleaned our house and saw Andrew and tried to get around the cell phone failiure that our whole mission experienced.

 

Today we got a new bike lock, haircuts we are going to go grocery shopping and then teach English!

 

That's been my week.

 

Mom, you asked me if I am in good health. The answer is Yes. I have just gotten over a cold/flu and doing great.Also I am about 50 lbs lighter than I was when we last saw eachother. The sun is coming out more and more, so it should be really nice soon. You also asked if there is anything that I need. If you could send my French study materials because as it appears, there are French speakers here... a lot of them. Actually if you can find  any of my Spanish materials too that would rock, but French is a priority since the Spanish speakers can figure out Italian pretty well. You other question is what we have been cooking lately, well we do pasta things a lot because pasta and pasta related things are cheap here, I do quiche (which I could use some pointers on :) since yours is still way better than mine any day.) We made a chicken coucous curry vegetable thing which was REALLY good. I also made enchiladas which were good. We are trying to come up with some good ideas, so any that you can think of would rock. On the menu for next week is Chili (which I have never made from anything but a can), Tuna Sandwiches (to use up some of our old stuff), Tortelini soup, And Fancy French Bread Pizza.

Fouri Di Testa

Hello again from still rainy or overcast Piacenza!

 

I hope everyone is well and feeling happy and wonderful! This week has been a really wonderful week and I am feeling bleesings from God every day. The sun is trying to make more appearances but the clouds and rain always have the stage. It will be on soon enough.

 

Well let's see if there is anything to tell you about my week.

 

Thursday and Friday were normal days.

 

On Saturday, we went to Cremona for a lesson with Priscilla. It was really good. We set a baptismal date for her son, May 18. Nicolò he and Priscilla are fouri di testa (an idiomatc expression that means estatic and literally means "out of head"). After our lesson, they took us out for dinner in a family style Italian restaurant. If there is one thing that you need to know about the Italian eating lifestyle it is simply to believe the stereotypes. At that restaurant, You had to buy the steak by the kilo and Prscilla's husband ordered 2 kilos and pizza. As well as a bunch of roasted vegetables and bread. It was good and Anziano Iacovelli and I were quite well filled afterwards. Please pray for Priscilla. She wants to com e to Church really bad, but she live about an hour away and depends on her husband for transport and he isn't always disponibile. He seems supportive but a bit apprehensive and I hope that we can help him understand that his family is making a good choice.

 

On Sunday we had church which one of the French speaking investigators came to! The Relief Society totally took her under their wing! We have auxilliaries and then Sunday School and Sacrament meeting at the end. By the time that sacrament meeting came around, She had a bunch of friends talking to her and asking her questions. We taught her the Plan of Salvation lesson yesterday and she kept saying "I know that this is true. It's so clear!" After church we had lunch (the chili I was talking about making which ended up pretty good. Anziano Iacovelli wants me to make it next week). Then we went to have a lesson with a less active member named Peter, from Nigeria. I wrote down incomplete directions and we got totally lost... in the rain. We went in circles for 45 minutes and then... remembered that we had a map on our phone. It's new so we don't still know all of the features! Ugh! I felt so dumb and wet. But the lesson was good and Peter's son Nosa wants to meet and learn more about the church! He has so much faith in God! We met with Yvonne and Sorella Libé as usaual. Sorella Noda and her mom Sorella Caratoni were also visiting Sorella Libé when we came by. Sorella Caratoni is a few years older than Sorella Libé and is one of the cutest old ladies in the world. We taught them how to play nose goes to decide who would say the prayer at the end and Sorella Caratoni lost and told us all it wasn't fair because we moved to fast. And then she laughed her cute little old lady laugh and Anziano Iacovelli just busted up laughing which made Sorella Caratoni laugh even harder which got everyone else laughing. That was really fun!

 

On Monday, We had our district meeting in Reggio Emilia which was good and interesting because all of the companionships except our has changed. Modena now has two people that I was in the MTC with one in the group above me and the other in the Group below. Reggio has Anziano Miller's trainer (Anziano Miller is training now), And Reggio Sorelle Have Sorella Harward who was in the group above us in the MTC and Sorella Stevens who just arrived last week form the MTC. After district meeting we went home and did finding. It was pretty rough but we were trying to remember that often trying times come right before blessings. We got yelled at by a Muslim woman who said that every day religious people are coming to her house and pestering her and her family and she has had enough "Leave the People in peace. If they want to find out they can find out for themselves! Just go and tell the peole from your church to stop coming" The door was slammed and a few doors later we got "Why do Jehovah's Witnesses like this street so much? You are the third people to come by this week!"  In both cases, we tried to explain that we werent the ones who had been there previously. So things were pretty hard that week but then we turned the coner and knocked on a door that a thin old man answered who was so extremely prepared for our message. He gladly took a Book of Mormon and promised to start reading from the beginning without us even getting the chance to ask him to read any of it.

 

Yesterday, I picked up my Permesso di Soggiorno, which officially ensures my status as a legal immigrant to the republic of Italy. We wet with Massimiliano who agreed to start living the Word of Wisdom and is getting excited for his baptism next month! We also met with Sorella Saquing we gave her a lesson on faith instead of beating the dean horse of Church attendance which is the approach of most missionaries when it comes to less actives. There was a point in the lesson where she said "I do have faith. I hope you know. I know I need to show it and come to church and I want to but I just don't know what to do about it. I am always so busy and so exhausted but I need you Elders to know that I still have faith!" That was really Powerful. We assured her that we knew she had faith and that the Lord would bless her for making the effort.

 

Our plans for today are to do some grocery shopping and then catch up on letters (of which I have many to write please forgive my slowness of writing!) and then teach English.

 

I love you all and I hope that you are aware of God's blessings in your life!

 

Anziano John Colin Cook