Hot and Humid in Bologna, Italy!

I am tempted to make further comment about the time flying, but I will refrain.

Dear Family and friends,

Greetings from a very humid and hot Bologna, Italy. We have had a very good week and we have been working hard to help as many people as possible come close to God. I love it here and I am feeling the Spirit witness to me time and time again that this is the place that I need to be. I can finally say with complete sincerity that I don't miss Piacenza anymore. I haven't for weeks which is good. It's good to bloom where you are planted. It's a life lesson that I am learning here.

Well lets see about the week...

Thursday was the day that we had transfers. That was vaguely exciting. Our apartment was involved in coordinating all of the transfers happening at the Bologna station. We saw off Anziani Hill and Strong on their fast train to Milano. It is weird to think that they are at home right now and it is also weird to think that every week that passes by is bringing me closer to a transfer, which is bringing me closer to going home. Weird. As it stands right now, I am only at my 8 months mark, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it. After Anziano Hill and Strong left, we picked up some of the missionaries form Modena who were waiting for their companions and then I made lunch. After lunch Anziano Thompson arrived at the station and then we had a little reunion. After that, we went to go do a ton of finding work. We had English class with two people one of them kept speaking to us in German. That was fun.

On Friday, I took my trainee, Anziano Horrocks to the Questura to get his fingerprints done. That was really fun. Well, not really. But it was quick. We met with Jane, an investigator from Nigeria and she brought her friend Juliet who didn't seem extremely interested. We asked Juliet if she wanted to meet again and she said something like "I don't really think so..." and Jane said "Juliet, Honey, come to Jesus!" that was awesome. Jane has been reading so much from the Book of Mormon and always has such great questions. She is super sweet. We met with Antonio later in the evening and he is pretty sure that he wants to move to Belgium but he wants us to teach him up until he leaves. He is really awesome and he wants to change his life. I hope everything works for him.

On Saturday, we went out into the countryside to help some members move a giant pile of wood that they have that will last them through the winter. We found out that there are like 4 member families all living next to each other. So we got to bond over sunburns and splinters. It was actually a really positive experience. Italians put the party into work party. They were laughing and joking and singing literally the entire time. We had a giant Italian lunch afterwards and Anziano Horrocks took his first real Italian meal like a trooper! He learned that these things come in courses (Like 4).

We had church on Sunday which was really good. We visited Samir who is really worried about his family back in Afghanistan their town has recently experienced the rough end of the armed conflict lately. (Please pray for him!) We comforted him and talked to him about God's plan. He is super eager to learn and understand and I hope that his family stays safe. We then passed by a less active sister and visited and member of the ward while he was in the hospital.

On Monday, I took Anziano Horrocks to the Questura again to get a second copy of his fingerprints. The lady there was super nice and seemed interested to know what we were all about. We had plans for several lessons but they fell through, so we found a bunch of people to talk to. At the end of the day we were feeling a little down because we didn't have any lessons taught, we were going towards our house when Anziano Horrocks said "Let's go to the park near our house and find a lesson!" I went along with it, a little skeptical... and the first person we talked to, A lady from Moldova talked with us and we had a lesson with her. She was super sweet. We are seeing her again tonight!

Yesterday we met with Karim again after a bit of a hiatus. He is doing well and still reading from the Book of Mormon. We did some finding and talked to a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses. They were pretty nice but only wanted to talk about their beliefs and talked about having an appointment to get to when we tried to share our beliefs. Well... I learned some things from that though.

Well that has been my week. Tomorrow, we go to Rimini again to have a Zone meeting! That will be good.

I hope everyone is doing well. I pray for you all and think about you. I know that God is watching over us. I hope you are all enjoying the sun!

Love,

Anziano John Colin Cook

PS: I have decided that instead of sending things directly to where I am in Bologna, it would be better that letters and all came to the mission office. That way, If I get transferred, the letters will still arrive instead of waiting with the missionaries there until they get the chance to get them to me.

June 12, 2013

What a great week we have had! It has gone by fast. By tomorrow I will have started my fifth transfer meaning that I will have finished a quarter of my field time. It's crazy. The clock is ticking. I already feel like I don't have enough time left. Well I am sure that you want to know the transfer news.

Well, not much will be changing in our apartment in Bologna except for the fact that Anziano Hill is finishing his mission and going home and Anziano Thompson, my trainer is moving in to be our other zone leader. Totally trippy if you ask me. It will be fun to have that little reunion and Anziano Horrocks is pretty excited to meet his "grandfather"

On Thursday we went to Rimini for the Zone meeting and did a scambio with the Anziani in Ferrara and taught English class. English class was really fun. We taught them a bunch of verbs and then we made a cooperative interactive story about a guy who set off to Belieze to find a wife and ended up starting a really cool tourist resort, but got bought out by competitors and became a national geographic correspondent. It was really fun!

On Friday, all of our lessons fell through so we looked for some lessons and it was fun. The people all listened and were polite. We had a bunch of really uplifting conversations.

Saturday was an incredible busy day! There was a wedding reception of to members and they had us come and fed us and we were weaving in and out of the socializing to teach some lessons with people. We ended up getting home kind of late but I felt like we were able to help people learn about the gospel and we also go to know the members of our ward better. I loved it.

Sunday was also busy. We had church and then a lesson with Samir, and one of his friends which went pretty well. They had a lot of questions that kept turning into more questions. We tried to answer most of them. Then we had to return home because we had to drive to Padova to see Russell M Nelson of the Twelve and Elder Kieron of the Europe Area Presidency. It was really good! It was amazing to see all of these people and listen to testimonies of the Savior and His Gospel. I felt the love of God very strongly in that conference. Also Anziano Nelson started his talk in Italian it blew everyone away, even the translator, you should have seen his face when Anziano Nelson started busting out the Italian!!

On Monday, we cleaned the apartment and prepared for the transfer calls that normally happen on Mondays. We had a lesson in the park with and old lady that was feeling really down.  We helped to cheer her up a bit and prayed with her it was really awesome! In our lesson with Antonio, he told us that he finally realized that what we were saying was true and that he wanted to be baptized! We gave him a date for July 20th!

Yesterday was filled with finding work, but all of it positive. We met some really love people who all want to learn more so we will see how that goes!

I love you all and I wanted to bring my testimony of the work and this gospel. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and he loves us and that through his atonement, we can all be cleansed from our sins and our past mistakes! I know that people will be lead to the Lord as they seek him and they will be blessed.

Love,

Anziano John Colin Cook

Awesome Week

Well My 4th transfer is rapidly approaching an end and I am in total disbelief. I feel like I just barely picked up Anziano Horrocks for Milano, Cimiano. I feel like I just barely got picked up myself from Milano Cimiano.

This week has been one of those really awesome weeks. We have felt a lot of help and a huge turn around in our work. It's been amazing.

On Thursday, our zone and the Firenze zone met together in Modena for a conference with President. It was really awesome and I feel like what we learned in that conference will help us to be better missionaries. It was super uplifting and I walked out of the conference feeling liberated in some way. It was also really awesome because I got to reunite with some mission buddies. I was a joyful time. I also sang Israel, Israel, God is calling, by myself for them. I trembled the whole time, but I felt like I did a decent job.

On Friday there was an international soccer game in Bologna (Italian National Team and The republic of Sam Marino's Team) (San Marino is one of the 3 city-coutnries that we have here in Italy and I am told that I could go there if I wanted to.) The busses were still going, but they were completely useless, and it was rough especially since our church is right next to Bologna's stadium. We walked everywhere an got to experience Italian soccer culture a little bit. Our ward showed "Courageous" in Italian which the members liked a lot and they got a huge kick out of the parts that I find mildly amusing in the movie. On sister laughed so hard she cried at the part where The Police Sargent accidently said "I love you bye" to his police chief. That was really funny to see those reactions.

On Saturday, we got to go to the Park and do an informational display. We had a lot of really good conversations and a few people gave us their information so that we could contact them. We got to meet with Samir again and he is beginning to understand everything. We also found out that he taught himself English! The way that he speaks, I thought he studied it in School and University but he just learned it from reading and watching BBC...wow. I wish I could teach myself stuff that well.

Sunday was a really good day! After church, we had a lesson with a man that we had met in a Park earlier in the week and he was really attentive, I felt the Spirit a lot. We will be seeing him again this week. We went to the park again after that and had two on the spot lessons with some people. One of the lessons was with 2 Pakistani brothers who were really nice. The lesson was in English and as we were saying the closing prayer, an Italian man came up and said "You speak really good English!" and then went on for the next 10 minutes about how clearly he understood our English and how he found it hard to understand Americans normally. It was kind of weird. That's what you get for teaching lessons in a park. The next lesson was right after that with an older man who had been having a really bad day. He said that we were able to cheer him up and that he was interested to hear more of our message.

We taught three lessons on Monday which really rocked. One was with Antonio and the other with Samir and the third was an on the spot lesson in the park. That was a really good day.

Yesterday, we met some less actives in our ward whose son lives in Finland and if I understood correctly, lives in one of the Wards Caleb Anderton served in (Helsinki Espoo...?)! Small world! We planned to have a lesson later with one of the people from the display we did in the park with a member, but the person didn't show up, so the member took us to his nonmember friend's house and we taught him about the Restoration of the gospel. So that was really fun. After, the member bought us gelato which was delicious!

Today has been fun and tomorrow, I will go to Rimini and we will have a zone meeting there. No burger king this time!

I love you! I hope all is well,

Anziano John Colin Cook