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