DISTRICT LEADER!

Well it has been a really great week. Kind of surreal. I don't know what it is supposed to feel like to be a district leader, but I hope I am doing a good job. This week has been a really good week. We had a lot of blessings from the Lord and a lot of his guidance for us. I feel like I have grown a lot and am becoming more like who God wants me to be.

I will start with Thursday. We had a couple things planned, but they fell through. It happens. So we did finding work. We had English class. (with the amount of trouble that I just had trying to type the words English Class I am beginning to doubt my qualification to teach the class.) It was really fun. We wrote a story together about a guy named Paul in a boat on a River that had a shark in it. The funny thing was that Paul, an investigator of the cappi's came by to say Hi to us. He looked at what was on the board and gave a chuckle and a little bit of a shake to his head and walked away. I said "Bye Paul!" and my class busted up laughing, because of the story we were making that was completely unrelated.

On Friday we had a lesson with our Investigator from Tunisia. He invited us to come and break his Ramamdan fast with him that night and we did. He made SO MUCH FOOD! There was soup, and bread, and pasta, and dates, and salad and juice, and these things called brik and he served us these huge heaping servings. It was amazing! And he kept on apologizing saying things like "I am just a humble bachelor, I don't know how to cook" "It's not much, but please, eat!" We brought fruit because it is polite in Italy to bring some kind of thing to share when you are invited to someones house, but in Tunisia it isn't and we didn't know that so he wasn't super offended. He had the Tunisian news on that was playing a bunch of religious broadcasting and vidoes that Anziano Horrocks thought were a little bit strange. It was fun though. We were trying to pay attention to him and not the broadcast, but he kept on saying "Do you know what that guy said?" and we would say "Um...no we don't speak Arabic" and then he would say "Oh" and then explain whatever it is was going on.  

On Saturday, we finally has a lesson with Ali! After forever. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Chirst (the lesson with the 5 steps...Faith, Reoentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghosr and Enduring to the end). We got stuck on repentance because he thought that the whole thing was so cool and he wanted to come up with a bunch of different ways to describe it. He lost some steam after that and so we decided to put a hold on that lesson.

Sunday was fantastic, Ravindar and Kaor, our couple from India came to Church and they had a good time! Our members totally embraced them and made them feel welcome. Later we asked if Ravindar liked Church and in his broken italian he said "Oh si! Piaciuto, Piaciuto, Piaciuto! Tanti amici!" the equvolent of "Oh yes! Liked, Liked, Liked! Many firends." It was good. Ravindar and Kaor are reading the Book of Morrmon daily and they are starting to pray to God in the name of Jesus Christ! It is so exciting!

On Monday we had our District meeting, in the church this time and not in the kitchen of the Bologna apartment. Before that we pulled weeds at the church and made sure it was all nice looking. Fratello Palmieri bought some peaches for us to thank us for pulling the weeds. They were good. It rained that day which was an answer to my prayers. Literally. I have spent all of last week praying for rain. It cooled us down a lot and made all of our appointments fall through but I was glad for the rain!

Yesterday was great! We had Three really great lessons! We talked to a Latvian Traveller named Chris who has been through a lot in his life and has a lot of questions, but is totally willing to listen to us. It was really good. He is a great guy and he made me miss home a little bit because he reminds me of people that you could find in downtown Olympia or Evergreen. We taught Jane again. She will be coming to church in a few weeks after everything settles down with the summer. We also had a really good lesson wiht Ravindar that was so great! The spirit was so strong! He said "I am so glad that God has sent you into my life to learn about him! I love His book and I love you guys!" I felt great about that!

Today we had an early morning lesson with an investigator from the Philipines! He was super nice and the Spirit was super strong in that meeting too!

I love you guys! I have to go now!

Anziano John Colin Cook

Summer in Bologna!

It has been a good week. We have had a lot of fun and grown a lot. Bologna is certainly quite hot but nothing new there. 

On Thursday, we did a ton of Finding work! But it was good we ended up teaching a lesson in the park to a girl in her 20's she was super open and accepted a baptismal invite with a date but then she told us that she was going on ferry (Around august all of the Italians go to the sea or the mountains and stay there for like a month) We had English class where we made another  story to do more verb work. They were excited about it. This time it was about Mickey and Minnie mouse...

We met with Ravindar again on Friday. It was really nice. I love that guy. It is always so good when we can see that he is understanding everything, because sometimes when people don't speak Italian or English, super well, it is hard to gauge their understanding.

We met Kris on Saturday, our Latvian Traveller. He has decided to go to Spain for a while. His goal is to get to South Africa before returning to England where he has been for a while and where his friends and job are. We made him promise to stop missionaries wherever he goes because our message is really important. We also went to a park that we frequent and the first people that we talked to, an Italian couple invited us to sit down and have a lesson with them. We accepted and had a really good lesson with them and at the end they gave us their contact information and a return appointment. That was really awesome. We didn't have an Italian Book of Mormon to give at the time so we gave them the Restoration film which they watched later. That was really great!

On Sunday, we had a lesson with a man from Cameroon who loves American Football. He a few days previous had stopped us on the bus and said "You are missionaries right? Take my number. I want to know more about your message". The Golden opportunity for a missionary. We taught him and he is so prepared. His father is an evangelical preacher and has apparently taught his son well about the Bible. We answered some of his questions and we talked about the Restoration. It was a good lesson.

On Monday we were in a park tracting after a lesson that fell through, and we met first Jehovah's Witness man who to me seemed a bit misinformed. His entire premise was that we live in a world full of oppression and therefore it is entirely impossible to be happy in this world as well as that Man has no power over the devil. I thought all of those things were ridiculous because, A) We have agency and we can be happy even when there are terrible things happening in the world, because happiness is something that we can choose to have and B) Man will always have more power than the devil because, God has given us a body and the devil doesn't have one. Men can be weak minded and weak willed and choose the wrong thing but in reality the devil isn't the one with any power. But after him, we met a guy from Tanzinia, who accepted a Baptismal date and a copy of the Book of Mormon. That was really nice. Later that night we taught a lesson in Family Home evening. That was really good.

Yesterday we had a scambio with Anziani Hess and Thompson. I was iwth Anziano Thompson. It was like a few months ago in Piacenza! We taught three lessons that day. One was in the morning with the husband from the couple that we ran into on Saturday. It went really well! Then we taught the guy from Cameroon. We watched the Restoration Film with Him and his friend in French. It was really good. At the end he said "That's the third time I have seen that movie. I watched it twice on your website last night." Also I read the chapter that you left me. He then proceeded to give a detailed account of Alma 32 and how much it helped him understand the parable of the sower that Jesus gave in the Bible. That was really cool!

After that we taught Ravindar and Kaor and that was a really good lesson! It is always good to hear from them!

Today, we are going to do a pass by of a less active member and then go to another park to talk to people. 

Tomorrow we are going to Zone meeting in Modena and then I will be doing a scambio with Ferrara!

It has been a good week. I am excited for the week to come.