Una nuova città

Ciao from Rimini!  Let’s see. My companion is Sister Ervin and I LOVE HER.  She’s a transfer ahead of me and is amazing.  She has such an optimism, love for life and others, and a way of building up people around her.  She is a great missionary and has a lot to teach me.  (Oh and she has a blog too! sisterervin.blogspot.com, go read it, she has more energy to write and tell more stories:))

This week we went to the miracle park of Rimini.  That’s what the missionaries call it.  It’s a beautiful park.  Rimini isn’t as architecturally pretty as Verona is, but the parks and the trees and the fresh sea air, I like it 🙂  Anyways, we go to this beauitiful smallish lake. There are lots of people playing, and a few lone fisherman across the way.  We decide to walk around the lake and try to find people.  There was a man fishing.  We stop, I ask, “Should we talk to him? He’s fishing, this could be really awkward.” Sister Ervin, the wonderful missionary that she is says, “Perchè no?” So, we wander up to him.  The only thing that I could think of was….”So what type of fish are in this lake?….” (WHO ASKS THAT? No one.) Yeah…. that conversation was gospel centered 😉 He actually gave us his number and said he might come to church some time! Seed planted!

I love the branch here! They are so amazing, wear really cool stylish Italian clothes, and have such deep faith.  The branch is ready to do missionary work as well, it’s pretty exciting.

We also have met a new investigator, an old Catholic man.  He’s quite sweet. Funny story about him.  First of all, my Italian has definitely improved in the last week not being with my trainer who understands everything anymore.  But I still mess up a lot and have some trouble understanding.  This old man we meet on this little side street off of centro, we start talking. He’s very sweet. We share with him a lesson about the Restoration.  Then he starts talking about “giovani” which is basically the word for young men, but I thought it meant just youth in general.  I thought he was telling me I should teach the youth because old people like him are too stubborn and won’t convert.  Not even close.  He was telling me (as my dear companion told me later) that I should get married to a nice young man after my mission.  So me, trying to seek referrals from everyone that I meet, I say – “Do you know of any youth that would be interested?” And then he says….”Do you wantto marry a Mormon?” Uuuuuh…. confusion ensued, I explained that I did, and then he sadly said, “No, I don’t know any young Mormon men you can marry.”  Oops. Not on the husband hunt right now, my bad…

Those are some funny stories for the week!  I know that as we seek to follow the spirit and little promptings, we can find people who are ready to hear our message.   Opening a coppia involves a lot of finding and seeing members, and I know that no effort is wasted! As I work hard to always be in tune with the spirit and talk to as many people as I can, the Lord with bless us and others around us.   We all play such an important part in God’s plan, and it’s never small.  Don’t forget that.

Vi voglio bene,