Buona Sera!

Hello family,

It it amazing what can be done once you put your mind to it. We had zero lessons with members two weeks ago and we strived so hard this week to get them and we quadrupled our number, how glorious. :) Member lessons are so fantastic, they really help people to realize the church is more than just missionaries. Crazy americans who have the grammer of a two year old italian;)

We saw the baptism of Giuliano, the investigator of the Anziani. I met him when I first got here, in English Course. He is a really chill guy. The Friday before the baptism we cleaned the font because someone had tried to fill it up and the water was nasty, like green gross dirty with bugs and the what not. So we cleaned it really good and made a make shift filter and ran the water again(making jerry rigged stuff reminds me of you dad, I think it is a talent that many italians have, for the person who made it up was an anziano from Bologna). The filter worked, but the water was still a little on the green side, but did not smell or anything, thank goodness. Well, Giuliano saw it and was like, yeah it looks great:) So we got to have the baptism in our church instead of the other one in Bari. It was so exciting to witness his baptism, he seemed so happy. My favorite part of the whole experience was when he received the Holy Ghost. I watched his face after the anziani and the bishop took their hands off of his head and he was blinking away tears, Giulano is not a guy to cry. There was such a beautiful spirit. Afterward I talked to him and asked him how he felt. He said it is interesting, how he has the same stresses in his life, but he feels lighter, like those stresses are not such a big deal anymore. The gospel is amazing and really changes lives for the better.

On Monday we did finding in a huge Palazzo and ran into a guy named Cosimo. He talked to us in the stair way for like 30 minutes. He just talked, he did not really listen or let us talk much. He told us that if we put God in the middle of our lives we can never progress. His argument was that if a scientist just says that the answer to every question is "God did it" then he would never search for the answer himself and progress. I do not agree at all. He was trying to make it so logical, but the thing is that God can help us to learn how he does things. We can go forward, progress even more as we put faith in him to figure out our questions. He wants us to learn to be like him, of course he will help us figure stuff out so we can learn, not just give us the answer. I see this pattern in the scriptures. Just like in the Doctrine and Covenants, the revelations came as Joseph Smith asked quesitons, worked to seek out answers and put his trust in the Lord. We must be aware of pride, for Cosimo would not even let us get a word in edge wise because he thought he knew everything and couldn't learn anything from us "ragazze" or might I add the spirit.

Not gonna lie, I get a tad frustrated with people sometimes...

There is a local commedian here who makes fun of mormons. They sing a song, "siamo noi la luce del amore, porta a via il buio del tuo cuore, bah bah bah". I saw one of the skits at a members house, it was funny and kind of sad. However, even this negative publicity is helping us to talk to more people. We always walk by this group of ragazzacci and they start clapping for us and singing the song. Well, we used it to tell them really about our message and laughed with them about how really we are the light of love and we take away the darkness of the heart. Instead of getting hurt or offened.

Also on Monday we had una bella Pizza with some of our investigators. SO yummy!

Well, I love you all so much! You should write me emails more, I like to read them and have not been getting very many. I am just here guilt trippin' you up:) I like even hearing about the activities of your day or what you learned from an experience or even a funny poop joke, anything just to hear from you:)

Love you tons!!!!!

Love,

Sorella Comollo