Buoooooooooooooooooooooooooooon Giorno tutti.
Ciao ciao. Another week goes by in Pesaro. My new companion is doing
well... emphasis on the new. I'm still relatively young in the
mission, so it's weird to be with a companion who's even younger.
Through God's strength though, we get things done and see miracles
every day! Anz. Valentine is super bravo. He is constantly working to
better himself and I'm grateful for a companion with that kind of
desire and motivation. I feel myself improving because of him. I also
feel my language improving in leaps and bounds too. I've had to learn
very quickly how to speak and understand! I feel the Lord giving me
strength to say what I need to say and understand what I need to
understand.
OK. How do I start? It's been a hard week, but it's also been a week
filled with miracles. This transfer, our zone has really focused on
prayer and seeing miracles through prayer. Our zone leaders have
challenged us to pray before every activity and promised that we will
see miracles through that one or the other. I know it's true because
it's definitely been happening here in Pesaro as we make prayer a
bigger part of our work.
Story number one. You all remember José. For the past three weeks he
has been missing. We actually started to think he went back to
Venezeula just because we couldn't get in contact with him. We had his
phone number, but no address. Last Friday, we were determined to find
him. After a prayer, we headed off to his baseball field to see if we
could find him. Sadly, the field was empty. I remembered him telling
us once that he lived near the baseball field, so we decided to try
around some of the palazzi (apartment buildings) until we found him.
The first one we tried was a no-go. Sitting outside of the palazzo
though were two older women who started talking to us. They didn't
know who José was, but they suggested a place we could try. As we were
about to leave, we mentioned that he was the baseball coach. They got
really excited and pointed to the exact house where he lives. We
knocked on the door and there he was! What a blessing. We've started
teaching him again now.
Story number two. We had just finished doing some proselyting in the
park. As we were about to leave, we noticed a man sitting on a bench
and decided to go talk to him. At first he wouldn't say a word, but we
ended up getting him to talk and he let us sit down next to him. We
found out that he had been kicked out of his house by his wife. He had
sold most everything he had. He got on his bike with what little he
had left and started biking. For 300 km (which is about 180 miles) he
biked up the coast of Italy. He had stopped to rest in Pesaro when we
found him. He said he didn't know exactly where he was going but that
he was just biking. We showed him the Book of Mormon and told him that
it was exactly what he was looking for and that all of his problems
could be answered to this Gospel. After some hesitation, he gladly
accepted the Book. We left him with a prayer, our card, and good
wishes for the future. As we were on our bikes about to leave, he came
after us and told us that we hadn't written anything in the front. We
gladly wrote our testimonies about the Book of Mormon and signed our
names. He told us he wanted to leave Pesaro and keep biking, but he
was grateful to have met us and looked forward to reading the Book of
Mormon from cover to cover. We may never find out what happened to
that man or that Book, but we now that a huge seed was planted that
day. I'm grateful to be a missionary and to be able to have these
opportunities to change lives and plant seeds of hope.
Aside from that, we've travelled quite a lot over the past week.
Thursday we were in Firenze (Florence for you Americans) for a Zone
Conference. It was our last one with President and Sister Wolfgramm.
They will be leaving this weekend and the mission will be taken over
by President and Sister Dibb. President Dibb and President Wolfgramm
were actually companions on their mission in Italy! Pres. Wolfgramm
says a lot of good things about Pres. Dibb, so it should be an
exciting change. Then yesterday we were in Milano for a new missionary
training. To those who aren't familiar with Italian geography, it's
over a five hour train ride from Milano to Pesaro. Whew. It was a
journey. I saw Anz. Miller though, who is serving in Milano right now.
He was excited to see me. He's a very... uhh... enthusiastic person
and almost broke my back when he hugged me. Hah! It's nice to finally
be at rest here in Pesaro though. We shouldn't have to get back on a
train for another week, so that'll be nice. TrenItalia and I are best
friends at this point.
I hope all is well with you, wherever you are. Thanks, as always, for
the love, prayers, emails, letters, and thoughts. I love you all! I'm
grateful to be serving as a missionary here in Pesaro.
Love, Anziano Simcox
The picture is Anz. Valentine and I.
[P.S. We have a conference next Wednesday so we might not email until
Thursday next week. Just in case that happens, know I haven't
forgotten about you. :)]
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