Ciao ciao ciao. What can I say about this week? It's been a long one.
This past week was a huge holiday in Italy. It's called Ferragosto.
Nobody really knows why it's a holiday, but they celebrate it anyway.
A lot of people get work off for a week or two and they go on
vacation. Pesaro has been flooded with tourists. Thursday was the
actual holiday. EVERYTHING shut down--even the grocery stores.
Proselyting has been difficult lately because everyone's brains are
shut off for the holidays. Here's one real conversation I had:
"Ciao! We're missionaries from the Church..."
"Oh no. I'm on vacation right now."
"Oh cool! Where are you from?"
"Pesaro."
"But you said..."
"I'm on vacation."
I've had that conversation more than once. If people haven't
physically gone on vacation, they're at least mentally on vacation.
From what I've heard, everything will get back to normal by
September... Mamma mia...
Story time. We have a new member named David. He is from Nigeria and
he has been here in Italy for a little over a year. He doesn't speak
much Italian, but he loves the members and the members have genuine
love for him. They have been trying to help him improve his language
skills by talking with him, inviting him over for lunch, and being his
friends. This past Sunday they asked him to give a short talk in
church. He was very worried, but he knew that the Lord would help him.
We met with him a few times last week. He wrote a talk in English and
then we helped him translate it. We also assigned him to write his
testimony in Italian on his own. On Sunday he got up and gave a
powerful talk in almost flawless Italian. We could feel how much he
was relying on the Spirit to bear his testimony.
The weather has been a little crazy here... The 40° heat is gone thank
goodness, but it's still hot. Yesterday it randomly decided to be
cold... We actually had to wear sweaters yesterday. Also, it poured
cats and dogs yesterday. Pesaro has random monsoons every couple
weeks. They only last for ten minutes or so, but they do a bunch of
damage. We saw a motorcycle flying down the street once. It was scary.
Luckily that time we were safe inside the church. This time we got
caught in the thick of it. Anz. Valentine's bike is broken again. Go
figure. We were walking to a member's house and it started coming down
hard... It was bad... Ah well! It makes for fun memories. Now I can
look back at my crinkled planner and remember the time I was stuck in
the monsoon... It won't be the last time either! I love Italy!
Ok. There's my life for now. Italian holidays and freak monsoons. I
found a great scripture a few days ago. This is Moroni 8:16, "Perfect
love casteth out all fear." It's so simple, but it's a great motto.
If we do things out of love, we have no fear. If I love the people I
see all around me, I have no fear to talk to them about the Gospel. It
works in everyone's life. Be not afraid. Love instead.
Con tanto amore, Anziano Simcox
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