August 28th

Hello. First off, I don't like this new way to respond to emails. Dear Gmail: stop. CHANGE!!.....

Whew. Ok. That's off my chest now. Hello from beautiful Pesaro. Not much has changed here, except for Gmail's service. The weather is finally cooling down a bit. We are no longer drowning in sweat anymore. We actually had to turn off the fans last night! Woo! 

We've been back to the streets trying to find people. A lot of times, they don't want to listen. Sigh. We're also still being flooded by tourists, so that makes it a challenge too. I've met so many people from so many different countries though! I've met people from the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Germany, the U.K., France, Austria, and name any other European country. I actually had a chance to use what little German I remember with a man in the piazza. He said he only spoke German so I just told him in German that God loves us and I gave him our card. Shout-out to Herr Sharples.

Yesterday we had a really fun branch activity. Every Tuesday night our little branch meets together for la Serata Familiare (Family Home Evening). Yesterday one of our member families prepared the game. We all sat in a circle and each held part of a string. The goal was to pass a ring down the line while the person in the middle tries to guess who has the ring. I don't know if I explained that well enough, but it was really fun. We have an 80 year-old woman named Livia who comes to our church. She's our favorite. A year or two ago, she started losing her mind. She still comes to church, but anything goes with her. Yesterday she just kept playing with the string. She ended up with the ring, so she went into the middle of the circle. She actually guessed right and was so proud of herself! Then the other game we played was called "Giovanni è morto!" There wasn't really a goal except for to see how funny you can say "Giovanni è morto! (Giovanni is dead!)" to the person next to you. When it came to Livia's turn, the person next to her told her that Giovanni was dead and she got the most surprised look and said "Who's Giovanni?!?! How sad!!!" By the third or fourth time we got around the circle she figured out it wasn't real and just started ignoring us. Even she was having a fun time by the end though and we had a great evening. We have those activities once a week so that the members can invite friends and also so that people can understand that we're not just crazy people! They always make for a good time and for good food. :)

I love our branch and I'll definitely miss them when it's time for me to go. They're super awesome. They've been on fire with missionary work lately too! We're doing our best to help them. Without members, missionaries can't do anything.

This week I've started over the Book of Mormon. I've been gaining some really cool insights. Every morning we have an hour of study by ourselves when we study the Scriptures, Preach My Gospel (the missionary manual), and other materials. While study is focused on investigators and members, I pick up a whole lot as well. Never underestimate the Scriptures. I definitely didn't appreciate them at home. They are literally words of God. He speaks to us through them. Very specific answers can be found inside. As I've said many times before, God is waiting to bless us. Some blessings are dependent solely on our asking for them. 

A bleh a bleh a bleh a that's all folks. 'Til next time, Anziano Simcox