Ciaooooooooooo.
Hello everyone. Thus flies another week. I'm going to crazy before long with how fast this time is going. Oh wait. I went crazy years ago. Hardy har har.
I heard the snow has already hit Ohio! Not here. I wish though. I love the snow. Although, I'll probably take that back when I'm trying to proselyte in it. Here it's just getting cold.
The mission is just a constant downhill slope of tiredness. The longer I'm here, the more tired I get. Tireder........ No...... More tired. English...
We have got some AWESOME things going on in Cimiano. Hearts are changing. Lives are being touched. Copies of the Book of Mormon are becoming tattered and worn. Shoes are getting holes in them, mainly my left one. Journal entries are (on occasion) being written. Pasta is being boiled. Italian is being spoken. People are being baptized. In short, miracles are happening. This Saturday the sorelle, errr sisters, in our district are seeing one of their investigators being baptized. She is just thirteen years old, but she has had her life changed and she is following the example of Jesus Christ.
One of our investigators has decided to be baptized as well! He is the man from Nepal that I've been writing about. The change we've seen in him has been astounding. When we first met him he was a bit closed off and hardly wanted to touch a copy of the Book of Mormon! He told us a while later that the only reason he talked to us that day was because we wore Jesus Christ's name. Slowly, he gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon. We had a few great lessons at the beginning, but we were seeing no progress in his testimony. Then something happened somewhere along the line. I think it might have just been our persistent invitations to read the Book of Mormon. Every night we sent a short message with a scripture reference and every lesson we would check up and see how he felt. At first he didn't read. Finally, he decided to read. That was when the big change was visible. He started become very involved in the lessons. He started to not only read the scriptures we assigned to him, but also to study them. I'm not kidding when I say that he brings a study journal to his lessons. Every night he prays and he studies the scriptures. He is excited for his baptism, which we have scheduled for next Saturday, the 23rd. We met him six weeks ago on the subway. It's amazing how a testimony like his can grow in that amount of time.
"And moreover, I say unto you, that the time shall come when the knowledge of a Savior shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people" (Mosiah 3:20). I've seen the fulfilment of this scripture as I've been here. One thing that people don't know about Italy, and something I didn't know before I got here, is that it is filled with people from many different countries. I've met people from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brasil, El Salvador, the Philipines, China, Nepal, India, Egypt, Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Togo, the DR of the Congo, South Africa, Algeria, Romania, Albania, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, the UK, and even the USA. There are more countries I'm sure that I haven't named. I'm living in a melting pot! The awesome part about the Gospel though is that it is being spread to all of these peoples, here and in their own country. There are translations of the Bible and the Book of Mormon in languages that I never knew existed. This is possible through missionaries like yours truly, but more so by average people who simply open their mouths and reach out to help someone in need. Be that light! You never know what miracle you'll bring about.
Love, Anziano Simcox.
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