Tuesday, March 11, 2014

February 19, 2014

It's already Wednesday... I feel like I just finished writing the last letter. Let's see what I can come up with this week.

Transfers happened again! I'm still here! Hah. My companion is still Elder Hansen. We were really surprised that he stayed here because he's been here already for six months! Who says another six weeks won't hurt right? A couple of missionaries from our zone left, so we'll see a few new faces around Bergamo. One of them is a new missionary, so that'll be exciting. I remember when I was a greenie and I thought my zone leaders were the two best missionaries on the planet. Now that I'm a zone leader, I think the new missionaries are way more bravi than I am. Oh, how the tables turn.

With another transfer down, that means I'm now in my ninth transfer. One more until the double digits! This transfer we've got a lot of things planned. Next week we have a training meeting in Milano. Then we have to run a zone meeting about that meeting. Then a meeting in Verona. I feel like I've been doing that a lot lately. Meeting, finding work, teach lessons, sleep a bit, repeat. No I love missionary work though.

We've been seeing some good results from the whiteboard I talked about last week. That's been a good way to spice up our finding work. This week too we also made a companionship goal to talk to at least one person on each bus/tram we get on. I don't know why, but it's always hard for me to talk on public transportation. I already don't like public transportation to begin with: lots of people, tight spaces, people who aren't wearing deodorant. But they're children of God, so I've been really pushing myself to open my mouth. It's actually much easier than I thought. Anz. Hansen calls them proselyting machines because they can't escape. Cue evil laugh. But no really, I've been pushing myself and it's been working. I can do hard things.

In church we've been seeing new people. There's one man we've been teaching; I'll call him David (I'll have to start writing down these fake names). A few of our sisters found him on the street a few weeks ago so we gave him a call and had a wonderful lesson at his house. He's going through a rough time and so he's been trusting a lot in God. His Bible is almost torn to pieces. I've never seen a Bible more used. He came to church, which made us extremely happy because we didn't think he'd be able to make it. One of the greatest joys as a missionary is seeing people actually come to church. It's so refreshing and hopeful. He came, loved church, and was rocking an awesome purple suit. Another man whom I'll call Johnathan just walked into church off the street! He said he was passing by and "felt the Spirit tell him to enter," and so he entered. He is a refugee from Ghana. He doesn't speak much Italian, but there was a member who speaks Twi, so they got along really well. He also speaks English too. He loved church. He calls himself a "born-again Christian," but he's very open to other ideas and churches. I like him because he's very sincere.

Thus it goes in Bergamo. I love this city and I love all of the people we're teaching. Here in Bergamo especially, I've been able to teach a variety of different people from different backgrounds. Here in Bergamo, aside from Italians of course, there are quite a few Bolivians, Ghanaians, Nigerians, and Tunisians. I've been able to experience different cultures and even learn some phrases in a few other languages too! I love being a missionary because of all the people we get to meet. Every day I get to talk to random people! Who knows what will happen?!? Hah!


Until next week. Love, Anziano Simcox.

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