Hello. Hello. Hello. I am your beloved, Count... err. Elder Simcox.
Random movie quotes come into my head from time to time. You'll have to forgive me.
What's new this week... The aftermath of transfers has finally been cleaned up. It was a little more precarious than usual. The new missionaries were supposed to arrive on Thursday, but they ended up not arriving until Saturday. They got to the Chicago airport and apparently there was a fire, so their flight to Europe was cancelled. They had to go back to the MTC and fly out again two days later. They were so exhausted when they finally got to Italy. An Elder in our zone was supposed to be receiving a new missionary, so he was our temporary companion for a few days. I forgot what it's like to serve in three. I'm grateful I'm only in two. Although, being in three works great for contacting people on really wide streets. On the skinnier ones we look more like FBI agents trying to interrogate people.
As missionary work goes, it's taken a bit of a different turn. We were hoping that our man from Bangladesh would be baptized this week, but his work schedule changed at the last minute and now he has to work every Sunday... Obviously that presents a bit of a problem. He's been looking around for a new job that will allow him to not work on Sunday. The hard thing is that he is a cook in a restaurant. Here in Italy, restaurants are busiest on Sunday, so if he were to ask for Sundays off they would fire him without a second thought. He's looking hard now though. We've run into him a couple times looking for work as we've been trekking around Bergamo. He's got such a good heart and he really just wants to follow Jesus Christ.
John, Frank's son, is going off to have an operation tomorrow on his leg. He was in a car accident a few years ago that's made it hard for him to walk. He'll be gone for about a month as he does the surgery and goes through physical therapy there. He's taken the Book of Mormon with him and he set a goal to read it all while he's recovering. What a goal! He's looking forward to being baptized when he gets back.
Other than that, our goal lately as a mission has been to focus more on the family. We've started using a new pamphlet about family history that talks about the importance of temple work and allows space to record family stories, information, and pictures. I highly recommend it for members. You might have seen it mentioned in General Conference. I think Elder Cook mentioned it. Anyway, it's great, especially for me. I love family history. Being able to speak Italian will be able to help me a lot with my family history once I come home. Another thing we've been doing is going around to the members in our branch and inviting them to create a family mission plan. Again, that's another thing I encourage all members to do. A family mission plan is simply a list of several specific things that the family can do together and individually to contribute to their personal missionary work. It is a commandment after all to share the Gospel! We don't need a nametag or a working knowledge proselyting to do it. All it takes is the desire. I've heard some great ideas as we've been visiting families. Some people suggesting always keeping a Book of Mormon in the car's glovebox. Another one was to invite friends to Family Home Evening once a month or to look for ways to do service in the community. There is a lot of simple ways in which ordinary people can contribute to the work of salvation.
There's my two cents for today. You all are great. I love you a ton. Love, Anziano Simcox.
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