It's. So. Hot. 33°C... Conversion... *calculating...* 91,4°F. That's hot. Add on the humidity and it's even hotter. Spring has come to a quick and brutal end. And I'm really hot.
All of this heat is bringing back memories of Pesaro. That had to have been by far the hottest I've ever been in my life. This time I'm lucky though. Our apartment has an air conditioner that works wonderfully. After that realization, I'd like to get transferred even less. I suppose I'm too spoiled.
Fun events this week... Oh! Branch activity. In my time in Bergamo, branch activities haven't always been the most well-attended activities. For those that come they're great, but there's always room for improvement and "the more the merrier" they always say. We've been trying to figure out how to improve that. Missionaries care about activities because they are a "non-threatening" way to introduce people to the Gospel. Many a member has been found through ward activities. Well, a woman in our branch loves to dance. How could you not? Anyway, every year she plans this big night of folk dancing in the chapel. She hires a musician who plays the guitar and the harmonica at the same time. Che talento! We came to help her set up and stayed to see what would happen. For the first hour or so of the activity there was only a group of five or six people. She was teaching them dance steps in preparation for the actual event. It was amusing to watch. After a while, one of them asked a question about the church. This turned into a lovely Gospel conversation in which the member taught them all about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon in a completely natural way. She had it all covered. At the end she threw in "and these are the missionaries, who would love to tell you more if you're interested." That is the ideal situation. Once we got around to the actual activity, there were at least eighty people there, about half of whom had never been to the church before. We set out a table of pamphlets and pass-along cards next to the food (tricky, I know) that got put to good use. We had several opportunities to teach a bit about the Church and about the Plan of Salvation. Overall, the secret to a good branch activity: the members are behind it with the missionaries running behind to catch up, instead of the other way around.
We've had an investigator named that for most of my time in Bergamo has been fluctuating between progressing and not. This past transfer it's been more towards the "not progressing" side of things. It seemed to us that we were pulling out all of the stops and nothing was working. The branch is very concerned about his progress, but we haven't had much to tell them because it's been difficult to see him, let alone teach him. Last week though after some prayerful consideration we came to the conclusion that he needed to understand the Restoration more. It seemed strange because to us there seemed to be much bigger problems blocking him than that. We went ahead anyway and planned a Restoration lesson with a focus on Apostasy and Restoration of the Priesthood. A large part of the lesson was reading most of 1 Nephi 13. He usually doesn't like to spend large portions of our lesson reading, but this time he was genuinely interested. We read from verse twenty onward and explained things along the way. He was so engrossed in the reading that he got mad when we tried to finish reading, insisting that we finish the chapter. He now has a much greater understanding of the Restoration. He was able to explain it in his own words and with his own conviction, whereas before he struggled to see a difference between the Church of Jesus Christ and any other church.
There's the update for now. I hope you all stay cool. I'll try to do the same. Although "if it ain't sweatin' it ain't workin'."
All the love, Anziano Simcox
Picture: I couldn't make it greener if I tried.
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