Hello again! I hope all is well with you, wherever you may be. This week has been an interesting one. Of course, what week isn't as a missionary? Looking back over this week, I've realized that almost every appointment we had fell through. As upsetting as that was in the moment, it's opened up the door for a lot of other opportunities. We got back to doing finding work, which is something we haven't done in a while. When we were doing Ancona and Pesaro, we barely had time to breathe because we were going from appointment to appointment. While that's a really good problem to have, it was exhausting. We've been doing a lot of finding work and making a lot of phone calls and we're starting to see it pay off. Now that we're focusing on just the Pesaro area, we've been trying to do more work in Fano. Fano is the city just south of Pesaro; about seven minutes by train. The city has hardly seen missionaries of any sort, so it's been a thrill to work there.

On Tuesday we did a scambio with our zone leaders. That means that we switched companions for a day. Anz. Miller went with Anz. Hess to Fano and I stayed in Pesaro with Anz. Hill. In Fano, they found a man from Napoli (Naples) who was very interested in the Gospel. He's staying around here for a while, so we will have an appointment with him very soon. In Pesaro, Anz. Hill and I held down the fort. It was nice to work with someone else. Different viewpoints and different ways can be nice to see sometimes and Anz. Hill is a blast to work with.

I'll give a quick runthrough of all of our "progressing" investigators. I say "progressing" because they're doing everything EXCEPT coming to church. Ugh. Every week there seems to be some sort of roadblock or other that stops them from coming. Gyldena has a lot of exams coming up, so we haven't been able to see her in a while. She actually stopped by the church during English class and told us she does really want to meet with us, but she has a lot to do. She said we'd try to work something out. 

Rosanna... We've had one lesson with her. It didn't go as well as we had hoped. She talked the whole time and we hardly got in a few broken sentences. I think it was good for her though. We can tell that she doesn't have a lot of people to talk to. Sometimes, we all just need to vent right? The next lesson will be much better.

We're seeing Claudio and his family tonight hopefully. Everything we teach, they seem to agree with and they are reading what we ask them too. They wanted to come to church last week, but it was in Rimini, which is about 30 minutes away, so it was difficult. We're doing everything we can to get them to come on Sunday.

Amanda has been looking for an apartment. This is great for her because that means she's one step closer to getting her son back. Once she has an apartment it'll also be easier to meet with her. Lately, we've been meeting at a bowling alley in Fano, which obviously isn't ideal.

We got back in contact with Maura. The progress we've seen with her is amazing. After the last lesson we had with her she said she would pray, which is a HUGE step. The first time we asked her to pray we got a twenty minute lecture about how God hates us and how she will never pray.

That's all of our regulars at the moment. Every one else we've either lost touch with or just haven't been able to meet with. The work continues. As the Italians always say "andiamo avanti" which means "we move ahead."

For P-Day this week we went to San Marino. That's where this week's picture is from. Isn't it beautiful? Che bella! San Marino is a country inside of Italy. It's something like 60 sq. km. with a population of 2,000. The entire country is built on a steep mountain. They said it was the oldest republic in the world, the main reason being that nobody was stupid enough to try to climb the mountain to conquer it. What a beautiful place. We saw the sights, toured a castle, ate some pizza, looked at the shops, and got some gelato. It was awesome.

Speaking of pizza, Anz. Miller and I made a pizza all by ourselves this week! It was a beautiful thing. It obviously wasn't as good as Sorella Tariffa made it, but hey. For two Americans and a five kg bag of flour, I don't think we did too bad.

I also was able to Skype my families on Mother's Day. It was awesome to see their faces and to see how fast my brothers are growing. I'm so grateful for my two wonderful mothers and the support they are to me. Happy belated Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there.

Sempre andiamo avanti qui a Pesaro.

Vi voglio bene, Anziano Simcox