Helloooo.
Transfers are happening. That's always a tad stressful. It's always nervewracking to get a new companion because you never know what he's gonna be like. It's easy to be afraid of getting the guy who, like, eats his boogers or something. Haha. No. I don't think we have any of those guys. My new companion's name is Anz. Johnson. I know him already and he's a good missionary from what I've seen. Tomorrow, I'll ship Anz. Hansen off to Milano, where he'll go to Livorno, which is all the way down south a bit after Florence, then I'll pick up Anz. Johnson. Anz. Hansen will be training, so he's excited about that. He only has two more transfers left, so he's been having a lot of reality checks lately. It's been good to serve with an older misisonary who already knows what's going on. In all my other companionships it's always just been the two of us trying to figure things out.
These past few weeks have been pretty busy in Bergamo. Now that Spring has arrived, people seem to be a tad happier. We've been able to see several new people come out of the woodwork.
We found a wonderful new investigator. We were walking down the street and we stopped a 23 year old young man. At first we pinned him as just another punk kid, you know? I'm grateful we stopped him anyway. At first contact, he was a tad skeptical. It was apparent that he'd thought about religion quite a lot in his life, more than most other young men. After a minute or two he asked if we could sit down on a nearby bench and talk to him. That opened the door to a twenty minute lesson about the Book of Mormon and how we know that this Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. We prayed with him, took his information and set a return appointment to come and see the church. He actually came a few days later when he said he would! That doesn't always happen. He loved the church and the simplicity of it. We were able to talk a bit about family history work, temples, and baptism, and we taught him about the Restoration. He admitted that his interest was primarily curiosity, but he did say that he would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. At the end we invited him to pray using the model in the Restoration pamphlet. He did so, and did it wonderfully. It's not often that an investigator says a heart-felt prayer in the correct format on the first try. He will try to make it to General Conference this weekend and he was very touched by our invitations and the things that we taught.
General Conference is this weekend. For a missionary, it's like the Super Bowl. In General Conference, which happens every six months, the Prophet, the twelve Apostles, and other Church leaders address the Church on topics that they have prayed about and prepared. I love General Conference because there always seems to be a talk or two that was meant just for me. If you'd like to know what it's all about, here's a link: https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng
It's a great relief to know that there is a prophet on the earth today. We believe in a Living Church. We know that the heavens are not closed, but that God speaks to us and loves us still. I read this great scriptures a few days during my daily studies. 1 John 4:7-11:
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
I love those verses. They contain the truth that I see in action every day. God is love. We worship the God of love. He is our Father and He loves us. He knows us personally. He wants to bless us. Of these things I bear my testimony.
-Anziano Simcox
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