Week 35 - Vedremmo

by Unknown 9:21 PM 0 comments

Mostra with the District

This week has been pretty special week because we started our soup kitchen service.. We've had some orientation classes the last couple weeks that we needed to take before we could actually serve, so yesterday was he first real day! It was incredible. The soup kitchen is run by an organization of the Catholic Church and provides lunch everyday to the needy. They have a couple chefs making and baking pasta and stuff, then, they get the rest of their food donated by pizzerias and bread shops! Yesterday, when we started our service, it felt like we were becoming part of a big family; everyone is really close! 

I was on dish duty with a couple of young Italian guys and I was able to get in some really good language practice. It was pretty funny being in the kitchen because it was a huge difference from the living heck I experienced in the back kitchen of Panera Bread when I worked there. They had American pop music blasting the whole time and everyone was taking shots of bubbly throughout my time there! ;p And besides the fact that we were able to do some good service for the Livorno community, one of the guys I was doing dishes with named Hans came to our English class last night!

This week was an interesting week for another reason .... We watched the Restoration film a LOT with our investigators (unfortunately only in English). And can I just say, THAT FILM IS INSPIRED. When we showed Alex the video this week he said something like, "Something pierced my heart while watching that... Can we watch it again?" I gave him an uncomfortable laugh because it was one of those times when you aren't sure if the question is serious or not; but, serious he was. "I'm not kidding around! There is power in that video!"

One of the people we showed the film to this week was a man named Abraham. Abraham is a God-fearing man that we met tracting a couple weeks ago and is just a really solid guy. He was a computer programmer in Nigeria,  We've only had a few lessons with him, but he's been reading the Book of Mormon and says he knows it's true! Unfortunately, he just got his documents (that allow him to travel anywhere he wants in Europe) and has 5 days until he gets kicked out of the government hotel that houses the Africans here in Livorno! He has some connections in Germany and is planning on leaving by the end of this week... This all happened REALLY fast and was a little unexpected (he was the only one out of the other 50+ African men in his group that got their documents during this session). Fortunately, even though he's leaving, I don't think his progression in the Gospel is halted. He was very relieved to hear that we do in fact have churches in Germany and that some of our "friends" will continue to teach him there! ;)

Abraham!!

One last cool story for this week: A few nights ago while tracting in a residential part of town, we ran into Adamo playing with his little son out on the street. A couple weeks ago, Anziano Buckles and I wrote our testimonies in a Book of Mormon and then gave it to this particular man when we were doing tracting. So, when we ran into him again, he thanked us and said he'd be happy to meet with us to discuss it. So, as we say in Italian, vedremmo. ;)