Week 37 - Pasta Challenge

by Unknown 8:42 AM 0 comments

This week was bello for a few different reasons. First and foremost, we met a super rad guy from Albania named Arian while street contacting! He's 27 years old and has been living in Italy for the past five years working as a painter. He remembered some Mormon missionaries in Albania that used to wave to him while walking to school, so he was more than happy to meet with us! 

The bello-ness didn't end there; Anziano Buckles and I finally got around to doing the kilo pasta challenge after our fast on Sunday. The challenge basically entailed us eating 1,000 grams of pasta together in our designated hour set aside for lunch. It was surprisingly easier than I thought and now I feel like I'm a real Italian after eating that much pasta in one sitting. 

And finally, to end the missionary week for us, Anziano Buckles and I are about to go via ferrata! I don't know exactly what it is in English (or Italian for that matter), but I think it's some type of rock climbing type thing... One of our investigators is taking us today and I will let you guys know exactly what is it next week!

A few days ago we taught Alex the word of wisdom and right after the lesson, something so beautiful happened that I wanted to cry. We had the lesson on a park bench and after we said the closing prayer, a drunk guy walked passed us screaming profanities. Alex then turned to us and very seriously said, "This is very clean and clear, God does not want us to live like that man. We must live the word of wisdom!"

Now I need to tell you guys about another reason I wanted to cry this week... But, for a very different reason! Anziano Buckles and I were teaching about covenants during our gospel principles class on Sunday. During part of the lesson, when I was talking about the Abrahamic covenant, I said: "I am very grateful that I can be fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant as I serve my mission. Even if no one accepts the message of the restored gospel from my mouth, I'm still fulfilling the covenant as I bring the gospel to the world." After I said this, a member sitting in on the class starts gridando at me (I say gridando because there is not an adequate English word to describe his angrily, raised-voice talking). He starts going off on me about how wrong I am and how negative my outlook is on my mission... Luckily, a Peruvian lady of the ward (definitely my best ward friend) stood up for me and got him to settle down. It was an intense couple minutes. After class I went up to the trouble-maker and apologized, but I sure as heck don't think he'll be trusting us with any referrals anytime soon.