Week 83 - 19 wives, not!

by Unknown 1:41 PM 0 comments

It's been a really swell week for me. The greatness
of this past week has little to do with the fact that I stuck my
companion's "magic pen" in a gelatin blob (Jim from the Office has nothing on me), the
fact that I met a man on a train with a "Hard Rock Caffè - Seattle"
shirt, or the fact that we found a geleteria here in Pesaro that sells
Oreo milkshakes that taste like America. Although, those were all
things that made Anziano Anderson a happy boy. :)

I felt pretty cool yesterday when an Italian boy was SO excited to see
us. Why? Well, when we were doing some street contacting, we walked up
to the bench and introduced ourselves. His body language was screaming
"I'm not interested" until he heard we were Mormon. Then, he
exclaimed, "I'm reading a book about you guys right now!" He pulled a
book titled "The 19 Wives." He was a little disappointed to hear that
we weren't polygamists anymore... That made two of us! Jk. 😂

This past week I experienced a moment that made me really
enjoy the Italian culture. We went to a less-active member's house and
when we got there, he was engaged in an intense argument with his
roommate. After a few minutes of listening to them yell, I finally
gave Anziano Leavitt the let's-get-out-of-here look. When we asked the
less-active if we could come back a different time, he stopped yelling
at his roommate and asked us why. When we told him that it seemed like
there were some problems to resolve and we thought it would be better
if we came back a different time, he put on a big smile and agreed. He
spent 10 seconds quickly recounting a miracle in his life from the
previous week, politely said goodbye, then was back into his fight! Oh
Italy... ;)

I think the biggest disappointment of the week is Marina. She's
slipped back into her alcoholic ways and has been drinking everyday!
The biggest bitter/sweet situation of the week is Giuseppe. He's very
interested in learning the truth and is already making plans to unite
with our Mormon community! Unfortunately, it looks like he'll be
uniting with the Mormons in Turkey because he's going there next week
for an indefinite period of time. The biggest highlight of our week is
Ursula. In an old potential investigator record from a few years ago,
we found her number under the name "Ursun." We called her and she was
really opened to meet with us. It totally felt like a blind date as we
were waiting for her on our first appointment. Luckily, the blind date
was a success, she is such a great woman! She's 43 years old and moved
to Italy 17 years ago from Sri Lanka. We've already met with her twice
and at the end of our last lesson, she wanted to buy us gelato... I
told her, "In America, the men buy for the women. WE are buying YOU a
gelato." She refused to go into the gelateria after that. She is
stubborn, but so sweet. We are having a branch lunch before we watch
general conference on Sunday and she is bringing some Sri Lankan food!

1. This ball is really famous here in Pesaro.
2. I'm holding an Oreo milkshake.
3. Soup kitchen selfie!
4. Midivil model shot before the zone volleyball game today.