Week 96 - James the Mormon

by Unknown 7:43 AM 0 comments

Happy Summer! Summer is a great time of year, but even more so in the mission. It's not everywhere that you can blast JamesTheMormon in your Toyota Yaris driving down a beautiful Italian street, have long conversations about the Mafia with your Italian companion, or eat Nigerian food off the same plate as seven other men with an unwashed spoon. It's been a really great week here in Rimini.

Our friend Sunday is not going to be getting baptized tomorrow, but it's okay. He's having some eye complications and he'll be getting baptized on the 28th of July with Courage and Peace! It's kind of funny how it all worked out because I'll be on the plane ride home when they all get baptized. I heard from the office that there is wifi on the plane, so I'm planning on Skype calling them before the meeting starts. It's been my dream in the mission to find, teach, and then baptize someone and although it's not going to happen, I couldn't be happier about the way things worked out. :)

Speaking of Sunday's eye problem, I wanted to express a few thoughts about our Nigerian brothers. Sunday is having complications with his eye because he was kidnapped in Nigeria and had his eye stabbed with a knife. The only reason why he is even here in Italy right now is because he managed to make a "blood pact" with his captors that he wouldn't run away when he wasn't being supervised; luckily Sunday doesn't respect Satananic rituals and ran away at the first chance he got. After hearing what happened, the Nigerian police recommended he flee the county and with divine help, he made it here to Italy. Sunday's story is crazy, but not unusual.

I've worked with a lot of Nigerian men on the mission and am so grateful for it. I've learned a lot of lessons from them. It's not easy for them to be church members here in Italy because most of them speak very little Italian and as a result, don't have a job. Despite their difficulties, the Nigerian people are so humble and have a strong desire to learn about the Gospel. Chances are, in five years, Courage, Peace, and Sunday won't be living in Rimini anymore. But, the cool thing is, they'll take the gospel to wherever they end up! God's hand is truly in this work.

With all this Nigerian talk, I think it's appropriate to share my awkward African moment of the week. In church this past Sunday, I told Daniel (our new convert) that it was the birthday of an Italian lady in our ward. After learning how to say happy birthday, Daniel went up behind the lady and tapped her on the shoulder. The lady whirled around. Daniel then got really close to her face (he's a jokester) and shouted buon compleanno! ...The lady in the ward didn't have the reaction that I think Daniel was expecting. She was pretty offended because she interpreted Daniel's "buon compleanno" as a very different thing than happy birthday. I think Daniel and the rest of us Native English speakers can agree that anno's pronunciation is WAY too close to the pronunciation of ano.

Another Nigerian highlight of the week was when Peace brought his Italian teacher, Carla, to our lesson. Without even being baptized, Peace is already a better missionary than I was for the first 18 years of my life! Peace's Italian teacher is 60ish and literally doesn't speak English. We did the lesson in English for Peace's sake and translated everything into Italian for Carla. The question needs to be asked, how are these Nigerian men supposed to learn Italian from people that don't know English?! But regardless, the lesson was phenomenal! Carla was so interested that she asked to learn more, so we referred her to the sisters.

Mission life isn't always easy, but teaching the gospel to people is so great. If seminary didn't need to be taught at an unholy hour in he morning, I would hassle my future bishop until he made me a seminary teacher. I know this church is the church of Jesus Christ and it's beautiful helping others come to the same conviction.