Verona, Italy - September 1, 2010

Here is a funny story: On Saturday we were riding our bikes down one of the main streets in our part of town to go to the church for correlation, the street was Via Venti Settembre (or, in English, 20th of September Street - but I haven't been able to find out what significant thing happened on the 20th of September in Italian or Veronan history such that they would name a street after it, any of you know?). My companion is behind me. A man on a bike is passing by next to us, but when he gets next to me he stops going faster and instead starts talking to me, while we are still biking. 'Excuse me, are you a missionary?' 'Yes,' I said, since missionaries shouldn't lie and I am a missionary so yes is the true answer. 'Oh good,' he said. 'I am looking for some information. Can I ask you a question?' So I said, 'Of course! But let's stop and not talk while riding.' So we pulled over. He said he was looking for a church to go to and can always recognize a christian when he sees one, so he wanted to know where our church was. I told him. I told him we were, as it happens, going to the church right now, and would he like to come meet some male missionaries who can teach him more about our church? He said, right now? I said yes. He said, ok then, why not? So he followed us up to the church building on the bikes and we had a nice little chat in the meantime. He is from Nigeria, but a Jewish part of Nigeria or something that I had never heard of before. We meet a lot of Nigerians, so it was cool to find out about another new place in Nigeria. He is the only one in his family here in Italy, and he has been here three years, but doesn't speak Italian super well, and doesn't super enjoy going to the Catholic Church. So we took him to the church, and he met the elders, and now he is a new investigator! How exciting! It was fun having someone try to ask me about the church on the bikes. That was a new experience!

Also awesome this week, because I don't think we have ever had a Sunday this successful, we had four people in church! And the elders had another two or three a piece! How awesome is that! Especially because we have not been able to get a single person to church all transfer, and then finally this week four people came!