Modena, Italy - December 15, 2010

Vi voglio sempre bene, e mi mancate. E non vedo l'ora che ci sentiamo il giorno di natale!

This week, on Monday, something really creepy happened. Sorella Ryan's bag had truly fallen apart, so we had to stop by the market on our way home for lunch to pick up a new one for her. We were walking through the market and heard this growling noise, and both of us could not find the dog. Then we had to walk back by a few minutes later, and the growling noise happened again, and then the man from whom the noise issued reached out and clawed at my arm! It was very scary. We left. Then as he was walking by later being towed along by his caretaker, he growled the whole time and was reaching out at people, and I was afraid. And now sometimes my companion scares me by growling next to me.

On Saturday we had a lesson with our incredible investigator from Bulgaria. She actually found us: the anziani were biking by and she flagged them over and told them off for biking so fast. 'What if someone wants to talk to you?' she said. Now we are teaching her. She has come to church twice and the week before last we taught her a lesson about authority and the restoration using candles to represent authority. It was really nifty, and she got it. And we committed her to pray to know if this really is the one true church with authority to baptize. She is super awesome, she studies the Book of Mormon and every time we come she has underlined and marked up like crazy whatever chapter she's read. She asked us for a Gospel Principles manual so she can be prepared for the classes on Sunday. Anyway, she came to church for the second time the next day, and I asked her how praying had gone, to know if it was true, and she said that it went really well. That she had prayed many times and that each time she just kept hearing a voice telling her the same response, 'tu lo sai dov'e' la verita', which is 'you already know the truth.' It was such a miracle! That was all we got to find out right then, though, because we had to rush into Relief Society. So then we went back again this past Saturday, having assigned her 2 Nephi 31 to read, all about the gospel of Jesus Christ and baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. She had read it, and recounted the whole thing to us. She basically taught herself the gospel at home that week. We asked her again about her prayer response. We asked her if she believed this was the true church, though, and she said she was not ready to respond to that question. So then I told her that she needed to keep praying, and to remember that God knew that she knew, and then she interrupted me and said, 'Wait! No, I know the answer. This is the true church! haha, how funny, I could not answer you before, but then I knew the answer while you were talking. Now I know!' it was so cool. And then we invited her to be baptized and she did the same sort of thing again, and by the end of the lesson had talked herself into baptism because she felt the spirit so strongly, and then recounted her decision making process and all of the things she had been feeling during the lesson. She is incredible! She is getting baptized on January 15th, after she returns from her Christmas trip to Bulgaria. We are so excited for her.

We also met this family from Ghana doing dieci inviti. Sorella Ryan stopped the bike to talk to this guy who gave us his address, and we went over and got to meet his cousin and her two adult children. We watched finding happiness with them, and then taught them simple prayer, how to truly communicate with God instead of just say stock phrases. We left them the restoration film to watch, and when we came back there was only one of the children whom we were able to teach, and he had watched the film and loved it and recounted the whole story to us. Only he thought it was just angels who appeared to Joseph Smith, and when we told him it was actually God the Father and Jesus Christ, his eyes got really big and he was really excited. We taught him about how the Book of Mormon is the proof, and he said he needed to read it so he could find out and pray about it. He promised he would read it, and treated the book so reverently, and then offered a really beautiful prayer asking God if it really was true. We are super excited for him, and for his sister, who will be there when we go back in a couple of days (she also watched the video, but we only got to talk to her on the phone). We are seeing many many miraculous successes here in Modena, for real. And I really believe it is because we are still placing at least one Book of Mormon every day, with great success. And today we have two appointments with people we met through dieci inviti. It is so important to talk to everyone when doing missionary work, and to truly have an attitude of always finding!

Oh, oh, I just remembered, that here in the market where the man growled and Sorella Ryan bought her bag, there were these tiny little cactuses on sale for less than one euro! So I bought two of them and now they are my friends in my apartment, and I fully intend to send a picture of them to Waldo. Yes.

I hope Christmas festivities are going well and that all is happy for y'all in nice warm Texas. It is cold here. Brrr...