A Baptism in May?
Well, like always, I'm not sure where to start. I love being a
missionary. I've been with Anziano Bradshaw for a full week now and
things are going great with us and things are going great in Bitonto. And
the Rome temple walls are slowly but surely rising up, it's going to be such a
great blessing for the Italian people to have a temple in their country.
Satan's grasp is very strong on these people and I have seen how he is
doing everything he can to make that grasp even stronger. There is a lot
of potential here in Italy. I love serving here.
It was great to hear from mom, dad, and grandma all in the same
week. It was also nice to hear about all the girls. I'm excited to
be able to read some of Mattie's novels when I come home. And it sounds like
Sara is just a natural softball player. And now that Maren is getting a
dollar for every day she finishes her school work before 12, I want to know if
she realizes that if she does it for a month that she'll have 20 dollars.
Lets not even talk about a year! (almost 200!!!! get on that Maren!!)
That's a really cool story about how mom and Abby got the stocking jobs.
That's a blessing. How's Abby with virtually nothing to do during
the day? I hope not just watching TV. Read the Book of Mormon in 63 days.
That’s how long it took Joseph Smith to translate it, it'll strengthen
your testimony, I know it.
So grandma and grandpa are the new Young Single Adult reps huh? Cool!!
How are they liking that? I'm sure they are really enjoying it. It's a
good thing because now grandpas got something to fill those wonderful hours of
retired life. Grandma, I haven't received your package yet but I should
tomorrow because we have zone conference. Oh, I forgot to ask, how was
Ginger's trip to Africa?
Mothers day… =) We're going
to call on Saturday the 12th around 1730/1800. va bene? sempre skype? credo di
si!!
Mom, thank you for the suggestions for helping with the lack of
unity with the members, I hope it helps. Also, tell me about mission
calls!! Alisha, Adam, Mandy and anyone else I missed.
Oh, and Anziano Millers Mom sent me a quick email, I wanted to tell
her thank you. (but the blog has to be updated for her to see it. =P
)
This week went well. We taught more lessons than I ever have
here in Bitonto. But everything I was wanting to say about the week just
got pushed aside by what just happened.
Usually we go to Bari to do Internet however this week neither of us
felt like or even wanted to go. So we came to church to e-mail home.
After a little bit of time, the doorbell rang. We went to see who
it was. There were 2 people, a man who didn't look like he wanted to be
there and a boy (26) who was just beaming. The father said that his son
wanted to know a little bit about our church. We looked at him (Nicola)
and asked what he knew about the church. He said that he knew a couple
members and that he had also done some research on the Internet and that he
wanted to know what he had to do to be a member of this church. We were
floored.
We asked them to come in for a little so that we could explain some
things. We talked about the church, the Rome temple, and the prophet.
He loved it all. Then he asked again what he had to do to be a
member. We explained that there were several things we needed to teach,
he needed to come to church, and then at the end of the lessons we would ask
him to be baptized. He said that's great, when can we start. We
were speechless.
It's amazing how the Lord really looks out for his children and
prepares them. I'm excited to see what he has in store for Nicola.
It's quite coincidental how today, we got an email from the assistants
that the mission has set a goal to have 20 baptisms in May and that they want
every companionship to set a goal of 1 baptism for the month. From what I
understand of how our investigators are progressing, Nicola is already fighting
for that May baptism.
I love this work; I know it's true and that the Lord is directing
it. We just need to stop fighting what he's trying to do.
Have a wonderful week. I love you.
--
Vi Amo,
Anziano Stewart
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