November 5, 2014

A GOOD WEEK!

Ciao!

Ok well unfortunately i dont have much time to write this week because i had to fill out a huge missionary survey that took most my emailing time, sorry! Well this week was really good! We got a few new investigators, some from the sisters that left and some from our own efforts doing proselyting. 

My new companion is Anziano Bingham from Utah and he is about half way finished with his mission. He is a pretty cool kid and is very hard working. We get along pretty well and im really excited for this transfer! :) 

This week we also moved into a new apartment that is way on the other side of the city so a good amount of our time was spent just trying to figure out how to get around haha. But in the end it worked out well because we talked to some people along the way and we got a new investigator from it! Now we also know all of the shortcuts of the city and we also know which dark alleys NOT to take haha there are some craazzy people out at night.

Ok well unfortunately i have like no time to write so here is my new address and I hope to hear from you next week! love you guys! Ciao :)

-Anziano Delgado

October 29, 2014

TRANSFERS!!

Ciao!

Well this week has been a little rough and weird unfortunately. My companion and I have been trying really hard to find new people to teach but we just can't seem to find anyone and we have done almost everything that we can think of. We were able to meet with Lukebana though which was really nice. Unfortunately he wasn't able to come to church but the next lesson we are going to talk about why doing the little things like reading, praying, and coming to church consistently is so important. 

So my companion Anziano Warren and I are really getting along well and everything was going great but saturday we got the call for transfers and Anziano Warren will be going to La Spezia tomorrow. We were having a really good time and we really helped eachother keep our heads up through this rough time of no investigators which was really nice because usually missionaries get really on edge and depressed when there is no one to teach.

My new companion will be Anziano Bingham who is a couple months away from his year mark. The cool thing is that we will be getting our own apartment instead of living in 4 with only one bathroom so that will be REALLY nice haha.

Well unfortunately today all of the internet points that we went to are having maintenence done on them except for this really really cheap one that doesnt even have usb outlets so i cant get any photos to you this week but next week the guy we normally go to for internet said that all would be up and running much better than before :)

Ok well thanks for all the photos and emails! Halloween is coming up and friday we will be having a party in the church which will probably be a really small one but im sure we will have a lot of fun :) Ok i love you guys and hope to hear from you next week! Have a fun Halloween! Get a lot of candy Dallin! ;)

 -Anziano Delgado

October 22, 2014

WELAA!!!

Ciao cari miei,

Well this week was pretty good here in the beautiful city of Bologna. We met and had a good lesson with Lukebana and he finally found work which is so great! So the bright side is he is now looking a lot better financially but already he has had to reschedule appointments with us twice since now he is pretty busy... hopefully he can find time for both work and us! 

So we have constantly been doing proselyting work here and so far we have been completely skunked and haven't found anyone who wants to set up a real appointment. The people here are really nice and open to talk to about stuff but when the topic of religion comes up they close right up and want nothing to do with it which is really unfortunate. But it's alright because my companion and i are determined on finding and teaching and we both have enough experience in the mission to not get down from little things like that :) We are actually going to focus more on less active pass by's this week and just doing proselyting on the way between pass by's and hopefully be in the right place at the right time! fingers crossed ;)

Well last week we did go see the Ducati Factory which was pretty awesome, and today we climbed up the HUGE tower in the center of Bologna. I got some really cool pictures of both and i'll send them all to you next week since i have been saving up a good amount of pictures by now haha. 

Well i don't have any SUPER funny stories this week but i guess recently i have been talking A LOT in my sleep and sleep walking every now and then hahahaha. I was on an exchange with the District leader who is from my group in the mtc and at about 4 in the morning i woke up (totally half asleep still) and looked over at the foot of Anziano Lewis's bed and "saw" a HUGE snake like the size of an anaconda! So i didn't want to wake up Anziano Lewis and have him freak out so i said "Hey... hey anziano lewis.... there is a balloon on the end of your bed.... yea there is a balloon on the end of your bed hurry look!" hahahahahaha i didnt want him to freak out if i said there was a snake so i just said there was a balloon hahaha. But then like 5 seconds later i realized that i was sleep talking and woke up and was super embarrassed haha it was good. :)

Well that's pretty much it hahaha, hope to hear from all of you next week! ciaooooo!

-Anziano Delgado

October 15, 2014

MIRACLES IN TORINO!

Buongiorno cari miei!

Well this week was pretty great! My companion and i were able to meet twice with our investigator lukebana and teach him some really great lessons on the life of christ and his teachings and how proper authority is so important when we do ordinances like baptism. He actually is not baptized in any church but he has now understood the importance of doing so and is really praying hard to know if it is the right thing to do. I promised him that i am sure he will recieve an answer from God if he prays with a sincere heart and full faith that God will answer him. The coolest thing about him is that every time after we finish a lesson with him he will call or text us letting us know how greatful he is for the joyfull lessons that we bring him. He is such a sincere guy and is so respectful and nice, just a really genuine guy :) Other than lukebana we are yet to have any really in depth lessons with other people, people here are a little more closed than passed cities in which i served but thats always ok because miracles are still happening in other places... like TORINO!

So i am writing mine and anziano ferradini's recent convert, Barbara, that we baptized back at Torino and she is doing SOOO GREAT! 1) The triple combination that we had made for her with genuine leather and her name on the front finally got finished and she was so emotional about it and was so happy and grateful :). 2) She got a calling in church to be the head of the visiting teaching and she makes sure everyone is passing by their families and what not and she is sooo stoked and she said it made her feel very proud and good that bishop had so much faith in her to give her a calling haha which is way cool. 3) This monday before going to a lesson with the new missionaries that took over my spot after we left she asked her friend to give her a ride because it was raining and she didnt feel like going alone. When they got to the church for the appointment she thought that her friend would just wait in the lobby until they had finished but instead she decided to join barbara and the Anziani in the lesson! They watched the restauration film and at the end barbara's friend couldn't stop crying and really felt the spirit. She then said that she would love to come back again and listen to another one of their messages!!!! member missionary work already from a new convert!!!! so cool :) 4) Barbara has been taking the temple class lessons in church and got an interview with the bishop there and he said she is worthy to enter the temple and she will be going with her 8 year-old son AND her non-member husband who has been so very supportive of her this entire time. The is SOOOOO EXCITED to go to the temple and she just cant get over how much she feels the love of Gad in her life and how blessed she feels to be a member of this church. SHE IS THE BEST!!!!!

Well pretty awesome right?! i love barbara she is such an amazing person and i am so grateful to have had the opportunity to know and help her along this path to salvation :)

Well that is pretty much it for the week, today for p-day we are going to the Ducati factory here in Bologna and taking a tour inside of it so that will be pretty fun :) Hope to hear from you next week, love you ciao!!

-Anziano Delgado

October 8, 2014

ANOTHER WEEK IN BOLOGNA!

Ciao!

How great was general conference?! Unfortunately i still havent seen the sunday afternoon session so dont tell me anything about it yet! I really enjoyed President Uchdorf's talk about the dandylions, it reminded me of the hymn "Lord, I would follow thee" when in the 2nd verse it says "who am i to judge another when i walk imperfectly". In life we are always going to be faced with hurdles, or challenges. And when we trip over our hurdles and fall down the last thing that we want is for people to laugh at us when we are down and judge us for not being able to jump over the obsticle. When Christ was on the earth he too had to take part in the "race" to the "finish line", however instead of laughing at or judging the people who had tripped over hurdles as he rand by them he helped them back up to their feet and gave them a second chance to finish the race. This talk helped me realize that. I hope that i can immitate christ's love and do as he did while he was here on the earth which is to not judge others because they sin differently than me, but rather to help them to their feet and continue onward. 

Well the work here in Bologna is still going a little slow. However, our investigator lukebana is making some really good progress! Yesterday while i was on an exchange with another missionary in Ferrara, my companion and the District Leader taught Lukebana the Plan of Salvation. He accepted all of it and really enjoyed the idea of eternal families. He is a really great guy who has a great faith in God but has a little difficulty accepting that christ is our savior and the Son of God. He is getting a little more accepting of the idea however and i really think he is going to make some great progress.

Well that is pretty much all that happened this week, nothing super crazy but thats not always a bad thing ha. Well i love you guys and i'll hear from you next week!

-Anziano Delgado 

October 3, 2014

CIAOO!

Come va!

Well this week has been very good! Sorry i couldn't write you wednesday we were super busy and got permission to change pday to friday which is much better for us. Bologna is so beautiful and my companion and i are really starting to get used to the city and how to get around... for the most part.. so far we have only gotten lost once haha. Well this week we got a new investigator named Luca and he is really cool and funny. He is African but has been in italy for about 9 years and speaks italian pretty well. We had a quick little lesson with him that only lasted about 10 minutes because he had to return to work but it went very well. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was very excited to read it and meet with us again. So we made an appointment for tomorrow :)

This week we also were fortunate enough to get invited by a less active member to go eat at a VERY DELICIOUS bolognese restaurant because it was anziano Jensen's (zone leader that lives in our apartment) birthday... IT WAS THE BEST FOOD IN THE WORLD. No joke, i was speachless when i ate this food. I'll try to explain to you how it works here in this restaurant because they serve you a little differently than other places... So here you sit down, they waitors come by and ask you what you want to drink (normal so far) but then they asked if we wanted the full course.. (the less active didnt tell us what type of restaurant it was before we went so it was all a surprise). So the waiter comes back with 2 giant plates full of thin slices of meat and these really good bread roles and delicious slices of amazing quality cheese. After we had finished those plates the waitors came back with another plate that consisted of a soup with inside it tortellini with are small, ring shaped pasta that are to die for. THEN, after that plate is finished they bring out another plate! This time they brought out Tortellone (im pretty sure it is spelled like that but im not sure), which are pillow shaped past but this time filled with The most creamy amazing quality cheese i have ever had in the mission. THEN, after that plate they bring out just normal spaghetti that is covered in a sauce called ragù which is like a beef flavored sauce and little chunks of meat in it. SOOOO GOOD! By that time i was pretty dang stuffed to say the least, but we weren't even close to being done hahaha. After that they started to bring out ALLL the desserts. There were THIRTEEN different types of desserts that they brought out to us, one after the other! All were one huge plates so there were plenty for each person to have as much as they wanted. I cant even remember all of the names of these desserts but a couple of them were flawn, chocolate cake, cream filled crepes, strawberry cake, sweet rise balls, brownies, and many many more haha. BEST restaurant ever... im guessing it was quite pricy however and i felt kind of bad that the less active paid for all of us. i was so curious to see how much it had cost but of course i couldnt ask...

It was so good though. He also wants to take us out to get some really good steaks apparantly! He is also a lawyer just like you dad and so we got to talking about that and how different law is here in italy compared to the Sates. 

Well other than that really amazing dinner we were also invited by our english class that we teach to go eat at an all you can eat sushi restaurant last night. It was SOOOO good!! Dont worry though, we haven't just been eating this whole week, we also are doing a lot of proselyting ha. Besides, i have to take advantage of this once in a life time opportunity living in the great Bologna! ;p

Well tomorrow we are going to watch the general conference in italian because the english broadcast is going to be in Modena which is outside of our zone so we aren't allowed to go unfortunately :/ It's okay though i enjoy watching it in italian to be honest, they use really big words and it increases my italian vocabulary a lot :) We are also hoping to have our new investigator come to the broadcast, it would be really nice if he could but he works a lot so we will see how it goes.

Ok well thats about it for me! I really hope that we can find more people on the streets or in the area book but so far we havent found a whole bunch. Unfortunately there are a LOT of tourists and students here in Bologna that want to have nothing to do with our message so proselying is a little tougher than it has been in the past so we are really going to be relying on area book and member referrals this transfer. I hope all goes well! Thanks for the emails and pictures! I love you guys and ill hear from you next week :) Ciao!

 

-anziano delgado

September 24, 2014

I GRANDI BOLOGNESI

 

Ciao!!!

Well I'm here in Bologna and i love it sooo much! It is such a beautiful city and is full of beautiful people. My companion's name is Anziano Warren and he is from Indiana! He is kind of a shy type but really smart and is a huge baseball player, we get along perfectly! He is just about to hit his year mark in the mission and he is a great missionary with some good experience which will really be of help since we are practically opening up a new area with no investigators ha. I say practically because there are already 4 missionaries here in Bologna... we live with the zone leaders and there is also a sister companionship here. They are all sooooo fun!! Living in this apartment is definitly the most fun i have had all mission haha dont worry though we are getting a lot of work done as well :) Fortunately there were missionaries serving in our part of Bologna in the past and they did a really good job with the area book so we have been making a TON of calls and trying to set up appointments that way as well as less active pass by's. The work here is starting out pretty slow but im sure it will soon pick up the pace. 

Well this Sunday after stake conference us 6 missionaries decided to go to the Centro (the center of the city where all the people are, including the 2 famous towers) and we did what's called a "mostra". In the past i have done 3 mostra's and usually what we do is set up a table and a stand with giant pictures of our church and the restoration and stuff like that and we just talk to all the people that walk by or stop to look at our stand. BUT, this time we decided to bring chalk and draw the Plan of Salvation on the street because they were doint a HUGE festival that day and all the streets were closed off to cars (dont worry it's not illegal ha). It was so much fun and we got a ton of people to stop and ask questions about our church, it was great! We handed out a couple books of mormon and a lot of pass along cards so hopefully we get some investigators from it! I took some pictures of centro and our plan of salvation drawing but i didnt bring my camera with me to do internet so ill send them to you next week and ill have even more pictures then anyway :) 

Well that is pretty much what has gone on. I love it here in Bologna and i really feel like i do need to be here and i know that someone here needs to here the message that i bring about our Lord and Savior and His church. I love you all very much and i cant wait to hear from you next week! Ciao!

ps- Barbara is doing great and i got her email address to continue writing her. She might even come down to Bologna, if she gets the chance, to see me haha i hope Pres. Dibb will be alright with that!

-Anziano Delgado