Feb 14 nevertheless we progress

His email was late this week, he said it was because they had appointments up the wazoo which is great!

Update on Richard –
"Oh yeah speaking of Richard he said (and did) that he wanted to quit his job to be able to come back to church! I thought that was a really great step of faith on his part! So hopefully we will be able to see him tomorrow in church! And yeah it was really nice of the members to offer to do that for him!"

Update on Mack –
"we set a baptismal date with him!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything is going really well! He has told us that he has found the truth and that he really wants to be part of the church! It was awesome! As of right now he will be baptized on the 6th of March!!!!!!!! He is making great progress!"

Update on Sina –
"Sina is making great progress as well! We have set a baptismal date with her too!!!!!! We hope that everything will go well so she can make this important and necessary covenant with the Lord!! We have been going over the baptismal questions with her to make sure that she is completely ready to go! ... Well we had the interview and it went really well but there were a few things that we had to go over again since it had been such a long time! But it will be fine! We will just have to push the date back!"

Update on the family on the street that wanted to buy a Book of Mormon –
"we actually haven’t been able to see them! The adversary is working hard trying to stop us from seeing them! But the really cool thing is even though it hasn’t worked out we are still maintaining contact with them and they are still really interested! There was a little bit of time when they weren't able to get a hold of us and we just figured that they were not interested anymore but then we got a call from them that said they were sorry they were sick and they still wanted to meet and were sorry that we haven’t been meeting! It was great!"

When they have a delay or disappointment Anz Nielsen uses this mantra –
“Oh well, we keep moving forward right! Nevertheless we progress!”

About the huge mission changes –
“I’m not sure what the changes with the new mission will entail but it's going to be huge! It is really cool to be here at this time! I will attach the email that pres. Toronto sent us about what's going on!...

he said:

The Church is growing in Italy! No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing! Zion is being established in this part of the Lord's vineyard! It is through missions and missionary work that the Lord establishes and sustains stakes of Zion. As the number of stakes increases, the need for missions decreases. More faithful, mature, self-sufficient members require fewer and fewer full-time missionaries to assist in building the Lord's kingdom. We see this pattern here in Italy with the formation of one mission in 1965, a division into two missions in 1971 (Milano and Roma), and later creation of a third in Catania and a fourth in Padova. As stakes have continued to be formed, the number of missions decreased back to three, and now, with six stakes in Italy, the building of a temple in Rome, and the formation of a seventh stake (we hope!) in the near future in Sicily, the First Presidency has decided to consolidate the missionary work in Italy into two missions, Italy Milan and Italy Rome. It is an exciting time to be a missionary in Italy! To be a part of bringing to pass the fulfillment of prophecy is a tremendous honor and blessing!

As I said in my SMS to you all on Sunday, our Catania mission and all missionaries will become part of the Italy Rome mission effective July 1. Your day-to-day work of bringing souls to Christ using PMG will not be greatly affected by this change, other than you will suddenly have twice as many wonderful missionaries to serve with (120 missionaries, instead of 60) and many more exciting cities, including Roma and Napoli and Castellamare di Stabia and Sassari, that you might have the privilege of serving in at some point later in your mission. I think you will also see a realignment of zones to make them larger and more effective in the work. The new president will of course decide what changes need to be made. However, I expect that, for a few months after the unification of the two missions, most of the former Catania missionaries will continue to serve in the cities and among the people that they came to know and love in Puglia, Calabria, Sicily, and Malta.

It is a little sad to see the closure of the Catania mission after 35 years of service involving thousands of missionaries, but it is also gratifying to witness the hand of the Lord working to guide His servants and bring about His purposes in this marvelous land. The most important principle to keep in mind is that we all serve the Savior, Jesus Christ, and it doesn’t really matter where we serve or what our mission boundaries and name are: we give our best effort always because we love the Lord and we love the people He has entrusted to us—the people of Italy.

back to me now. This is everything that I know other than the speculation that you know we are doing lol!”

Their friend Jerry took them to see the Brindisi basketball team practice. He said it was pretty cool, they met and talked with most of the players and had a good time. Then they played basketball with Jerry and his friends and it was pretty fun.

They had a great lesson with Roy and Bonnie, and Roy who is a big sailing guy, taught them how to take a bearing.

While home teaching a member they discovered that he is a musician so they had a little jam session! Anz Nielsen played the djembe (he owns one of these too!) and the member said he was impressed with him! Lol

He said they had a musical night at the Church and he heard a lot of the songs our family had listened to when he got his mission call and it was fun hearing them from actual Italians!

Mack brought a friend to Church and he shared this about it…
“Mack and one of his friends came! It was awesome! And it being testimony meeting at the end Mack’s friend told us that he wanted to share his testimony the next week! It was awesome!! We taught them the Restoration with Bonnie and it was so awesome! It went really well!!! It was so cool!! Man that was great! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!! man it is so awesome! We are having so much fun! I love to teach! I get so pumped after teaching! I love it!”

He closed with this…
“Today for p-day everyone in our district (all four of us) went and had a p-day together in Ostuni! We walked around for a bit and took some pictures and then got some pizza! It was fun being with the other missionaries! We are just like a little family! it is awesome! We had a great time! The cool thing was it was raining really hard and we almost canceled but we said a prayer and it turned into a really great day! it was a great miracle!

well that has pretty much been it for me this week! Nothing super out of the ordinary but another fantastic week in the service of the Lord! I love being out here in Italy serving the Lord! It rocks!

There is a little Italian boy here on the computer next to me that is playing computer games and keeps asking me if I like the game he is playing, it's funny lol! He's my friend! Talk to you soon! Ciao!!”