Summer BBQ in Italy

Ciao!!!  Well I’m still here in Italy and I’ve made it past one transfer. the first transfer was great and exciting and hard. I learned a lot about a lot of things and i cant wait to keep learning and growing. These past couple weeks have been busy. First our member kept telling us they wanted an activity, so we finally put one together. So me and my companion threw a summer part BBQ. We made flyers and handed them out to everyone we knew and everyone in our branch. We wanted a good turnout so hopefully we could find some more people to teach through this. For such a small branch it took a lot of planning and organizing to get everyone to be involved and make it worthwhile. So we had the BBQ on Saturday and it went pretty well. We didn’t have as many people as we would have liked, but it was still worth it. The cool thing about it was that we had 2 cool miracles out of it, first was that the lady we just baptized was one of the only people in the ward to actually try to invite some of her friends. It was cool because when we talked to her she was excited to have the chance to share this church with some other people. I have really seen a big change in her as she has accepted and learned more and more about this gospel, so that was really cool to see for me. But, also what was cool is one of her friends actually came! So we met him and the next day he came to church without us even reminding him or anything, he just came on his own. So we are hoping we can talk to him soon to see how he felt, i know coming to church is so important in our live and those I teach because it is the one place we can feel the spirit so strong and take the sacrament! Church is great, you should all go! The second miracle from the part was that we have had this really cool potential Italian guy for a long time, and he knows everything about the church. He visited Utah for a summer and know all about the temples and everything, this guy wants to be Mormon.      The only problem is that he lives like 2 hours away so its super hard for us to meet and for him to come to church, plus he doesn’t have a car. But he came to the party, and the even better part is that he came with his mom! So I talked to them a lot especially the mom cause she was a teacher for 30 years so I wanted to get to know her. But thy both had a really good time and we are hoping and praying that we can teach them soon because if the mom can feel the spirit and find a testimony than it would be great, cause first she has a car, and second cause it would make it much easier for both of them to stay active! So we pray for them. The party was great though!!     Other things that have happened this week is that we have been focusing a lot of our efforts in finding a family for this new transfer, especially an Italian family. So we have been praying and fasting and we are starting to see the power of prayer. Yesterday alone we found 2 great Italian families that are interested and got 3 referrals to Italians. We are really excited for this opportunity! We pray they can feel the spirit when we teach. But yeah the work is going really well.     The other really awesome thing is we have this new convert whose name is Mami, she is so great. She lives with this other old lady named Felicitas, and they are by far my favorite in the branch. They speak really good Italian and some English so it’s perfect for me to learn and practice haha but whenever they go over there they have a feast prepared for us. Its great! Plus they are Pilipino so its like a mix of Italian and Pilipino food, which is really good slash interesting! But the cool part was in all of Europe this last month was the month to invite people to come to church with them. So Mami and Felicitas were not really excited to do that but they did it anyways. So they invited there friend and neighbor named Ruth. The first time we met with her she says she knows the book of Mormon is true! So we have been working really hard to meet her and get her ready for baptism. She is getting close but it’s been really great to just meet with them every week. We have family home evening with them three and it’s always the best. But we keep praying that she will be ready to commit to baptism soon.    Other than that I am loving Italy! the people are so funny, even when they are not interested or want anything to do with you I cant help but laugh because they are just so Italian and its great haha. I went to Firenze last week and ill send some pictures. But everything is good here. I think and pray for all of you all the time. Pray always! Read always! Have fun!! Ciao ciao!! Anziano Miller