July 22, 2009

Ciao, tutti!
Everything's going great here in Prato. I'm really excited to be here another transfer. We met with Dielle this week, and she is very sincere about her desire to want to learn more and commit herself. We're really excited. We're working on getting her moving towards baptism. We made a baptismal calendar for her, with all the lessons we need to teach and when we need to teach them. We have a date picked out for her. She doesn't know it yet, but she will soon!Saturday we went to a Nigerian wedding! It was the sister of some members in the branch. It was awesome! Most of the stories definitely won't be as good over email as they will be in person, so I'll have to tell you all when I get back, but needless to say, I spent most of the time crying because I was laughing so hard. We also got Nigerian tribal bracelets from our friend Austin, and investigator of the Elders. And Moses, a member in the branch is going to give us Nigerian tribal names on Friday. So basically, we're more or less Nigerian. Saturday we had a great lesson with Nertil, and he told us that his sister wants to get baptized!!!! She's been meeting with the sisters up in Modena since he took her to church a couple weeks ago, and she knows this Church is true and is ready to get baptized! Nertil got the Priesthood Sunday, so he'll be able to perform the baptism. It will be such a beautiful experience. Last night Nertil taught us the Plan of Salvation and did a fantastic job. We invited him to invite his aunt and uncle to come to church. As we probably could have guessed, he said that he had already invited them. He keeps committments before we even extend them! He then told us how he does missionary work whenever he can. He told all his colleagues at work about the Church and how happy it's made him. He has told all his cousins and aunts and uncles and invited them all to church. He talks to random people on the train and bus. He's such a great missionary!So we haven't been able to find our investigator Nicola for about 2 weeks. We go to the park where we met him frequently, and he's never been there. Sunday we were at the bus stop waiting to go visit someone, and I had a distinct impression that we should go visit a contact on the other side of town. It didn't make any sense, but we went anyways. No one was home, so then it really didn't make sense. We only had a little bit of time before we had to meet the elders, so we decided to do some house in the area. Again, no one answered the door, so I was starting to wonder what we were doing in this area. Just then, a man was riding towards us on his bike, and he stopped and said hi. It was Nicola! We got his number and were able to set up an appointment with him. I love seeing the Lord's hand in this work. He always guides us where we need to be. It's just up to us to listen to those promptings. We have a great new investigator named Vera! She's an ex-investigator and is super cute! She is from Albania, like most of our investigators here. She has an adorable little boy who's 2 and she's pregnant with another boy. Her husband isn't super interested right now, but we're working on that. We have another appointment with her tomorrow, which we're really excited about. I love this work so much. It truly is the Lord's work. I am just grateful that he lets us be part of it. He is always there for us, ready to guide us. We just have to choose to listen.
Vi voglio bene!
Sorella Hawkey