Rome 5 | week 2

4.14.14

This week I talked to a lot of people. Holy cow. Anziano Gemmell and I have 1 investigator right now, and he can only see us on Thursdays before English Course. So...we hit the streets hard this week for a lot of hours. It was a good bonding experience for Anziano Gemmell and I, and we actually had a lot of fun doing it. I tried to talk to one lady getting in her car, and she told me in not the most polite way that she wasnt interested, was in a hurry, and didnt want a picture of the Rome Temple. I threw in some mormon.org cards to her babys stroller when she wasnt looking and told her to have a nice day. Gemmell was just like, "what is she going to do? call us?" We have been saying that all week. It was so funny. Anyways, we found a lot of solid contacts, but we have only met with 1 for the second time. His name is Lorenzo, and he is way cool. He lived in Malta for 5 years and met the missionaries down there. In fact he has already read about half of the Book of Mormon. We went over to his house Saturday night and talked to him for an hour, and it went really well. He is extremely smart. His living room is full of book shelves, and he  said he has read pretty much all of them. We left him Alma 7 to read, and he was like, "Thats it?" He invited us back over this week for dinner and a lesson which we are excited for. 

So the Sister missionaries gave us 6 referrals last week. They are unreal. One of them is a man from Nigeria named Emeka. We did a passoff lesson with the sisters and Emeka Saturday morning which went excellent. He is really funny and a really happy guy. Right now he is studying at 2 different schools right now. He moved here about a year and half ago, so he still doesnt speak Italian that great, but we have several members who served missions in England or America so they can all talk with him. Sunday morning Fratello Malara and I went and picked him up for church. It was my first time having church in a hotel, and it actually was great. The church has about 4 pretty good size rooms and a conference room for sacrament meeting, and it is nice. All of the members are incredible. Seriously. They are all willing to come teach with us, we just dont have so many people to teach a the moment. Sunday after church we went over to our Branch Presidents house and it was a special experience. He divided up the ward between Anziano Gemmell and I and the sisters. He  told us that we need to give every family with a challenge to invite us over to dinner and a lesson with some of their friends within a four week period. Then he promised that he would invite each companionship to his house within the next month or so for pizza and a lesson with some of his friends. We were in shock. 

Brother Arena is our branch mission leader and he said that he is going to start organizing activities every single week for the members, English Course students, and other investigators. Our leaders our so amazing we really have to work hard to keep up with them. 

Saturday evening we went to Monterotondo which is the most populated city in our area to set up a little stand type thing with the sisters to stop and talk to people. We had no idea, but there was a chocolate festival at the same time. There were booths representing every major city in Italy with their specialty dessert lined up down a really long street. It is the same street we got permission to do the mostra on. We decided to go ahead and do it anyways. It was fun. Everyone wanted to talk to the sisters. Not many people wanted to talk to Gemmell and I. Thats pretty much how the cookie crumbles. The sisters are incredible missionaries and less scary than us I guess. 

Sunday night we got to go see Nem. He was baptized almost a year ago by Anziano Peachey who is serving down in Malta right now. Anyways, Nem is 18, from somewhere in Africa (forgot what country), and he met with President Criscione yesterday and said he wants to go on a mission! He is and will be such a good missionary. He reminds me exactly of Elder Oke. Really funny, everyone likes him, and is rock solid in the gospel. Anways, thats about all Ive got for the week. Take care!

Anziano Smith