October 2, 2013

Ciaowdy!

Lots of fun this week, working hard, being obedient, that about covers this week.

In detail, last P-day [preparation day] went to the Milano Duomo again and walked around Milan with another coppia [companionship] in our district.  Also went to a church relatively close to the duomo that has an entire room that the walls are created out of skulls and bones, that was cool and creepy. Not really sure the back story, just some cemetery had to be dug up or moved or something, didn't have the words free agency or atonement in the explanation so I couldn't understand it completely.

Then that night super miracle, we are on the street at 8:30 and there is nobody out and it's dark and and my legs hurt. So we decided to say a prayer to know if we should continue this way, said a prayer, felt impressed to continue, and taught a lesson on a bench. Only 2 people we saw that hour, but one of them (technically mother and son) we taught them when they had turned us down in the past, once at least I remember. Then we start to walk home, and one of our potentials walks past and invites us to walk with him, so we walk to his house and got his address so we can now drop by when he's free, needed to get back to our house at that time.

Next day we're teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Anziano Green suddenly bears a super strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. After the lesson, he tells me he didn't plan to say anything at all, and wasn't even quite sure what he was saying when he opened his mouth. We don't usually focus on Book of Mormon in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, gift of Holy Ghost and persevere to the end) but just reinforced that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and we just need to do all we can do and open our mouths and the words will come.

Then we finish that lesson with them definitely feeling the spirit, and we're in the same apartment as a dropped investigator, we drop by and he's not there but some of his relatives are, they invite us in and we teach a lesson. Anziano Green thought it was the dropped investigator, and I tell him afterwards that I didn't know them either, just walked in and taught a lesson and walked out, pretty funny, going to bring them a French Book of Mormon this week.

Other highlights this week, taught 2 member present lessons on back to back days that had some nice space doctrine thrown in brought up by the members (multiple spouses in heaven, how resurrection works, the millenium, who is a son of perdition-that was actually our recent convert reading D&C) and so those were fun to teach in a different sort of way. ("Different sort of way" you need to read in between the lines to translate to annoying) No, but really it wasn't that bad, mostly funny because the investigator and the new convert could take it and it wasn't hindering their eternal progress. I enjoyed it

Sunday taught a huge Gospel Principles class. Huge by my definition is 5 compared to 0-2, but that was great to see.

Went on a scambio [companion exchange] to Muggiò, that was really fun. Miracles always happen on scambios. Got a bunch of potential numbers, lots of people stopped and talked even if they weren't really interested. Funny stories while there: met a middle-aged woman who wanted to show off her English, pointed at her mom and said "I am... your son" (I'm her daughter) Also met a man who fights destiny and won't ride in cars, but buses are okay because his son is a bus driver. I was pretty clueless on what he was saying until Anziano McKinnon told me as we were walking away. Had pizza kebab for the first time ever, kebab on pizza, SUPER good, but took 2 years off my life.

Next day we have it timed perfectly where we ride up to Merate on the train to rescambio and we have a minute before the next train comes going the other way, our train is late and we jump off, run to the other platform where the other train is already there, Anziano McKinnon jumps on and Anziano Atwood, who is 3 weeks old [in Italy on his mission] so can't blame him, starts walking the 5 feet towards the train and the the doors close and the train leaves. First time that's happened on my mission, had to start calling President and zone leaders, but we ended up just waiting at the station for another half hour while Anziano McKinnon got off at the next stop and came back. But it all turned out good, not sure if I'm allowed to include that in weekly letters but it was definitely an exciting highlight and pretty funny watching Anziano McKinnon's face as he realized that the doors wouldn't open.

Have my official card that says I'm allowed to be in Italy now, don't have to carry a bunch of photocopies around with me wherever I go. Had to stand in a crowded room for 2 and a half hours to get it, but have my permission to sojourn. (Soujorno in italian, don't know if that's a word in English)

So yeah, like I already said, overall great week, singing primary rounds with Anziano Green in the evenings when there's not a lot of people on the streets, looking forward to conference, have permission from bishop and going to watch some of it at the Americans family's house in English, forgot to say went to Muggiò this morning and played basketball and soccer and handball (with the soccer ball) with 4 other coppie [companionships], that was really fun, but no pictures. Brian, never realized handball was so fun.

The end.

Anziano Berg

   

September 25, 2013

Heya Howdy! (Brian's Italian google translation)

Great week this week. Last P-day [preparation day] went back to the hill that we climbed to find less actives and we were planning on doing the same thing with pictures, but we saw a hiking trail and took that instead, it was short but really beautiful. And we go get our bikes, Anziano [Elder] Green had a huge whole in his inner tube and we were pushing time already, so switched it off with a tire that only had a small leak, and he rode the whole way there and back with that, I had a pump in my backpack that we filled it halfway. That was a week ago, we still haven't changed it, just pump it up before we start riding.

Next day we taught another park lesson to a girl studying on a bench, super spiritual lesson. This is the second lesson in less than 2 weeks we've taught college students studying in parks; I'm really starting to like school.

Also made a giant map probably a meter wide and tall of Merate with all the members marked on it and less actives, President told me personally that the best way to do missionary work is through the members. (skip ahead for full story)

Then Aug 21 whatever day that was got a call from president Dibb breaking up the threesome even before the middle of the transfer, Anziano Hillyard is going to Bologna. But he had one day to pack everything, and it's going to be funny him writing home today and saying "By the way, I'm already in another city"

But then the next day President Dibb drives to Merate and interviews us in the church, where he tells me the best way to do missionary work is through members, which is so true. Referrals compared to casa [house to house] or strada [street contacting] is hugely different results. And I just love Bishop, told the ward straight up that they needed to bring at least 1 person who is not a member to the activity we are holding, a party with a dress-up halloween theme. But then super scary after the interviews he wants to come to our house and see if it's big enough for 4 missionaries, and I was very very grateful I had done a good job of organizing my desk and making my bed and doing the dishes.

And he told us to prepare for another 2 missionaries, so dropped off Anziano Hillyard, went to district meeting in Muggiò, and spent the rest of the day cleaning and moving furniture to make room for new bunkbeds and a closet.

Then the next day get a call that we aren't getting new missionaries here, and so we spent that day between lessons and english class putting it back, but everything is really clean now, I much prefer it.

And then in English class we were talking about the differences between RAM and ROM and SDD flash memory with Greggorio, the only person who showed up, who is a programming engineer. So had a more intellectual conversation in English than most native-english speakers would have had, that was fun.

And this is my abrupt end to this week's letter. God loves you

Anziano Berg

September 18, 2013

My beloved brothers and sisters;

Good week. Main difference is there's 3 of us now, which I inititially thought some problems could arise like splitting up space in a small apartment or finding work and stopping and talking with 3 huge guys in suits, but so far all it's been is FUN! If anything, it's the opposite. Merate is small enough that we approach somebody and they say "There's usually only two of you,right?" and it's a great way to start up a conversation. So got a shwack tonne of potentials this past week (I'm allowed to use bad english, I'm trying to learn Italian).

One cool story, it's about time to head back to the house for lunch, nobody is around, so we say "one last person before heading back" keep on walking, end up meeting this girl sitting in the grass that we sat down in the grass with her and taught the whole restoration. She lives in another zone, but it was a great referral.

Another huge miracle, got in and taught an amazing restoration lesson doing casa [house to house] for the first time ever!  We didn't do a lot before, but try to do just a little bit every couple of days to use a bunch of different finding techniques. But it's hard because it's all apartments, and it's easier to hang up when you don't even see them, but usually wait until someone rings the door open without checking who it is and then going door to door. But got into the apartment and this young couple are interested and already know a member (who happens to be the son of a 70, that doesn't hurt) and he's working a bunch so we can't meet just with her, but we'll get them baptized eventually. They want us to come again, so super miracle.

Big push by Pres Dibb to use more scriptures in lessons, so we've been preparing and have taught some super spiritual lessons using lots of scriptures, like a scripture for every single point we talk about. Our fist lesson with tonnes of scriptures was a Plan of Salvation lesson with a less active and his girlfriend, and they asked amazing questions that our scriptures we had chosen in personal and companion study answered perfectly. We only didn't use scriptures for the creation and the atonement, and that's only because we forgot them during the lesson, so I guess the spirit was telling us that they weren't as important to these specific people. Still used 7 or more relatively long scriptures in the lesson though, and it was great.

Another cool anouncement, get on your local missonaries' cases for all those reading this to have a ward activity of some kind in this transfer, straight from President Monson. And then invite everybody you can think of to a non threatening atmosphere just to see and meet the missionaries. In our mission we just learned 69% of baptisms are referrals. That's a fairly high percentage. But the activity will be a perfect opportunity to introduce to the church.

So change of topic, planned on visiting some less actives in a little town 20 minutes away, the map didn't show elevation but looked like a fairly easy bike ride, turns out to be the highest point within very realistically 20 km. Y'all (ha, voi form) know the Nauvoo temple in some of the pictures I sent home? Right there we walked all the way up, didn't time it, but roughly 45 min, one super cool experience where she had turned Catholic and got her and her husband to commit to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, super spritiual experience. And then a whole 3 minutes and 18 seconds down on bikes.

Learned again (I have to keep on learning this) is that you can really choose your attitude. Had a blast walking a bike up a hill for 45 minutes. Pouring rain and stepped in a puddle past my ankle, we just laughed, nothing you can do afterwards. Once just sitting down on a bench taking a break we all started laughing for no reason and couldn't stop. Possibly due to lack of sleep, but also we just choose to have lots of fun and we do.

Other fun 3 people stories- a woman was walking her puppy and walking and stopping with the dog, and she wasn't really interested in our message, but she wasn't turning us away either, so all three of us kind of shuffle-stepped after her and kept on talking. I've said before you can choose to be awkward about a situation and if you're not awkward they won't feel awkward, but it was pretty bad. Gave her a pass-along card and it turns out we shuffled the equivalent of 30 steps from where we initially met her. Couldn't stop laughing about that one too.

Another example of choosing attitude, visited a member family, but they're on a corner and they saw us biking past into a farmer's field where we proceeded to get lost and follow a mud path for 20 minutes. And it was pouring rain. But it was so much fun! Even with the pouring rain we've had a blast and working hard and expect miracles.

Ummmm... that's it for this week I think

vi voglio bene (might not translate, I wish y'all well)

Anziano Berg

September 11, 2013

Dear brothers and sisters,

Our threesome is amazing, we all get along super good, and I thought there might be contention with having to share more space and exluding someone, but it's been really fun so far. I'm loving it, as our recent convert said after hearing 3 was really rare "Well, you have more power!" All 3 of us aren't as good at the language as Anziano Locklear was, but we make gramatical errors sometimes but still communicate perfectly. At least the other 2.

Okay, time for the week

Sept. 4-last P-day [preparation day] I forgot to write we went to an investigator's garden, and rotatilled most of his garden, with a shovel. Got 2 blisters but loved it, it's been probably a year since I've done some gardening like that. Then went bowling with some other missionaries and some members and some investigators from Lecco, I get up the first time, Anziano [Elder] Locklear says "Let's see if Canadians can bowl" and I get a strike. And met a member fom Lecco, an 18 year old girl who is fluent in English and learned everything she knows on google translate and facebook. Cool and scary how much technology is changing people, will be interesting how the tablets will work, looking forward to it.

5-Went to transfers in MIlano Centrale, just feels weird speaking English to different people, didn't end up picking up Anziano Green with complications

6- Got out of an amazing lesson, get a phone call that says we need to catch the train to Milano, and we need to catch the next train if we don't want to wait an hour for the next one and hold everybody up. But we know we can't make it, just looking at the time we need at least 5 minutes even with running, start running anyways and as we're running say a prayer the train will be late, the train is 5 minutes late and we make it. Pretty direct answer to prayer, and you need to understand the train is actually really punctual. So picked up Anziano Green, the Lord definitely wanted us to have him here in Merate for some reason.

And I've just noticed a bunch of small miracles and answers to prayers this week, for example DVD player and newfamilysearch.org wasn't loading, said a silent prayer, they work. If it's the Lord's will, you need to have faith and pray to get those additional blessings.

7-Got the ward family history consultant, don't know if that's what the position is called, but got him to the lesson with our recent convert and he just showed us on the computer at the church how to prepare names for the temple, super cool lesson, I learned a lot

10-skip ahead, I'll come back. Our recent convert has now read 20 pages of the Book of Mormon in that time and submitted 24 names to the temple.

8-Gave an English Book of Mormon to a lady from the Phillipines, she took the lessons a long time ago and isn't really interested, just wants to keep her English up, but hey, if you're going to read a book in English, the Book of Mormon is the best book to do it with, actually best book ever in my opinion. And she takes care of an older lady, so she said she will read it everyday when they are sitting on a bench. If only we could get all our investigators to read the Book of Mormon daily, it would solve any concerns they have, but they have their free agency too.

And in church talked to the only American family, then Bishop Vescovo in English, then go over to our recent convert and start talking to him in English, silence for a second, "whoops, let's start that again" But he was nodding his head and looking like he understood for a while, so maybe it shows how much he understands me when I'm speaking Italian :)

9- 3 bidone (lessons fell through) but 2 unplanned lessons, so great day, and explored a bunch of places outside of our regular route, so great day.

10-Super cool English class today, we got 5 new people who don't speak English at all mixed in with a fluent speaker who regularly shows up, so I ended up going right outside the door with him and while they are learning "What is your name" I'm looking over his university thesis and he's explaining how he created an app, that was fun.

11- Bought a bike today for Anziano Green is the highlight, nice and used and ugly and beautiful at the same time. Was 60 Euro originally, met an investiagator at the used store and he noticed it was past time to lower the price (over time the price goes down and eventually goes to charity, but you only get paid if it sells in the first 3 months or something like that), so miracle to meet him there at that time and we got it for 40 Euro.

I think that's it for this week, stay tuned for next week's episode. Will Anziano Berg survive the perilous journey in an unknown land? How will he escape being boiled alive by the savage natives of the jungle? All this and more will be answered next week on "Little miracles; the Life and Times of Anziano Berg"

Ciao ciao

Anziano Berg

September 4, 2013

My beloved bros and sisters

Great week, mainly because Ferie [holiday month in Italy] is over and people are on the streets again. Met a bunch of people this week who knew about the church already too, like "Mormon was a prophet, right?" so that was really cool.

Also went to Arcore, and they have a park there, do a lap and not a lot of people are out, nobody is interested, we sit down to take a break, and a man walks up and sits down and we talk about religion, that was a super cool lesson. He's a pastor of a different church and says he casts out devils, but we can work on that. Miracle lesson right there. And he and a couple other people we met this week asked the perfect question, "So what makes your church different than others?" And we can explain Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and prophets today.

Same thing happened 2 days later with the question, we're walking past a playground and a couple approaches and say "You look like you speak english" and then the question and we explain what we're doing and what we believe. They said we just look American, regardless of accent. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or insult, but they were really nice and left a really good impression on them.

Our record for lessons taught in one day so far was 4, smashed it with 6 today. Ironically Sept. 1, Ferie ends Aug. 31. But we try to set a goal of 15 lessons a week, and we're at 13 lessons at 8:30 at night, we just taught our neighbour on the same floor (which is another miracle, they're Muslim but open to us sharing our beliefs, just started teaching them last week) and we desperately need to update the area book, so we're thinking of doing that. But we're so close to 15 lessons, get back out on the street and teach 2 street lessons in an hour. Super miracle, I've never done that before. And one of them we're doing our usual route, and we both feel we need to go another way, we do and less than a minute later we teach this man.

Big news here, Anziano [Elder] Locklear is going to Busto to train [be companions with a brand new missionary] again and I'm staying here with 2 missionaries, making a 3some. Big changes in the apartment too, no idea where we're going to put an extra bed, but taking the train to Milano centrale tommorrow morning for transfers. Anziano Hillyard I know from Muggio, and don't know Anziano Greene. But I'll be in my 3rd tranfer [generally 6 weeks], and them in 4th and 5th, so fairly young I can't say companionship, but you know what I mean.

Went to eat with E., our great investigator, and he talked the whole time, even during the meal, about doctrine. Didn't talk about sports or the weather or anything else, wanted to know more about the priesthood, so we read sections of D&C 20 with him.

And Anziano Locklear was the district leader, don't know if I said that already, challenged the district to read the Book of Mormon in this transfer, so I finished it this week and I prayed about it again, and felt a spark start in the middle of my chest and spread outward, all the way down my arms and I just couldn't stop smiling during the prayer. I love the Holy Ghost, the feelings I get from it when he testifies are so unique and cool. No doubt in my mind if the Book of Mormon is true, whenever I read it and pray about it I just feel so good and so peaceful.

That's all for now, folks. Thanks for all the prayers and support. Read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, you'll receive an answer. Ciao ciao all, same time next week?

Thought I was going to end on a spiritual reference, but I just thought of Megamind right then [Mom mentioned a favourite quote a few weeks ago as an inspirational thought] .

Communque,

Sinceremente,

your favourite missionary,

Anziano Berg

August 28, 2013

My beloved brothers and sisters,

I usually like, as you are aware, to organize my thoughts in a day to day format. Unfortunately I am currently writing this epistle in an internet point that smells prominently of cigarette smoke in Lecco, and have not had time to organize my thoughts thus far. So I'll wing it.

The member who got baptized last week is now starting the Book of Mormon over again and is already starting 2nd Nephi. And has read up to D&C 82. And has read the Miracle of Forgiveness. And has prepared 2 talks already in case he gets called to give a talk in church. Whenever we have a rough day, then we always count our blessings, and say, "Well, we're teaching him. That's a miracle everyday." We taught him missionary work yesterday, and we learned every single catholic at his work he tells them that their baptism isn't valid. His girlfriend said "sometimes I think he's a little too harsh with people." And he cuts in and says "Well, this is the true church, and I want them to know that". And we brought him to a lesson with an investigator that is unsure about her baptism date, and she walks into the room and the first words he says "What's stopping you from getting baptized?" (They've met at church, but still pretty direct) And we say, "um, can we say a prayer first?" But then he throws it down. Super cool guy.

Weird stuff I've eaten paragraph came into my mind, so I'll write about that. You'd think I would be more spiritual if i didn't have instances to write about, but I want to write about weird foods. I've had raw ham and melon together, that's a fairly common snack, or you can have it with cooked ham. And I had octopus for the first time at a less actives house. It was alright, but I'm not used to eating seafood, I'm sure I would be if we ate at member's houses more often, but that's just not how it's done around here. But there's a plate of octopus cubed, and I have a little bit to be polite, and then halfway through the meal they say that we haven't touched the octopus yet. And my loving companion, who hasn't even tried it, says "I've eaten half of it already! I just want to save some for Anziano Berg!" And I'm forced to eat some more. But it tastes alright, just a funny story. What else... they have carbonated water they all drink, but you can choose natural, so I've been sticking with that. All the older missionaries said they didn't like it when they came out, and now they love it. Had fried beef liver at an Equadorian house for lunch one day, that was good. I think that's it for right now, I just eat spaghetti a lot since we cook for ourselves most of the time. But I wasn't aware there were so many different ways of eating pasta and spaghetti.

Umm... I can't actually think of specific things that happened this week. Did a lot of walking. And went to Lecco today and dropped off papers for my permesso di sogierno, permission to sojourn, don't know if that's a word in English. Permission to stay in Italia. And did a hike in Lecco with the other anziano [elder] with me at the MTC and his trainer up a mountain they can see from their apartment, the first 15 min. is around 45 degree slant so you end up taking giant steps that are a foot high. Good thing I've been training for the last couple of months. 

Not long today, thanks for the emails

Anziano Berg

August 21, 2013

Salve Fratelli e Sorelle [Greetings Brothers and Sisters]

I was going to write a little Italian paragraph, but nope, wrote a line of Italian and then erased it. But President Dibb [mission president] just made the announcement that everybody will be speaking Italian whenever they are outside of the house, so that's intimidating and exciting, looking forward to that.

So this week has continued to be ferie, the vacation month, and we don't have anything like it in Canada. Literally most of the shops are closed until the end of the month with a little sign in the window saying when they will open up. Our supermarket is still open, and that's the only one we really use anyways, but I have no idea how everybody pays for these vactations since they have a 2 hour lunch break every day and come home at 5 or 6. One clothing shop has signs plastered all over "everything 70% off!" but they're also closed until Sepemeber. And it's been hot, like usual.

 The fourteenth day of the eighth month of the year twothousand and thirteen- Got our biggest bidone of the mission so far, dissapointing but also funny. Bidone is trash, what we call it when an appointment doesn't happen. Set up a return appointment with this guy in a tiny park, it only has one entrance and a meter high fence surrouning it. We walk in, see him sitting down, and he gets up and I think "well, if he doesn't want to talk to us today at least we can say hi" since the only entrance is at our back, and he walks the opposite way and climbs over the fence. That was the highlight of the day just because it was so different

Agosto 15- Today was ferie di Agosto [August], a holiday they celebrate when everybody is on holiday anyways. And not for a specific reason, just the 15th of Agosto is considered a holiday. So we went with the bishop to a little picnic with some members and non-members, and played basketball (in dress cloths) against Bishop Vescovo and a non-member and we destroyed them. Then played a game of futsol where the goals with a soccer ball are the posts of the basketball nets, and they destroyed us. Last goal non-member was facing backwards and flicked it off his heel without looking at half court to score.

16-Cool miracle today. Doing strada [street contacting] in Arcore down the tracks, just missed our train back that we wanted to take, so went out for another 30 min before the next train came and taught a street lesson. Lord works in mysterious ways, but so cool looking back and realizing that that missed train was a blessing.

17- Met one of the members of our ward while walking, he's around 70 and the first member of the church in Albania and doesn't know any Italian. But somehow communicated to us that he wanted us to come with him, and wanted us to sit and watch him run laps around a park. So that's what we did. And by the way he's overweight and was running in sandals, jeans, and a hat, but hey, when you're the first person to be baptized in Albania you can do what you want.

18- Felt so good to go to the church, still don't understand a lot, but just love the feeling I get there.

19- Big miracle, not lots of time to write about it. Planning on walking back from a far appointment with a less-active, they gave us a ride, Anziano [Elder] Locklear felt like we should bike up to centro, we started, and met a potential that we hadn't been able to get ahold of. So walked our bikes alongside her to her apartment, and taught her a lesson outside her apartment. Funny once we got to the apartment -potential "what are you going to do now?" Anz. Locklear "We want to teach you a lesson" potential"about what?" Anz. Locklear "About Jesus. Can we start with a prayer?" potential "sure"   If only all lessons were that easy to start. But again, Lord has his hand in everything we do

20- Scambio [companion exchanges] with Anziano Paulson who is 6'5, so we turned a couple heads with the 2 giants walking down the street.

You can always tell when I look at the time and realize that I have 15 minutes left to write everything and to president and send pictures.   But thanks for all the prayers and support, the church is true!

Anziano Berg

August 14, 2013

My dear brothers and sisters

Amazing week.  BAPTISM!!!!  I was going to go day by day as I usually do, but this is just too big of a miracle.  Last Saturday our golden investigator, the one who phoned us up originally because he had a Liahona in his mailbox with our number on it, got baptized.  I've just been so happy all week,  nothing can even start to get me down right now.  It feels like I'm floating around, I'm so happy for him.  And we invited President Dibb [mission president] to the baptism since it was the first one we've had in Merate for 2-3 years, and we couldn't find in the area book an Italian baptized in the last 10 years, and he shows up with Sorella [Sister]Dibb, and asks to speak.  And gets up and bears a super powerful testimony using really simple Italian.  He said he was talking with Elder Holland on the phone the day before, and Elder Holland said every member needs to read the Book of Mormon again. That was cool, so started to read the BOM again, now currently reading in 3 separate spots in the BOM every day. 

I will now resort to my boring same ol' calendar method

Aug 7- Saw an Amish couple today, they asked us in English where to buy tickets for the train, that was really weird

Aug 8- I was here with Anziano [Elder] McKinnon on scambios [companion exchanges], and we desperately needed lessons and specifically with an investigator who’s come to church that we haven't met with yet. But she lives 2 hours away on bike, and we had appointments a half hour apart on either side of her appointment, so we needed a ride there.  So said a prayer that we could get there, and I phoned everybody for half an hour, right up to the time we teach our lesson before.  Start teaching our lesson, and in the middle of the lesson the phone rings, and it turns out to be someone who wasn't answering their phone that could give us a ride to the lesson and back again.  Super miracle.

9- Teaching one of our investigators at the church, the buzzer rings, and it turns out to be a member they invited to the lesson.  So can't complain when our investigators set up their own member-present lessons, a key indicator. 

10-BAPTISM!!!! Just had to write it again, looks so good.  And ate pizza spaghetti, shaped like a pizza but all spaghetti strands fried together or something, an inch thick and a bit thick, super good.  Had my camera with me, but didn't want to seem rude and pull it out at a member’s house and start taking pictures of their food. Look it up, pretty interesting

11- Our golden investigator got confirmed in church today, that was a really spiritual experience.  And our one person who plays the piano was on vacation, and she's really good and can play whatever they choose, so they assumed I could do the same thing and I played 4 hymns they chose, 1 of which I knew.  That was fun to stumble through and play a lot of right hand.  And we're walking back to the apartment at the end of the day, and Anziano Locklear says, "here, put the BOM in your sidebag" since he was carrying it and wasn't wearing one, and we're only 5 minutes away from home.  And I say, "Nope, we're pushing the miracle fence.  We're going to see a miracle after we pass this dog that always barks at us up here"  And he agrees, pass the dog, and meet a lady who is interested and gives us her number and address.  Going to see her tomorrow.  That was cool, at the very end of the day when we've given our all, that's when the Lord puts our faith to the test and starts pouring out the miracles.

12- Another scambio with Anziano Moore, super good day, just talked with everybody, including stopping people in their yards and on bikes, and got a bunch of potential investigators.

13- Similar to the 11th, not a lot of success all day at finding people to teach, and in the last hour we taught 2 lessons on the street. Haven't taught a street lesson for a month.  And the second lesson, cool how the Lord works, we were running late, jumped on the bikes, and my front tire was totally flat.  So start speed walking to the appointment, and meet a man who was originally born in Calgary, but moved here when he was a kid and doesn't speak English, and we taught him a lesson right there.  Wouldn't have stopped if we were speeding by on bikes already late.

That's all for now folks, thanks for the prayers and support.  Read the Book of Mormon every day, that's going to give you a lot more knowledge or incentive than I could write in these letters when you need a spiritual boost to keep you going. I'm so thankful for the power it has, we literally do nothing, just invite people to read and pray for themselves, to know if the Book of Mormon is true.  So read it.

 Sinceramente,

Anziano Berg

August 7, 2013

Howdy y'all
Eventful week, great time to serve the Lord, it was hot.
Sincerely, Anziano Berg

Aug 1-So last P-day [preparation day] we went to the Milano duomo, or main church there, and played some basketball with other missionaries and some members. The duomo was super cool, hard to imagine they built it so long ago, and the ceilings inside are so high with giant pillars supporting them. Cost money to take pictures inside, and it was mostly just huge stain-glass windows, beautiful, but didn't bother. 

And ate at McDonalds in Milano, got 2 big macs, super expensive but really good, haven't had that type of food for a while.

Then that night gave our investigator who is getting baptized on Saturday a blessing of healing, and he said he was feeling better already before we left the house. A miracle, but that's also expected, he has so much faith. President Wolfgram used to say we needed enough faith for both us and the investigator when we begin teaching them, other way around with him.

Aug2- So saw the juggler again, and we were closer this time and it turns out he chooses a really long stop light and then does a minute act, then goes car to car with his hat collecting money before the light turns. And funny because gypsys go car to car asking for money, but when he comes they leave since they don't have a chance of competing. Anyways, asked him if I could juggle his clubs, (that sounds pretty eloquent, I really said "Can I?") and did some tricks and made his and my day, that was nice to feel the proper weight in my hands again instead of pens or sticks.

And then doing strada [street contacting] in Arcore which is down the tracks, took the wrong train home and ended up almost in Bergamo, and took 3 hours to wait for trains to get back, since they don't run regularly at 9:30 at night. But good day, even with getting completely lost.

Aug3-Funny highlight of the day was we set up an appointment with a potential, and he lets us in but tells us he forgot and is having friends over in 20 minutes and we'll have to go. But 20 minutes is better than nothing, so we teach a little bit of 1st lesson, and I'm in the middle of the closing prayer when his friends call, he gets up and starts talking to them, but finished off the prayer fast with Anziano Locklear, so still counted as a lesson. First time that's happened, but there's a lot of first time happenings going on in these parts. (Don't know what kind of accent was that was intended to be read in, maybe western)

4-E., our golden investigator bears his testimony for the first time, even before his baptism. Definitely felt the spirit when he gave his simple testimony. Kind of like me, the spirit works through really simple statements of truth.

View from the church

5- Running out of time. Another scambio [companion exchange], this one with an anziano [elder] one transfer above me, so we had fun struggling trying to communicate. I got for the first time 2 numbers of potentials on my own, since Anziano Locklear usually helps me out and adds things in. But it wasn't me at all, if the Lord prepares them, then they'll stop and listen. And I know I can't take credit because I also stopped some people who listened to me just because they couln't understand me. But a great scambio overall.

6-set a baptism date with our eternal investigator who's been to church 17 times! And I think we surpassed teaching her 40 times last week. Miracles!

Most of the shops are closed from August 5-14, everyones on a vacation to who knows where. I think they have a nation-wide travel month, but they're currently all gone.

That's it for now folks. Thanks for the prayers and letters!
Anziano Berg

July 31, 2013

My beloved brothers and sisters,

Can't believe it's second transfer! Feels like I just got here, and everybody tells me it just speeds up once I'm done training.

Highlights- Taught E. ["golden" investigator] Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and did the practice baptism interview all in 45 minutes. And he did his real one yesterday, so excited for his baptism!

Ran into a woman street contacting a while ago, and she gave us her address. We stop by, and her uncle doesn't let us in. We pass by again a couple days later, the uncle is busy. So we don't see her for a while and we're debating about whether it's worth trying again, and we run into her again on the street, actually she sees us and calls us over, and we set up an appointment. So we go to the appointment, and she's not there, but her uncle is. But he lets us in and turns out to be really cool. Doesn't want to say a prayer at the beginning, and then volunteers to say a prayer at the end. And then we taught her later too, so it all works out in the Lord's time and in the Lord's way. I love miracles like that.

Cool view walking home one night

Temperature hit 40 a couple days this week, but we were mostly inside for lunch or teaching a lesson at the church at the hottest parts of the day. But just walking to the church was bad, and then when we came out of the church after teaching 2 or 3 lessons at 5:30 and it's still 35°, I can't imagine what it felt like.

Saw a unicyler on a 6 foot unicyle, juggling clubs in the middle of the street. But not a street festival, and a fairly busy street. He was just doing his thing and cars were lined up and honking at him, and even when he dropped 2, he balanced the one on his chin, which is really hard on the ground, let alone a unicyle. So he was really good, just funny because I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish. Nobody was going to pay him for holding them up, but at least I was impressed.

And after I wrote that experience in my journal I wrote "And just ate a pound of ice cream. Good night." Just another spiritually uplifting thought from the life and times of Anziano Berg.

And I also learned that David Nibly, the actor in the best 2 years and plays Alvin in "Joseph Smith:the prophet of the restoration" served in Merate for 13 months of his mission.

Stephano just got his call to Denver Colorado, so he came with us for a full day of missionary work including all the studies in the morning, which was really cool. Unfortunately this is the first day after a week of 30-40° that it decides to rain, and so we walked in the rain for a good portion of the day doing strada and casa a casa (tracting and door to door, literally house to house) But he's going to get days like that in Denver too, so overall good day.

And ate my first kebap here, the same as a Donair, when we were on Scambios [companion exchanges]. And taste the same, yummy and extremely unhealthy. But kebaps are pretty big here, along with pizza places every block. I don't know how they all stay in business. And pasta you buy in restaurants or there's a whole aisle and a bit devoted to the different kinds of noodles, let alone the sauces and meat and cheese to go with it. Never realized there was so many ways to make pasta.

Sorry it wasn't really spiritual this week, I like to include a little bit but want to finish up a little early to catch the train to Milano, we're going to hang out there and play some basketball and possibly go to the bone castle. Thanks for all the support and letters.

Cordially yours, Anziano "Awesome Socks" Berg (copied from Brian)

July 24, 2013

My beloved bros and sorelle [sisters],

I will take sections and thought out of my journal this week and see if it makes any sense.

July 17, 2013- (last Prepation day) Played basketball and soccer with the 4 missionaries in Lecco, super fun. We've played soccer up there in Lecco on a dirt field, but here we have a free artificial turf field that looks like it's sponsered with all the banners along the fence. And we had another 7 people join in, so a really good game of soccer. 1 was a little african kid, maybe 10 years old, who's deking me out and curving it into the net. It was 3:30 then, walk by later at 7:30 and he's still playing futsol with other people, which is soccer on the basketball court and you need to hit the post that holds the basket to score. Yeah, they're all really good. 1 person joined in in basketball, since everyone here sucks at basketball, and we called him Big Pain after Anziano [Elder] Murphy comes in for a layup and hes a large man and Anziano Murphy just runs into him and falls down. But didn't get his number and the next day, there's 14000 people in Merate, he's the first person we see and talk to and get his number. And I've never seen him beofre July 17 (sorry, I'm writing the 18th) 0% of that happening on it's own, definitely the Lord's hand in that miracle.

A corn field right by our house that we pass by everyday. 
The corn was just poking out of the ground when I got here.

I've really developed my testimony of prayer this week. A couple of experiences were I was just feeling like I couldn't get something right and just felt so much peace come as I finish praying. Prayer really is talking to our Father in Heaven, and he wants to hear from us, even when we necessarily don't want to talk to him. Another funny example, I was really hungry and prayed Anziano Locklear would make enough food, he takes a bite and hates it, so he wanted to eat junk food while I ate all the rice with this new kind of flavour, which I learned afterwards was cow intestine. It was alright, I'm not a picky eater.

Got sidebags today.  I still use my backpack for P-day and shopping and filling water bottles, but we buy the sidebags and the same day set 2 baptism dates. Obedience brings blessings, punto basta. (end of story, final)

I've met more interesting people already in 2 months than probably my whole life, just talking to everyone. For example, yesterday a really sweet older lady started talking about the weather with us as we were passing her, and at the end of the conversation she says "Give me a kiss" and she gives us both kisses on the cheek. More common to kiss people you know here, like at church, or I've done the cheek touch on both sides is pretty common, but never been kissed by someone we are passing on the street.

July 19-slightly sidetracked there, but during a lesson Anziano Locklear asks an inspired question from heaven, and she says, "I don't know". And we just wait in silence for literally a minute, but felt more like 10 minutes, in complete silence while the spirit was getting on her case. Cool example of the spirit manifesting in such an obvious way. TOAST it up! [Thrive On Awkward Situations Today]

Starting to love those akward situations where the person is sitting on a bench and can't keep on walking, and we just stand in silence after asking a question or sharing something and they just feel the spirit working. We are nothing in conversion, the Holy Ghost does everything. Cool experince with our golden investigator. We said we loved talking to him since he was so prepared, and he said " I don't see why you're so suprised. You have the authority to bring the Holy Ghost into peoples lives, and if they are prepared like I am, they will accept it."   He realizes it's hard to give some stuff up, but he says he's already received his answer and knows it's the true church, so he does it. I'm giving him 5 years before he becomes stake president.  He also daily contacted US on his vacation last week with a spiritual thought.

21- skipping around, sounds a lot like Isaiah with all the tenses mixed up, but wrote "Hard day, but feel happy-tired" That pretty much sums up a mission, happy-tired.

22- You knows it's hot when you are sitting doing nothing and still sweating. In a dark room. With the fan on. Heard from members it's supposed to be 40 here on Friday, so desperately trying to schedule appointements where we won't have to bike to them and book as many as possible so that we don't tract all day.  Need to hang up my shirt during pranzo [lunch] everyday to let it dry out, but not as bad now that i don't have a backpack on either. And yes, I mean dry out in the sense of sweating a bunch, but I'm starting to get used to it.

23- Anziano Locklear doesn't have white pants, and we were cleaning the house and I found a pair left from previous missionaries that fit him perfectly. Miracle right there, and then he makes ragu and pasta baked with mozerella melted on top. Another miracle, they're everywhere.

Best regards,

Anziano Berg

July 17, 2013

I'm in section 130 right now so I'll finish Doctrine and Covenants no problem with you guys now. Cool story, I'm reading it in every spare moment I have to make it by August 7th, and we're waiting in Lecco in the police offfice in an incredibly packed room waiting for them to call us up so I can get my Permesso, or permisison to stay here. And so I decide to pull out D&C and start reading. And the man standing next to me is silent for a couple of minutes, then I guess has been looking at the words since he says, "Do you speak English?" And I'm suprised since I assumed everyone in the room didn't speak English, even the police officers, and we start up a conversation and he turns out to be from Ecuador and lives in our area, not Lecco. And he gives us a ride home, and we plan on giving him our number when he drops us off, but he asks us, "You should come over to my house sometime. Do you want to?" So he made first contact and then invites us over. we were pretty suprised but taught him that day and left him with a spanish Book of Mormon and going to visit him again. But just so you know family, your reading the Doctrine and Covenants has allowed us to get a new investigator.

Lake in Lecco

And his background story he was telling us shows the impact that we don't even realize we make. He was a wee lad living in Ecuador (well, he didn't use those exact words) and he saw missionaries like us and one of them oiled his skateboard, and we are the first missionaries he's seen since then. That's why he was so open, the Lord prepares people in his own way and own time. 100% guaranteed that missionary did not realize the impact he had, he might have even been apostate, but every single thing we do as missionaries and everything you do as members is being watched and examined. Don't have to be talking to people for them to realize you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, and you follow his example. So thank you for a new investigator. Then after the lesson he takes us to visit 3 of his friends, and we're probably going biking with them next Preparation Day.

So met Presidente and Sorella [Sister] Dibb [new mission president and wife] yesterday, they're amazing! President Dibb pointed out in the Bible dictionary under faith, that miracles don't grow faith, but rather obedience increases faith. That was really cool, never thought about it that way before. I knew that when you're obedient you get blessings, but obedience, even when you don't know the reason why, actually grows your faith. So even if you don't feel like reading scriptures or praying late at night, if you do those things then your faith will grow. Sorella Dibb told a story about a missionary in her ward, I think, who backed his companion out in a totally empty parking lot when they were the only ones at the church. And an investigator sees this and asks why, and they say we want to be 100% obedient, and the investigator decided then to be baptized because he wanted to be part of a church where people want to obey commandements and aren't forced to do anything.

Finally memorized D&C 4 in Italian, wrote the time in my journal since it was hard.

And hailed for 5 minutes that day (July 13) too, that was weird. We were inside.
So worldwide changes here-ready? No backpacks, looks too casual and touristy.  I'll be buying a shoulder sidebag whatever they're called.  

Went on a scambio (companion exchanges) with Anziano [Elder] Davis, the district leader. That was great, he goes up to a family reunion and shouts out "Excuse me! Do you want to know how families can be together forever?" And they aren't interested, but cool to see how our tongues should be loosed. And went on another scambio 2 weeks ago, just forgot to write about it.

And got 16 lessons again! 2 weeks in a row!

Jumped around as usual, out of time, thanks for the letters and support,

Anziano Berg

July 10, 2013

My beloved brothers and Sisters,

Saw an amazing sunset here, the cloud in front of the sun was the exact same colour as the sky all around it so there was a line of sunlight in the dusk in the outline of the top of a cloud.  Unfortunately this isn't a good description at all and I didn't have my camera so you can all just wish you were there and try to imagine how beautiful it was.

Made lasagna starting from eggs and flour last P-day [preparation day/day off] with a part-member family, then ate it for dinner and had a lesson and it was soo good. All the food is really good here though, you can be jealous of that too as well.

Really good gelatto, but not gelatto

Taught our golden investigator again. Our main concerns were if he had a problem with the word of wisdom [health code] and law of chastity [moral code], and while we're explaining repentance and how we confess serious sins to the bishop and he asks like what and Anziano [Elder] Locklear is trying to explain chastity without saying the word chastity since he might not undersatnd and this is a really bad run on sentence, he says "Oh, you mean like the law of chastity?" So his girlfriend has taught him both topics already it turns out, and he answers our biggest questions by himself. And our biggest concern was if he was doing it for his girlfriend, and in the same lesson we're bearing testimony [what we know to be true] and he cuts in and says "You don't need to try and convince me. I know the church is true, and I'm getting baptized for myself, with or without my girlfriend there." (his girlfriend is a member, and a really good missionary obviously) The Lord is definitely preparing more people to hear the gospel, when they start contacting you and know all the lessons before you teach them. And he takes notes during lessons as well. Then (on July 4) we go to a members house and have a little Independence Day party with the only other American in the ward apart from my companion, but the food was good, so that was a highlight. And he drives us home in his van going 50 km per hour around traffic circles, I was looking at the speedometer, and feeling like we were going to tip at every one, which traffic circles are every block in Italy, I've only seen 4 traffic lights so far.

July 5-So we haven't found any new investigators all week, and Anziano Locklear prays to start off companionship study that we can find a new investigator, and 2 minutes later the phone rings and it's a referral from Mormon.org with someone who wants the missionaries over. He actually wasn't that interested once we visited him, but just shows HUGE miracles are just waiting for us and all we need to do is keep on being obedient and working hard and praying. And another miracle- 3 new baptism dates in one day!

Biked for 2 hours, that was fun one day going to and from an appointment, 40 km total. And nobody was home. So we figured it was building up for a miracle with that test of faith, which it was. We finally got 15 lessons was our miracle. Sitting outside in the rain Sunday night, 6:00, only 12 lessons. Really want 15. Ended up getting an appointment with a family that had already said no, and two others last minute. At 9:30 back at the house we had 15. Could not have done that without the Lord's help. I view it as the huge miracle of the week.

Milan has 5 million, Merate has 14000, average in zone was 13.4 lessons, we got 15, standard of excellence. President Wolfgram promised us if we got 15 lessons a week we would get more baptisms.

Still haven't met President Dibb [new mission president] until the 16th, but he's going to all the apartments and personally doing inspections, which is like around 100-150 apartments, I think there's 160 missionaries in Milan mission and I don't know how many live together. But cleaned for more than an hour this morning, fairly nervous for that.

I know it just turned really unlegible point form there, but leaving early today. The gospel is true, there's no way it could not possibly be with the witness from the Holy Ghost that I have received. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God and through reading this book, we can draw closer to God our father and Jesus Christ.

Anziano Berg

July 3, 2013

My beloved brothers and sisters

Fantabulous week. Faith precedes miracles. Clichè, but true. And there's a separate button on this keyboard with the letter è, so that's cool so I can write the word clichè fast. Which doesn't end up being fast at all since I'm explaining this all out. Anyways, super cool bigger than normal miracle happened this week. Remember the guy who phones us up and says he want to come to church? (Week Two Update,the life and times of Anziano Berg, 26/06/13, paragraph ix) Well, we go to his house and he has a Liahona [Church's international magazine] lying on the table, the same thing as the Ensign there. We ask him where he got it and he tells us he came home from work one day, and out of the 300 apartment mailboxes, his is the only one with this Liahona in it. And so he thumbs through it, and it turns out there's our number stamped on the back, which we have in our apartment and stamp the passalong cards we give away so that they can get ahold of us. So he phones up his girlfriend and asks if she's even heard of this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it turns out shes been an active member for 20 years. And she encourages him to phone us up and that's when he phoned Saturday morning. But we have absolutely no idea how that got in his mailbox, but definitely huge miracle there. Then the lesson went amazing and he's got a baptism date the first lesson, which is fantastic, so happy for him. Then we taught him the Plan of Salvation yesterday, and he said it just makes perfect sense now where he came from and where we are going after we die. And he confirms his own appointments and texts us good morning. Just an overall super cool and prepared guy.

And on June 27, the martyrdom of Joseph Smith was also the last day President Wolfgramm [mission president] was here in Italy. And he promised us if we worked hard we would place a Book of Mormon that day. And we placed it with an 78 year old Italian guy, which Anziano [Elder] Locklear was telling me is unheard of in all of Italy. So that was neat. Whoever reads this, be obedient. It brings so many blessings.

Last miracle. We go to 2 Peruvians house with a Peruvian member with us, and we're talking about baptism and the spirit is really strong and they say straight up they know they need to be baptized and are ready, but there's some Peruvian custom festival thing that they need to organize or that somehow breaks covenants or something like that (I still have difficuly understanding gospel Italian, let alone this-actually, I didn't understand any of this at the time and my companion had to explain it to me afterwards, but he didn't get it either) Anyways, the Peruvian answered it so perfectly and could entirely relate with them and resolved their concerns and they are going to choose a baptism date.

In answer to your questions:  We mostly walk, but we bike when we're late for an appointment or we need to get somewhere really far away. When we walk from place to place we try to talk to everyone, so we do lots of strada [street contacting].

The vines are all over, just really cool

We have an investigator, no idea how she was found, who lives in Cornate, so it's still in our area and we biked out twice to visit her, but it takes half an hour at a good clip to get there, and then another half hour back. But we try and focus our finding efforts arount Merate and the cities along the railway track so that we can visit them easier and they can come to church a lot easier if they don't have a car.

And then we alternate making lunch, and we don't eat an actual dinner. sometimes at a house they'll make a little snack for us (they don't put icing on cake here either) and only once have we eaten spaghetti before a lesson with a part-member family. But then we'll come home and if we're hungry throw a pizza in the oven before we go to bed.

Out of time, God speed

Anziano Berg

June 26, 2013

I've just been forgetting to write in journal, but we made a miracle wall now which is write a miracle everday that happened that day to show we recognize all that the Lord is giving us. We joke the more sticky notes on the wall we have, the miracles are exponential. So easy to write about miracles

The 20th, whatever that was, we had every single appointement fall through for the day, so we're doing strada [street contacting] and not having success, so Anziano[Elder] Locklear sits down and says "Let's do a popp chart, then we'll get the miracles." Popp charts are something the mission president made up where we teach a principle, ask inspired question, share scripture, and bear testimony [say what you know to be true]  all under 2 minutes. So we do, and then feel we have to go to Arcore, a couple of stops down on the train. Get off the train in Arcore, see a man sitting there, and teach him a lesson right there on the bench at the train station. Not the most suitable environment conducive to the spirit with loud trains roaring past, but left him with a Book of Mormon. Then did strada for a bit, got back on the train to Merate, got off, and exact same thing. Well, didn't give him a Book of Mormon, but set up a return appointement and he knows one of the members so 2 miracles right there.



View from the train passing Lecco

Everyday we plan on looking for a person in particular, and describe them in detail to show the Lord we're putting our faith to work. I think I said last week I talked about finding the woman with brown hair and pink tanktop. This one day we decide we're teaching a South American man in a red polo, and we spend all day looking for him in particular, nothing. So we sit down, do a popp chart, say a prayer that we can find this man, and 10 minutes later we find a South American man ready to hear the gospel and we have a return appointment. And had really good popsicles that day too. Another miracle.

And had gelatto for the first time. You know I don't really care about quality of food, but it was really good. And coming from me that's impressive.

Then we go to a less active who hasn't been to church in over a year, and we read Mosiah 2 with him and his girlfriend, and it just so happens that (I might have written this last week but I don't think so) she read the verses about unquenchable fire ascending forever and ever, or something like that and we didn't even plan for her to be there. But it had an effect becuase Sunday comes and he's there in church, and she's there too which was really cool. Oh yeah, and had 7 investigators in church on Sunday, no big deal.

Some local churches - We call the one on the hill the Nauvoo Temple

And highlight miracle of the week, all miracles are great of course, but a man phones us up Saturday morning and says bluntly "I want to come to your church." He's never been to church before, he's had almost no contact with the church, I think it was an old girlfriend who was a member. So we say, "Oh, I guess we can maybe give you the directions" And he shows up Sunday and the members are fantastic, everybody is coming up and talking to him, and he gets invited by a family to dinner that night and he accepted. It was kind of funny we needed to explain the Book of Mormon in 30 seconds when we used it to look up a scripture, but he kept on asking questions and was really interested in not paid bishops and aposltes and a prophet and how it was the same in Christ's day and we're like "Yeah, that's because it is Christ's Church on the earth today. It makes sense." So we're teaching him tomorrow, he's just super cool and super elect. And Italian, which is rare, we're mostly teaching Africans and South Americans.

Alot of other experiences this week and just with personal revelation I've realized how perfect God has planned everything out and we need to be in specific places at specific times. For example, both of us don't know what the word for queen is, I ask during a lesson, and later that night Anziano Locklear feels inspired to use it in a blessing, which if it wasn't for teaching a lesson earlier that first lesson, we would not have given. If that makes any sense. But just super cool to even sometimes just start to fathom how it's all meshed together in perfect unity and everything is planned out so perfectly. Sets an example for us, we need to plan out everything before we do it because that's what God did.  Anyways, that's it for this week. I'm so happy right now serving others. And so tired and hot and sweaty, but this is what the Lord wants me to be doing right now, along with everybody else. We can all do missionary work. The Furthering the work broadcast about missionary work has been shown in America, but they're showing it on Sunday here, so looking forward to that. Anziano Laceste said it was really inspiring. Thanks for all the support, the church is true.

God Speed,

Anziano Berg

June 19, 2013 - Italia!

Well, nothing much new happened with me this week, just went to Italy. That's about it.

So took an airbus to London, it's a two story plane, and 11 seats across. But it was such a bad ride because we couldn't watch movies in the seat in front of us for 9 hours or something like that. Then the plane was 20 minutes late landing and our next flight was in 40 min, so we totally missed that because we had to find the gate in London airport which is huge and go through security again, so we had an 8 hour layover there, which actually helped a lot with jetlag because we all just slept all day. Got off the plane, pizza at 11:00 at night, got with my trainer Anziano [Elder] Locklear the next day and went to the duomo, or main church [Catholic cathedral], to strada(street contact) Then we took a train and we're about 40 minutes outside of Milan, they might have said Merate, but it's an even smaller city right next to Merate called Cernusco. We cover all of the Mirate area though, so a bunch of small cities around that area. We mostly walk, but we'll take the bikes for longer trips and the train when we need to teach somebody in another city like Ancore down the tracks. Then we usually do some strada there before heading back. Not even close to the size of Milano, most everybody here takes the train into Milano to work in the mornings. I've got the train schedule figured out now, but the metro in Milano is so confusing finding our way around, so I just follow a lot.

Anziano Locklear is such an amazing companion. He's from Knoxville, Tennessee, so I'm learning Italian and my English is starting to have a southern twang, he has a really strong accent. He's really outgoing and a really hard worker, which is great. It's a tradition to take the junior companion out for gelatto, but we haven't had time yet. And a lady who's not interested in the church but really nice offers us over for pranzo(lunch) and the last companionship did it all the time since it was really good Sicilian food, but it doesn't help us fufill our purpose so he doesn't. Miracles happening in this mission now. 2 transfer before I came here they were teaching 2-4 lessons per week, and the [mission] president really pushed standard of exellence at 15, and they did 15 and we did 9 this week, with 20 lessons planned but the majority of them fell through (called bidone,trash).

Language is getting slowly better, trying really hard to obtain His word and then the words will be given to me, but I'm pretty quiet most of the time, which I shouldn't be. Just need to open my mouth and say what comes out. It's actually an advantage to me because I can only do simple statements of bold truth, which is ideal for all missionaries, the only problem is I don't know what they are saying back to me.

Bore testimony [what know to be true] to the ward on Sunday, we have about 80 people in the top floor of an apartment building, and I planned it all out and role played with Anziano Locklear so I wouldn't get grammar wrong and I thought it went well, but mi collega (companion) said afterwards my voice was so low that he couldn't understand anything. I'm taller than mostly everybody, and I thought Brian's voice was low compared to mine, but everybody is higher with the sing-song way of talking.   But it's all good, think I made a good first impression.

Very beautiful county, anything will grow here including stuff from Canada, like I saw a spruce the other day next to a palm tree. Crazy drivers, and maybe not that bad compared to a big city in America, but coming from Red Deer without motorcycles driving in between cars and all that, very new experience. And really narrow streets, even for the smaller cars which is all you find here. Most of them don't have sidewalks, so we just walk single file when a car comes by.  Reminds me more of paved alleyways.

View from our apartment window

We live in top story of an apartment, just us, but they have siesta here from 1:30 -3:30 so we eat a big lunch at home since nobody is out on the street during that hour, and then language study. President said just study inside because you won't find anybody and they're all taking naps. The humidity is the worst part of adapting right now, everyday it's short sleeves. On the first day I wore a long sleeve and took my suit off, but just in the hour it took to get home I was considering taking a picture of the sweat stains on the collar. It's always muggy, but bearable though. Italian immersion is hard, we speak English inside the house but outside try to only speak Italian. And it's not like Italian speaking in the States, where you can still resort to English, it's "hopefully mi collega [my companion] can translate that because I don't know what it is". We spend most of our time trying to go to lessons, the President has put a focus on investigators we already have in the area book and nonactives, but we truthfully spend most of our time doing strada. Haven't actually done casa yet(house to house) just do a giro centrale (circle lap that covers the center of the city and where all the people hang out) of Merate or Cernusco and talk to everybody on the street. At zone conference, APs  [assistants to the president] were saying that if you present the Book of Mormon the right way and leave them wanting more so you can give it to them in their house with a return appointment, they will want to take it out of our hands. And it had happened the day before, a man, P.,  said let me see that book and took it from me and S. saw a passalong card sticking out of Anziano Locklear's pocket and took that. So really excited to teach them next week. And so big lunch and no supper, or a snack when we get back to the house.

Zone conference before we started there was a tally on the board for what I thought was a vote, but lunch comes and they had made every person there own large thincrust pizza for lunch.

Cool story, doing strada and a lady was sitting down on the other side of the street, passed her, felt we had to turn back which would be really awkard after she saw us just walk by, told my collega, and I was kind of scared if it wasn't really a proper prompting and she told us to get lost, which was a totally irrational fear once even if she did turn us down, but walked back and she invited us to sit down and Anziano Locklear talked for 15 min. I timed it. She's a really strong Catholic and wouldn't accept a Book of Mormon, but now she definitely knows that we aren't bad people and knows a little more about our church. So even though we didn't get a baptism date or anything like that, it was just cool to realize the spirit so directly in my life, which is most of the time, but more directly so. And they haven't had a baptism for a year and a half, used to be considered a bad mission, and we have 2 baptism dates for next month.

And President saw I had juggling written down on my papers and everybody had seen me juggle at the Missionary Training Center and they told the president he needed to see it, so I had to juggle with apples and eat them when meeting up with our trainers and again at zone conference in front of 60 people. So that was fun.

[Check out the video of him juggling on the mission blog under "June Arrivals" and hear his new companion, Anziano Locklear's reaction!]

Went to language class after zone conference yesterday, I'm doing most of this by memory because I haven't been writing in my journal in the most interesting time of my life, so most of this is fairly recent, but expecting to teach people who didn't really know English and it's just people who have accents who don't have an opportunity to speak English anywhere else. So we talked about politics, which we're not supposed to get involved in, but it's important to them right now. So that was super fun as well.

Signing off now, thanks for all the letters. Will try to send pictures, but I've barely taken any anyways, just from our window. TTFN

God Speed,

Anziano Berg