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