This has been another great week! We are continuing to receive a ton of blessings here in Sassari, and the work is definitely moving forward. Our investigators are doing great, and we are really excited as we come into April. The language is going good! We speak nearly only Italian on most days, and I felt good as my English class told me that I was starting to get a Sardo accent! That might not be a good thing though because I think the rest of Italia make fun of their accent!
As for the investigators, they are making great progress. We are really gaining the member's trust, and they are beginning to come with us to lessons with these investigators much more. For example we took this young guy named Gianluca with us to have a lesson with Enoch, and it went well. To us it was a huge, yet simple miracle- Enoch came to church and loved it. It was his first time, and people were very friendly with him. In fact, they think he has one of the most beautiful names ever! We have another member from Nigeria, but unfortunately she wasn't there because I think they'd hit it off well! It is so amazing to see the change in Enoch's life.
We had an awesome lesson with Adhemar on Monday. Unfortunately he didn't come to church, but he is reading so much of the Book of Mormon. He just gets things instantly, and understands the principles so well. Definitely a 'golden investigator'. We taught the Plan of Salvation with a member named Fortunato Masala who is a stud. The Spirit was so strong as we discussed these topics and then after the lesson was done his wife came home from work and we talked with her and broke the ice a bit with her.
One of the best parts about the lesson didn't happen until the end. Part of me is embarrassed to tell this, but it's a cool story. As missionaries we ask for referrals from everyone. When we contact people we don't know we always ask if they know someone who would be interested. Obviously we are supposed to do this with our investigators, but for some reason we always forgot with Adhemar. At the end of the lesson I felt so strong that I should ask him for friends, acquaintances, or whoever that could benefit from the things we are teaching him now. Right then and there without thought he gave us six people! It was amazing! It's amazing what the Spirit does to help us, even in reminding us of the simple things we are supposed to do. Tonight we have planned to contact these six people and I have faith that we will have new investigators.
Speaking of new investigators we found one Friday morning! When doing house contacts a few weeks ago we found this lady named Emanuela who had attended our English course years before, and then got married, had two kids, and didn't have time after that. When we met her she told us that we could come back and share our message with her. Well we tried for a few weeks and she was never home. We were in the area Friday morning and an appointment fell through, so we decided to try again. Luckily she was home! She told us that she didn't have much time because she was about to go to work, but she let us come in. We met her beautiful little family, and we had a lesson with her. We asked her about her spiritual desires, and she said that she wants to be closer to God, and she is searching for another faith in which she can express her love for Him. Perfect. We explained to her our purpose as missionaries, asked her if we could teach her these lessons, and she agreed. We are so excited for her! I'll keep you all posted on how things go with her. She is really busy with work, but no doubt she'll make the gospel a priority in her life!
Another miracle happened. We finally had a lesson with Maddalena! First off, it's hard to explain her personality, but she is a jokester, sometimes a bit stubborn, but always full of love. She has been extremely busy with her job, yet comes to church nearly every week because she works for this family in the branch and lives with them. Finally she was available to have a Family Home Evening with us and the Murgia family at their home. We had a great time, and we decided that we were going to talk about happiness. We watched the film 'Finding Happiness' and then got into a great discussion about that. Maddalena talked about how much she loves the church, and how grateful she is to the Murgia family for their example of showing their happiness on an everyday basis. We then started bearing testimony, and the Spirit was so strong, so I felt like we needed to talk to her about baptism. I expressed to her the love that we all have for her, and told her that we want to help prepare her for baptism, and in order to do that we would need to meet with her twice a week. I promised her that if she would do this, she would find more happiness in her life. She accepted! We are really excited for her and pretty soon we hope to set her a baptismal date. Joking about the lesson later on she says that when teaching lessons I'm dangerous, in a good way, whatever that means???
To share some funny stories we've had some moments that have really almost brought us to tears from laughing so much. We decided to do weekly planning in centro of the city one evening because we thought that going home to do it would take too much time before going to our next appointment. It turned out to be a bad idea. We got caught up holding back our laughter from this poor kid about Greg's age learning how to roller-skate. He was the most diligent little guy I've ever seen! He fell countless times, almost took out an old lady, and crashed into planters left and right. Later on we saw this drunk guy who almost fell as he walked in figure eights around the city square, and then he disappeared. We saw him again a few minutes later with a gelato in hand (Italian ice cream) and he was singing a song about how good his gelato was. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. This is all a bit random, but I am grateful to see funny things like this everyday. This isn't even the half of it! I'm excited for when I come home and can recount to you all the funny things I see!
Well that's about it for the week! Things are amazing here in Sassari! We are so lucky and blessed by the Lord. I know for a fact why He wants me here in Sassari, and I would do anything to stay longer. I love you all so much! I love you Dad, I love you Mom, I love you Morgan, I love you Brooke, I love you Heather, I love you Greg. Have an awesome week! Send my love to everyone! Vi voglio una galassia di bene!
Con amore,
Anziano Clay Lacey
"...quale gioia è ciò per il mio cuore, sapere che vive il Redentore." (Hymn:I Know that My Redeemer Lives"
No comments:
Post a Comment