Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Ho quasi fatto un anno!

Cara famiglia mia,
English class students celebrating Clay's birthday!

Buongiorno! Thank you all for the birthday wishes and for the love I felt! I am glad you all had a wonderful time finishing off the end of the year and celebrating birthdays! This has seemed like a long, but a very fun week. So much has happened with the switches and I like how things are going! Here is the rundown of the week day by day:

Wednesday I spent the day getting the house nice and clean for Anziano Hopper and during the night Anziano Schwing and I did some work including teaching Salim, which went really well! We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and he already wants to be baptized so we need to just get him a date! Real quick just a cool point, from that point on with Anziano Schwing until now I've been speaking only Italian! It's great!

Thursday we went to Alghero and picked up our companions from the airport. Anziano Hopper is a great guy and he was right away in agreement to speak only Italian! We ate a little lunch and the Olbia guys headed out. Anziano Schwing is training an awesome Italian from up north. A little bit about Anziano Hopper, he is the youngest of eight children from Sandy Utah, where Anziano Barker is from! He is hard core into scouting and he is really funny and we basically have a ton of fun together. He is also probably the most organized person I know which is a huge example to me!

Well he got settled in and we headed over to English course. It was weird at first because there wasn't very many people there at all in my class, and I was disappointed because I was excited for the lesson we were going to have with Lorenza. Halfway through the course Lorenza, her husband Sergio, and Maria came in with homemade cakes, drinks, and birthday candles! I didn't even remember telling them that it was going to be my birthday, but they must have remembered from a while ago! You have no idea how loved I felt and how huge of a surprise it was. It's hard to describe, but just from that little act I could tell how much they cared. Throughout language barriers, different cultures, and even religious backgrounds there is a type of hidden connection that binds us as literal children of our loving Heavenly Father. Unfortunately we didn't get to do the lesson with Lorenza because of the party, but we'll plan and hope for next week. 

The birthday went good! It was pretty much just like a normal day, I got up, worked out, had studies, and then we planned for the week like we do on every Friday. For lunch we did something a little special and went to my favorite pizzeria called Panegrosso. I wanted to wait until night to open my gifts, but pranzo time is when we have the most free time so I decided to open them then. Thank you so much for everything! The music, the funny but awesome Chinese shirt, and all of the cards! It really made my day and it was an awesome birthday! That night we went to Adhemar's house for a lesson. The lesson went great and we taught about tithing. He is so ready to become a member and we asked him to fast about baptism. Like I said before he loves to sing, and so we all sang the Italian version of "Nearer my God to Thee". He loved the song so much and wanted to sing it for his family, so he brought them in and we sang. Things are going much better with him and his wife and prayers have been answered. After spending some time with the family Anziano Hopper mentioned something about it being my birthday, and Adhemar was so excited! He wished me happy birthday, but it was a little awkward with his family since they don't celebrate birthdays. Well he gave his daughter some money and she bought some ice cream and we had a ton of fun together during the evening. I love the Gamarra family so much and I pray that they too will know the truthfulness of the course their father is taking.

Church was good and Adhemar really enjoyed it! There was a family from Utah that was visiting and I did the translation for them during sacrament meeting which was a lot of fun! We went to Olbia for district meeting and we have an awesome district! I am so excited for this transfer. 

That's about it for the week! Things are going great and I can't believe I am a few days from my year mark! I love you Dad, I love you Mom, I love you Morgan, I love you Brooke, I love you Heather, and I love you Greg. Have a great week and stay safe! Thank you all for everything! Vi voglio tanto bene!

Cari saluti, 

Anziano Clay Lacey

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