Monday, May 28, 2012

Baptisms and lots of tunfoolery(shenanigans)

Salve! I am doing very well! Eva was baptized and confirmed a member and is doing soooo great!!! We had lots of crazy stuff happen before her baptism but despite all of that, She got baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was amazing! It was such a special experience for her and was able to bear her testimony at the end in front of everyone and it was raelly touching. It was interesting because her white clothes for the baptism went missing before the baptism and that was crazy. AFter many phonecalls, searching everywhere we found them! Not to move on but we have 2 more baptisms this weekend! Its all set in stone and we are SOO excited! The family is so bravo! We taught a lesson and surprised us with a birthday dinner because Christian who is being baptized had his birthday the same day and they had us celebrate with them and It was soooo fun! I also got to eat a lot of the food Anziano(eldér) Corbett is eating! I guess I get the best of both worlds, south american and Italian! We are emailing a bit late today because we have had a crazy day. We got invited to go teach a class in school and teach ragazzi about the church as well as us being missionaries and alll. It was a very interesting experience mainly because that would not fly in the us because of seperation of church and state and parents would have freaked out. It was really fun and we got invited to do it again for a different class next tuesday so we are pretty excited. Its a little nerve wrecking but at the end of it we were all smiling. Other Im not quite sure what to write because the past few days have FLOWN by and so much crazyness has happened. I hope everyone is well! Funny story today, we accidentally found our selves in a VERY expensive pizzeria but we didnt know it. We bought some pizza and is was AMAZING. a pizza was 28 euro there. We just got a deal with one piece with a coke for 5 euro. The peice was very big and very good. So that was pretty funny. Its crazy how fast this transfer has gone by. A week from tomorrow I will have a new companion! I cannot believe it! My goodness! I know that this gospel is true and is blessing the lives of many right now and I have the opportunity to be apart of it! I am very thankful for this opportunity to serve right now in Milano 2! Until next time! Sinceramente, Anziano Collins

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Wedding, skype, food, work!

Salve! This past week was...wait for it......crazy! Where to start....soo We had a wedding this past saturday. It was so awesome! Eva is right on track for her baptism this saturday! It was so cool to see her with daniel at the alter and see them make big steps in their lives. So many small things had let to that event and my companion and I were just so ecstatic because how much the ward here showed them support! That could not have happened if were not for God. He was with them every step of the way and now they are very happy! There next move is Evas baptism this saturday which will be amazing. It was awesome to talk to you guys this past sunday! IT was only slightly weird due to the fact that I hadnt seen you all for 6 months! ITs so crazy that today is my 6th month mark! Time flies by so fast! I feel like i just left the other day! Next thing I know christmas will be here! This past week we contacted a referal we got and we were just astonished. The family we met was Darwin, rossi, and natalia. There are a family from salvador. The husband, darwin, is a less active member that wants to come back to church, the wife, rossi, is not a member that wants to learn more about us and follow her husband and Natalia, the daughter, is very interested as well and will follow her parents. We are so excited to work with them as they try to find that peace and happiness they want in their lives. Another awesome thing is that they live very close to Eva and Daniel!!! We are excited to get them involved! We have been working pretty hard. We have lots of improvements to make but we are doing well. My companion is running out of time and wants to get work done so the upcoming weeks we will do a lot of work! I hope all is well! Until next time! Sinceramente, Anziano Collins p.s. I attached some pictures of when we went on top of the duomo, as well from the wedding this past weekend. enjoy!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

CRAZY!

CIAO! This past week was another crazy one and it will be crazy for awhile but that is ok! THe work is moving along here in Milano. My companion and I are figuring out better how to work with one another and how to work in this area! Right now we are teaching a peruvian family who is awesome! Carmen and her son Christian know that the book of mormon is true and are preparing to be baptized for the 26th of this month! It's crazy for us because there is a lot that has to get done before then so we are working hard to get them ready! We have to start finding more people now because once them and Eva are baptized, we are going to have a lot of time on our hands! This weekend is going to filled with events, we have a wedding this saturday and then sunday I get to call you guys! Its so weird to think that! Other than that, not much has changed. I am still doing well and losing some weight so that is awesome! I will share a quick story with you all! 2 days ago we did a scambio which is where missionaries switch with another coppia for a day to learn and what not. Anziano Gessel, who was in the mtc with me, was my companion for the day. Our cool little miracle was that we were looking really hard for someone to teach and we couldnt find anyone. After walking around forever and talking with crazy people we saw two hispanic looking people fishing in a little river near our house. We decided to talk to them. One of them was named Carlos, and he was pretty interested and we ended sitting on a bench near the river and taught him a little bit and he wanted to learn more. We were so excited because we have had a hard time finding new investigators to teach so it was a wonderful blessing! I hope you are well! Until next time! Sinceramente, Anziano Collins!

Weird stuff goes down in Milano....

Buongiorno tutti! Ci siete? We had a crazy week this past week. So many things happened that I cannot even explain all of what had happened. WE had some realllllyy weird experiences as well. So we are just hoping for a calmer up coming week. I am doing well! MY companion is really awesome and is showing me how to cook some amazing things and more importantly is showing me how to be a better missionary! This past week we ran into a few interesting situations where we had to faith walk, diciamo, in order to get to an appointment. MEaning we had not idea where we were, our map didnt cover the area we were in and somehow still found the places we needed to be. It is a very interesting situation to be in but God is always looking out for us! We were able to see a baptism this past sunday and got our friendly bulgarian investigator Eva to it. It was a wonderful experience! A mom and her son were baptized and there was a wonderful spirit there. Eva was excited because she got to see how a baptism goes and is super excited for her baptism! We are excited for these next three weeks with her because her marriage is next weekend with her baptism the following weekend. Eva time we teach her we see a miracle and it just amazes me how God had prepared her for this passage in her life. It baffles me completly! I had a pretty cool experience yesterday that showed me how blessed I am to be a missionary. We got invited to a lunch yesterday by a woman named Tina from the ward. We got there and it was such a cool experience. At the lunch there were 2 philipino people, 2 perivuans, a Ghanan, and 2 americans. We all had spoken atleast 2-3 languages. The only things we had in common were that we are members of the church and happen to be in the same city in Italy. I was just blown away how were were all brought together in such a way, it was such a cool experience. This is another cool fact, yesterday alone I heard the following langauges in conversations- Russian, bulgarian, french, spanish, ITalian, Arabic, English, Twee(African langauge), and two unrecognizable langauges. I am definately excited to be a missionary, expecially here in Milano!!!!!! I hope all is well! Sinceramente, Anziano Collins