Workin hard.....NO AC....Heat is a coming.....

Buongiorno!!! If you have notice the subject of the email, the reference is not to the saddening victory of the nba heat but to an actual heat that is consuming milano. Its just like in VA here except pollution traps the heat here and intensifies it and all we have is one fan and no ac. So that has put a damper on us but we are still happy!! This past week we worked our butts off and we are happy! We are still teaching Rudy, our philipino investigator and he is going so strong! He has already given up smoking and drinking and is reading the book of mormon. He is so awesome!!! I think one of the coolest things right now is that we have 4 solid investigators right now, one from the philipines, one from egypt, one from Nigeria, and one from peru. Ronaldo is the one from peru and he is so awesome! I have a very hard time understanding him because he speaks half spanish half italian which usually is not a problem for me but for some reason I can not understand him to save my life. He accepted the invitation to baptism so we were pretty excited for thhat!! I am doing super well other than for this heat. Wearing pants in this heat vigourously inhales. This past week we ate at this chinese restaraunt and it was soooo goooodddd!!! I ate too much thought. Our stomaches hurt sooooo bad! But it was soo worth it! Today we played some basketball with some missionaries and some phillipini that were at the court. Not to be prideful or anything but we destroyeeeedddd the phillipini! They played well but our American blood just took over. It was soo much fun. It is so hot out. I drank 2L of water in an hour and a half! It was insane! We have started to see more tourists here because of the summer. It had been fun to figure out where people are fun. We actually have a hotel in front of where we live and so we see them all the time. Im getting scared that I might get transfered next transfer which will kill me! I love milano sooo much! I have not been out of this city since I have been here! Other than doing a scambio in muggio which is 30 minutes out of the city which really isnt leaving the city. Well Im not sure really what else to write other than that time is flying by soooo fast! I have been out for 7 months now. Which Elder Corbett is almost done! THat is sooo crazy!! well I help everyone is well! Sinceramente Anziano Collins P.S. send my regards to Brandon. Im sorry for what happen. THat must have stunk!

Sickness + Coke + work = satisfaction...?

Salve! If you could not tell by the title I got sick this past week. It was awful. But that's ok because I am doing so much better now. I was only in for a day and a half. I had some type of stomach sickness because I had bad stomache pains and had a fever of 104.4! It was a little warm here in milano 2 last week. But I am doing better so that is ok. My companion is an awesome companion. He does an insane amount of working out....maybe I'll learn something eh..? Anyways, we had a great week this past week. We were able to set three baptismal dates with people. Which means that we met with three people who have accepted the invitation to baptism and are prepare for their baptism. So we have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks. Its pretty crazy because these three people are so diverse. We have Rudy and philipinian man, Peter a christian egyptian, and Obas an refugee from the Lybian war. All of our lessons are in English. Its so cool to have all this diversity but its even cooler that these people are making huge changes in their lives so that they can be more happy! Rudy is so awesome! He is always so excited to meet with us and is ready to do so much to change his life. I talked a little about him in my last email. He is still doing so well and is accepting the message of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ very well. Peter's story is so cool because he out of the blue called us and said that he was ready to be a member of our church and change his life. We met him the same day and he is so cool. Today, he read out of the book of mormon out loud in arabic, it was reallly cool. We are excited for him and the progress he is making. Today I saw one of the most impatient person I have ever seen in my life. It was sooo funny. We were at a ATM and this lady was in line to use it. She started to tell the people in front of her to hurry up so she could go and made some people mad. She then immediately went to the machine when it was free, and before the machine was ready for another transaction she shoved her card into the atm. It then rejected her card then she started to get upset. Fortunately there was another atm right next to it but someone was using it so she then told them to hurry up. She then did the same thing she did with the first machine and it didnt work. At this point she was very upset. With the help of a very patient man she was informed on how to use the atm. What was even funnier was after she tried using the first atm my companion went to it and got it to work. Got to love Italians :) My Italian has started to grown and has gotten so much better. Its so cool! Im getting to the point where Italian words come more easier than english words and at times I can only describe something in Italian. I hope everyone is doing very well! GO THUNDER! Anziano Collins Enjoy the pictures!

New Comp, same city, lots of work..

Buenas Tardes! Yep, my spanish is coming back. Its fun learning both Italian and spanish together. Anyways, I got a new companion and you all already know about him. Some how his mom got a hold of you all haha. He is from Arizona and is really awesome. We hit the ground running this transfer so its awesome. And that last statement is very true, we go running monday-saturdday morning for our excersize. Im not dead yet but I could die soon. Scherzo. We had a wonderful lesson with one our investigators Obas. He is from Lybia and is a refugee from the war. His story is soo crazy. He almost was killed and escaped on a boat and 4 days later was in Italy. He has a lot of faith in god and loves us(mainly because we speak english haha). Anyways, my companion really helped me see the power of faith this past week. I was ready to drop obas because he was not making progress and we went into the lesson and he committed to baptism. I was soooo shocked. It really built my testimony of the power faith and how you can do anything with it. We dont have tons of investigators right but we have some appointments set and we are hoping that we will have more soon. We are alittle to email today because we went and played basketball and FOOTBALL. IT was awesome to touch a pigskin again. I am doing very well. I might leave milano in 5 weeks which makes me very sad. I want atleast 6 more weeks and these five weeks and I will good. I really love it here. Especially the ward. We had a picnic with our ward and played a little calcio with them. It was soo fun. I hope everyone is ok and is ready for the summer break! Sinceramente, Anziano Collins.

Baptisms,sickness, transfers...

Salve tutti! We had an awesome past week! The mom and son( Carmen and Christian), that we had been teaching had their baptism this past saturday! They were soo excited for it and so were we. It was really cool to see how much they had changed these past few weeks. It was a wonderful growing for them as a family and we were excited that we were able to be apart of it. After the baptism they were just filled with joy and were smiling. They are an amazing family. What has made the experience even more interesting was that the husband miguel, does not speak any Italian. He can only speak Spanish so there was a lot of fun trying to understand what he was saying. I always love teaching this family because they are very sincere. So saturday morning I woke up and felt a sore throat and new I was getting sick, and after the baptism I was exhausted. On sunday my temperature got up to 103.3. IT was crazy, so after tonnnsss of sleep I am much better now! So tranfer news came andddd....I am staying in Milano! My new companion is Anziano Shern(I think thats how you spell it). I have no clue who he is so thats always fun. Im sad to see Anziano Meszaros leave but excited for him because he has so much ahead of him now. Who knows when I will be able to keep a companion for more than one transfer, maybe one day.... I am very excited to stay in Milano and do some more missionary work! To let everyone know, I did not feel any of the three earthquakes that happened yesterday. It was pretty crazy because we would find out that they happened through people and we were baffled that they happened. So we are all safe. From what I have heard there have been 15 deaths. Its been pretty scary for some people. Love you all. Anziano Collins