Fresco, meglio, sucesso

Hell[o] everyone! This past week was a lot better! Anziano Boscia and I are learning better how to work together and everything. I also got to do a scambio in torino! It was nice to be in a big city again, even though it was only for a day. I did see where they had stuff for the olympics. I saw a baseball field! It was sooo weird!!! Even though I was in torino for a day, it did a lot of good for me. I even got to be in a car! Our zone leaders have a car so I got to be in it!! The past two days we have had great success. People were way more open with us and talked more. This past sunday we had an ex investigator come to church. It was really awesome because the missionaries before me tried to get a hold of him but couldnt so they stopped trying to contact him. Turns out his phone was broken and lost our number. This past sunday, he wasnt working and remembered about church and came. We now are meeting with him! It was so awesome because we had nothing. Now we have 2 investigators with baptismal dates. Other than that everything else is going much better. I cook all the time because my companion cant cook but thats ok. This email will be short because im running out of time. I hope everything is ok, I didnt hear about that shooting till today. Thats crazy! I will try to send pictures eventually, I cant now because this computer is terrible. But let me tell you, CUNEO is gorgeous! Yesterday, it was actually cold. I was sooooo suprised! I hope the weather isnt too hott :P Until next time! Anziano Collins

Fresh air in the mountains

Hello Everyone! I am here in Cuneo! It is very beautiful here! There is no humidity and there is an almost costant breeze. Its amazing! The mountains remind me of the appalachain mountains...just A LOT bigger. I will take lots of pictures so you can see the area. This area is a very hard area. There is a small branch of about 30 members. And the city is a lot smaller than milano. A lot smaller. There are hardly any forgeiners here, and if they are..they are most likely to be french. There are mostly Italians here. I think I went into a little shock because how my area shrunk. but thats ok. In the past few days we had done TONS of finding work and no one wanted to talk to us. We worked all day and finally it was about 4 minutes before we had to go in and we saw a family and decided to talk to them and if they werent interested we would just go inside. We talked to them and it turned out really well. They liked everything we talked about, which was about how families can be together forever. It was really nice just to have someone stop for us. They werent interested in meeting up with us but thats ok. We tried our best. The other day we had to go to another city because we needed to get another bike. Funny thing was the only way to get there was one of us would ride a bike and the other would get on the motorcycle with a member here and the biker would follow the motorcycle. So my companion and I both got to ride a motorcycle! IT was a lot of fun. Our mission president said it was ok! We went up near the mountains and it was beautiful. The only thing that slightly stunk was that on the way back we both had bikes and the hills were steeepppppp!!!!!! It was awful!!! But thats ok! I hope everyone is doing well! Enjoy the hot weather for me!!! sinceramente, Anziano Collins

Me ne vado....or in other words....PEACE OUT MILANO!

Well I received a call on monday from president telling me that I was leaving milano! I was soo sad! I am going to a city called Cuneo! It is a little city in the farthest west part of the mission. I will be near france! My new companion will be Anziano Boscia(I think thats how you spell it). He is from Siciil which means he is Italian. He does not speak any English. So I am going to learn Italian more than ever next transfer! I am so sad to leave! But unforunately e Cosi. It was funny because on monday we cleaned our whole apartment(it is a rule to do that during transfers week) and we were waiting to see if president would call us. It was so stressful because we thought he would call us but we didnt know for sure, We didnt get called until 4:30! We were freaking out all day, it was awful! My companion Anziano Scheurn will be training someone new here in milano! That new anziano is so lucky! Anziano Scheurn is a little stressed but that is ok. We had a great week. We found so many new people that are really cool! Eva's husband daniel has a cousin who has been coming to church and wants to meet with us! We are sooo excited to work with him! We also have been working with a less active named Alberto Mendoza. He is from peru! He is so cool. He is very hunble guy and loves to make jokes. I had taught him my first day in Italy and then he disappeared for awhile. I finally found him and we started to meet with him and he is so much happier. He wanted to start coming back to church but never had the little push he needed and the we came along and now he has been in church and is helping us teach our investigator Rolando. I am alittle scared to have an italian companion but I know it will help me so much with my Italian! It will be weird to leave Milano because I have been here since I came to ITaly so it will be a little shock to actually leave. I feel like I have been in bubble for 4 1/2 months, but thats okay because it has been amazing here! Here are some pictures that I took the other day. THe first picture is with carmen, miguel, christian and corianca. Anziano Meszaros and I baptized carmen and Christian. They are soo amazing! We went to lunch with them and then we said bye, it was said. The second picture is with some of the members that are in our ward and the third picture is with Alberto Mendoza who previously mentioned. Well im pretty sure this is the most I have ever written before so maybe I should stop! :) Anyways I hope everyone is ok! STay cool! I heard that it is sooo hot there! Drink lots of water!!! I will let you know how im doing next week! I think Cuneo is a bike city which SUCKS! I have evaded bikes till now!! AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! We will see how it goes! until next time Anziano Collins

Salutation from milano! HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! GO AMERICA!

Hello Everyone, I hope that everything is ok. I heard about the storm that went through. That is terrible! I hope everything will get better. We are doing pretty well here! The only crazy thing that happened here was when Italy played Spagna in the EURO and got destroyed unfortaunately. IT was crazy outside that night. Either we heard really loud fireworks or gun shots haha. As soon as my companion heard the loud noise we closed all of our windows. It was funny. It sounds like it is not as hot here as it is there! We still dont have another fan but we are alive. Transfers are coming up here! Next week I willl tell you if I am staying here in milano or if im leaving. My companion and are very scared because we both dont want to leave. HAppy fourth of July! We have a huge grill out with the missionaries in milano today. We will play football, calcio, ping pong, and fooseball. We are very excited. Thought Id tell you about my american breakfast I had today. I had 2 hamburgers, chocolate milk and a coke! It was good! This past saturday we had a talent show in our ward and it was soo fun! The parents helped the little kids coreograph a scene in grease where the song "you"re the one that I want ooh ooh ooooh" and it was SO AMAZING! So for things about this past week. It has been hard for us to find new people to teach and some of the people that we have been teaching are slowly fizzling out. That has been our biggest ostacolo. We are contacting tons of people but no one is listening. But we are still going strong. Yesterday we had a lot of success in contacting people so we are hoping that it will continue. Our 2 awesome investigators Rudy and Rolando are doing very well. Rudy is in Brescia for a couple of weeks for work and will return. We met with Rolando yesterday and we had an amazing lesson with him. We asked him how he felt about his baptism and his response was awesome. Its something he wants to do but wanted to feel ready for it which is what we want them to feel. He understands how important baptism is and is really working hard to get to it. Other than all of that I cant really think of what to say. A lot of stuff happened in the week but I cannot remember what happened right now. Im getting old. Alzheimers is kickin in huh.. I hope everyone has a great day! Celebrate the birth of America for me! Until next time! Anziano Collins

Ma scussa eh..

Ciao tutti! The best way to describe how our week is as follows REALLY HOT- No, sto scherzando. It wasnt that hot but it was very toasty. We spent a lot of time outside this week which was nice because we are usually below ground navigating throug the metro. The transfer is halfway over! Oh my goodness!! Its going by so fast which is not good because I could leave milano in 3 weeks which will be sad. Ok enough of that talk. This past week we got a referal from our main office and called the person. It turns out that a man named robert had just moved here from switzerland and had been recently baptized there. We set up an appointment and met up with him. We were not sure what to expect but we were hopeful. When we met with him we were shocked. He came with scriptures, makers, a notebook, and other church materials. We soon found out that he was from ghana and that he had grown up in christianity. His brother is a pastore in a church in ghana. Robert knew the bible like the back of his hand. He also could quote the book of mormon like it was nothing. He is so strong in the gospel. We are so excited because he can really help us out with the africans in our ward. Africans are hard for us to understand because we are of a different culture. So we are pretty excited about that. Funny story. So our apartment is on the botton floor of our apartment so we cannot leave our windows open at night. So it gets a little toasty in our apartment. We only have one fan because our other fan died. But luckily I am very smart. I started to put all my clothes in the freezer so they get cold so when I go to bed I can put them on. THen I make ice cubes and put them in a bag and put it on my head. Its so funny and ghetto but it works. I would also like to everyone know that thanks to living in milano I now love weiner dogs. Tons of people have them here and they grew on me. It became official when I saw a weiner dog mixed with a scotty dog. MY companion thinks its funny because he dislikes them so much but thats ok. We are doing very well here. The work is giong well but we stll have a lot to improve. I cant believe in 2 days I will have been in italy for four months now. Its flying bby sooo fast! I am glad I choose to do this. I am changing so much and am so happy! HOpe everyone is doing well! Until Next time Anziano Collins