Just when I thought I had seen it all.....

Well I am sure you all have heard what happened this past weekend but I will make an account of what happened comunque. So, Saturday morning I got a call from my comp while we were on scambio(I was in paicenza and he was in reggio) a 9 am on Saturday. He told me that they were in the hospital. He had an allergic reaction to some food which caused his ears to turn red, his lips to swell, and red rings round his eyes. So took the train as soon a possible to get to reggio. Once I got to the hospital he was admitted to see a doctor. While with the doctor, he was given medicine. Apparently he had not eaten much that morning, and the medicine he took was so strong that he passed out. Luckily the floor caught his fall and he went head first. So, he had to get some stitches to patch up the cut on his face. Then they had to do an xray to see if everything was fine. It all turned out to be good. So They had him on a stretcher for awhile. When they went to do a controllo(ummm in english it would be a check up), the doctors had him stand up but he wasn't feeling it and passed out again. So they kept him over night. I had to all the Anziani from Modena to come up and stay with me. It was weird because I went to church with a member who picked me up. While at church I did not have my companion. Man was that weird. I don't know how Return Missonaries do it because that was realllyyyy weird! Through all of that I was only left alone once for about 40 minutes. So that really took up our week. We have been stuck inside ever since. I cleaned our kitchen for 6 hours yesterday, so that was fun. We will find out about transfers on Monday or Tuesday so I will let you all know next week what will happen. Other than that I don't know what else to write about. We have a new investigator who is really awesome! We are excited to work with him and see where it will go. Also, we got a new phone and it is a touch screen phone! When we got it, I was shocked! The church really wants to have some nice stuff! Love you all!

Just keep swimming...

Well this past Sunday we had a baptism! It was awesome! It was really nice. He was our investigator from Haiti. He is really cool. He is about my age. He was really excited to get baptized. But now, its back to the streets again. Our investigators right now are progressing but baptism is far away. We need to find more investigators as well. This past week, we talked to tons of people! We talked to over 500 to 600 people. It was insane. I am doing well. It is raining right now so that's not fun. The mission is getting ready for the huge wave of missionaries that are coming in. I have heard that they might make new zones which would be pretty cool. I could get transferred this transfer. I have a feeling that I will be. I will attach a few pictures. I honestly remember what happened this past week. So much happened. We were really busy. I'm sending a picture of our last district, kebab, and me in the snow on our balcony. I'm learning what it really means to persevere. Its been difficult but I am becoming a better missionary and a better person. Its amazing to see how the mission changes you. I haven't really written much but I honestly don't what else to say. Well, that's about it. Love you all!

Work, Work, Work, there is no other substitution than work.

Allora, This past week, we worked our tails off. We had to teach our investigator A ton! We taught him almost everything that we supposed to teach for his baptism and then we had snowppocalypse happened. All last week it snowed intensely but it never stuck until Saturday. It was insane. There was so much snow. We rode our bikes in it. It was a lot of fun! But very cold. We ended not having a baptisms this weekend because we were not able to get some stuff done and the snow made it kind of impossible so we will have a baptism this Sunday. It will be a lot of fun. The ward is pushing real hard for baptisms. I have not see such a push in my whole mission. We have been working really hard the past few days. Each night I get home and I am ready to just collapse and sleep. Its been good. We have found a few potentials who can become good investigators. My comp and I get a long very well so that is good. We have been counting how many people we have talked to in the past few days. Its been fun. The past 2 days we talked to about 180 people. That's a lot of people. Comunque, the work is hard but we having a good time. Its weird to think I'm hitting my year mark in Italy in a couple of days. I haven't had Chiptole in a year now! Crazy haha. Well the Italian post office is being really dumb. They haven't sold any stamps to any stores for a long time and they are making everyone go to them and pay a ridiculous amount of money to send letters. In Italy it is supposed to be 70 cents to send it, with them it costs 1, 90 cents. To america they charging like 4 euro. its insane. So this is why I have not sent any letters to anyone. I have responded to Lexi, Mel Mel, Alex, Chris, and some others but I have not sent them yet. I will send them soon. Love you all!

Parma, parma, parma, parma........

Allora, We have been to Parma so much in the past week!! We should be having a baptism this weekend with our Investigator who lives at Parma. So we are really excited. We still have a bit of work to do before it can happen though. We have been running around everywhere. It has been tiring but really fun. I have slept very well in this past week. We have found some new people who could turn out to be good investigators but we will see about that. In my district i made a game and it has made everyone work a lot harder which is really awesome. I feel like I have worked a lot harder and we are seeing tons of miracles so that is really cool. I also got to do my first baptism interview last week, it was really cool. She got baptize this past weekend. In the past week we have run into at least 7 English speakers from america. It's so weird! I heard them speak and it was sooooo weird! Its crazy to here about all these people getting their mission calls, the work is hastening! There is a huge push here in the mission to be more obedient and to become better missionaries because we will be the ones to train all of these new missionaries. So we will see what happens next transfer. I'm not sure if I will stay or not. But I still 4 more weeks before that happens so its all good. Love you all!

SNOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone!!!!!! Allora, so we had to move our pday to today because we were supposed to have a conference today but it snowed like crazy yesterday so we it got moved to tomorrow. so p day is today. Things are going really well here. We haven't found anyone new but are investigators are doing well and its been a lot of fun being with Anziano Devincent. He reminds me a lot of Anziano Russo and Anziano Scheurn. So we are getting a long very well. This transfer is going to be a lot of fun because I made a game for my district. Every time we teach, contact people and what not you get points. And the compansionship with the most points at the end of the transfer will win. Its been really fun lately. I have actually worked harder because of it haha. just shows how I can use my competitiveness for good :) And everyone seems to like it! So we will see how that goes. Comunque, sooo it was really cool, the other day we had a lesson with one of our investigators Luigi. I was not sure how he felt about church and what not so going into the lesson I was lightly nervous but we ended having an amazing lesson with him which was awesome. He is from Napoli. He is looking to change his life, with the help of his girlfriend who is a member of the church. Yesterday, it snowed a lot. Luckily its over with. It was funny because we went to Parma for a lesson and we missed the last bus to get to the station so we had to walk about an hour through parma around 8 pm and there was no living soul out because it was snowing a lot. It was really fun. We eventually got home. meno male. The work is going pretty well, we are still getting thing organized. I'm pretty excited to find new people so that we can teach more. How is everyone? Apparently there was one of the biggest missionary groups that went into the MTC the other day, about 800 missionaries. That is a lot! When I went in, there were about 700 so I am sad that we were beat out. Its weird that I am starting my 10th transfer!!! AHHHH!!! Time is flying by too fast. We talked to a missionary who had just finished his mission here in Italy(he was visiting) and he told us what it was like to get released from being a missionary, he sad it was weird. I rather not get to that point. weird stuff. Well that is enough for now! Love you all! Anziano Collins

Transfers!

So we found out about transfers and my companion will be leaving reggio and he will go to livorno! I will stay here and I will get a new companion, who's name is Anziano Davincint(I think that is how you spell it)! He is from West Virginia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are going to have a lot of fun together! It will be awesome. This past week has been interesting my comp was sick for awhile so I did a TON of cleaning. Our aparmnet loooks reallllyyy nice! I even learned how to make a bread called cinque cinque (five five) which would be bread made out of chik pea flower! its really good. The work is going really well, we are having a hard time finding new people but the ones we have are progressing very well which is awesome. Roberto was confirmed into the church this past week which was really awesome! It was really cool meeting with him later that day because he told us something really cool. He said "voi mi avete aiutato ad essere la persona che io volevo essere" (you have helped me become the person I wanted to be". Its crazy to see the amazing changes that I have seen in him since I have been here! One of the biggest reasons he has changed so much was because he reads the book of mormon everyday! It is such a special book that we have been given to help us. It is so awesome. I was thinking the other day that my time is clicking. I am coming up on my 10th transfer and I thouht crap my time is going to faast. I dont want to finish. This has been so great for me. I have grown so much and have changed so much and have made decisions in my life that I never would have thought about making. Its crazy. Even though I am far away from home and I may be missing out on things, I dont care because I am doing something that I know I need to be doing. I know my heavenly Father wanted me to do and is helping me become the person he knows I can be. When you guys come to pick me up, be ready to drag me out of here because I really dont want to go! haah. I hope all is well! Love you all! Sinceramente Anziano Collins

Birthday and a Baptism!

Well this past week I had my birthday. We were supposed to have the baptism the day before my birthday but then we ended up having it on my birthday, so that was convenient. It was really nice to see Roberto getting baptized. He had changed so much and it was so obvious that he was a completely different person! It was awesome! It was a very special experience! I also got to enjoy a box of Reeses puffs for my birthday. It was soooo goooodddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you! Its still been really foggy and raining. I feel like that it will be like this until I leave. Oh well. I think my comp will get transferred and I will get a new comp next transfer.....again! I can never keep my comps! OH well. So we are without bikes for awhile. Mine is in the shop. Man did we have a lot of shenanigans this past week. So I went to Modena on a scambio. I was with a missionary named Anziano Klemm who reminds me a ton like Jared so I get a long with him very well. Anyways, Our scambio starts out with us going to their apartments and we are on bikes. Here in Italy bike riders ride on the road for the most of the part with the cars. Anyways we were going through traffic with parked cars next to us and cars to our left that were stopped by a stoplight. While we are going a lady in her car decides to open her dooor....as she is doing this she hits Anziano Klemm is going by and she opens the door right in front of me so I run into it. She was slightly upset but realized it was her fault because she opened the door right when we were going. Anyways we go home and eat. Then we go to appointments in which no one came to so we got showed up if you will, during this time I rip my pants so bad that we have to go back to the modenas apartment so I can put shorts underneath because the hole was so big and I didn't have other pants. Then our bikes get flat tires. Then my bike at reggio completely broke. So it is in the shop right now. Hopefully all is well. So we will be walking a lot for awhile! We have two people set up for baptisms for next week, so that's really exciting! Love you guys!