How Missionaries Stay Happy & Positive

Email: July 10, 2013

Well no pictuers, I forget my card to usb reader at home. Next week I will remember hopfully. 

Its hot and we have hit mid 30s this week, with 3000% humidity. Its hot and I never knew I could sweat, and the best news is it is not even August, the month when its blistering hot and humid and also all the whole country goes on a three week vacationa and ever busy city becomes a ghost town.....Genova might be where everyone goes though....we willl see! 

Yes we have an english class, every Wed at 19:00. Its super fun, we teach the conversational class, basically we just talk with them 99% in English, le sorelle teach the basic class. We are really trying to get one man to meet with us, but he is moving to London soon, so hopefully the missionaries there find him. 

No fire works for the 4th of July :(, but they did go off on the 3rd of July, no idea why....I guess the city didnt have antything else to do. Boh!

I was cutting some potaotes up for lunch last week. I am now missing a good chuck of flesh off my left thumb...it hurt. Quite bad too. It is healing fine though. No worries, I hope it leaves a cool scar and you can all see it. 

Mission changes! We all need to get rid of back packs soon and only use shoulder bags and we are no longer servents of the Lord, but Executives of the Lord. Um, President said we will be staying longer in each of our cities. And in 2014, we all get tablets and fancy stuff as technolgy missionaries for the 21st century. Fun stuff! 

the capi zona baptized on saturday, we had our investigator mario there and he loved it!

In church, our companionship and 6 people in church, our baptismal date, and three people for the first time, plus two other progressing investigators. 

Genova is a miracle city, too many to tell you! 

Love you, we have to go and buy gelato and I used all my time email others. You can blame Angie and dad for taking all of my time....

Missions are the coolest thing ever and Presidente Dibb is different but great, he was a lawyer for sure, definitely shows! Sorella Dibb is nervous and so loving, miss the wolfgramms so you can visit them for me.

Love you all!

Ciao!

Mi state bene! 

Email #2:

Its weird how seemingly random things come and random times but then you look back and you can just notice how much your loving Heavenly Father knows and cares about you. I have such a strong testimony about the Lord answering prayer though others, there has been times walking down the street, teaching investigators, campanions, talks in church, just everywhere that I get prayers answered because someone says something. Its fun to see how stange the Lord answers prayers, rarely how I would have wanted or thought. Its great!

yes time ZOOMS PAST FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT. its crazy, and I hate it. Everyone says that the first year of your mission is slow and the second half just goes by in the blink of and eye so I should be prepared to live up every second. Well....bad news, the first half of my mission has allready flown by so that mean that my second half will.....be nonexistant...ahhhh! So scary to think that my mission is nearly half over, just a few short weeks! I hate it! I just want to stay here doing this forever, but I know two years is my time and Aug 2014, as I keep being worthy and obediant and hard working, that end day will be happy and exciting, not becuase I miss America and my friends and family, but I feel you shouldnt fear the end day of you mission if you serve worthy and do what you should do every day. Bitter sweet I guess in a way. 

What do I do so stay positive and am I really always happy and positive as my email sound? Well yeah for the most part I am always happy and upbeat, the hard moments come but I stay positive, usually always, but I do make my emails sound alot happier and better. I dont lie, but I leave many stories, and thoughts and detials out....Crazy things happen to missionaries, I am lucky and havent had too many super crazyt things, but my journal hears the real stuff. The world is crazy, italy is not like home, people often times hate you, like HATE you, even though I have the best message they can ever hear and accept, I walk into random houses, go into scary places, do simply said, crazy and weird things. I love being a missionary. But let me tell you, the gift of discernment is real and it totaly necessary tot he work, knowing investigators needs, and being told whre and what to say, and being told by someone with out a body, my heavenly messangers what houses and doors not to enter into even though they invite you in or just to not even knock and all. Cool but scary story: walking around talking and trying to enter into houses and appartment complexes and something told me not to ring this one bell, so I didn't. Wasnt sure why as it was a really nice house and things pointed  to having a family, the one thing you want as a missionary! Well we didnt, my companion was kind of upset, but then as we were down to the next house/building, I felt awful inside, like physical pain, then one of the most scary things I have felt I saw the man who lived there. He looked like a normal Italian father, but there was just a really bad feeling and it was just a conformation that I was good and didnt knock. I dont know what would or whouldnot have happed but I am glad I dint even talk to him. The devil is real. The Lord portects me and all missionaries and all his children if they heed the small and quiet promptings. I ask you to always be ready and willing to acknowledge his promptings and have the faith. 

To stay positve, I just smile, even when I hate it. I have a fake smile often, but then it changes into a real smile and I am once again positive and happy. A good companion, being joined by the spirit helps everything. 

Go jump in a pool for me. Biggest temptation is that stupid beach! Looks so refreshing! Even worse when you have members tell you about how they jog along the street you always do finding work on(called Corso Italia) aka the boardwalk, and then jump in the ocean after they are hot and sweaty. I just get hot and sweaty and get to keep walking. I miss the ocean and pool, just great way to stay in shape and cool off. 

The "Magic" Pink Paisley Tie

Email: July 3, 2013

Well life is great! I thought of a way to describe Genova, its very similar to San Fransico, but yet its not even close, Italy is just so differnt. You will just have to come to Italia yourselfs :) 

We have some really cool simpatizzanti:

Mario-from Equador, has a date for the 20th but has missed church and has canceled or just not shown up to lessons, we are really woried about him. He is so cool! He is like 30 years old. 

Rafaele-blind 40 year old Italian, who is SUPER cool, even though he has met with missionaries for years...he is on the climb back up and is keeping commitments, he wants to get baptized so we just have to work a few things out. 

Emmington, from Equador and is just super cool just doest think he has recived his answer even though he loves everythign we teach....so frustrating as we explain it all so simply and we indicate or point out the spirit and tell him thats how you are getting your answer.

Guatano-the smartest Italian man in evry sense, religous and just knowledge. Super cool, read the book of mormon like 4 times in two weeks, and loved it, just wont get baptized....ugh!

Ugo-Super awesome young (23) Italian who has been frequenting all othe churches to 'find the truth' I stoped him on the street  my first week here and loves the Book of Mormon so he is super elect, he even asked if he could come to church before we invited him and such a sweet moment was when we gave him the book of Mormon. He was so sincere and thankful for the free book, the called and thanked us some more during the week. He is the perfect investigator as the ward told us to find some young Italian blood for the GANS, the giovani adulti non sposati. 

Francesca-from Africa, but some random spanish speaking country....dont know where....anyways she showed up to hte second lesson with here sister who is Isabel and she is alot more interested, but both wont answer their phones.... :(

All our less actives, meno attivi, are south Americans who feed us always, I have missed good spicy food! Italians never have 'real spicy hot foods' South American meals are a huge perk to Genova. 

All the south Americans speak Itlain perfectly, even the ones who have been here for like 2 months, its so easy for them to learn. I am releaning the spanish with some of the members and less actives for fun. Fun fact, like 99% of the south Americans always say  Porque (spanish), instead of Perchè(Italian). It means why or because. So the3 South Americans speak perfect Itliain except for like that one word, that all of them can never get right as its so similar to Spanish. 

Kate, from South Africa is a member who is in the hospital so we take her the sacrament on sundays. I was wearing my light pink paisly tie and the first thing kate said was "wow anziano, that is one sexy tie!" I was just shocked and said thanks while anziano smith nearly died laughing. She told Anziano Smith to make sure we go directly home so I can change ties so I dont have the Italian girls chasing me. It was really funny, so next week I think I will wear my solid hot pink tie I found in an appartment just to see what she does. :)  Weirdest thing was this week we blessed the sacreament in English (because the the Sorelle visited her and gave her an english BOM as she left hers at home(english is her native language)) It was SUPER weird to bless it in English, sounds so weird to me...

Also, Sunday evening, the last man on the street before we walked into our apartment, I stopped to contact him and he wasnt interested and said he was in a hurry, but mentioned that he liked my pink tie, the paisly one, so i said thanks and mentioned how much I love ties and how I have like a million of them at home....I'm obsessed...Well then he just kept talking and he really opened up and then admitted he talked with the Anziani years ago but lost contact and is interested to hear more and invited us over to his house for dinner and he wants to give us some ties as a free gift! Whoo!!!! Free food, ties, and a new investigator, we should see him this weekend so I will tell you how it goes next week! :) Miracle!!!

The zone leaders dont have a car, the apartment is brand new, and is super nice and clean and large. Small kitchen, our study room, our bedroom, small bathroom, then the capi sleep and study in the biggest room. Pictures next week. :) 

I am not getting fat...just not so skinny...hahaha, the bike does keep you in better shape.

Rumor is for transfers everyone is going to stay put and very few will get transfered. Nothing much is going to change for the first transfer, but in two or three, the mission is going to change completly, not just because of new mission presidnet, but church wide missionary work is going to change. We will see! 

Anziano Smith is from Arizona. He is super dedicated to the work and really funny. He loves to just get out and teach. Its great!

As far as Italian holidays, they are like every other day, its always some popes or preists bithday or some other weird celebration. We did have fireworks on Monday for some pointless reason. 

We usually just teach lessons in the church all day, walk around centro a bit and maybe Corso Itlaia. We usualy dont knock doors, strada is way more effective. The mission standard of excelence is 15 lessons and this week, the district all hit 15 or more. We celebrated as we had 16, the capi zona had 16 and the sorelle had 15, first time we have ever had more lessons than the sorelle. 

Well keep on being awsome and your prayers really do help! I appreciate them! Till next week! 

Con l'amore, 

Anziano Edwards

Me knocking on a private property shed to see if anyone wanted to hear our message, no one was home....hahaha

From our 'hike' last week, a view of the port and part of the city

My district Left to right, Anz. Hatch, Anz. Gibbons(capi zona), Anz. Smith, me, Sorella Jameson who is training S.lla Lamos (from Argentina and speaks english very well, but cant express everything in english and usually speaks Italian)