3 Oct 2007

Hey fam and friends!

What an awesome week it has been! We've been able to meet with tons of people and the Lord is blessing us so much with lots of good work here in Livorno, or Leghorn, as they say it in English! The threesome is alive and well! Thursday was such a miracle day. Out of all the days of the week, Thursday is the day where we don't have anything going on like weekly planning or English class. So they can be really long. But this week we had 5 appointments and non of them fell through, which is really pretty amazing. We met with some of our inactives...Marlene and Angela. They are both coming along. I have been so incredibly impressed with the inactives we have been working with because they have pretty much all been coming to church every week this past transfer and a half. It's amazing. The other three appointments were with investigators... Svieta the Russian, Miriam from Peru, and then one of our favorite Italians ever, Antonella. We continue to work with Svieta...I think she just needs a little time and she'll come around. Miriam is INCREDIBLE and the only thing that's stopping her from progressing is just being so busy that it's hard to meet with us. But we had a good appointment and were also able to set up another one with her for this Saturday so we're excited for that. Antonella is amazing but she told us as we were about to watch the restoration video that she really liked us and loves how we've helped her but she's just happy living her perfect catholic life and she said she'd never change. That was a little blow but we'll keep in contact with her so that when that time comes where the catholic church just doesn't cut it for her anymore, she'll have us to fall back on. So Thursday was really full and we came home happy and tired!

Friday we got to go to Firenze for zone conference. It was really great, as they always are. The things that were discussed were nothing new but I really learned a lot through putting the teachings of Elder Scott (those about writing down promptings and impressions) into practice. The spirit is amazing if we'll just let it work with us! Saturday we had an appointment with our other inactive Carla Gomero. She's a 24 year old Peruvian who we've been working with all summer. She's been busy studying so she wouldn't come to church. But the best was when she finally showed up to church on Sunday! Yay! Hopefully she'll fall back into the habit of coming every week. Sunday was CRAZYness. My head was spinning by the end of church. The Eubanks, and American couple who just moved here, came to church and so I had to translate for them, which always takes more concentration and brain power! Then, we don't have a gospel doctrine teacher right now, so I taught the gospel principles lesson. It was crazy because I had it all prepared in Italian. But at the beginning of the class the only people were us missionaries, the Eubanks, and an African investigator of the elders who spoke English. So I started in English, then Jantina came, the Carla Gomero, then Giuliano, a Romanian investigator of the elders who will be baptized in 2 weeks. So, one of the elders then translated the rest into Italian. It was crazy calling on people to read scriptures and having them read in English, then Italian etc. CRAZY. It all worked out though and the lesson went well. It was on prophets, their role, our role in sustaining them, and then I just tied it into how we'll have general conference and how we can prepare for that. The funniest part was that the ONLY Italian in the class was one of the elders who's from Catania. We had us Americans, Jantina from Holland, Carla from Peru, and Giuliano from Romania! Italy is truly a big old melting pot and I love it! Then we got to go home for lunch and celebrate Sor. Olmsteads birthday with the good eggplant lasagna and fruit tiramisu that I made! Yum! Monday and Tuesday were great with some appointments and then English class. We have so many students! In prato we only had about 5 students but here in Livorno, you say the word, "gratuito" (free) and the people come runnin! It's fun stuff.

We've got some cool people we are meeting with this week for the first time so hopefully we can make them into investigators and help em out.This work is incredible and I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world to be here in Italy, with awesome people, sharing the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Plus, it's all in Italian and that just smacks on an extra 10 gold stars!

Allora, vi saluto, vi ringrazio di tutto quello che fate per me! Grazie per le preghiere per conto mio. Buona settimana, specialmente durante questa grande opportunita di sentire dai nostri dirigenti della chiesa alla conferenza generale! Vi voglio un sacco di bene!

(Here's my limited translation: Well, thanks for all you do for me! Thanks for all the prayers on my behalf. Have a great week, especially during this great opportunity we have to learn from our church leaders during General Conference!)

Love ya,

Sorella Boynton