Busto Arsizio #11

Cara Famiglia,

This week went by pretty good! We did struggle to find new investigators though. But we have some good prospects coming up. We actually finally were able to teach this family that we found a couple weeks ago. Yesterday we taught them; the husband is [Ravith] from Sri Lanka, and his compagna is from Ecuador. He is Catholic, she is Evangelist, but they are both really cool and really receptive to the Restoration. They said yes to the baptismal invite! Giuseppe's situation has gotten a bit tricky, but we are still hoping it will turn out with the best. He seems to be experiencing a lottttttt of opposition from his family and acquaintances, which just means that he's that much more ready and will be a great member! I don't know if I've even mentioned Umberto before, he's an awesome guy who stopped us on the street a couple weeks ago and wanted to know who we were. It was a Saturday, so we invited him to church, and he's come every week since! That's three weeks! His progress is a little slow though, he is still hesitant to accept to be baptized, but we are working on it. And we are continuing to improve our finding so we can help get more people to come unto Christ.

This week I got to do a scambio with Anziano Kimball! It was really cool, also kind of strange working with him again. I think he's gotten to be an even better missionary than when he trained me, and we did some good work.

This week's spiritual thought is a powerhouse from Mormon chapter 9:

19 And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.

20 And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust.

Sometimes we as missionaries, and probably as members, underestimate the fertility of the area we live/work in for missionary work. We talked in District Meeting about how in all the cities all of us have served in, members have said 'Oh, this area is really hard to do missionary work in!' And too often we believe it! But the reason we may not see miracles isn't because the field isn't white, it's because our faith isn't strong enough to thrust in our sickle with all our might. We decided the best way to move forward in faith was to recognize miracles more often, and share them with members to help them see that missionary work can move along at a blistering pace. It was an interesting thought, and it worked really well last night when we tried it before teaching the Bishop's family. Members love to hear missionary miracles! So everyone who reads this should go ask the missionaries serving in their ward to hear about the miracles they see and then put their faith in the Lord and help share the gospel! I'm not trying to say that in a self-righteous or reprimand kind of way, but miracles can help strengthen faith a lot. I hope this spiritual thought makes sense, it does in my head.

But more importantly, I love you all!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith