Buongiono!

Hope all went well for you this week! This week went by great. At first we had a rough start especially because we set up some appointments and the fell through but other than that the rest of the week went by great! This last week we had a conference in Genova. Now there are 12 missionaries between the two wards so it was like a mini zone conference. But President Wolfgramm came down and interviewed us all. Every 2-3 months we have interviews. So it went well we also learned a lot from the conference. We especially talked about being bold and simple. I really liked it because these are two things I've been trying to work on these past few weeks. Especially when someone says they're not interested to not give up because what we have is IMPORTANT. Also when we do finding work and we meet someone on the street to be simple. We don't need to overload them with information. President says the spirit testifies of short powerful statements. And it's true. The conference was great and we had alot of fun. After the assistants bring mail from the office and I walked in and there was a mountain of packages and mail from my family. All for birthday and Christmas. So for the 10 minute train home there was 6 missionaries each with a package for me haha. Thanks!

This week we did alot of area book. Area book is a book with all the past investigators that other missionaries taught and the have a outline of all the information about them that is how all the lessons went and what were their concerns. So we did a ton of that it's a different way a finding and I like it alot. We actually found a new investigator from doing this her name is Allessia from Peru. She has a weird story so about 3 years ago she was meeting with missionaries and progressing and all of the sudden they dropped her (stopped seeing her) so I called her and she was more than happy to see us, in fact for about 3 years every so often she has opened up the Book of Mormon and read from it. Two weeks before I called her she had read the Book of Mormon. I still haven't met her yet because I was on a companionship exchange but this Friday we should be seeing her.

Miracle: So we were doing what I call Book of Mormon fishing the other day. I'm a fan. What we do is stand on a busy street and as the people come to us we talk to them. I was getting pretty frustrated because no one was interested. "ho fretto" (I'm in a hurry) my companion could see I was frustrated so he's like alright lets pray that we'll find someone. So we said a quick prayer and I was waiting for someone to talk to and this guy walks by slowly and I'm thinking what is he doing (still a little annoyed) and I say "Salve signore la famiglia è più forte con i principi del vangelo di Gesù Cristo. Per lei perché la famiglia è così importante?" (Hey the family is stronger with the Gosple principles of Gesù Cristo. For you why is the family so important?) he stopped and we started talking and we have an appointment for this Friday! Super cool how the first person I talk to after a prayer we get a return appointment!

We weren't able to see Erminio this week because he was in Alessandria working and wasn't able to make it to church. But last night I called him just to see how he was doing and if he read the Book of Mormon or the pamphlet we gave to him and what was meant to be a how's it going phone call turned into a 45 minute conversation. It was awesome. Erminio was outside of Genova by himself in an apartment and he recited to me from memoria what he had read about the introduction of the Book of Mormon. Then I was like well you need to pray to know if it's true and he's like yeah your right.. But when I pray what do I ask. So I explained to him to get down on his knees and pray in a out loud voice if it's true. So we talked about his work and the gosple he said it's been a tough year and wants to get on with 2013. It was great and after he's like thanks Anziano you guys are like my angels. So cool! I love him. We'll see him this Saturday and give him a baptismal date.

We had Conference this Sunday so we all went to Alessandria. While everyone was waiting for it to start they were playing some clips of the church. All of the sudden I see Mountain Views Seminary on the screen and I was so confused. It was a clip that a seminary class had made from when I was in Seminary. It was about being honest and the kids from our ward were in it like Ally Taylor and Landon Schofield it was so weird being all the way in Italy seeing that clip because I've seen it before. It was super funny. But things are going great right now we are working hard and having fun. I really like my comp Anziano Webb super great missionary and he's finishing his mission this transfer. Thanks for everything have a great week!

Anziano Thomas