July 13, 2011 - Week 5 of Transfer 12
The Utah Salt Lake City South Mission is the greatest mission in the world! This week has been one of the greatest weeks of my mission. It doesn't get much better than it is right now. Like you noticed last week in my email it was difficult for me to unfold the events that have taken place! Well this week will be a little more difficult. If I could describe our area right now I would say its like an escalator, meaning it just keeps going up. Often in missions you will find areas that are more life elevators, they go up then down, up then down. For the month of July we are projecting 15 baptisms and at the current time have 19 people scheduled with baptismal dates. In the past two weeks we have found 19 new investigators and it just keeps going. We will begin teaching a family of four tomorrow as well! I have never had it quite like this, we will be baptizing more than weekly. This past week we have doubled our efforts and been begging the Lord to guide us. Constantly people are placed in our path and we are finding them. I wish you could witness this great work with me.
Let me fly through some of the key events from this past week. Before that though. I love the family I am teaching from Napol, you will have to meet them. There is nine people squished in one tiny apartment yet they are so happy. While we were leaving our appointment on Saturday morning Bijay, the son, said in broken English, "Elder Pizzey... Elder Bertolino... Guess what? Today is my 15th birthday". He said it with a huge smile going across his face yet he had very little presents. We knew his favorite American food was pepperoni pizza from Big Daddy's and that he loved soccer but had no soccer ball. So later that night we bought him his pizza and a soccer ball from wal-mart, and dropped it off at his house. He was extremely grateful. I hope I learn what God is trying to help me learn from these people. They are as humble as can be.
Sunday morning at 7:00am President Miller came to our South Cottonwood Stake and gave a training to the ward councils of the stake. The Mission Presidency, President Bishop, President Pineda and President Miller, spoke to them for an hour. President just had to announce to everyone that we are his Assistants then made us go up on the stand and had Elder Bertolino teach the principle "Heavenly Father Reveals His Gospel in Every Dispensation" from PMG p.32 and myself teach "The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith" from PMG p.36 on the spot. That was quite fun but honestly helped us gain the trust of the Stake real quick. Everyone loved what President had to say and just didn't want him to stop speaking.
Later that day we went with one of our WML's to pick up a few of our investigators for church. I will never forget what I saw as we turned around the corner of this apartment building, it almost brought tears to my eyes. The head of household of the family from Napol, Bro. Biswa, was turning the corner to pick up the second load of his family to drive them to the church building. They were all dressed up ready for church and waiting outside the building with beaming smiles lighting their faces. Then we had the Flores family who we so dearly love rushing out of the apartment and into their car. Elder Bertolino's recent converts came filing down the stairs of another apartment building. Behind us we had Behreh who was going to get his little sister and mom for church. On the other side of the parking lot we had Bro. Lazarus who recently moved from Ukraine with his family, we have gotten close to him as well. Its hard to describe but it was something I will never forget. As we turned that corner Elder Bertolino, the WML and myself just stopped and froze. We stood their speechless until the WML said, "wow... this is quite amazing." It was like a dream come true, it was a picture moment, early in the morning with the sun beaming down. It is a missionaries dream to have the people you teach attend church.
Daniel's baptism was amazing! He is quite the little character. His mother attended and was touched by the spirit. We should be starting to teach her tonight, I hope it works with her busy work schedule. Daniel will soon be receiving the Priesthood. We also started to teach two Canadian kids this past week! Alex and Miranda! I have never met smarter kids. They are 10 and 13, both just in tune with it. They are visiting for the summer and want to be baptized here. We pick on Elder Bertolino because he always picks on me, the Canadian. They pulled out a loonie and I haven't seen one of those for quite some time, it was actually quite funny. I forgot those even existed.
There are numbers of stories I wish I could share. Sad thing I haven't even had time to write them in my journal, its awful. Things with the mission are intense as well, lots of changes happening. Pday will be changing to Monday week 1 of this next transfer. There are many reasons why but not worth writing about. So that is July 25th will be the first Monday Pday, thought you might like to know. I won't even begin telling you about transfers, its outrageous. From the beginning of the year until now our complement was suppose to be slowly crawling up, well something messed up and in the last two transfers it has increase 35+ missionaries making transfers a complete headache and causing some serious damage to the mission.
We had a teary eyed lesson with the Flores. Testimonies were being shared back and forth. They have brought me closer to Christ, it is amazing what the people who we teach, do for us. There was something he said during this lesson that just kept ringing over and over in my head. I will share it with you when I get home! Don't forget to ask, haha. But what a sacred moment it was for me. He wants to serve a mission with his wife after his baptism, he is truly converted. I wish you could see it, he is sharing the Gospel with all his family. Just remember it is never to late to serve, to change or to begin.
It saddens me that Grandma Bernice has passed away, I know she has been taken home to that God who loves her. I hope Grandma, Grandpa and Yvonne are OK and holding in there.
Love your son, Elder Pizzey
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