WHAT! I just started my email and got another one from you saying I have another niece! Marli! How cute, that is intense. Guess what!? I will let you in on a little secret, I have known for months that Breanne was having a girl. It was so hard not to tell you on Mother's day over the phone. She sent me an email awhile ago letting me know but told me to tell know one. How fun, I know. I'm glad all is well and everyone is healthy. I can't wait to see these little munchkins when I get back. Love you Breanne and Jordan.
I am so glad transfer week is over! I think we put in a total of 50 hours for that transfer, it was painful. We had 22 missionaries come in and President interviewed each one for 15 minutes, so you can do the math. That was a long day. We filled the time with trainings and what not. Drove them up in two different groups to Draper Temple to over look the mission and share some scriptures, get them pumped and catch the vision of baptizing weekly. For awhile in this mission we lost the vision of baptizing weekly and no one believed or even thought it was possible to baptize 100 people in your mission. Well its coming back, thats what Elder Bertolino and I focus on. We first had to start with our area and proving that it was possible. It is a complete mindset, and slowly other Elders are startng to grab hold of it. We have some Zone Leaders now who are starting to catch fire and then their zone follows. On the other hand there are a few zones struggling big time. It's hard to know just what to do to help them out. We are working on it.
We had 10 baptisms scheduled for this past weekend and 4 of them fell through but 6 baptisms is still lots! Let me explain about the four that fell through. Alex (10 yrs) and Miranda (12 yrs) Campbell from Ontario Canada. They are the smartest and most spiritually intune children I have ever taught! They were here for a little over a month visiting their mom who is an active member. Their father who lives in Canada is a non-member. It was a really difficult decision for them to get baptized but finally decided to go through with it. At first their father said he would support them in what ever they do but once they decided yes he told them they weren't allowed. The baptism was scheduled for Saturday and they found out Friday night it was a no, Alex was crying for ahile. It was a depressing night and it was extremely hard to have the motivation to work. BUT! We are going to have the missionaries in Canada begin teaching them and if the Father allows them people will pick them up for church. I love these two though, it felt like I was teaching somone my own age.
The other two. Behreh (14yrs) from Burma! I love him and he has fallen in love with the Gospel. He attends all the YM (youth) activites, church every week, and studies like crazy the things we leave him. His mom said yes but his dad said no to him being baptized but after us talking with his father he agreed it would be good for him. So Behreh's baptism moved from this past Sunday to next Saturday. And the other person really just fell off the map, hopefully one day though.
I love this area, it has been resurrected! It is baptizing like it used to back in the days of Daniel England. I don't think I have time to describe to you my day yesterday but it needs to be recorded! Let me make an attempt as usual. It topped if my mission as one of my greatest, it seems like they just keep getting better. First at 7:30am President came to our 'money' stake, the SL Big Cottonwood Stake to train the Leadership of the wards. As usual when President was speaking it was powerful and people didn't want him to stop. He called on us to come up to the pulpit and teach some princibles of the Restoration. After we had a meeting with the Mission Presidency, the Stake Presidency and us. At 9:15am we taught a joint Relief Society and Priesthood class on the Doctrine of Christ, which went quite well. Then we spoke at 11am for twenty minutes each, I focused on the Atonement. We didn't have anytime to prepare other than to gather some thoughts while the sacrement was being passed but the Lord really helped us there.
Immediately after speaking we flew to another church building for the baptismal interviews of the Gajmer family. We had this brother there to translate the sacrament meeting for this family, it was great for them. They could actually understand! The Napoli brother who came translate, is the man! He is a spiritual giant. Born in Napol and lived there forever, moved to China and was baptized there. Then came to study at BYU and now he works for the church and has just begun the translation of the Book of Mormon into Napoli. He submitted a request to make a Napoli branch here in the valley and was just given permission so it will be happening soon. Yesterday we baptized the 190th Napoli in the Salt Lake valley! I love these people. It was so cool to see Daniel England's recent converts, the Biswa's, using their Priesthood to baptize and confirm their relatives. We are now preparing the Biswa's to enter the temple in a few months. The hardcore translator will be teaching a temple prep class each week for them, this work is exciting.
Nasir Kalala, one of our recent converts, was in a serious car accident Saturday night and was rushed to the hospital. Our WML was able to go over there and give him a blessing, and the very next day he even showed up at church, but could hardly walk. He recieved the Aaronic Priesthood that very day and baptized his wife a few hours later! Elder Bertolino had to get in the water to help him lift his wife up and out of the water, it was hilarious. It is hard to catch you up to speed but this is the majority of it. I feel like most of these emails I just dump a bunch of stories into a big blob and it makes a big mess. Hopefully you get a sense of how things are going though. I do love your emails and look forward to them each week! Time is ticking down and going so fast! I am extremely motivated to work hard and accomplish my mission goal, it will be a tight one but I have faith that it will happen.
Love Elder Pizzey.
The Gajamer's and Biswas
The Campbells, fellow Canadian Kids
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