promised land

​What a week! It's been great just trying to get to know the new area and meet all the new people. Because of the friendship center and just relations in the church I already had met a few of the members here so that is a bit of an advantage.

I hope last Wednesday was a great day for all of you!! It was here in Italy for me. On p-day last week as we were standing with our district in line for 3 and a half hours for the Vatican we were thinking about the 4th of July and we didn't have any plans in specific so we decided it would be a great opportunity to throw an English course party and invite all the students and members and have some good'ole fellowshipping. Well we made plans and got permission and then Wednesday came. As last minute preparations commenced, I felt like I was fighting the revolutionary war here in Italy just trying to put things together with my patriotic Australian companion who by the way is actually originally from England which only just makes things worse! Haha Well, through many of his eye-rolls and my emphatic statements and scripture references to prove that America IS the promised land the last minute party came together and everyone had a lot of fun and the 3 Americans and 1 Australian in my house can once again live in peace together. #LongLiveAmerica

Well, today I don't have a ton of time. We went to a park to play frisbee and while we were playing an Anziano in my house whose bag had been left on a bench a bit far from where we were, got stolen. So this whole afternoon we have kind of been running around making calls, trying to get credit cards canceled, and the mission office notified so that they can use the phones account to locate the phone (they did try to locate it, but the person must have turned the phone off because no data came up). I also got to call and talk to the police department in Italian for the first time and help file a report at the police office. Haha

All I can say is that I know God is watching over us and he is guiding this work. This past week we had a man from the friendship center who wants to come to church with us!! He is from Kenya. I met him during my time there and I am so excited to teach him. They are also putting the grass down around the temple which is really exciting. It is so amazing to see how the Lord is blessing the saints here and how more and more people notice us and want to learn more. I know this is the true church and God is leading it. 

Love you all! Anziano Stucki