Monday, September 30, 2013

Denver - "Fifty-two eighty"


OI!
I thought about writing this in Portuguese and making you copy it into google translate so I could practice my Portuguese while I'm here but that's not very fair. I don't think my Portuguese is good enough anyways for that to work.

So, Colorado has been sweet, they call Denver the "fifty-two eighty" because that's the elevation. I'm in a biking area which is kind of nice because it's getting my cardio back into shape. The other day we had an appointment on one side of our area and then Dinner right after on the exact opposite end, we ended up doing near 20 miles on the day.

It's fun though, one of the coolest things is meeting so many new people. In our mission we call it OYM or "Open Your Mouth" so we'll just stop and talk to any given person about whatever and then at the end we'll offer to pray with them or come by and share a lesson with them and if that doesn't work we ask if they know anyone else that might be interested. We've had some success with it, a good number of people will at least let us pray with them but fewer have let us come back for a lesson. We've had some fun with it too though, like the other day we stopped and shot around with two guys and played some basketball with them for a bit and ended up sharing a spiritual thought with them. They didn't seem all that interested in becoming investigators but we at least had a cool conversation with them.

There are some cool people that are investigating the church though. It is so inspiring to see people seeking to turn their lives around. There is a man that we are teaching that has had a hard life with drugs and jail time but he is learning so much about the church and has a real desire to change. He has learned how good he feels when he seeks to turn to God rather than to his old habits. He's cleaned up so much and has overcome some hard trials even in the past week. I shared the scripture with him from Ether 12:27 about how God gives us weakness so that we may be humble and that God promises that if men "humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." I truly believe that principle.

I've been learning to eat like a missionary too. This is our first Preparation Day so we've been making due with what we had until we get to shop today. We ate lots of grilled ham&cheese sandwiches but the best meal was when we heated up some canned chile and threw it on toasted eggo waffles - we were hungry.
Well I gotta go, sorry I don't have pictures this week, I'll remember to bring my camera next time we email.

Love you all,
~Elder Della-Piana

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