November 12, 2014

Ciao tutti!!

Well just another chill week here in Trieste.  Things are moving right along.  Man, all of the investigators we have are getting baptismal dates...I guess we'll have to go find some more to set with...

This week already we have been able to set two baptismal dates.  They are two of our investigators that we have been seeing for a while.  Both of them have a great desire to change their lives and live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We have lots to teach them still and the both have several things they need to change in their lives but their desire is pure and they are excited to make this step.  We set the dates for the 3rd of January so it will be a great way to start of the new year for them.

I have a thought for you all today.  I was reading in Matthew 7 today at the end of the chapter where it talks about the wise man and the foolish man who both built houses on different foundations.  And as we know, because of their different foundations they had different results when the rain finally came.  But the thing that stood out to me was that they had to build those houses. The wise man built his on the rock.  Building a house takes time and resources.  How much time and what resources do we use to build our "houses"?  And just as a house takes time to build, so does our testimony.  It doesn't come all at once but line upon line, precept upon precept.

Well that's all folks!  Ci sentiamo e vi voglio un mucchio di bene! Ciao! 

-Anziano Cody Petterborg

 

November 5, 2014

Ciao tutti!!

Hey it's my sister's birthday!!  Tell her Happy Birthday for me and give her a big hug if you see her :)

This week was kind of slow...except for sunday.  In sacrament we had an investigator in church for the second time.  It was fast and testimony meeting.  All of a sudden, he had the urge to get up and bear his testimony.  Well sort of...he got up and spoke about some really strange things.  One of them was that he believe in reincarnation...just like us!! What? Who's teaching this guy? Don't look at me! So needless to say, we got some funny looks from some members.  But that wasn't it.  After he had sat down, he stood back up and asked if he could say something else.  Well the bishop was telling him yes and the 1st counselor was telling him no so he just stood right there in the congregation and yelled over the crowd that he was willing to give massages to anyone that wants one.  Pretty exciting meeting.  Haha oh man the funny stories you acquire on your mission.

Well I better be on my way!  Love you all! Ciao!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg

 

October 29, 2014

Ciao tutti!

Transfer news is here and I am staying another one in Trieste!  Woohoo!

We now have a total of 4 baptismal dates! 3 of them are men from Nigeria. We had set a date with them for the 8th of November but we were kind of worried that it was too soon. They don't know any members yet and we don't know if they are completely commited yet. After consulting with our ward mission leader, we decided to move their baptsmal date so that they have an opportunity to create a relationship with the ward members here and have an opportunity "to manifest by their works that they have repented of their sins."

Sorry for the short email this week! But I gotta run! Happy Halloween!!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg
 

October 22, 2014

Ciao tutti!

Lots to report this week. So I'll just get started.

 

On sunday we had 5 investigators in church!  It was a miracle!  3 of them were some african investigators that we found a couple of weeks ago.  The other two were an investigator and his friend who I will talk about in a minute.

Also on sunday, I met a returned missionary who served in Sweden.  He was just visiting our ward because he has some family there.  He saw my name and recognized it right away as Scandinavian.  He told my how to pronounce it (way to difficult to repeat) and told me what it means.  He said that Petter means Peter...obviously...and Borg means city or town.  So my name would mean town of Peter.  What the?!  Like Peter the Apostle?  Legit!!  Another thing he told me was that there are lots of Petterborgs in Norway and Sweden and that almost everybody speaks English there.  Definetly will have to go there to do some Family History after the mission!!

Last week, one of our investigators talked about a friend that he had given our number to.  His friend, Max, called us the next day and we set up an appointment.  In the first lesson, he told us how he had been an alcoholic for most of his life.  In the last years, he has stopped with Alcoholics Anonymous and really tried looking for a religious track.  He has tried Evangelists and Jehova's Witnesses but says that neither one of them made him feel right.  We talked about The Book of Mormon and how one could understand more deeply the power of the Atonement by reading and studying it's pages.  Max came to church on sunday and really liked it.  This may be our next big investigator.

We spent another P Day in Venice...yeah no biggy.  Really fun!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg

 

October 15, 2014

Ciao tutti!

Lots to report this week.  I'm excited to tell you about my past week.  But first I wanted to let you all know that today marks my 6 months left...scary stuff.  But lots of time left and lots of people to baptize still!

Drum roll please!  Last week we were able to teach 21 lessons!!  It took a lot of focus and hard work.  Because we weren't able set appointments with many of our investigators, we ended up teaching many of our lessons on the street with people we would stop.  Our hard work lead us to find 6 new investigators!!

Our hard work and focus lead to other miracles as well.  Perhaps the biggest miracle was that we set a baptismal date with our investigator Matteo.  In our lesson with him on wednesday, I told him how he's got a lot of beautiful things coming up.  He is having a baby in December and they want to get married before that.  I told him him that it would be amazing to add to those events a baptism.  He accepted.  The only problem we have now is that he has to find a way to come to church.  He always has to work.  We invited him to pray for a miracle that he would be able to come to church.  We told him that if he has the true desire to come to church, God would open up the way for a miracle.  So this week we prayed really hard for this miracle.  This sunday I was talking to his girlfriend and she said he has been praying hard.  Guess what?  He can't come to church next week but the week after that, he's going to be completely free to come to church!  Miracle!  She also told me that they are planning to be married on the 24th of November...his baptism will follow shortly after on the 29th.

Well that's a lot.  Needless to say, things are going well here.  I love you all!  Ciao!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg

October 8, 2014

Ciao tutti!

Just keeping it real in Trieste!  On monday we had a really great Zone Training Meeting.  The words that the zone leaders shared were truely inspiring.  One quote that I like was "A rising tide lifts all ships".  When we do our best and are concentrated on what's important, other people see that example and automatically start being better themselves without knowing.  My challenge to you this week, be the rising tide! Lift those ships around you!

This week we are trying hard for 21 lessons. We have been struggling to get appointments with people so we have had to resort to our own efforts to teach lessons on the street.  Monday we had a goal of 3 lessons.  We got to the end of the day and we only had two.  We were just getting off the bus and we had a bel pezzo di strada before we got home so me and Anziano Santiago decided to say a prayer to ask Heavenly Father to help us find someone to teach before we got home.  We began stopping people and no one would listen at first but eventually we stopped a woman who let us talk about Jesus Christ and read a scripture from The Book of Mormon.  We said a prayer with her and we reached our goal!  So that was great but then last night we were in the same situation.  But we needed two more lessons to reach our goal of four lessons.  On our walk home we were able to stop and teach 3 people within a time period of 15 minutes.  Two of them gave us their number.  When you set goals, ask the Lord for help, and go to work, the Lord will always help.

Well that email is long enough!  Gotta run!  Love you all!  Ciao!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg

October 1, 2014

Ciao tutti!

October 1st!!  Wow!  That's another month mark for a total of 17 months.  I'm getting old as a missionary.  But I still feel young and full of energy!  Gotta hold onto that until the end.

This week has been pretty rough.  I felt bad because it was Anziano Santiago's first full week in the mission and we had nothing going.  All of our investigators were out of town or sick.  A lot of our appointments fell through.  So saturday night I prayed that we would get some member visits on sunday.  The next day, we felt the love of the members and we got a couple of member visits set up.  We are going to make sure that they are doing their missionary work and we are doing ours. 

I'm sorry I don't have a spiritual thought for you all this week.  I am short on time.  But next week I will try to make it mind blowing!  Gotta run!  Vi voglio bene!

-Anziano Cody Petterborg