Week 65

August 29, 2016

A few nights ago at around 3 am I woke briefly as my bed shook. I realized it was the first earthquake I had ever experienced, and went quickly back to sleep. But for others, apparently it was lot more serious. Even here in Rome, where nothing was destroyed, people who lived on higher floors reported a really terrifying 20 second experience. With all the destruction and death, it was yet another time when the members came to church needing healing. To me it is quite interesting that the musical number my companion and another missionary performed that morning was "How Firm a Foundation".

I volunteered to do the translation, which turned out to be a serious stress. Just this past week like three families from America moved into the Ward. I'm not kidding when I say that half the people in that room were using a translator device and I was responsible for their being spiritually nourished during sacrament meeting. God blessed me and it went great. The first talk I got nearly phrase for phrase. The others were a bit harder, and at one point I stopped my monologue for a couple seconds as I figured out what to say, and although I was in a corner, a couple of people who could see me looked over the shoulder as if to say "hey man what's wrong?"  Yikes.

Brother and Sister P nailed it though, we told R that a couple wanted to have her over for lunch on Sunday and she was worried about being a burden, but we had them come up to her right after sacrament and invite her over. Brother P is German and his wife is Peruvian. Of the two of them, only he speaks English. At one point, we were presented with a sauce that he described in this manner: "zis is atom bomb". R ate her whole portion in one bite, while my tiny taste had me coughing. According to her, Pakistanis eat similarly, but with a lot more spice.

It's been a lot of fun here with Anziano Jorgenson. We have a challenging ward and we get lost every so often but it's been a miraculous and fun filled week and a half!!

Love,

Anziano Cannon

More Bari pics

Some of my favorite English course students