Beautiful Saturday, Peruvian Drinks, Chinese Culture

(Side Note from Mom: he sent quite a few photos of sights they've seen.  I'll just sprinkle them throughout, even though they don't have to do with his descriptions.)

Hello!

SATURDAY HIGHLIGHT.  Well, the big activity this week was Henry's baptism!  He was baptized Saturday, and there was a lot of support from members, especially the Peruvian members, since Henry is Peruvian.  We all showed up, and we're talking, and waiting for him, since he was coming straight from work.  He got there about 10 minutes late.  Still, it was a great experience, especially for Henry's family (wife, son and brother).  The man who did the baptism, another Peruvian, started off in Italian, paused, and finished in Spanish.  Henry is in the middle.  Fratello Borjas is on the left, and Vescovo (bishop) on the right.

CHRISTIANITY LESSON. A fun experience we had this week was teaching a Chinese man.  We ran into him on the street, he gave us his number, and we met to talk about our message and about God.  But, he didn't have the foundation of a belief in God, or know all about Jesus, which most people here have, so we explained the concept of God as the Creator and our Heavenly Father, and then some basic principles about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

AIM HIGH.  The push at the last missionary gathering was to be the best missionaries we could be, in our setting goals, self-improvement, and consecrated work.  Since so many missionaries just went home, the story used as an example of that was one from the Bible, where Gideon has a large army.  But the Lord wants him to decrease the size, so the army doesn't claim to have won by its own power.  So he tests them, and decreases it to 300 people.  Meanwhile in the mission, we went from about 230 to 200 missionaries.

INTERNATIONAL DRINK CHOICES. Dad, I don't know if you've tried it, but some of the Peruvians brought Inka-Cola, some South American drink.  I really liked it, maybe you've stumbled across it.  There are Arab shops here and there, that sell American drinks, like Dr. Pepper and in theory A&W, though I haven't found it yet.  There are also Indian and South American shops that sell typical drinks or foods or sauces of a given area.

Mom, the sunrise bike ride place was Piazza San Michelangelo, I just didn't know it then.  We have been there on a P-day, and to the Duomo-basilica-tower combo.

Have a great week!
Love, Anziano Whitesell

P.S. A note on the "Sign" pictures...those street signs are decorated around town, with those stick figures interacting with the lines.  They're pretty clever.  And the "Free/fly away" stick figures are just fun graffiti around town.  You'll see a couple in this batch, but there are more to come.