January 26th, 1964

 Date: 1-26-64

Still sort of "groping" along with the language. I guess I will have to get on the stick. That bed sure feels good. My companion has been giving me many opportunities to say tings in Italian, but I'm not studying hard enough. However, I've learned the second discussion in Italian and yesterday I gave it. That was the big turning point with my German. I hope it will be the same with Italian. I'm' understanding the language pretty good. My vocabulary is still too small to express myself adequately. 

We have been having some good cottage meetings- and also some fine investigators. A family named Cechini is coming along fine. The man (young lawyer) said he would be baptized the first of March. Perhaps, we can baptize his wife also. We have some good German investigators also. I've been getting the opportunity to do most of the teaching. Therefore, I must learn the lessons (CHALLENGE!)  My current companion, Mascaro is really a good head except a little lazy. It also bothers me because he doesn't memorize the lessons. I think it makes it harder to learn that way. 

We will be changing the location of our Branch. We have a real nice new apartment in the basement of a building. It will be much nicer than the old shack that we have now. For example, every morning (Sunday) we go down three hours early to light the stove to get the place warm. (OLD POT BELLIED STOVE). 

We really had an example of the Priesthood in action. Two of the Elders from Locarno baptized a man two weeks ago. After this the man found out that his daughter had a brain tumor behind the eye. They rushed her to Zurich to a specialist but it looked hopeless. The man was real poor. He was out of work for two weeks and couldn't pay the rent because of hospital bills. Elders collected a little money to pay his rent. We called up elders in Zurich to go over and give her a blessing. The doctors said that the girl would probably only live for a year or 2 more and couldn't decide whether to operate or not after taking X-rays.  Doctors operated yesterday, removed the tumor and expected that she will live and become completely healthy again. You could call it chance, but I would call it the power of the priesthood. That's all for now.


Statue of Martin Luther


Hotel (albergo)




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