April 27

Hello! Things are going well and life is good. Easter went really well and sacrament meeting was great. My comp is from Oregon. There is also a holiday here after Easter called little Easter and we had a big picnic at our church. We invited the whole district of Napoli (members) and we had about 60 people show up. My companion and I made 4 bbqs out of bricks for everyone and one person brought there bbq. It went really well and I have some cool pictures of all the grills full of meat. The tradition is to go out and grill meat and sausage. It was really fun and a lot of stress gone when it was over.
But that night something sad and a bummer happened, one of our members here had a heart attack at about 9:30 that night. We live right next to the church and we had been home for about 20 min when we got a call from his daughter and she said he had fallen and what not. There was another member there who is in the Italian army and luckily he knew what to do to save him and do cpr. We got the call and ran over to him and instantly gave him a blessing while they were still doing CPR. We grabbed him and carried him out of the church and a few min later the ambulance arrived. It was a bummer. Right now while I am writing he is in surgery and they have to pull some veins out of his arms and legs to rebuild something around his heart. This morning I went and gave blood for the surgery at the hospital. I hope it goes well. He has three daughters and a wife. It has really made me appreciate life and see how something can change in an instant. Also, how important it is to know CPR or he would have been dead on the spot say the doctors. I know that Heavenly Father has a reason in everything that happens and it’s up to us to learn from things that happen and become better and always similar to Christ. Sometimes to us Gods ways are like a cross stitch. If you look at it from the bottom you might not be able to tell what the heck is going on but from the top it becomes something beautiful and perfectly organized. All we have to do is do our best, keep the commandments and submit to his will and he will be able to put the thread and needle where it needs to be.

Other than that things are going well. Next week is my last zone conf and I’ll have to give my "dying testimony" because I’m in my "death city" and I’m "dying" soon...little mission lingo for ya. But our members are doing well and I think on mother’s day they might switch the branch pres calling to my companion so I can get him started sufficiently. Oh my eye is doing much better thank you for your prayers :) I’ll keep doing my best and trying to be the best missionary/branch pres I can be. I hope all is well.