God is great...ALL OF THE TIME!!!!

Ok, to answer the question really quickly. To send an envelope, I don't see a problem with it, just make sure to tape the thing up really tightly so that the Italian post workers don't try and take it because it has happeend before! Well, I have yet to make friends like I did in Reggio. I am looking and trying, but I don't think that Taranto will be mine like Reggio was! Reggio was and always will be MY city and I am not so sure if Taranto will turn out to be the same for me. I am still going to try my hardest to, but we will see what happens. About being Zone Leader, not too many things change from being a normal missionary. I still do all the regular things that a missionary does along with a few more responsibilites with it. I will be traveling to Cosenza after this week to do a Scambio there, but we will see where else I go if I do. I like the calling and I get to talk to a lot more people than I did just being District Leader. I wanted to share a couple things that happened this past week that were pretty special to me: Friday and Saturday we did a service thing for the church at the cimitero qua a Taranto. For this service, we pushed older people around in wheelchairs because it was a festival of the dead and there were A BUNCH of people! The first woman that I took around had her daughter (around 40 years old) with her and we began talking about life and the good things of it:). When we finally finished, the woman looked straight at me and said, "You are a missionary right?" "Ya," I said. "So, you help people who have lost faith right?" "That is what I try and do," I responded. "Well, I need a lot of help. Would you be able to try and help?" When I heard that, it was a huge realization for me about how many people are out there in this world that do not have a knowledge that we do! How amazing is that!? Think for a moment all my LDS friends who read this about how great, happy, joyous, wonderful, etc... our message is that we have. We know what we will do and where we will go after this life. We know that God is great and gracious. We don't think of him as too much of a vengeful god but one of love and compassion towards all of his children. EVEN the ones that mess up! I am so happy that I found this realization again! Every time that it happens, I am astonished yet again! I love this message! So, to finish the story, I told her yes and we exchanged numbers. We are going to try and get an appointment with her somtime this week:)! Another event this week that I would like to share happened after the service on Saturday. The sisters here in Taranto called us and asked for a blessing. Of course we said yes and met them in the church. We did the blessings for them and we left. As we went back home, I was thinking about what we had just done. We had used the power of the priesthood to give someone a blessing who needed it. We just pronounced a blessing of comfort upon for people who needed it! I am so grateful for this power because it is REAL and it really does help people! When one is doing a priesthood blessing, they must be worthy and really listen to what the Lord wants them to say. It was incredible to know that the words being said we inspired and coming from the Spirit directly from God:)!!!!!!!! How great is that! To finish, I want to say that God is great ALL THE TIME! Don't you EVER forget it! Anziano Dallin Layton