Ciao a Tutti! Hello Everyone! Things in Italy are continuing to go well and progress is being made. The past few weeks we have spent multiple hours in our weekly language class. I feel like i am getting to the point where i can make my way around town without pointing and playing charades as much. Still have lots of work and study to do but i am determined to get this language down! Along with our language classes, the past weeks we have spent quite a bit of time in Pistoia. Roger and Heather, the missionaries at the Pistoia congregation, have had some projects they needed help with. We cleaned a local park that was dirty from a music festival that had taken place a few days prior, did some work on the church to get it ready to be painted in the future, and passed out flyers that were invitations to the Chiesa di Cristo (Church of Christ). As for the church in Prato, we have been able to spend time and are getting closer with the families. Two Sundays ago the church in Prato all went out to lunch together. The restaurant was tucked away in the mountains of Tuscany. After about an hour car ride we arrived and enjoyed a picnic style lunch in the mountains. It was beautiful to spend time amoungst God's creation with the church family. The church family here is so kind to us. Marissa and Luigi, an older couple invite our team over quite often to enjoy dinner with them. Orfel and Deborah, who i have mentioned in my past post, have been so helpful with our adjustment here in Italy.

Outside of spending time in Pistoia, language class, or with the church family here in Prato, our team tries our best to make friends here in hopes that we can share Christ with them. At the castle in our downtown, there are concerts throughout the summer. Brandon, Kristen, and I went to listen to some jazz music this past week. While we were there we ran into a friend we had made from our language class, his name is Sandro. He is Italian but speaks English very well.
He invited us to come with him to The Italian Wave Love Festival in Livorno. It is a pretty big music festival that attracts a lot of the younger age population of Italy to. This was pretty exciting to us that not only are we beginning to make friends here, but that we also got to experiance some Italian culture. Sandro picked us up and we took of to the show! We were able to meet quite a few of his friends and with our broken Italian and their broken English, we got along just fine. It was a great time. The music festival was about an hour ride, so we had a good amount of time to get to know Sandro better. He is awesome! On the drive he started asking a lot of questions about why we came to Italy, God, and the church. He was pretty interested which really excited us because that is what we came here to Italy for, to share Christ with others.

This is good news! No, this is great news! God is working here in Italy and it makes me so happy to be a part of it and to see it in motion. Continue to pray for us as we keep pressing forward on this journey. Love you guys! Until next time!