Week 42 (April 25)--Trapani

TRANSFER NUMBBA 4 IN TRAPANI!

Wazzupp everyone! I Hope that everyone had a good week and my buds at
college slayed at finals. I am seriously so glad that I don't have to
worry about that right now, haha. Okay, so by my title y'all can
probably guess that I am going to be staying in Trapani for another
Transfer! Not gonna lie, I thought I was going to be leaving cause I
know the city really well and a lot of the people here. It kinda makes
doing finding and things like that a little tough cause most of the
people just tell us that they have already talked to us before, but it
was like 3 months ago. And then some of them are sad that like I don't
remember our conversation on the street. Dang, sorry, man; I don't know
how many people we talk to every week--I will try to do better to
remember. Stuff like that haha. So we will see how it goes, I am
really just trying to accept that God needs me in this city for
another transfer and just doing his will. I really do love Trapani
though, it's an awesome city. We just have a lot to work on here haha.

NAPOLI! Ohhh, my! That is probably the coolest city that I have ever
been in, I loved it so much. So what happened is Anziano Olsen and I
took the train up on Tuesday morning, so we were able to have good
conversations with a lot of the people sitting next to us about the
gospel. We ended up getting in to Napoli at around 7:30 at night and
went straight to their English course, which was in their huge church.
It was so big I was kinda blown away. It kinda reminded me of America.
So first off, their English course was huge and (I guess this is just
normal in Napoli cause it's known to just be crazy and insane)
there were so many different things happening at the same time. After
Corso a woman started to opera sing to us, while another guy was
trying to ask me if I knew JR in Texas, and another man was asking
about a word in Italian from a Pharmacist.. What.?! It was awesome, I
loved it so much. It was kinda chaotic, which made it so much fun.

Wednesday... Ohhh baby, this was by far the greatest day ever. So
Anziano Olsen and I left the house early to go and get his Permesso.
We walk into the room and I am not kidding you, there are around 10
nuns and a Catholic priest sitting in their chairs. SICKK! Like I am
not saying that it was bad or I have anything against them, it was just
we were kinda very out of place. So we started talking to them and
they were all so nice, and they were all from different parts of the
world. We ended up making good friends with all of them (by the end of
it there was like 25 nuns and 3 priests--it was great) and actually at
the end of it two of the nuns asked us if we could walk them back to
the station after we received our permesso so that we could kinda be
like their "body guards" because that area was kinda dangerous. Soo
sweet, it was kinda funny for me to imagine like what passers by were
thinking when they saw the two Mormon missionaries with two nuns that
were like 2 feet shorter than us. It was sweet. The one nun that I
walked back actually asked for my email, which kinda took me back cause
I wasn't expecting that, but now I have a nun friend in Napoli. By this
time it was only 10:00 in the morning. Oh yess.. So after that I went
on a scambio with Anziano Pace, who is a really good missionary that
goes home next month. I learned a lot from him and one of the best
experiences that we had together was on the metro.

Okay, so the metro. One thing that I do (I don't know if it's a
pride thing or what) but when people are pretty rude to me, my ultimate
goal is to become friends with either them or all the people around
them so it just makes the person feel bad and realize that he
shouldn't have done that. I don't know why but that's just how I am
cause it kinda gets me fired up when people are rude for no reason. So
what happened is this guy on the metro started saying stuff to me and
then laughed with all his like 5 buddies. Trying to make fun of me in
like a language I couldn't understand. So I started to talk back to
them and by the end of it the one guy left and I became friends with
his one bud. Mission accomplished. Then all of the sudden this Gypsy
comes right next to me and starts screaming in Napolitano and starts
kissing the floor. What?!?!? About a minute after that experience, this

random man comes up to me and starts talking to me and then as we
walk away he puts his hand on my shoulder, gets closer to my face and
looks me in the eyes and goes, "Don't forget about me.. Look me in the
eyes." And then he like opens his eyes wider so I can see them clearly
and opens them more with his fingers.. Oh man. ."Don't forget about
me." “Okay, don't worry, I promise I won't." Haha it was funny. Again, I
love Napoli so much.

So sadly, I will not be serving in Napoli for the next transfer but
hopefully in the future I will go there because I absolutely loved how
it was so crazy, dangerous, and all the friends I already made. [Editor’s note: I find the last sentence just slightly alarming!]

Coming back to Trapani was good though. We were able to make two
really good friends on the train and one of them was actually a
professional Italian Hip Hop dancer who won Nationals this year. Ohhh,
so cool. They were both atheist and we had really good conversations
with them about the Restoration and what we believe in after this
life, the Word of Wisdom, and other things. It was great, hopefully in the future they
will talk to the Anziani from where they are from. Other than that
though we have had a good time getting back here and working hard. We
are really trying hard to find new people that we can teach because a
lot of our investigators haven't been able to see us for a very long
time. And so we are trying to find new ones and just really trying to
follow the Spirit and meet the people that God has prepared for us.
Hopefully we will be able to start to see success from it soon.

So for my spiritual thought I read something from the Book of Mormon
that really touched me because it was a letter from Mormon (one of the
last prophets in the Book of Mormon) to his son Moroni (who was the
last Prophet in the Book of Mormon) I changed the names in it to make
it more personal and it really meant a lot to me.

"An epistle of my father Tim (my dad), written to me, Tristan; and it
was written unto me soon after my calling to the ministry, And on this
wise did he write unto me, saying;
My beloved son, Tristan, I rejoice exceedingly that your Lord Jesus
Christ hath been mindful of you, and has called you to his
ministry, and to his holy work.
I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God
the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his
infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of
faith on his name to the end."

This touched me a lot because, one, it made this scripture really
personal to me thinking about how I know my father, but also my family
and friends specifically are praying for me and supporting me. The
last part is what I really like though, how he mentions that it is
only through Jesus Christ that we will be able to endure and do the
things that he asks to the end. Through his grace and through his love
we will be able to do whatever we need to. I know that is true and I
know I need to use that more for this transfer here in Trapani.

I love y'all!!

Love,

Anziano Spencer

On the way to Napoli (Naples) with Anz. Olsen

On the way to Napoli (Naples) with Anziano Olsen.

Passing by Messina.

That water, though!!!

Let's just look at that one more time!

You aren't in Texas anymore, Anziano!

He seems pretty OK with that. 

You can't beat authentic Italian pizza!

Yum.

With the Anziani in Napoli.

Is this a thing?!

Saying good-bye to Anziano Trejo in Palermo. 

 Back "home" in Trapani--at Casa Santa, Sicily, with Anziano Olsen and friends.

Week 41 (April 18)--Trapani

TRAPANI WEEK????

Hey everyone!! I hope everyone is doing well; good luck to all of y'all
who have finals this week. I am so glad I don't have to worry about that,
haha. This Saturday we get transfer calls, so I am interested to see
what is going to happen! I could be leaving Trapani and going to
another city or I could be staying. I am honestly fine with both options. I
feel good about the things that I have done here and I would be fine
still working here for another transfer, so we will see. This week is
actually going to go by really fast too because tomorrow is when we
are actually going to Napoli. We take a ten-hour train ride tomorrow
morning and then pick up my comp’s permesso on Wednesday morning. 
Wednesday night we will be able to do some work with some of the
missionaries there (which will be cool because I will be able to work
with Anziano Slade, who lived in my old house when I was working in
Terni). After that we will take a ten-hour train ride back to Palermo
and then head to our area on Thursday. It will be fun, although it is pretty
hard to be out of our area for so long--but we are doing our best.

So for this past week we have been working really hard on doing a lot
of finding. It has been tough but we are starting to see the blessings
from it. Maybe not blessings right there from finding new people, but
seeing new blessings in other ways. One other way that really touched
me was yesterday. We had planned to do a small genealogy activity in
the church with two of our members and one of our friends from English
Course. The members came through and showed up and really helped her
to get started on doing her Family History. She built really good
friendships with the members and it honestly was a really good
blessing for me to see that these activities really do work!! I was so
happy. Another thing that I am so grateful for is this new couple that
moved into the ward. They are from up north and the guy served a
mission in Milan 10 years ago. They are so solid and want to help us
with our work. The guy is so nice too and comes up and gives me a big
hug every Sunday and asks how I am doing and things like that. It
really means a lot and I am grateful for that other miracle. [This is another new couple, not Vito and Sara that Anz. Spencer has mentioned before.]

The other big thing that was sweet this week was the scambio that I
was able to do with Anziano Trejo. He is a really powerful missionary
and even though he is finishing his mission next week, he is still working
really hard and he taught me a lot. I really respect him for that and it
was cool to see him with some of the members that we met with because
he started his mission in Trapani. So he was able to start there and
then the members saw him finish, which was cool. We were able to have a
testimony meeting with the two families that we met with for our
spiritual thought, which was powerful. The spirit was really strong and
it was cool to see his relationships that he has built with them over
two years.

So for my spiritual thought for this week, I want to share a quote that I really
like from Vince Lombardi who says, "The harder you fight for something,
the harder it is to surrender." I think that this quote is first off 
straight up cool. Like I feel strongly that the most important things
in our lives, whatever they may be, are the most difficult because we
sacrifice for them the most and try our best to make things work out. I feel
like I have really seen that in Trapani and I have been so grateful
for the things that I have learned here. I know that is not very
profound, but the quote really means a lot to me because as I have
grown my love for the people here and for the language and everything,
it really has shown me that even though things can be tough, as I grow
from them and as I "don't surrender," things will become better and I
will be able to “fight harder." That's something that I just think is
super sweet.

Well, I love you all so much! I love the work here—yes, it's been a lot
of finding, but it's been good. It's helping me grow and learn. And you
can see the little miracles and good things in everything!

Vi Voglio BENE,

Anziano Spencer

Sent from my iPad

Birthday lunch for her. Anziani are not sad about those hamburgers!

No description needed! 

Let them eat cake!

San Vito lo Capo

District Meeting (Anziano Trejo, mentioned above, is standing next to Anz. Spencer)

Scambio (exchange) with Anziano Trejo, visiting member family.

Today's P-day with Palermo missionaries.

Playing paintball means you have to be very serious and intense, apparently. 

Week 40 (April 11)--Trapani

AMERICANI!!

Whaazzzupp everyone!! This week was soo good! Thank you so much for
your prayers and support.  I have thought a lot about last week and why
I was pretty down when I was writing that letter and to be honest I
think a big part of it was the fact that our team lost in Zone Calcio, [soccer]
which doesn't make me happy. I really don't like to lose hahaha, so
yeah life is really good though!! I have gotten over my sad self and love
being a missionary! Today I don't have that much time to write because
a couple from our English Course that we are super good friends with
have invited us over cause it's the girl’s birthday and we are going to
be spending the day with them today. I am excited because we are such
good friends with them and they are so sick. They both worked up in
the clothing industry (like really nice clothes) so they have worked
with like Mumford and Sons, Messi, all these famous people. SOO sweet.
So they are down here in Sicily now cause they just wanted to take a
"year off" and come here and not work (Magari, like I wish I could do
that in the future) and we met them their second day here--I
personally think it was for them to hear and accept the gospel so we
will see! ;)

So the title of my email is important this week because of how many
Americans I have met this week. And it was so nice being able to talk
to them and I met a bunch from Texas too which was so cool. The
biggest group was from Monday when we were in Palermo doing some
English Course finding. There was this huge group of ragazzi [teens/young people] and we
went up and asked them if they wanted to learn English and they were
like, “Dude, we already speak English" OHHH how I have missed American
English hahha. So we started talking to them and it was cool cause
there were four of us and about 20ish of them and we kinda just started
discussing different topics about the gospel and about why we were here
and what the Book of Mormon is, the things we believe about with the
family, stuff like that. They were all super open and really nice and
so it was a nice little miracle to see. Then that night when we were
walking home we met this other guy and I tried to talk to him in
Italian and he mumbled something back to me that he doesn't speak
Italian so I asked if he speaks English and he was like, "Yeah man, I
am from Detroit" hahah what?! He explained to us that he was actually
here in Italy because he was doing family history from the information
that he found in our Stake Center. Church is so True!!

After that we had a scambio [exchange] and I was able to work with Anziano Jensen
here in Trapani. He is a really good missionary and hilarious. I love
working with him so much. Like something that I am learning and still
trying to get used to is just how blunt Italians are. We met this one
less active member on the street and she has a lot of hair and is really old.
She doesn't really take care of her hair at all; it's just kinda
everywhere and the first time she saw Anziano Jensen (who is bald), she
was like, "You need to take better care of your hair!!" He looks back
at her and was like, "I don't have any hair?!” Oh, man, to me that was
so funny. We had some great lessons together though with this one guy
who is actually a missionary for his church. He invited us over and he
knows the Bible very well. He actually studies it in Greek, Arabic,
and English (Umm what?) and told us his story about how he used to be
in the Mafia and not have a purpose for his life but then he changed
though Jesus Christ. It was really cool and hopefully we will be able
to see him again in a few days. The other lesson was with this woman
who we met on the street as well who is "Looking for the Truth" as she
said. YES!! We had a good lesson with her and Vito was there too. She
is really sincere and seems really interested, so I am really excited.

The other really good experience for me this week was church
yesterday. There was a wedding for one of the members here two days
ago and so there have been a lot of visitors and members from America
and from Rome. The spirit was really strong as three women from Austin 
TEXAS (Repppinnn!!) that were visiting were invited to bear their
testimonies to the branch and there was someone translating for them.
And then after that this one man showed up and so I moved over to
translate for him. I asked him were he was from and he said, Utah, but
you might not know what city... It's called Mapleton! That's where my
grandparents are from!! They are in the same ward hahaa! I worked out
in the park that is close to his house with my dad!! Oh, man, it made me
so happy! He was a really cool guy though and is actually in charge of
the film crew for Mormon Messages and the Bible Videos so he works
a lot with the apostles. He was showing me pictures how he was with
Anziano Bednar, Christofferson, Stevenson, Holland, and a few others two
weeks ago. Ohhh man, and then at the end he took a picture of us to
show the apostles to not worry cause they have two missionaries that
are working down in the little city of Trapani in Italy! It was a really
cool experience and made me so happy. He even asked if there was
anything we needed that he could do and we told him that it would be
really cool if "The Hope of God’s Light" was in Italian, so he told us he
will work on that for us. Church is so True.

This week is going to be really interesting as well because tomorrow
Anziano Olsen and I have to fly to Napoli to pick up his permesso. 

I am pretty excited to go too. So
for my spiritual thought I want to share something from Anziano
Holland’s talk that he gave last week at General Conference,

"President George Q. Cannon once taught: “No matter how serious the
trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will
never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It
is not His character [to do so]. … He will [always] stand by us. We
may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters;
but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all
these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them.”

I now that is true. I have seen that throughout my whole mission.
Sometimes things get really hard but I know that things get better. I
saw that last week and I know I will continue to see that throughout
my mission. I think that it's interesting as well as you take a step
back and realize that God really was with us the whole time, sometimes
we just have to realize it.

I love y'all so much!!

Love,

Anziano Spencer

P.S So I don't have a specific funny experience for this week other
than how great it is to show Italians a picture of my family. I got a
picture two weeks ago of my brothers and my dad at the beach. And
sometimes I mention how my dad is into working out. And now I have
a picture to show them and every time I do literally everyone goes,
'Marrrooonnnaa!!" Which is kinda like "Oh MYYYY?!!" And then the wife
kinda looks at her husband and starts to laugh and tells him he
needs to go to the gym more. Or gets onto him for not working out...
And the husband then like flexes and tells me to feel his arm or
something. Oh, man, it is the best thing; I love it so much. Alright I
will talk to y'all next week! Love you!

The Americans!!! (Ragazzi in Palermo, mentioned above) 

We teach seminary now, which is fun! (One student.) 

Key Miller, boss guy from Mapleton.

The Texans came to church!! The guy next to me is super cool and is from Rome.

Week 39--April 4 (Trapani)

Trapani Week 17!!

Hey everyone!! I hope you are all doing well and that everyone had an
awesome time watching conference (where our prophet and apostles speak
to us in a big center and we have the privilege to watch and take
advice and the things that we need). We were lucky enough to be able
to watch all the sessions except for the Sunday afternoon!! It made me
so happy! And to make it better it was in English! Ohhhh YESS, there
is something super powerful about their voices. I don't know how to
explain it, but it was incredible.  The reason that we were able to
watch most of the sessions is because yesterday we found a ride for
our African homies and so they came to the church in the morning and
we were there for the whole day with them watching the sessions,
talking about Joseph Smith, and some other stuff. It was great and I
seriously loved all the talks. The one that really touched me was during the
Sunday morning session by President Uchtdorf when he talked about how
God can always "rebuild' us even when we feel so low and so sad. I
thought it was a powerful talk and it meant a lot to me.

So this week, to be honest ,was probably one of the harder weeks on my
mission. A lot of things are just not really working out and the kinda
"big slap to the face" was my companion and I are really trying to
help strengthen the branch and help the members get more involved in
missionary work. So that's why we have been doing our family night
activities at the church, and other activities and programs to really
try to help. This Friday we had this activity that we have announced
in sacrament meeting for the past month to watch "Meet the Mormons"
all together and for people to bring their friends. Anyway we got
everything ready and we were seriously so excited. We bought drinks,
made brownies (cause Italians loveeee brownies) and were so stoked.
And then something that made it even better is our three investigators
said they could come and I am not kidding, I was so pumped for this
activity. Our investigators all showed up on time to watch and there
were no members. None. We tried calling them...Ohhh man it was so bad.
One of our investigators asked us, “Where is everyone??” Dang, I was
seriously so sad and just straight up ticked from the lack of support.
We decided to start the movie anyway and after 45 minutes one member
showed up!! I love her that came so much and it was good for her to
meet our investigators, but I don't think they will really want to come
back after that experience which makes me really sad. That gave me a
little hope and happiness though that one member showed up, but not
gonna lie that experience just really put me down and made me pretty
upset cause we really are trying our best to help everyone here in
Trapani and I guess there must be some things for us to learn still!!

I am sorry this letter isn't how I normally am; things are just pretty
hard here right now,but I am trying to be strong and just keep on
working the hardest that I can and I know that things will work out
eventually! I don't want you to feel bad for me either--I just try to
be me and try to be really real with my letters and so that's why I am
writing some of this stuff. I love being a missionary; even though it
is really hard I am grateful that I can serve the Lord here in
Trapani, Italy. One awesome thing though is one of our investigators
is progressing really well! He wants to receive his answer and he is
really open and receptive to meet with us and learn more. He even said
that he is becoming closer to the church and the things that we are
teaching so we are hoping so bad that things go well with him. The
hard thing is is that he can only meet once a week, but he comes to
church and so I am grateful that we have been blessed to know him and
work with him!

Okay so my spiritual thought is from the Book of Mormon about the
Stripling Warriors. This part in the scriptures really touched me
cause it shows me an example of how even when you are one of the
stripling warriors, things can be hard but the Lord will always strengthen
us-

"10 Therefore we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that he
would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies,
yea, and also give us strength that we might retain our cities, and
our lands, and our possessions, for the support of our people.

11 Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with
assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak
peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause
us that we should hope for our deliverance in him."

I love this a lot. I know that Heavenly Father is always watching out
for us. I think it was stated a lot in General Conference by how
literally our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ want us to turn to
them. Everyone has hard moments, and because of that Heavenly Father
in his wisdom provided Jesus Christ to come to this earth and perform
the Atonement for us so that he knows how to succor us and he knows
what we need to be strengthened and blessed. I am grateful for the
Atonement of Jesus Christ and I know that he is here!!

I love you all!!

Love,

Anziano Spencer

P.S We played Zone Calcio today which was really fun, I love playing
Calcio with all the Anziani because it's fun being around everyone and
I miss soccer a lot haha! Have a good week everyone!!