Ciao!: 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!