Ciao!: 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