Ciao!: 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