Ciao!: Week 48: June 7 (Brindisi)

BRINDISI BABBYYY WEEK 1

Hey everyone! I am sorry that I am writing today, we had a special
training yesterday, so I was up in Bari and that's why my P-day is
today. I hope y'all are doing well though, especially cause it's
summer!! So sick, I will be hitting my year mark on my mission pretty
soon, which is pretty weird. So first I will give you some of the
details about Brindisi. It's right on the ocean, just like Trapani, so
that's really cool. It's actually a port city as well so there are a
lot of boats and there is a base where Marines come for
training, so we have made some homies with some marines that are around
our age, which is pretty sick. Not gonna lie, most of the people that
live in this city are very old. I honestly never thought that would be
possible, but literally 70 percent of the people I have seen and tried
to talk to have been over 65. Nice.. A little bit about our branch is
that there is a solid count of 15 members--and going off the trend of the city--
all of them are over 65 as well. Sooo sick, so I am really hoping that
we will be able to bring some young blood into this branch soon.

So last week was a very touching week as I was able to say goodbye to
all of my friends and members that I have met and become so close to
these past 6 months. I am so grateful that I was in Trapani for 4 transfers
and I know that my mission president is called of God and directed and
led by God to know that I was supposed to stay there for that long. In
Corso we were able to have a party at the end of it and everyone
brought so much food and there was a lot of support from some of my
homies. Even though some of them were not ready to accept the Gospel,
they wrote me different letters expressing how they were grateful for
the things that we were able to talk about (after Corso or different
times) pertaining to our beliefs and my stand on certain things. It
really was a good moment for me to realize that even though some of
these really good friends of mine did not want to take the lessons, I
still didn't fail in my efforts as I tried my best to explain certain
things to them for their understanding. I really hope in the future
they will have a desire to meet with the missionaries. I absolutely
love Trapani though, and I am so grateful that I served there.

Okay, so I went up to Palermo Wednesday night because I had a bus in
the morning at 6:00. It was nice to be able to spend some time with the
guys in my district and then we realized that we were going to have to
wake up super early cause there were no buses to the train station
since it was a festa. So instead, Anziano Morales (my Brazilian boss)
got permission and ordered a taxi for me. In the morning they sent me
off on the taxi and for the first time in almost a year I was all by
myself. Super weird but pretty sick feeling, not gonna lie. Then I had
the bus ride all the way to Catania (which is across Siciliy) where we
picked up two other Anziani. After that we headed to Brindisi and
after 13 hours we finally made it to my new area!! My new companion is
a really cool guy too; I am excited to work with and learn for him. He's a
really humble, chill guy, swam in high school, went to the same school
as my cousins (Alpine--another Utah missionary—let's go!!! lol), and has
really good desires. He actually mentioned to me that part of his
family did not want him to serve a mission and so they tried to bribe
him with different things like a car and stuff if he stayed. Wow. He's
awesome. I have a lot of respect for him already and I am excited to
hopefully get things really going here. Also, in our district there are
Anziano Zito and Anziano Larrian (who I was with when I was up north in
Terni). He was in my same zone but he is from Peru and only speaks
Italian and Spanish, so we couldn't communicate really well. Now we can
talk fine and he's such a cool guy, so I am excited to serve here with
them.The new house where I live is pretty nice too; there are train
tracks right next to it which is kinda cool cause when a train passes
the house kinda shakes and it's pretty loud. It's pretty sick.
Hopefully this means I can continue to jump rope at 6:30 in the
morning and the neighbors won't mind cause they are used to the train.
Even though we are on the 6th floor... Lolol hopefully I still can. The
church is actually held in a rented out place above a furniture store
which is pretty cool in my opinion. It's a nice area and I like it.

We have had a really cool lesson so far while I have been here with
this one less-active member and his brother. The older brother is 18 and his
little brother is 12 and not baptized and before the lesson my
companion explained to me that they have tried to talk to him about
baptism but the older brother is really nervous and wants to make sure
his brother is ready cause it's a personal choice. So we planned to
talk to them about it again and taught him the plan of salvation. It
was super cool cause I have never taught a young 12-year-old kid on my
mission and so I liked teaching the lesson more simply and he understood
everything. He's so solid and things were going well and at the end of
the lesson the thought or more like a prompting came into my head to
let him choose a date to be baptized. I know that was from the Holy
Ghost because he did and now we are trying to help him prepare, and
his brother saw that it was his personal choice and now we are helping
the brother with some of his concerns and we are hoping this will help
him come back to church. It was a powerful experience and I am excited
to keep working with these 2 guys.

That's about it for the lessons that we have had so far. We have been
doing a lot of finding and meeting a lot of people which has been
great. Like I said, yesterday we had a good specialized training and it
was nice to first off see my cousin!!!! Aww that was the best and I
was able to give him and his new greenie son a big ol' kiss from his
Uncle Spencer. It was really great to see him and he is doing well. It
was also nice to be able to see President and Sister Waddoups. They
are finishing their mission in a few weeks and so this was the last
time we are going to be able to see them. I am grateful for all the
powerful lessons that I have learned from them and the positive
influence that they have had on my mission and my life.

So for my spiritual thought, I want to share two powerful experiences
that I had this last week. The first one is a lesson that I had with
one less-active man we have been working with who has been struggling to find work and so he does not
have a lot of money to buy food. When we showed up to his house for a
lesson, he had brought out some bread and jelly cookies and milk to eat
cause that's all he could do and then was really excited cause his
sister was there and so Anziano Olsen and I had probably one of the
best lessons that we have taught together for the restoration and now
she is taking the discussions. That experience was powerful for 2
reasons for me: one, cause his sister was so open and now there is
another investigator in Trapani right when I left, but two, because
this guy literally spent most of what he had to feed us. And he would
have been offended if we didn't eat. It reminded me of the story in
the Bible of the lady that puts her two mites in for tithing and God
accepts that more than the people putting in a load of money for show.
It really meant a lot to me what he did; even though it maybe wasn't a
lot, he did it with his heart. It touched me a lot.

The other thought is a poem that I wanted to share. Sunday night I was
kinda struggling because I missed Trapani, the members, and my friends
so much. Just being in a new city and everyone all being so old (I
have nothing against old people; I love them, but it's just different
for me cause it's literally everyone), I was pretty down. I was
thinking how sick it would be to be serving in a big city for once
like Rome, or Napoli, or Catania. Then I read this poem that my
trainer Anziano Ray shared with me when I moved to Trapani. This is from a
talk called Your Personal Influence by Thomas S. Monson (our living
prophet today):

Father, where shall I work today?”
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then he pointed out a tiny spot
And said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh no, not that!
Why, no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me.”

And the word he spoke, it was not stern; …
“Art thou working for them or for me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee.

This poem really hit me. Not gonna lie, it was a really good needed
kinda like a slap in the face to get over the fact that yeah maybe I
am not in the biggest, coolest city where there are a bunch of other
missionaries and there is a ward and stuff. Instead, I have been called
to serve and work with the people in Brindisi, a city that I didn't
even know existed before I heard of it [during my transfer call]. But, it doesn't matter if all
the people here are rather old, or if it's a small branch. What
matters is I have been called and I am working for God, not for myself
or others. I know that maybe I don't have the love for this city YET
like I did for Trapani. But, I have been called here and I am going to
do my best to work my hardest to serve the people and love this area.

VI VOGLIO BENEEEE!!!

Love,

Anziano Spencer