Week 51: June 27 (Brindisi)

CIAO!! Week 52...

BUON DI... Hey everyone, I hope y'all are all doing super good. It's
weird to think that next week is the Fourth of July. There is an American
family that lives here in our branch, so we are hoping for Pday that
we can go and celebrate with them, which will be so sick. This week is
going to go by really quick as well because I have the opportunity to
work with Anziano Zito, who is very new in the mission, and so I am
excited. This Thursday we also have a really big conference up in Bari
with our Zone and the Taranto Zone to meet the new mission president.
I am grateful for the things that President Waddoups taught me and
I am excited to learn from President Pikerd. One of the best things
that President Waddoups taught me was a letter that I received when a
lot of things were not going as planned at one point in my mission:
"Well Elder, that's why it is called work. No one said it was going to
be easy." So true, I really am grateful to have served with him.

This week was great, the work is moving forward and G.

is progressing so well. He truly has been prepared to
receive this message. Last week we were having a lesson and he was
just like, "Guys, I really am trying so hard to understand the Book of
Mormon and really, I can explain it to you. (He then tells the story
perfectly of when Nephi goes and gets the plates and even mentions
Zoram.) But you have to understand... I can't memorize it. Like its Soo
hard to memorize, it's like impossible." Haha he's a stud, we then
explained how he doesn't have to worry about it at all and we haven't
even memorized it. It's the scriptures and the important thing is that
we understand the spiritual message of it. We have two more lessons
with him and if things go well he will hopefully be baptized in two
weeks. We are praying that he continues to progress because he will be
a great new strength to this branch. 

We are also working with some
other awesome people. We met again with that family who has the sick
Broadway son and as I was talking to the dad he told me that he used to
be an old cop that would take out the Mafia in Palermo... We started
talking and we was filling me in on different places like churches
with passages underneath them for people to escape... All this
stuff like sooo sick. It was cool cause I knew the area; I went there
every week. We spent a long time with them answering their questions
and trying to help them really understand the importance of the
Restoration cause they like to take a lot of things from different
religions. We hope that now they finally understand the why and how so
they can know. Now they just need to act, so we will see. There are also
these three women that we have been working with that live far away
near Taranto and so it's hard to meet. They like to come to learn
English so we teach them for like 30 minutes before and even though
it's kinda slow going, one of them thanked us for "Helping her feel
closer to God." YESS!! YESS.. So we are trying to see if we can meet
their families cause they all have sons our age, so that would be
incredible.

This week I was also able to do a scambio with Anziano Laarian, who is
a missionary that works in Lecce. We actually met at the beginning of
my mission while he was up in L'Aquila (stands for eagle) and I was in
Terni. We couldn't communicate whatsoever cause he is from Peru and
only speaks Spanish and Italian and I could only speak English and
broken "Hello how are you?" In Italian and so it was a great time
being able to speak together and work together. He is a beast and I
hope we work together in the future as companions. It was nice to do
finding where we just had good unity going back and forth because
both of our companions are very new in the mission and so Italian is
still trying to click for them. Both of our companions were afraid of
being together cause they just finished being greenies, but they did
fine and so I hope it was a good confidence booster.

I want to share a little bit more about my companion so that y'all can
understand how sick and funny he is. So he is kinda like Napolean
Dinamiite in the funny sorta way. So this is what he said with his
letter to his family about the scambio. I think it explains him
perfectly:

'Tuesday-
Haha... So we had District meeting and that went well but after I went
on a scambio with Anziano Zito who was with me in the MTC! What the
what! We both speak like 0 Italian! But we totally killed it, we had a
lesson with a recent convert M., he's a little strange. But we love
him anyways. After that we taught English course and Mina and
Patrizia! Mmm I love them! They brought us gelato!
#BlessingsFromOnHigh we taught about the importance of prayer with the
story of Enos. They told us, "you know, I really feel like I'm coming
closer to the savior when I'm talking with you guys." Tender mercies
all day long.. :) After English course ended these two girls came into
the class and our friend Toni pipes up and says, "Hey Morlock your
dates are here." and they were here for English course! We told them
that it just ended but we could stay and talk in English for a couple
minutes if they'd like but we needed Toni or someone to stay with us.
We talked about America, the gospel, music, hobbies, just the usual
stuff. Then we had to go and they say, "Do you guys mind if we walk
you home?"  Oh freak, oh freak, oh freak..... Anziano Zito and I look
at each other in panic mode and then to Toni... And he just starts
laughing.... In my mind all I can think is, "Get thee hence
Sataaaaan!" But we said sure and so they walked us like half way and
said they had to go. I was so relieved. The whole time we were talking
about the gospel soo... Yeah that's my scary experience of the week!"
LOLOL so that is my companion in a nutshell. I love him so much; he is
a hard worker and a funny guy so it makes things fun. This Sunday
was also pretty stressful because one of the members didn't show up so
I had the opportunity to give a talk, and then also teach Gospel
Principles. But, it's nothing like what the Lecce Anziani are having
to do: they both just got called to be first or second counselors in
the branch presidency. I love being a missionary haha. This week we
were also able to meet with a very elderly cute woman who the Anziani
have worked with in the past. We went to her house and she started
crying when she saw us and she explained how her husband just passed
away two weeks ago and so it was a good experience to be able to hold
her hand and share a message of hope. All of her family wants us to
come back so we are going to meet her daughters and grandchildren. 

We are excited to meet them and invite them to learn more about Jesus
Christ!

So for my spiritual thought I wanted to share something that some
people shared with me as we were doing finding. This week we were not
able to find a lot of investigators, but we were talking to this
elderly man (the usual) and he started getting a little emotional
explaing how he will never forget when he was nine years old how his mom
was alone trying to raise four kids and she didn't have a job. They
had no food and it was Christmas time. He remembers clearly asking his
mom what they were going to eat and as they were crying, two elders
(missionaries) showed up carrying a box of food and games/toys for the
kids. Wow. And then we met someone who lived in Argentina and he
explained how in Argentina their house was surrounded by all sorts of
different religions and then he says.. "Ya know, all these people were
really nice, but you missionary elders were the only ones who ever
came over to offer my father service... I will never forget that. I
tell it to my girlfriend all the time." And then his girlfriend 
confirmed it. Wow. So what I have been thinking about is the service
that we can give to others. You never know what might happen. You never
know who it might affect, or how much it really might mean to someone.
You never know, but what I do know is that as we are willing and ready,
God will use us to bless others because he wants to help and he loves all
of his children. I can testify that I know that is true cause I have
seen it personally in my life and on my mission.

Vi Voglio Un Sacco Di Bene!!!

Anziano Spencer

P.S While doing speza [shopping], Bleeding Love came on in the store... Ohh my, me
and my companion just looked at each other even though we were on the
opposite ends of the aisles and both just immediately started dancing
with him trying to drop down in the splits. It was great. And then One
Republic came on. OHHH BABBY I miss dancing so much.. I love you
all!!!