Week 64: September 26 (Brindisi)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUBBA!

I know I can't do much on your birthday little man, but I just wanted
to wish you a happy birthday and tell you how much I love you Caden!!
The big 12 is coming up--that's so awesome!!

I hope everyone is doing well! I don't have much time today so just
know that I am doing well and that I love being a missionary. Today we
are going to go spend some of our Pday at our friend Teodoro's house
because he invited us over and then we have some lessons tonight which
will be great. One of them I am a little nervous for because it's with
a family whose daughter stalked my little brother Gavin and the mom of
this daughter asked me if I could go dancing and to the beach. After
I denied her on both of those options she asked if she could get a picture
with us. It's going to be very interesting, but we want to use this
opportunity to share a message with the family, so we are praying that
things go well.

Things have been going well here in Brindisi. We have been planning a
really big party for all of our English Course and so that will be
tomorrow. Our branch president is expecting about 50
people to be there, excluding members, so we have been doing a lot of
publicity for it. We managed to go into two high schools as well and
so we are really hoping there is a good turn out. We want to keep
gaining our branch president’s trust and we hope that when our

friends meet the members in the church, they will enjoy it and we can invite
them to learn more. To "come and see." It's been good practice for
Anziano Young as well because he is a stud and is not afraid to grow
and so I have been trying to get him more comfortable talking to
people and so we were on the main road in centro doing more publicity
for this party and I told Anzaino Young to go on the left side of the
road and I would walk the right and to talk to everyone. There was a
lot of people out because it was a Satuarday night and it was good for
him. He was willing to just go for it and I like that. BUTATI BABY!!
(Throw yourself.. It's kinda my motto for the mission. Have no fear.)

D. has still been continuing to learn and to come to church. He
still needs to recognize what the spirit is and so we have been
studying a lot about faith and putting these things into practice so he
can feel. We try to ask him questions to help him identify that that's
the spirit but when we ask him those types of questions about his
feelings he always just says, "I don't know." So it's kinda tough, but
in the Bible Dictionary it talks about how as we accept the Gospel of

Jesus Christ and put the commandments into practice in our lives we
will be able to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. This week Danny
has been praying every day and in our last lesson we asked him what he
has been feeling.. "I have been feeling good. And I don't know why.”
Well, it's a start!! We are hoping that things continue to go well with
him and that we will be able to find some new investigators as well.
There is one lady from English Course that said to me, "I don't really
come here to learn English. I just come to relax and listen to you
guys because I can see the light in your eyes. It helps me." PERFECT.
She will be at the party tomorrow and we are hoping we can talk to her
a little more.

We saw a very big miracle this week with some members that have not
come to church for many years. To be honest, like I explained in
my last email, I struggle with this type of finding because I feel like
I always have the worst luck and I haven't seen a lot of miracles with
it. But, Anziano Young and I felt like we should go to this one
family’s house even though they live very far away. We tried them last

week but they didn't answer and so we felt like we should try them
again. We went and they let us in!!! Not gonna lie, I was so nervous
because I wanted to get in so bad and so the first few minutes I did
everything I could to make them laugh and build trust and we ended up
having a really good discussion. (So this is my mind process..
Opens door. I see she is wearing a Nike shirt and tell her I like
Nike.. She then invites us in and I look over and see the dad stand up
and he has arms that are massive because he used to be a cop and is
still huge.. I go over and ask him if he goes to the gym.. I
then mention how my father is huge too and I get a smile out of him.
And then I mention how I want to one day beat him in an arm wrestle
which probably won't happen but I can always hope and they start
laughing.. They invite us to the table. Success..!) I was so scared Lolol. 

Unfortunately, in the past they were offended
by the members and so it's going to take a long time, but we are just
super grateful that we were able to get into their house. They are
super in gamba [in gamba means “with it”] though and would be such a strength to this branch.


I love you all! I am so excited for General Conference this week and
can't wait to hear what our Prophet has to say to us! We will be
watching it at the church like normal, just much later our time, just
like the last two times on my mission.

For my spiritual thought I wanted to share something with y'all that I
read on patience in the Book of Mormon. When a missionary named
Amulek is teaching a group of people, He says:

"40 And now my beloved brethren, I would exhort you to have patience,
and that ye bear with all manner of afflictions; that ye do not revile
against those who do cast you out because of your exceeding poverty,
lest ye become sinners like unto them;

41 But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a
firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions."

This really touched me this week because patience is honestly one of
my worst characteristics. I am really trying hard to grow it and this
week again was another week where I had that opportunity…:-)

Love you all!!

Happy Birthday again Caden!!!


Love,

Anziano Spencer

Chef Tristan commented on these pics: “Dad…check out these oysters! And Mom, the salad tastes just like a salad from you!” [As Mom, I am happy to hear him enthusing about salad!]

Week 63: September 19 (Brindisi)

Mission Conference

Hey friends and family!! This week was really great especially because
we were able to go to Rome! It was so good to be able to go back there
after about 9 months. I definitely love that city, it's so big and

there is so much movement that goes on. For my letter today I am going
to mainly focus on the conference and share some of the things that I
learned because it was incredible. This week, though, Anziano Young and

I are really trying hard to put into practice the things that we
learned and continue to find more people to teach. We are seeing
miracles with teaching lessons on the street and now we are trying
hard to meet with those people again. 

So the conference was so cool. We left on Wednesday morning in the
afternoon and took the train ride for about 5 hours up to Rome. I was
able to sit next to some really nice people, which I was super grateful
about; all of the missionaries were separated because we
were assigned seats and so I was all alone. I was able to talk to all of
the eight people around me and with the two people sitting next to me
I was able to teach the restoration, so it was a good experience.  We arrived in Rome
and headed over to meet some of the Rome Anziani (Anziano Cannon!) to
work in their area. I was able to do a scambio and head off with
Anziano Raimondi to find some people and we ended up getting a

referral from the park that we went to for Anziano Cannon and his
companion. Then that night we ended up meeting with more of the
Anziani who got in from Malta and Sardegna (the two islands in our
mission) and headed over to the mission villa. While we were walking
over there I was able to talk to Anziano Governici who is a missionary
from Brazil. He is kinda a quite guy but it was good to be able to
talk to him because he served in Brindisi about a year ago and so he
was giving me advice and people that we should try to see and telling
me some of the things that they did when they were here. It was good
to be able to talk to him and talk about Brindisi. He told me that
missionaries in the past and he as well have called the city the
"nest of the brave" because it's tough, but as you put in the work you
see the blessings and that's exactly what we are seeing.

The night in the villa was so sick. There was around 30 of us Anziani
and it was really fun to see a lot of my old friends who I haven't
seen in a while and to be able to talk to them. I was able to talk a
lot with Anziano Friedman (the missionary that helped me with the
baptism in Taranto) and he is from Southlake, which is a city 30
minutes away from my house. He's a stud and was actually baptized two
years ago and so it was cool to hear his conversion story and to talk
to him. We will be going to school together too so that will be really
fun. It was good to see the villa again after not being there for a
year and a few months. Like I mentioned in my last letter, it was the
old house of Mussolini and it's kinda funny going back because--don't
get me wrong--it's a really big house, but my first night there when I
first came to Italy I thought it was the size of like a castle with
being like 5 stories high and things like that. Hahaha now that I have
adjusted I have come to realize that it's not quite like that. I was
just super shell shocked which is funny to think about.

On Thursday morning we left and headed to the Rome 1 church which was
an old supermarket in the past that has been converted into the church (sooo
sweet). (In Rome 3 their church was an old prison.. How cool is
that..) and I was able to see all of my old buddies and a lot of my
old companions, which was so cool. Anziano Brown and Anziano Olsen are
doing really well and it was great to be able to talk to them. In the
conference there were probably about 100 missionaries and we were
finally able to meet President Kearon and also President Saben. At the
very beginning of the conference, President Kearon invited us all to come up one by
one and shake his hand so that he could get to know us a little
better. It was really powerful because he is such a spiritual man and
is the President of the Europe area and so it was a really cool
experience. (He also has an English accent which makes everything
better as he talks.. Shout out to Elder Merrill, you stud.) We then

received some instruction from him, and he shared his thoughts and
feelings with us about us as missionaries as he himself is a convert
to the church. Something that I really liked that I wanted to share is
when he said, "When I first met the missionaries on the street it was
like I saw a wall of light... I don't remember a whole lot of what they
said, but I remember the light." Wow. He was incredible. He had a very

open and kind attitude and so when was he talking to us he made us feel
comfortable asking questions. I wanted to share with y'all some
of the insights and the personal goals that I set from this conference
that I want to improve on.  I can
always improve as a missionary and so this conference really helped.

1. Look at the people here in Italy the way that God sees them.
2. Don't worry so much while you are on the mission, enjoy the time here.
3. Develop a PASSION for finding.
4. Every day remember that I am a Son of God. Love others, but love myself too.
5. Have Pleading Prayers with the Lord ("feel the chill on your knees"
is what he said, meaning don't pray in bed or be lazy but get down on
the floor)
6. Experiment to Become (the type of missionary God would have us be
because we are all different, but don't be a robot.. We were able to
practice on this one as we went out and did finding with the football
asking people why there are rules in sports or the importance of a
team and then relating it back to the restoration... It worked really
surprisingly well haha)

So the conference was really awesome and I am excited to keep
improving. After the conference I was able to talk to some more missionaries and
also receive my package!! Thank you so much family! It seriously meant

so much to me and I really appreciate it! I can't thank you enough; I have

missed MM's and Skittles haha and everything else. I said goodbye to
all my friends and then we left to take the train ride back home that
night. I really said many times how nice the people were on the train
ride up because on the train ride down I sat next to probably one of
the rudest ladies I have met in my life Lolol. It was fun but man she
was really just terrible. I won't go into details but she threatened
me and told me that I was not allowed to speak for the entire rest of
the 3 hours of the train ride. Haha, good one lady. It was fun to say
the least, and we ended up getting home at about 11:45. I have been
pretty tired the past few days because of it.

These past few days after the conference have been really good though.

Not easy, but they have been good. Our investigator D. is
progressing well. He prayed for the Rome temple to keep growing and
actually wrote me and Anziano Young a prayer, asking God to keep us
safe here in Brindisi. He wrote it in English for us so he said "Older
Spencer" haha because that's what the translation is in Italian. It's
super cool. He also came to church in a suit which was super
surprising. It was awesome because our stake president was there and
so we were able to all have a lesson together about prayer. It was
powerful because our stake president is a convert himself, and so he
was really able to explain some things to D. that helped. Hopefully
he continues to progress.

Know that I am doing well and that I love the mission. We are working
hard on finding new people and we have some good potientals for this
week, so hopefully we will be able to. I also was able to hear this
new Imagine Dragons song that was playing at a member’s house while we
were there and that was one of the best things ever.

For my spiritual thought I want to share some thoughts that I have had
about prayer. One of the things that we were asked to do moving forward after
the conference was to say a prayer with our companion at
10:00 every night and pray specifically for blessings and for the work
here. It has been a powerful experience to do and the spirit is really
strong. We have invited all the members to do it to with us so all the
missionaries and members in our mission are saying a prayer at 10:00
for the work. We have seen miracles from it and I am grateful for the
knowledge that we have to have an open communication with our Heavenly
Father who loves us. I am excited to keep working here in Brindisi and
see the miracles that the Lord will bless us with.

Vi Voglio BENE!!


Anziano Spencer

I love you all!

My old companion, Anziano Olsen!

My cousin, Anziano Cannon.

Members of my MTC district, including my MTC companion, Anziano Brown (on the right). Anziano Chugg, on the left, was companions with Anziano Cannon.

Here I am with Anziani Brown and Chugg one year ago, upon arriving in Italy!

At the conference with missionaries who arrived in Italy from the MTC at the same time as me.

With zone leader, Anziano Borrough, who is going home in two weeks. I have learned a lot from him! 

My package!

This has octopus in it. It was soooo good!

With the stake president's cool kids.

Some sick grafitti!

Week 62: September 12 (Brindisi)

ROME

Hey family!! Alright, so this week I am super excited because just like
I said in my last letter, we are going to Rome for a big mission
conference. We will be leaving on Wednesday and taking a train up
there and that night we will be working in Rome, probably doing some
gessos (with the bed sheet and talking to people) or some other things
so I am really excited. And then that night we will be sleeping in the
Mission Villa (which I found out is Mussolini's old house that's Soo
sick) and then we have the conference on Thursday. Elder Kearon is
coming to speak to us so I am pretty excited to hear what he has
prepared and also I think it's going to be cool to see some of my old
companions like Anziano Brown from the MTC and Anziano Olsen.
Unfortunately there are two conferences and so all my old companions
will be in the one in Sicily, so I won't be able to see them. But, it
will be fun to see everyone still up in Rome! Then after the
conference we are taking a train back to good old Brindisi and
everything goes back to normal.

This week has been really good. The one thing that has made it
interesting is that it has rained every single day. And not just like a
light rain but it has been pouring basically non-stop. Like don't get
me wrong, rain is great and I love thunder and lightning--when I get
to stay inside... Being outside is a different thing. Today was fun as
we were carrying our groceries home in the river of a street lol
walking with the water up to my shins. So I am kinda ready for the
rain to stop and I think it finally will this week. Nevertheless it
was still a sick week and we saw a lot of miracles. One of the
miracles that I wanted to tell y'all about is our investigator D.
who we met a few weeks ago. I don't know if I have mentioned him
before, but he is pretty sick to be honest. He has studied theology and lots of
different religions because he is searching for the truth, so he is a
smart guy and he knows the Bible. He came to church yesterday as well
and participate,d so that made me really happy. We invited him to be
baptized and he accepted but he told us how he will not be getting
baptized for us just because we are friends.. He said he only will if
he knows that this is true... Perfect, because that's exactly what we
want anyway. One of the cool things that I saw with him is after one
of our first lessons…(So to help you understand he is not atheist,
but he does not believe there is a God. He believes that there is
something and that it could be God but he wants to have answers and he
is searching and so we have been working with him to help him realize
that God really does exist and that he loves us so he has restored his
church on the earth using the Book of Mormon.) So one of the first
lessons at the end he looks at us and he says, "So you guys believe
that this is the Word of God, do you?" "yes" "Okay.. Well then what I
want to do is we are going to say the closing prayer and then after
the prayer I am going to flip the Book of Mormon open and you, Anziano
Spencer, are going to point to a verse and we will read from there and
see if it's important for me.." Ohhh boy…! So I looked at Anziano
Young and said, "Say a really good prayer because we need it." After
the prayer D. flipped right open to Alma 22 and I scanned it as
fast as I could and picked verse 7-12. Here is what it says:

7 And Aaron answered him and said unto him: Believest thou that there
is a God? And the king said: I know that the Amalekites say that there
is a God, and I have granted unto them that they should build
sanctuaries, that they may assemble themselves together to worship
him. And if now thou sayest there is a God, behold I will believe.

8 And now when Aaron heard this, his heart began to rejoice, and he
said: Behold, assuredly as thou livest, O king, there is a God.

9 And the king said: Is God that Great Spirit that brought our fathers
out of the land of Jerusalem?

10 And Aaron said unto him: Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he
created all things both in heaven and in earth. Believest thou this?

11 And he said: Yea, I believe that the Great Spirit created all
things, and I desire that ye should tell me concerning all these
things, and I will believe thy words.

12 And it came to pass that when Aaron saw that the king would believe
his words, he began from the creation of Adam, reading the scriptures
unto the king--how God created man after his own image, and that God
gave him commandments, and that because of transgression, man had
fallen.

He finished reading and we just kinda looked at him and were like
trying to remain calm because that was probably the most perfect
scripture that he could have read and I was just like "hai visto?”  [Have you seen?] So
things are going well with him; we hope that he keeps progressing and
keeps coming to church.

Gods Power is doing well too; meeting with him is fun. He kinda goes
off sometimes and starts preaching too which I love. For example while
we were talking about sanctifying ourselves for God and what we can
do, he holds up his phone and is like, "You see this phone? Without the
Bible on this phone it's a stone.. Do you understand? The Bible, the
word of God, needs to be on here or this is a stone... It's worthless."
The best…!!

The other thing that happened this week is I was able to do a scambio
with Anziano Raimondi from Lecce. He is a sick missionary and we had a
good time working together even though we were out in the rain for
most of the time. Even still, we were able to teach people the
Restoration on the street. That is something that our mission
president and our leaders are really pushing for right now: teaching
people on the street and even leaving them with a prayer. It works
really well and we have met a lot of really cool people from it. So Anziano Raimondi 

and I were doing this to try to find new investigators
because we need them. Something that I learned from him is how bold he
is with people, even when they are not interested. As we were talking
with people, if they said they were not interested, he would be like,
"Why not?" And just keep talking lolol. As we finished up our scambio
we ended up having a really big problem because all of the trains were
closed from rain water covering the tracks.
There were people waiting everywhere and it took us about 2 hours to
get back down to Lecce, which is just 30 minutes away. We were anxious 

 to get there because Anziano Raimondi had to be at the
church to be set apart as a counselor in the branch presidency.
Getting back was even worse and so after waiting for 2 hours again and
searching for a train or a bus we ended up taking a taxi with some
German woman who were going to Brindisi. We were able to talk more
about the church with her which was cool, and then even the taxi
driver, who looked like a huge, ripped Native American, we talked to
about coming to church. In the end we were just really glad to get
back home and so we are just hoping the train situation is okay for
Wednesday when we need to go to Rome.

So for my spiritual thought I wanted to share a scripture that really
came true for me yesterday that is found in Doctrine and Covenants 100
(which additional scripture that we use that was revelation give to
Joseph Smith.. continuing revelation for our day today):

5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this
people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you
shall not be confounded before men;

6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment,
what ye shall say.

7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever
thing ye declare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of
meekness, in all things.

8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the
Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things
whatsoever ye shall say.

Yesterday we were out doing about 4 hours of finding and we were able
to have some really good conversations with people and teach them
about the Restoration. As we were talking to these two 22-year-old
guys, one of them asked me a question that I hadn't really thought of
before and as I started to answer, I was able to explain it to where
the question that he asked and the answer that I gave made sense.
Basically what I am trying to say is I didn't know how to respond but
as I opened my mouth to respond "it was given to me in the very moment
of what I shall say" and I was able to respond to their question and
now they are meeting with us tomorrow. I really hope that our meeting
goes well!! I know that these scriptures are true and that as we open
our mouths to our friends, family, and neighbors we will not be
confounded, we will know what to say and invite others to partake of the gospel
with which we have been blessed!!

Vi Voglio  BENE!!!

Anziano Spencer

After the rain

Week 61: September 5 (Brindisi)

DI VAI

How is everyone doing? I hope that you all have a good Labor Day today--
I don't even remember why we have that as a holiday lolol. So for Pday
today we were able to go play American Football with our beast friend
Luca (the one who is a singer and will be going to study Broadway in
New York in November... His music is incredible, his name is Luciano
Carlino if you want to look him up..) at the park. We had a really
good time and it was fun. After a while this one guy showed up and he
explained to us how he used to play for the football team here in
Brindisi and then after a while he started taking videos of us and
ended up calling his old coach because he wanted us to play for
Brindisi. Lol-- it was cool and kinda funny as we explained that we
couldn't be recruited and play on teams while we were here. Not gonna
lie, it would be sick, but he might take us to go meet the team anyway
and who knows-- maybe they will be interested in learning English and the
Gospel;) Also, my title is what Italians say when you pitch the
football or something like that, kind of like “Here, go”... Sooo cool.

This week was pretty good. Pretty tough as well as we got a lot of
cancelations from our investigators with appointments. Probably
the hardest was when our good friend D. told me that he was not
interested anymore in learning about religion and making a change in
his life. That made me pretty sad, but I asked him to promise me that
in the future when he has the desire that he will talk to the Anziani.
So hopefully he will have that desire in the future. But we are doing our
best to move the work forward and find new investigators. The biggest
miracle that we saw this week was on Saturday though. We had an entire
day of finding and so that morning my companion and I felt like we
should go down a certain street to go to the park instead of going our
normal way. As we were walking and talking to people we look over and
there is G. (the golden investigator who dropped us a few months ago)
standing across the street waving at us. I haven't seen him for about a month
now. We were able to go over and talk to him and we invited him to
church and he accepted. It made me so happy as he walked into church
yesterday and then afterwards he asked us to meet in the park that
night. We were able to go and have a good talk with him about how he
is doing and yes, we understand that he has accepted to be Evanglist
but it would also be really great if he started reading the Book of
Mormon again and things like that. At the end he accepted to meet with
us again on the condition that we study from the Bible in Corinthians
and Romans and talk about the letters from Paul and specific things that he doesn't
understand.. Ohhh boyyyyy, that's going to be interesting; I really
hope that lesson goes well. Looking back on the past few days though,
it was a blessing and again a testimony builder to me that we were
guided and led to go on that street so that we could meet with
G. The spirit is real and I just hope and pray that things go
well with this lesson.

Some funny/sweet experiences this week-

As Anziano Young and I were walking along in Centro heading back to
our house we see this huge tall black guy that is probably like 7ish
feet tall and these Italians standing by him taking pictures. (Here in
Brindisi there is a really good basketball team who are in Seria A.) I
wanted to talk to him so bad and I was just like “Hey man, are you
American?" He looked back and was like "Yeah bro, I am from Washington
D.C but I grew up in Arlington, Texas." Sooo SICKK, so he grew up like 30
minutes away from my house and is here playing basketball for
Brindisi. That was cool, and it was nice to hear English too.

While talking to G.,  he started to explain how he is going to be
opening up a restaurant next year and he wanted me to come work for
him. This restaurant is on the beach and it's like a sea food place
for "200ish" people. Lolol I tried explain how I am going back home
after the mission and that I am going to school but I don't think he
really liked that answer. His only response was like, “But it would be
great working together you and I.. Brothers.. Christian Brothers...”
Ummm… no, sorry man, but that's not happening.

So these past three days there have been a lot of people here in
Brindisi because of the Festa of San Teodoro... He is basically the
"Saint" here in Brindisi. I don't really understand the full story or
why there is a party but the whole city is decked out with lights and
lots of tourists come. We have been able to talk to a lot of different
people and a few days ago we met some of the people that come to our English
course. They're these younger 14-ish girls and I have no idea how or
why but they have found my younger brother Gav on Instagram and so now
all of them are talking about him and so that's going to be
interesting...Especially because Brindisi is small and so I wonder if
he will become famous here soon;)

The other experience is we were able to talk to this Italian family
who hosts people from America to have a cultural experience and so we
were able to meet this girl from Canada and while we were talking to
them, they told me to ask the little daughter (who was like two years
old) for a high five in English (because the kids are learning). As I
held out my hand she instead leaned forward and kissed my cheek. It
was super cute; the kids here are so funny and super nice.

So that's an update on my week. We are working hard. Anziano Young is
progressing really well and is a stud. While we were having a lesson
with some lady on a park bench, one of our other friends came up to talk
to us.. It was just as we were getting into the First Vision and so what Anziano Young
does is stands up and puts his arm around the friend and walks him away so I
can keep having the lesson and so the friend doesn't feel neglected. It was sick and I was proud of him. He's a beast.

Okay, so for my spiritual thought I wanted to share something from the
book of Acts in the Bible. I think this scripture is pretty powerful
and a really good example of something that I want to remember
throughout my mission..

40 And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and
beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of
Jesus, and let them go.

41 ¶And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that
they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to
teach and preach Jesus Christ.

Especially these past few weeks and in recent days we have been doing a
lot of finding. I am grateful and want to rejoice that I can suffer
persecution and shame for the name of Jesus Christ for it is his name
that I bear and it is his name of which I am a representative. I know
that he lives and I am grateful to be a missionary and stand with the
prophets in the scriptures to declare this great truth to those here
in Brindisi.

I love you all so much!!!


Anziano Spencer

The festival for Saint Teodoro

With Anziano Young

With girls from English class

With Kevin

With singer Luca

With Luca and the random stranger who played football with them and wanted to recruit them.

Week 60: August 29 (Brindisi)

WE NO SAA

Whattupppp!! I hope everyone is doing well. I just wanted to first
start off my saying thank you for all the prayers and all the support
and thoughts that I have received this week because of the earthquake.
I am further south than the area that was affected. But something that
I realized was that exactly this time last year when I was serving in
Umbria (Terni, my first city), my companion and I went up to a city
called Reiti (which is right in the zone that got affected) so I know
some of the cities up there. If I remember correctly, we went a few days
into my mission, which was exactly a year before the earthquake a few days
ago. Hopefully the missionaries that are serving there now will be
able to be a part of the relief effort and provide some service. I am
grateful that the Lord is watching over all of the missionaries. In addition to the earthquake,
just a few months ago there was a big train accident here in Bari, but luckily
there were no missionaries on it. Again, thank you for your prayers.

The reason that I titled my email "We No Saa" this week is because that
is my new Nigerian name. (And it also makes me feel like I am a beast
Karen Elder like my homie Anziano Woodland who is speaking the
coolest language ever with Burmese refugees and always titles his emails like that.. Such a
stud. So there are two meanings to it lolol..) A few weeks ago, we met
a member from Nigeria and we have been meeting with him to try to get
him to church. He is a beast and he gave me this name "We No Saa" which
means God’s Gift. Soooo sick. His name is God’s Power and when he walked
into church, one of the members comes up to say hello and he
introduces himself as Gods Power and then was like, "Just call me
GP." Hahaha he is so cool.

So we had a really good week this week; training has been fun and
good. Anziano Young is a beast at basically everything he does, so
things have been going well. We have been doing a lot of finding so
that we can build up our work. And we have definitely been seeing a
lot of miracles from it. Our good friend D. has been coming to English Course for a few months now and I
have tried talking to him before to invite him to take the lessons and
he said that he needed to think about it. This Tuesday we were talking
and he said that he would like to meet with us. We were able to start
off our lesson and he immediately told us that he is very angry with
God for a lot of things that have happened in his life. But as we
started talking about God and the message of the Restoration, the
spirit was there and he listened and it was a really powerful lesson...
one of the more powerful lessons that I have had on my mission, and he
accepted to be baptized at the end. He really wants to restart his
life and so I have really high hopes for him. A few weeks ago we were
also able to meet these two women that were sisters and we tried
talking to them and they were not very interested at first. And then
after we talked a little, they invited us over to their house. We
stopped by (this was when I was with Anziano Morlock) and one of the
sisters was home and invited us in and we told her we needed to come
back because there needed to be a man in the house. This really
strengthened my testimony on just doing my best to always follow the
rules because as we returned, there were 3 other people there and we got
4 new investigators from that lesson, so things are going really well.
We are really excited.

So our new president has really been changing some of the
goals and things in the mission. He believes that each companionship can baptize once a
transfer. His teaching style is simple: he believes that as we are
consecrated missionaries, we will receive blessings.  Things are
going really well and we are really seeing blessings. I have always
worked on being more consecrated, so these new goals that he has
brought have got us really motivated here. He also allows us to play
sports now with Italians if we can share a spiritual thought and so
this week Anziano Young and I wrecked some Italians in basketball,
which was really fun not gonna lie. Unfortunately, they were not really
interested to talk after because, to be honest, their pride might have
been a little hurt, but hopefully we will see them again and we can
start building a good relationship when we see them again. With all of
our finding we have been seeing  a lot of success. Like we were able to invite our friends that we have been
trying to teach to church and they came yesterday! The mom has not
entered a church for 8 years, so we were super excited and she said
that she really liked it. Missionary life is good and things are going
well.

Okay so for my spiritual thought I want to share some of my thoughts
that I have had about the Atonement as I have been studying this doctrine. I was
able to hear a recording from a BYU professor that my companion shared
with me and it caused me to think a lot and change some of my
perspective about the Atonement (which means when Jesus Christ took
upon himself all of our sins)

Mosiah 14-

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief;
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his
seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand.

The part that I want to focus on with this verse is where it says that
Jesus shall see his seed as he makes himself an offering for sin. So
it is interesting because in the next chapter Abinadi (a prophet in
the Book of Mormon) explains who Jesus's seed is. He explains:

Mosiah 15

10 And now I say unto you, who shall declare his generation? Behold, I
say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he
shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?

11 Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the
prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning
the coming of the Lord--I say unto you, that all those who have
hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem
his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of
their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the
heirs of the kingdom of God.

So what I have taken from this is Jesus, as he suffered in the Garden
of Gethsemane, saw his seed, which therefore would be each and every one
of us…or those that (like in the scripture) have hearkened unto the
words of the prophets and believed that the Lord would redeem us.
(Basically, all those that believe in Jesus.) As I read these scriptures
they really touched me because the way that I view the Atonement now
(these are just my thoughts from my studies this week this)  is not
that Jesus  took upon himself all the sins of the world like a big ball of
sin. But instead, he saw each and every one of us personally. He
took upon himself our sins personally, and he suffered for us
personally. He knows me personally and knows everyone personally and
the way that Jesus Christ works always in the scriptures is in a one by
one way. He healed the children one by one when he came to the
Americas, we take the sacrament one by one, and we are baptized one by
one. So therefore, wouldn't it make sense that in some way Jesus came
to know us one by one in the Garden of Gethsemane? I know that the
Atonement is real and that Jesus Christ KNOWS us personally.

I love you all so much! I am in Bari today because we played calcio
and we had a really good time. I am pretty tired now so my thoughts
are kinda everywhere. I hope this email makes sense.

Vi voglio un mondo di bene!!

Anziano Spencer

Week 59: August 22 (Brindisi)

FIGLIO MIO [my son—reference to a brand-new missionary]

Hey everybody! I hope y'all had a good week and that everyone is doing
well. This week has been really good and I am excited to still keep
working in Brindisi. We received transfer calls on Monday night and I

found out that I would be losing my homie Anziano Morlock (he got

transferred down to Scaccia in Sicilia, which is next to Trapani) and
I will be staying here in Brindisi to train a new missionary. I am
pretty excited--it's fun to help him learn the language and teach
him the things that I have learned. So my companion’s name is Anziano
Young, and he is from Saint George, Utah.
He's a cool guy and likes sports, and his language skills are really
good already, so I am excited to work with him. Also, he's a beast at
the piano which means in church we won't have to listen to CDs anymore
when we sing, which will be really nice. Because I am training, I will
be in Brindisi (most likely) for a total of 6 months, which, to be
honest, I am still trying to be excited about. I know that I need to
grow my love for this area more so this will be a good challenge for
me.

So Wednesday was SICKK and I want to tell y'all about that. That
morning we were in the church helping our branch president with some
things and then we received a call from the ZL's telling us that we

needed to get up to Bari as fast as we can because all the travel plans
are messed up (because of Ferragosto so everything like shuts down)
and so it would be best if we were there. So we basically dropped
everything and cancelled our appointments and headed there. While on
the train we met some of the coolest people that I have met on my
mission. They were three homies that were from Foggia and they were in
Lecce for vacation. We started to talk and we taught them about the
gospel and the Book of Mormon and it was really special because 
I showed the girl (20 years old) the promise (of how we can personally

know if the Book of Mormon is true we need to read it with a sincere
heart and real desire and ask God. Then he will tell us the truth
through the power of the Holy Ghost) and she was really touched by it.
She took out her phone and took a picture of the verses and kept
reading onward in the chapter. We then were able to talk about the
spirit and got their contact information for the sister missionaries
in Foggia, so I really hope that they continue to meet with them to
know if the message that we bring is true because they were so nice
and super cool.

After that I was able to go up with Anziano Nessen to a different city
to teach a family that is going to be baptized this Saturday (husband
and wife). This family is incredible and it was really cool to be

able to talk to the mom as she explained that she met the missionaries
when she was 13 and they gave her a Book of Mormon. Then something
happened and all the missionaries got taken out of that city and so
she completely lost contact. Then years later (as she was still
looking for the missionaries), the anziani knocked on her door the day
that she married her husband. Soooo cool, so now they have two kids
and are already saving up their money to go to Switzerland to be
sealed (married for all time and eternity) in the Temple. She still
has kept the Book of Mormon from all of those years ago and so this
really shows me that as missionaries we really do plant seeds. We
might not realize the total effect that we may have on others and so I
was really grateful and I am very excited for them to be baptized this
Sunday. They will be 2 out of 3 members now that live in that city,
and they have firm testimonies that they know this is true. They are
really good examples to me.

On Thursday morning we went to the train station to drop off my
companion Anziano Morlock. I am grateful for all of the things that I
have learned from him. He is a great missionary and we definitely had

a good time together. Everyone was very sad to see him go and in Corso
some people were crying, so it was sad but he was excited to go to
Sicily. So while we were standing at the station, we looked over and
there was this crazy lady over by the tracks yelling at this one guy. I
couldn't really understand her but then I looked in her hand and she
had a needle and she was cleaning it in a water fountain. Then she
like goes behind this bush and this guy injects her in the neck with
some kinda drug or something. What…?!?!!?  I love Italy so much--that was just
one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Super messed up... Then
Anziano Morlock and also Anziano Cannon and Anziano Larrain headed out
and I waited, working with the zone leaders, until my new companion
arrived.

Other than that we have been working hard to find new people. I have
enjoyed being with Anziano Young these past few days because he really
tries hard to be exactly obedient. I also like cooking and I have been
cooking all of the things that I know how to cook so he thinks I am
like a beast but within a week I am going to run out of ideas... Dang
lolol but things are going really good. I am excited to see what we can
accomplish these next two transfers together.

So for my funny experience-

In Brindisi I have had my worst experiences with women on my mission
so far. Just like women or girls hitting on us or drunk women or stuff
like that. So this Monday this woman (who is about 35) with her
daughter (who comes to corso) and her other daughter comes up to us
and says, "Hey!!! How are you guys? My husband’s at work right now.. Do
you guys go dancing?? "Umm no. (In my mind: what the freak lady are
you kidding me right now??!)" "Ohh okay, what about to the beach?"
"Umm noo (in my mind: what is wrong with you lady??).." "Okay.. Well how
about we get a picture together.. And then next week you can come over
to my house to eat dinner (in my mind: perfect, the husband will be
there and we will share a good message with them;))." So we will see
how that goes this week haha!

For my spiritual thought I wanted to share something from a talk that
I read called the Power of Self Mastery. Self mastery is something
that I am still struggling with and it’s kinda like a constant battle,
especially with my thoughts, because I want to have all my desire and

my thoughts focused on the work. To bring that power, I am working and doing
my best. But spending time in Bari and actually being around other
missionaries, seeing big churches, lots of movement in the cities…all that
really caused me to take kinda a hard blow when we came back to
Brindisi and it’s just... us. It's cool, but at the same time it's kinda
tough. But I am grateful for some of the things that I read from this
talk because it talks about perseverance, not giving up, and doing
your best..

There is this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson which he lived by: “That which we persist in
doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing
itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.”

I think that is so sick and so true, the more that I persist and focus
and get my head here in Brindisi and put all my efforts here (which I
am really trying to do— it's just getting refocused after all the stuff
that has happened the past few weeks), I will have more power and
strength, will and love to continue and serve in this city. In the
talk he then finishes with this famous poem called Invictus..

Out of the night that covers me,
  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
 I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud
 Under the bludgeonings of chance
 My head is bloody, but unbowed. …

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I know that I really am the master of my own fate and the one that
is in charge of what I do with myself on my mission. There is that
quote that says, "My greatest enemy is myself" and I want to 
master my weaker self into knowing that I can become something
stronger and be a better missionary.

I love you guys!! Have a great week and enjoy being back at school, my
little savage brothers Gav and Caden;)

Love,

Anziano Spencer

District Meeting

English Course

A great family in the branch.

The people we met on the train to Bari.

Saying good-bye to Anziano Morlock.

Saying good-bye to Anziano Lorraine.

Saying good-bye to Anziano Cannon (cousin Ethan).

Saying hello to Anziano Young (greenie!) with gelato!