ROMMAAA... AGAINN
My family and friends! I hope that you are all doing well and you had
a great week. Right now I am sitting here in the Questura again for my
permesso. It's not the most fun, but yeah... That's where I am. To
explain the title of my email, a few days ago we got an email from our
Mission President inviting us to come to Rome again and he said that
these people would be visiting for a conference: "The visiting
authorities will be President Russell M. Nelson, of the Quorum of the
Twelve, Elder Donald L. Hallstrom, of the Presidency of the Seventy,
Bishop Gerald Causse, Presiding Bishop, and Elder Patrick Kearon,
Europe Area President." SWEETTT. I am super excited! It's going to be
such a sick conference and it will be cool too, because this conference
will be combined with all of the missionaries this time. So I will be
able to see all my buds and hear from these men. We go on October 20th,
so in a few weeks, and I am assuming we will do the same thing that we
did last time with taking a train and sleeping in the villa.
This week was busy and really good. The dinner from last week went
well and luckily nothing weird really happened. I think the only thing
weird I saw was a video of my brother eating a dandelion from
Instagram that the girls showed me.. (What are you doing Gavin?? Lolol
the girls are in such love with you; it's so funny..) We were able to
share a spiritual thought about the restoration at the end and give
them a Book of Mormon, so hopefully we will see blessings from that in
the future. Anziano Young and I have also been seeing a lot of
blessings with the things that we are putting into practice from the
Kearon Conference. Especially with praying specifically and asking God
to help us look like angels when we are on the street with the message
of truth that we bring and for people to see the light around us. I
had a cool experience with this at our English group a few days ago.
There were these three new women who came and at the end one of the
women started telling everyone how she was having a really bad day
last Saturday but then we were able to meet on the street (and I
specifically remember talking to her) and she said that it was just
like she was meeting an angel on the street. She said after we talked
and then I left that she was so happy and she went home and called a
bunch of her friends and told them that she just met an angel and how
it made her so happy. After she said that, some of our other friends
started opening up and telling everyone how (we as the missionaries)
are never sad and we are just so happy all the time. It was a really
cool experience and I am excited about the potiental that we have from
English group now. They are all so sick so we will see what happens.
Another miracle that we saw this week was a lesson that we had with
our friend A. We met him a few weeks ago and he's a super nice guy,
really quiet though. He’s 25 and used to do boxing, but then he stopped.
It sounds like he has a rough family situation too because his brother
is in jail and he mentioned how he doesn't have work. His brother didn't
either and so he resorted to crime and so it's pretty sad. We have
been struggling to see if he is actually interested though, because
from the couple of lessons that we have had he hasn’t really responded to
any of our questions or really to anything without saying "I don't
know," but we asked him the last time why he wants to meet with us and
after a while he responded, "I want to improve my life." So that was a
start. Yesterday we were able to have a good lesson with him while
reading in 3 Nephi 11 (in the Book of Mormon--talking about when Jesus
Christ comes to America) and as we were reading I felt an impression
to ask him a question that I normally haven't asked before. I asked,
"If you could speak to Jesus face to face, and have the experiences as
these people, what would you say?" (I know that it wasn't me that asked
that question; that was from the spirit.) After a pause he looks back
and says, "To know the truth" (in my mind.. Yes! We are getting
somehwere!!) and then as we continue onward I asked him if this
chapter seems like the truth from Jesus. He said "yes," and then we
were able to talk about following Jesus more and accepting his truth
or the doctrine that he has given us. It led perfectly into talking
about baptism and he accepted for November 5th so I am praying that he
he continues to meet and progress.
A few other experiences that we had with the spirit and following
small promptings to see miracles is when we felt like we should go and
do house to house over in this one area of the city. I normally prefer
just to do normal street contacting but we felt like we should, so we
went.. After 2 and a half hours of seeing no success and wondering
why we were there (I hate dogs from doing house, by the way, they are the
worst lol), we were able to talk to this one guy and he invited us
back on Saturday. As we went on Saturday, he was sitting out on his
porch with his wife. After talking for a while his cousin with his
wife also came over and we were able to teach them the Restoration. They
were really nice and the neighborhood where we found them is pretty
small, so everyone knows everyone and is related, so we hope that
we have some good success with them and that area. The spirit is
real!!!
So we have been seeing some good success here. At the end of the week
we were able to have 20 lessons and find 7 new investigators, which is
the most I have ever had my entire mission. Unfortunately, a lot of
these investigators always give us bidones (don't show up…the worst)
and so we are working on just finding more and working hard to see the
blessings. D. came to 3 sessions of conference to receive his
answer and I believe that he really does have faith. He just needs to
accept it and just like it was said multiple times in conference,
"Look past the philosophies of men and trust in the spirit of God."
We also were able to do a scambio with the anziani from Lecce who are
good guys. I was able to work with Anziano Zito and it's really cool
to see the growth that he has made from the past three transfers that
I have had to work with him. I was grateful that they were here in
Brindisi because we had a big English course party that our branch
president planned, so they came to help us. It was fun; the members
brought a lot of stereotypical American food lol. Hotdogs, eggs with
bacon, cheesecake, and stuff like that. Hahaha it was a good time and
there was a good turnout as well. I am excited with the way things
are going here and I want to just keep working my hardest to help this
city grow and find people that are ready for the Gospel.
For my spiritual thought, I wanted to share a couple thoughts that I
had from conference. Luckily I was able to see most of it except for
the Sunday night session and all the talks were so good. Watching all the
talks in Italian was interesting and good too. I love conference
so much. Probably one of the most powerful talks that really touched
me was the Japanese man that talked about being ambitious. I loved that
so much, especially as he talked about the boy that had problems with
his leg where he was serving in Japan. It brought back a lot memories
about when I hurt my leg and just how grateful I am to still be
serving. Everyone...BE AMBITIOUS.
I also loved how almost all the talks were centered on the Plan of
Salvation, love of Jesus Christ, The Restoration, and The Book of
Mormon. Simple, powerful, and just like President Uchtdorf said, "isn't
it marvelous what we have??"
I also want to echo the invites from Elder Oaks and Elder Anderson (of the 12 apostles)
about missionary work and to help others build their pieces of the
puzzle (I love that analogy) and pray for specific opportunities that
WE can do to share the gospel. I have such a strong testimony that as
we truly pray and have passionate prayers that the Lord will give us
opportunities to tell others about the gospel and bear our testimonies
on the love of Jesus Christ.
I love you all so much!!
Be Ambitious!!
Anziano Spencer
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| With friend, Gods Power |
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| This cracks me up because little brother Caden makes that same face! |
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| Walking the streets of Brindisi...like every day! |
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| Setting up for General Conference |
