Ciao!: Week 66: October 10 (Napoli!)

NAPOLI

Friends and family, I hope that you are doing well! This week has been
one of the craziest weeks of my mission but it's been so awesome.
On Monday we had transfer calls and I was completely expecting to
stay in Brindisi for another transfer, but our mission president called
us during a lesson and he said that I will be moving to NAPOLI!! At
first and even now I am still a little sad that I didn't get to finish
training Anziano Young, but he's a great missionary and I am excited to
see him grow and learn from his new comp. But the bigger part of
me was just in complete shock and excitement. Napoli... The place
where I had visited a few months ago and loved so much. It's a big
city, pretty dangerous (which makes it even more exciting), the church
is pretty big, and I get to serve with Anziano Gay. He's a stud; I
actually met him my first transfer when I was in Terni. He has been
serving here in Napoli now for 6 months and he is going into his 16th,
so I will be his last companion and then he goes home next transfer. I
am excited to learn from him because he's so sick and he's a really
good missionary, so it's been a really good 4 days and I am excited to
keep learning.

So the last few days that I was in Brindisi were pretty stressful as
we were doing our best to make sure that Anziano Young was prepared
and ready to take over the city. I am proud of him because I know he
is ready and he is going to do a good job. I was able to say goodbye
to everyone that I wanted to which was good. I am grateful for the
time that I was able to serve in Brindisi.

Okay so now for an update on Napoli...

What ended up happening is I was able to take a train early in the
morning Thursday and it was from Lecce to Brindisi and then from
Brindisi to Taranto and Taranto to Napoli. (We were down in Lecce
because Anziano Young needed to be with the other missionaries so he
was not alone.) In total I was on the train for around 7 hours, which
was good, and I ended up getting to Napoli at about 14.00. The people
here are all so laid back and nice which is so much fun. On the train
some guy came up and sat right next to me and just started telling me
everything about his life and I was just sitting there listening as he
went on and on about how his shirt is dirty, I need to "go out more"
and all this stuff. Lol it was so fun and interesting. When I got to
the station I was able to meet with my stud comp Anziano Gay and we
went back to the house to drop off my stuff and went right back to the
station in the pouring rain to drop off some other Anziani who were
going to different areas. We were soaked, and not gonna lie, it was a
sick welcome to the city. It's been interesting here so far, I have
seen 2 people get robbed, a fight almost break out and just some
interesting stuff. I LOVE it already. Also, the views from our house
are amazing. Outside one window is Mount. Vesuvius, which was a volcano
in the past. Sooo cool.

Okay so the work here is really incredible and we are teaching some
really great people. There is one guy who is 23 that hopefully will be
getting baptized in a few weeks. He is from South America and used to
be a model there and then he moved here. He's a super nice guy and so
humble. It's been sick to work with him because he just moved here a
few months ago and he speaks mostly Spanish. So when he speaks to us,
he speaks mostly Spanish which has been pretty tough to understand, but I
can make out most of what he is saying. He can understand Italian well
meno male [meno male implies “not so bad” or “thank goodness”] because I can't speak Spanish so it's been fun. I am so
pumped to keep working with him.

Another huge miracle that we saw yesterday is we were able to meet
with this lady who called us and asked us if we were available. We met
in the church and she explained to us how she was baptized a few years
ago but then stopped coming. She said that she always knew she needed
to come back but she was trying to find the courage because she felt
like there was always something holding her back. During the lesson
she bore her testimony to us multiple times on how she knows this is
true with all her heart and that she will be coming to church on
Sunday, and then at then end she asked us for a blessing. It was a
powerful experience and I am grateful to work with her some more.
There are a lot of other people that we are working with too and we
were able to see a miracle as we were doing a little finding that we
started talking to this one lady on the street and she invited us into
her house and we met her sister and her mother. We were able to share
Grazie a Lui and then taught them about the restoration which was
really powerful. We will see them again this week.

The branch here is pretty big; there are about 40 people, which is a lot
more than I am used to seeing. AND THERE ARE YOUTH!! I am so excited
about that as well. Some of the members I even recognize and remember
from the past when I came here for just a day and so that was really
cool. One member that is so sick is our branch mission leader. So
there is a military base pretty close to where we live (American food
babbyyy) and so his wife works there and he is here with her. His name
is Sam and he is incredible. He lived in America but is actually from
New Zealend. He is actually the rightful heir to the kingship of his
tribe in New Zealand (HOW SWEET IS THAT?!) but he moved to America
instead. He is really supportive of us and right when he met me he
gave me a big hug and told me he was happy I am here. It was really
nice and I am so pumped to work with him because he's super
supportive. He drove us and one of our investigators to a city called
Pozzuoli for a baptism there (that's where I got the pic with Anziano
Gay by the Islands) and yeah. I already love him.

I am sorry that a lot of my thoughts are really scattered, so hopefully my
email next week will be better. Just know that I am loving life so
much! I love being a missionary. We are seeing some great success and
I can't wait to keep working here and learning from Anziano Gay. For
my spiritual thought I wanted to share something that really touched
me in my studies this morning. So one of the blessings here is I have
the really incredible opportunity to work with a lot more
missionaries than I have in the past and that also involves more
meetings and things like that. It's good, but it's new for me,
especially in that there are just more responsibilities/things that I get to have/work with now.
There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that I really liked in
Helaman that says,

"7 Therefore, my sons, I would that ye should do
that which is good, that it may be said of you, and also written, even
as it has been said and written of them.

8 And now my sons, behold I have somewhat more to desire of you, which
desire is, that ye may not do these things that ye may boast, but that
ye may do these things to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven,
yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away; yea, that ye may
have that precious gift of eternal life, which we have reason to
suppose hath been given to our fathers."

So I really liked this because this is the advice of a father speaking to
his sons, telling them that the good things that they do in this life
will be treasured up in heaven and we do these things so that in the
end we may have eternal life. It really touched me and reminded me
that no matter what I am doing on the mission, if I am doing what I
am supposed to be doing, and if it's part of my purpose for the Lord,
that the Lord is pleased.

I love you all so much!!

Love,

Anziano Spencer