Ciao!: Week 73: November 28 (Napoli)

GUAGLIU (Guys)

How are y'all doing? I hope that this email finds you well and that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! This week was incredibly busy with lots of different things going on and it has been great! The mission life is goood. Today for Pday we are going to play football at a huge grass field that is right in front of a castle overlooking all of Napoli, so it’s going to be a great time. We are also planning on doing a scambio with the missionaries from Pozzuoli this week which will be fun. I will have the chance to work with Anziano Draghi who is Italian. I am excited to learn from him and see what happens. Also, this Saturday we have our specialized training with President and Sister Pickerd. It will be a really good time to be with all of the zone and to learn. Anziano Burger and I will have the opportunity to lead a training that we are preparing so we are praying that it will go well!

Alright so for this week I want to start off with a GREAT experience that we had last Monday night. So Anziano Burger and I went out to a different city to teach a family that we are starting to work with.Unfortunately they ended up not being there and so we made our way back to the train station, still trying to remain positive. Well, once we get there we realize that now it’s closed... FANTASTIC. Well Anziano Burger and I are a little bit worried now because it’s about a 2 and a half hour walk home and so we decided to try the brilliant idea of hitchhiking on the highway. I thought it was going to be kinda cool but then after about 10 minutes of sitting there sticking my thumb up with a big ole grin on my face I realized that this was probably the most least effective thing possible. And kinda creepy.. Two American guys dressed up in shirts and ties in the middle of nowhere at night.. Sweet. As we made our way back to the station my companion was thinking of ideas to just sleep in the station, which would have been an interesting /terrible experience. We called our district leader and by some miracle the Hydes (senior couple) were at the church and so they were able to come and pick us up!! Hallelujah! I love senior couples, and I learned a great lesson: check what time train stations close when we are in new cities..

We were able to see a lot of success with finding and teaching new people this week. One lesson that really touched me a lot is with a woman named L. She was able to attend Fabio's baptism a few weeks ago and was really touched from the ceremony. Anyway, Fabio invited his friend and her to meet with us and she accepted. We went to the house and it was a very interesting experience because the friend of Fabio speaks Spanish/ Italian while L. speaks mostly English because she is from the Philippines. What we ended up doing is just splitting the lesson and I had the opportunity to teach L.. She really is super sincere and explained to me some of her thoughts about the church and how she is really curious to learn more. We were able to talk about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and then at the end I invited her to pray. She told me how she has not prayed for a long time but she would like to try. She then began praying out loud and it was such a sincere and touching prayer as she spoke to God. Afterward, she told me that that was the first time she has prayed for 4 months out loud. During the lesson she also accepted a baptismal date and so we are praying so badly that she will receive an answer of the truth! Meanwhile, while I was having that lesson my companion was teaching a lesson to this really cool Spanish lady who speaks soo fast. But, it’s sick because what we both found out is that if we concentrate hard enough we can both understand what she is saying even though she speaks in Spanish and then switches back to Italian.

Another lesson that we had was with M., who was a referral that we received. She is very, very spiritual and is only 22, which is really cool. I don’t know if it’s just because her eyes are really blue but she has the brightest eyes I have ever seen. There is an incredible light that she just "lets off" (can I say that?) and so teaching her was a powerful experience. She is very faithful to her church, but it was cool to see her reaction when we told her that we are not here to take away her faith but only to add to it—to help her improve her life with the message that we bring. We are hoping that we see her tonight and so I will let you know how she is doing! And we will not make the same mistake with the train again haha.

THANKSGIVING!! The coppia Hyde are so incredible. On Thursday for around 3ish hours we were able to eat the normal Thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (with brown sugar, mamma mia, it’s sooo good), some rolls, and peppermint patties, fruit salad which I have missed, and stuffing. It was a great time and we were even able to invite our new convert with her non-member husband, so it went really well! We were also able to have another Thanksgiving feast yesterday with a member family who invited us over. They are so kind that they prepared Thanksgiving food and so it was round two! Both times were very good and yeah.. I love America.

One of the biggest highlights of my week was being able to do a scambio with Anziano Morlock. It was really special to see how much he has grown and changed after only 3 months. I haven’t laughed so hard as I did than when I was with him and we both had a really good time. We were able to do some finding together and we had a great time! I love my old comp.

The little girls who we are working with are doing really well! Going over and teaching them is one of my most favorite parts of the week because they are so accepting of everything and just are so humble. They came to church this week because we went and picked them up, so you know what that means... Sunday morning I was totally skipping through the train station and down the streets with one of them holding on my hand singing Tarzan.. It was the greatest!

For my spiritual thought I want to share something that has been on my mind about the mission. I apologize for not sending doctrinal things with scriptures or talks, but last Wednesday we were able to have a special experience as we met with all the district leaders and sister training leaders to talk about the zone. Anziano Burger and I have never done this before in a "council" type setting but we have received instruction to do so from our Mission President and so we had a two hour training/ council meeting about the needs and the focus for our zone this next transfer. During the meeting, it was really powerful just to think about how we are just 19/20 year old ragazzi [kids] that are meeting together to discuss how we can improve. How we can better ourselves as missionaries. It was a really spiritual meeting and it was interesting to see how it turned out so well even though we did not have any "older" leaders there making sure we were on track or things like that. I don’t really know if I am making any sense but the spirit was strong.. We were edified... Learned from each other, and we all went away wanting to work harder and do better. Councils are important, and it was cool to think of the things that I got out of that meeting even though all those I was meeting with were all my same age. The spirit is real and Jesus is in charge of his church!!

I love you guys! Thanks so much for your support, and your emails! They mean so much to me!

I love y’all!!

Love,

Anziano Spencer