Ciao!: December 2016

The Good Samaritan Missionary

Hey family, it is so good to write to y'all. I hope that everyone is doing well and staying warm over there. It is still hot here in Napoli and I am not really sure if that’s because of how many people are just crowded into one city and just all of the body heat or because the weather is just hot. But I am still sweating when I go outside haha. It’s crazy to think how time has gone by so quickly and it is already December. If you have not already seen it, the Church is doing a calendar of service this month called LIGHT THE WORLD. It’s powerful and I would recommend to anyone who has not seen it to go watch it. We are seeing a lot of success by sharing it with others as we are doing finding and so maybe others at home could use it as well! This week I was able to have a really good scambio [exchange] with Anziano Draghi who is a super sincere and hardworking missionary. It was fun to work with him and this week I am really excited because I will be able to work with the missionaries from Caserta and so I will be companions with Anziano Cowden. He is a big rugby player and has been in the mission for a long time, so I am excited to learn from him and see what happens!

We spent a lot of our time this week preparing and planning for last Saturday, which was our Specialized Training. This is when all of the missionaries from the Zone were able to come into Napoli and we received instruction from President Pickerd and Sorella Pickerd and learned from each other. My companion and I also had the privilege of giving a training for one hour on what we felt inspired would help the missionaries achieve the new standard of excellence that we have to have of one baptism per companionship every transfer. We felt inspired to make a training based off of the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 (which is something that my stake president shared with me right before I left for my mission that touched me a lot).

We then took apart these scriptures, talking about what type of characteristics the Good Samaritan had and what type of characteristics the fallen man had, and compared that to us as missionaries and those here in Italy that are searching for the truth. After establishing those characteristics, we focused on five main points from the list and expounded on them and did some training. We had a lot of fun doing it and I believe that it went really well and so I am very happy. Here are the five main points that we talked about...

Opening our mouths (the Samaritan stopped..) to not be as the Levite or Priest

Establishing Purpose

Commitment

Come and See (bringing to the Inn) or Church in this matter

Diligence

After the training we received instruction from President and Sorella Pickerd. I love both of them, especially for the love that they show us as missionaries. They talked about the House of Israel (interesting because this is what President Nelson talked about recently) and the progress we are making as a mission. It was kinda funny because President Pickerd was listing off a few cities that maybe the church is not very developed in... He mentioned a couple and Trapani and Brindisi were both mentioned in the list.. Dang.. My last two cities that I love so much. Success is happening there now, especially in Trapani, because there have been two baptisms there the past few weeks which makes me extremely happy. The training ended at around 1:00, after which we ate and then did a Christmas Nativity reenactment. I was again a wise man like last year and we all had a really good time. I love being around all the Anziani (especially Anziano Morlock); they are all powerful missionaries and I love to learn from all of them individually because everyone has their own individual strengths and talents that they can share. I think it’s incredible.

The other super special event that happened was yesterday at church with the little girls and the mother. The mom is fully coming back to church and bore an extremely powerful testimony yesterday about how she hopes she can be an example for her daughters and how she knows without a doubt that this church is true. We were then able to have a lesson with them later in the day reading in Nephi 31 and talking about baptism! The girls told us their thoughts and told us that they want to be baptized! L. asked me if I could be the one to baptize her and then she was like, "I am not scared because I know that you will be with me." That really touched me a lot. Anziano Berger with be able to baptize J. and I am seriously so excited for these two girls. Their baptism will be on the 17th of this month. I love them. The mom is incredible too and wants the very best for her children.

This week we have also really been focusing on working with the members. The members here are all really awesome and we are hoping to build our relationships with them more to increase the missionary work here. Another update on our work is that we are working with L. (a different L.) a lot more! She is doing well and is going to read the Book of Mormon this week. She came to church and is planning to come next week, so we have high hopes!

For my spiritual thought I want to share something that was honestly pretty sad to hear, but it was true. During one of our lessons with someone that we are working with, she really opened up to us and told us something that I haven’t really thought of before. (I hope I can explain my thoughts well enough to share what she told us). She started off asking us why most of the members don’t pay attention to her when they come to church and they see her. She explained how she knows that she does not come to church for the people, but she comes for God. But, she then went on to say how it would be nice if people were friendly and genuinely asked her how she was doing.. Not just to say hi, but to actually talk for a few minutes and see how things are going. That hit me hard... Because I remember many times in church where I maybe overlooked others who were not my best friends and maybe just went to talk to those who I literally saw only 12 hours before because we spent Saturday night together. It really reminded me of how important it is for everyone to feel loved. Everyone is needed and I want to do better at including everyone. I hope my thoughts make sense... it's interesting to see that we can touch others with just a simple hello at church to make them feel loved. Everyone needs to feel loved and included in Christ's Church!

I love you all I hope you have a great week!!

P.S We got kicked out of a palazzo [apartment building] this week while doing finding. It was great... Kinda not a fun experience but it happens every once in a while.. It was kinda lame though, because we were looking for a refferal from a member; the referral was actually an inactive member and her friend wanted us to check on her. While we were there in the building trying to find her, some old lady got super ticked at us and threatened to call the cops even though we were not disturbing anyone. While we were outside trying to ring the doorbell for the apartment, the lady came out (the refferal) that were looking for and the old lady was like, “ hese men are looking for you!! Do you know them??" With a smirk on her face, the member leaned forward, looked at my tag and said, “No, I don’t..." and then walked away. It was pretty bad because we were denied so hard but at least we tried! Fun and good stuff.

Anziano Spencer