Week 80: Jan 16 (Roma)

ABOKIAN [This means “Welcome!” in a Nigerian dialect.]

Hey everyone! Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes! I really appreciated them and I love you all. This week has been a great week and we are working our hardest here at the Rome institute for the GANS. I understand now a lot of what my companion and I have to do and so things are going really well. Today for Pday my companion and I are planning to go to the center to check out some sweet stores and take advantage of the saldi [sale] time. And then tonight we have a few lessons planned, and also family night with the young adults, so it's going to be great.

On my birthday it was a pretty normal day. We actually had basically the whole day open to be able to do finding, which at first I thought was kinda lame because I instead wanted to be teaching. But as we started, I really felt the love from God that even though I am finding and not teaching right now, he still accepts my efforts. On that day for about 3 hours no one was really listening to us until we finally found someone who was interested. She is about 23 and is the chillest girl ever. We went up and started talking to her while she was on a park bench and she was really interested. She had a massive dog that would bark at us when we would talk, so my companion distracted the dog by playing fetch with a rock while I taught her the Restoration. She accepted a Book of Mormon right there and started to read. She even agreed to be baptized if she receives an answer. We are meeting with her tomorrow and I have such high hopes for her that she is really interested. It was a good reminder to me that God always watches out for us when we do out part. Our district here was really nice and even the sisters made me brownies, so that was great. My favorite thing about the day, though, is Ex-Anziano Calvagna came to the center so I was able to see him!! I have not seen him in about a year and a half and it was the greatest thing. I love that guy so much and we just picked things back up right where we left off. That was a really good birthday gift! Other than that it was just a good normal day on the mission.

As for the other work, we are still trying to find new people. A lot of the people from the past have been giving us bidone's.. (basically not showing up to a confirmed lesson). We are averaging around 30 of those a week so we are trying hard to find fixed investigators who really do want to learn about the gospel. We have been working with two really great guys that we found last week. One of them is actually from the USSR and grew up his whole life not believing in God. He told us that he has made a lot of mistakes in the past and that he wants to change. He is looking for peace and he said that he will be baptized if he knows that this is true. We are praying that he will get an answer. He came to church last week and really liked it. Unfortunately, he was not able to come yesterday but hopefully he will come this next week. There is also a really powerful member that helps us out with missionary work here in Rome. He brought one of his freinds last week to church and we are working with him to be baptized on the 28th! He is really cool and will hopefully come to the family night tonight.  We also are working hard to re-activate a lot of the young adults here in our area. We are in contact with one guy who came to the family night last week and wants to come to more activities. Another guy that we met with last week came to church which was a huge miracle. I love the young adults in this area and I hope to be able to meet more that haven't been to church in a while!

We were also able to have Zone Conference this week which was awesome. I also got to see Anziano Olsen which was super cool after a really long time since Trapani. I learned a lot at this last Zone Conference though, and I really enjoyed the addestramento [training] from our AP’s [assistants to the president]. They are beasts, and both really cool guys. They talked about what more we can do while teaching and how we can EXHORT others to come unto Christ. I thought it was pretty sweet because that has been my transfer goal anyway, so I feel like it was truly inspired. I also love being around President and Sister Pickerd. I was able to have my interview with them in the villa and it was weird being back there because I hadn’t been in the President’s Office for about a year and 6 months, so it brought back a lot of memories. We had a great interview and talked about more things we can do for the institute center. Sister Pickerd also gave me a letter that the members from Napoli wrote me for my birthday. It was so nice and I seriously love those guys so much. It was really nice of them and it really touched me that they would do that. We, unfortunately, are still waiting to hear back from Rome 3, but La Sapienza college has been pumping with life.  It is so much nicer to do finding there because there are actually a bunch of people and it makes it so much easier. I am excited to see the people we can meet this week. 

As for my spiritual thought, I wanted to share something that we talked about in the GANS correlation that we do every week. The director here that we work with (the bishop in the Rome 3 area) is a really powerful guy. He made a correlation to how Satan works with a pack of lions going for its prey. He talked about how when lions first attack, they actually don't know which gazelle or animal they are going to go for. They go to scatter, and after that, they hunt down the one that is not "with the numbers”--the one that is alone and has no protection. Satan works this same way with us as we are "by ourselves" and don’t have the support and strength in numbers. He then related the center to how it bring YSA's together to where they have strength and to where Satan does not have as much power over the YSA's. I thought it was a really interesting application to life and just the importance to be with others who share our beliefs and can help lift us, because there is strength in numbers.

I love you all so much!!

Anziano Spencer 

Heading out for "birthday finding"!

With Ex-Anziano Calvagna.

Zone Conference.

With former companion from Trapani, Anziano Olsen.

Also, Zone Conferece.

With good friend, Anziano Segura, also from Texas.

Week 79: Jan 9 (Roma)

ROMA.. GANS

Hey everyone!! Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes and letters. I seriously really appreciate it and I love you all! Also, I am starting to get a grasp on things in my new area and learn more about my assignment so things are getting a lot better. Thank you for your prayers and support; I really appreciate them. 

This morning we sadly had to send off Anziano Southworth to the airport to fly to Arizona where he will be serving his mission. Yes, he is Italian even though he doesn't have an Italian last name. His grandpa is from America and so that’s why... he told me that he has always had such a strong desire to go to America because he loves it so much. I am really excited for him and I am grateful for the chance that we had to work together for a week. Today for Pday we are going out with two other Anziani and looking at the shops and sights of Rome, which I am super pumped about. We also have a lot of really good things planned for this week, including Zone Conference, which is going to be great. 

I am starting to understand a lot more about my assignment and what I have to do which is really nice haha. Basically, like I explained last week, I am working in the new Institute center for all of the GANS (young adults) for the Rome area. It is the first one that has been opened here and it has been specially put into the city center near the big college called "La Sapienza" so that we can stay in that area and find/meet with young adults. Something that I have never really done my whole mission is "find with a filter," but that is basically what I am doing here. My job is specifically to find people from 18-30 and so when we do finding, we just look for those specific people. Unless the spirit directs otherwise, that is our main goal. We also look for really young families. There are activities that go on all the time in the center like different game nights, family night, institute, classes, and english course, so we try to bring investigators to that to meet other members and build relationships. Last week all the college students were on vacation and so the centro was closed. Haha so I basically feel like as of now I know what I am supposed to do, but we weren’t able to do it because of that. This week is going to be much better. We are looking for all the really in gamba [phrase meaning “with it”] and smart people here in Rome that are young. It's going to be fun.

A huge miracle that we saw a few days ago is some success that we had at another college here in Rome called "Rome 3.” During the last transfer, Anziano Jensen and his companion established a good relationship with “La Sapienza" because they met with the Dean to explain who they were. Now BYU is in contact with the college and so is the area presidency to build up our relationship and try to get us on the campus. Well, now we are trying to do the same thing with another college called Rome 3, which is on the other side of town. We went on Thursday morning and kinda scoped it out, trying to know what to do. Well, we eventually ended up just walking onto the campus and then tried to find someone we could talk to but we had no success doing that. It was kinda weird because there was no security at all, so it must have looked weird to all the college students as three guys walked in just walking in and looking around looking clueless. We then found the building that teaches English and is actually a "rasmus" program that helps people learn English before they go study abroad. We were able to talk to this homie guy that works there as a volunteer. We told him that we are missionaries living here and we would love to help people learn English for free. He was so excited as we told him what we wanted to do and told us that he will try to get something set up to where we can come in every week, and even get onto the campus. I got his email address and we are in contact, so that was like a huge miracle. We then found another building that looked pretty official for languages and we will be having a meeting with the secretary this week to try to get things going. I am really excited and hope we can try to build our relationship really well to where we can go and teach English and maybe talk in the religion class as well. It’s going to be a huge miracle but also  a huge success with all the potiental this will bring, so we hope that things work out!!

We have basically done finding for most of the week because a lot of the investigators that the Anziani were working with have been gone, so it has been really good. Not gonna lie, I have respect for everyone and I love all the people here but I have already had problems with a gay guy that we talked to last week sending me some weird text messages. 5th day in Rome!! Whhooooo hahah!

I don’t have a lot of updates on people because I have not met them yet, so hopefully next week. We are hoping to have around 4 lessons tonight, plus family night, in the GANS center so hopefully things finally start to get going. 

The last thing I want to share is a huge miracle that we saw yesterday. As we were walking to an appointment we passed this woman in a pink jacket with her earphones in just chillin' on a bench. I walked past and said hello and kept walking because we had an appointment to go to. But, I felt an impression that I should stop and go back and talk to her. I kinda pushed it off and kept walking and started going down the escalator because we needed to go. It came again to where I turned around and finally listened to the prompting and ran up the stairs to talk to her. (I don’t know why I can’t just listen the first time... I am still trying to get better at this.) I went up and tried to ask her a question and she pulled out her headphones and was super happy when she saw my missionary tag. She told me how she is from El Salvador but was baptized in Nicaragua.. She then explained to us how she was the young women's leader there, and how she just LOVES reading the book of Alma in the Book of Mormon because it really comforts her, then pulled out her phone and showed us pictures of the temple where she was from. All the while she was explaining this, I was just kinda stunned and so happy that I listened to this prompting. She then explained how she came here not long ago for work and how it’s been really hard. We explained that we have church and we would love if she came with us. She was so happy and we were able to share a little thought with her and then asked if she could pray with us. She said a prayer in Spanish that I was able to understand! Halleluia! It was a really special experience. God is real, He loves his children, and the spirit does guide us!! We just need to listen!! We will see her next Sunday for church.

Well, I love you all so much!! I hope y'all have a great week and are safe! Thanks again for all the birthday wishes!! My spiritual thought for this week is the miracle that I shared. I know the Spirit truly does guide us every single day. God knows each of us and he will lead us to find those who need us. We just need to listen!

Vi voglio un sacco di bene!! [I love you all so very much!]

Anziano Spencer 

Good-bye Anziano Southworth! 

Week 78: Jan 2 (ROMA!)

ROMA... Ummm what was that, President?

Hey everyone!! I hope that everyone had a great New Year’s Eve! I want to start off with a story from last week to explain what's going on right now. Last Monday we received transfer calls, but leading up to it I thought absolutely nothing of transfer calls because I was literally convinced that I was staying in Napoli. Well, on Monday night my companion Anziano Berger and I got home and  started to plan when all of the sudden, President Pickerd calls us... Not gonna lie, it made me pretty sad and I was just kinda stunned because I love Napoli so much and only spent 3 months there.

I have received a new assignment though, and I am still trying to understand fully what I have to do. Basically, what I am doing is taking over the new young adults program/center that got put in here in downtown Rome. I am in a trio with my new companions Anziano Jensen and Anziano Southworth. They are both pretty young in the mission which has been pretty cool. Anziano Jensen is in his 3rd transfer and Anziano Southworth (who is Italian) is in his 2nd. Anziano Southworth is actually going to be serving in Arizona, but he is waiting for his visa to come in, so we will be with him until he goes to America. This program/center was started around 3 months ago with Anziano Jensen and his trainer Anziano Taronto. Anziano Taronto is kinda like a legend in the mission because he served for a very long time as AP and was just an incredible missionary. He finished his mission last week and I was transferred here to take his spot and--not gonna lie--I am still trying to figure everything out. I kinda feel pretty lost, but things are getting better. His greenie, Anziano Jensen, is a beast though and is already a fantastic missionary who works really hard and doesn’t even feel like we need to eat lunch during the day because it’s a waste of time (ummm... we will have to figure that out because I think lunch is important..) and so it’s been a great help because he knows the area and what’s going on. Anziano Southworth is a really consecrated missionary that tries his hardest and is a great missionary as well. I am excited to see what I can learn from them and what we can do together here in this young adults program. 

Basically, we need to bring as many people as we can from the ages of 18-30 to this center. The center is right downtown and it’s basically like an apartment complex with a game center, library, spare rooms for english courses, a kitchen, and stuff like that.. It’s an area for all the young adults and their friends to come and hang out and we need to find people and bring them to the center. There are a lot of young adults that participate that are planning on going on missions or have already served missions that come, so they help us teach lessons and go finding. (Hopefully I will see my friend Anziano Calvagna!! He served with me in Terni and he comes so I am really excited to see him again.) We don’t have an assigned area either (with boundaries that we can’t cross into other missionaries’ areas).  President Pickerd has given us the instruction to go wherever we can find the young adults… So, for example, we go to a massive college called La Sapienza where there are 100,000 students and we talk to people there. But we can also go to other areas of Rome to work as well. We are free to go where we need to and so that's been pretty cool. We do a lot of finding here and a lot of teaching. Also, we find a lot of referrals for other missionaries as well so it’s been great. 

For church we go to the Rome 2 ward which is the strongest ward in our mission. It’s the same ward that our Mission President goes to with all the senior couples in this area. On Sunday, I believe there were around 16 called missionaries there, including us, with all the senior couples and our district. Our ward has about 100ish people. They are all really strong members and there are also a lot of Americans that live here with their families for the Embassy so that’s been pretty sweet. We unfortunately don’t work with the member families; we mainly focus on people from the ages of 18-30 and then all the other missionaries take the families. I still have to learn much more about what I am supposed to be doing and my role, but for now this is about all the information I know. The work here looks really good as well; we just need to keep finding new people and helping those that we are already working with progress. Apparently from what I have been told we are teaching Italians, Africans, Shrilankians, Chinese, and other different ethnicities and so I am excited to meet everyone. 

Leaving Napoli was pretty tough. I was pretty shocked and really sad to say good-bye to all of the members. They showed me so much love and were really kind to me. I also really enjoyed working with all the missionaries in Napoli. It was a really great opportunity and I learned so much from all of them. Because I got transfered so soon, I unfortunately was not able to say good-bye to a lot of my friends and the people that I was able to work with. But, I was invited over to like a last-minute meal appointment with one of my most favorite Napoli families to see them before we left. They made us hamburgers and French fries which I thought was super nice. Probably the most special part of last week was being able to see Evans (the guy that was baptized a few months ago) baptize his own son. It was a really special baptismal service and went really well. That family is incredible and they are progressing so well in the gospel. It’s so great to see families coming together in the gospel. I also really enjoyed my time that I had with Anziano Berger. He is a really good missionary who taught me a lot of things, especailly how to be bold with other people. I am happy for the friendship that we made.

I left Napoli Friday afternoon and flew to Rome in just an hour. Things have been interesting so far. I only have two missionary tags and one of them I left with our new convert Fabio and so I just had one while coming up to Rome. When I got to Rome I went up and gave a hug to one of my friends who I had not seen in a while and my tag broke in half... Dang.. Lol so now I have a duct-taped tag until I can get new ones. Other than looking kinda like a scrub (in my opinion) with a duct-taped tag while bearing my testimony to the whole Rome 2 ward with my mission president watching, and meeting all these new people, things are going well;).

Well, I love you all so much! Hopefully by next week I will understand more about what is happening here in my new area. Thank you all so much for your support and love. For my spiritual thought I just want to share one word that I am working on and trying to study more for this next transfer. The word is Exhort... Or esortare in Italian. I am excited for this new transfer!

Vi voglio bene!!

Anziano Spencer

P.S I saw a video of New Year’s Eve in Napoli from my last companion.. It was so sick. There was a fire going randomly right down the streeet and fireworks going off everywhere.. I love Napoli!! Unfortunately, there are no crazy gypsies, or bombs going off in the night here, or other insane stuff. It’s really tranquillo [peaceful, calm] which is kinda sad.

Saying good-bye to favorite friends in Napoli!

I believe this is the member mentioned above who baptized his son.

Senior missionaries serving in Napoli.

Tristan got to fly to Rome from Napoli (1 hour).

Saying good-bye to dear friends Fabio, Anziano Ridd, and Anziano Bellini. 

Saying good-bye to Anziano Berger.

Hello to Roma and Anziani Jensen and Southworth!

Week 77: Dec 26 (Napoli)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hey everybody! I hope that y'all had a great Christmas celebrating all together the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ! This truly is such a special time of year and I am grateful that I have the opportunity to be serving as a representative of His work here in Napoli. We had a great Christmas here and I will try to do my best to explain all the traditions and things that we were able to do with the Italians. The moment that was the most special was being able to skype call my family. It was so good to see them after 7 months and I love them so much. 

Traditions for Christmas- Eating haha

Okay so here in Napoli the festivities are a three-day long event starting on the 24th and ending on the 26th. It’s been pretty cool to experience, especially because each day is a different type of meal that you are supposed to eat. So for example, on Saturday (or Christmas Eve) you are only supposed to eat fish. All different types of fish are mixed in with pastas, salads, first courses, and second courses. [Editor’s note: I remember this from my mission to Italy too—very well. I wasn’t as enthused about it as Tristan is.] The speciality thing here is also eels. All around Napoli there are food markets and during the Christmas season there have been giant tanks set out that have huge eels swimming inside that people come to buy from the market. It is so sweet! Then the next day on Christmas it’s more of a soup kinda meal with rooster broth and then pasta and things like that. After basically feeling super full for two days you still continue to eat and on the 26th you just eat the normal lasagna, pasta, and dolce [sweets] kinda meal. So for today and the past two days people spend time together as a family, eating. It’s awesome!

This is what has been happening the last few days here during Christmas time. On Saturday we went over to a member’s house to eat dinner with them. My companion and I had a great time and I have to say it was probably one of the craziest and super fun nights of my whole mission. I can’t really explain it very well other than saying that during the dinner the kids were chucking basketballs at us to play catch while we were eating clams (the kind that you slurp out of the shells) mixed with pasta. And some other very interesting things occurred haha. I loved it so much; it was such a good time. The family that we were with is so kind and even got us a big Christmas gift of a bunch of different foods for our house like Nutella, tuna, and of course, pasta. They are so great. 

On Christmas Eve the other guys here in Napoli slept over at our house (plus two other Anziani that have been stuck in Napoli for a week) and so it was us six all in our home. It was a super fun time and it was cool waking up Christmas morning and all eating pancakes together before we went to church. I was actually able to give a talk in church which I was nervous about because I didn’t really know what the branch president wanted me to do other than talk about Christmas, and so that’s what I did and I think it went well. The spirit was really strong during the meeting and it was special to be with the branch on Christmas day. After that we went to a meal appointment with another one of our members and ate the kind of meal that I described above with broth and pasta and lots of vegetables. There is a special vegetable here that is famous in Napoli that is kinda like a mix between spinach and kale like all boiled together and when I first ate it, it was probably the most disgusting thing that I have ever eaten. It kinda reminds me of when I mowed the lawn back at home and the grass was still wet and I took the grass out to empty it.. Yeah.. that’s the image that I think of as I am trying to eat it with a smile on my face haha. But, now I am beginning to be more used to it and I can eat it, which is good because it’s a common dish here. After the meal appointment we went back to the church to skype our families which was the GREATEST, and then we watched a movies called Zootropolis. It was really cool and I liked it a lot. Unfortunately, the movies we bought were from the street so they cost like 2 euro which was a cool deal until three-fourths into the movie it just stopped working lol. We watched it in Italian, but it was a really good movie and I am grateful I was able to get the main idea of the movie. 

That has been our Christmas events for the past few days!! Today we have another meal appointment to go eat with some members which I am really excited about! The eating still continues on haha! As for the rest of the week, though, it has been really interesting. Last Tuesday two Anziani came up from Reggio Calabria to get a permesso, but with the way train times worked and getting their documents they were not able to go back home until this morning, so they ended up staying here for the entire week. I was able to work with Anziano Whitaker for most of the week and it was a really great experience. I learned a lot from him and it was awesome because he is an Elder that I started my mission with in the MTC so we already had a really good relationship and so it was fun to be together after a year and a half on our missions. We were able to do a lot of finding together and we saw so many miracles. We met one guy that was about to be baptized a few years ago and then the church moved locations and so he just got confused and stopped coming. Then we found other investigators who are all young and super cool so I am really excited with all the success we saw. Anziano Whitaker is super good at bringing the spirit into the conversation while talking to people and there is one spiritual experience that I want to share from what he did. We stopped a mother with her daughter and started talking to them and Anziano Whitaker was bearing his testimony of why we were here in Italy. As he was doing so, the spirit literally hit me so hard in my chest; it was incredible. I can’t describe it other than echoing what the prophets and apostles teach about how a testimony is the "strongest arrow in your quiver" and it’s the spirit that’s going to convert people. It was a powerful experience and the two people we were talking to felt it as well. I really enjoyed the time that we had together!

The other experience that was super fun this week was the Christmas caroling!! We had all the missionaries from our zone come into Napoli and we went into the middle of the center to go sing to people and to bring some Christmas cheer. I ended up getting there a little bit later than everyone else because I was bringing some members, so it was cool to walk up and join all the missionaries already singing. The "conductor" was an Anziano that is super good at music and knew what he was doing so well. I just don’t know if he got the whole point how we needed to be like super pumped and excited to get people to watch because we started singing a few sacrament hymns to people on the 23rd. Ummm what…? Don’t get me wrong; I love the sacrament hymns, like they are beautiful, but it wasn't really attracting anyone to stop and so I asked if I could just give it a shot and conduct. I had no clue what I was doing, so I was just kinda dancing while everyone was singing and trying to get really into it haha. It was sooo fun and the missionaries started to get hyped and excited and so we decided to leave our spot where we were and go down into the "heart" of the city where the main metro stop is and sing there. There were 100s's of people passing by and it was SOOO SWEET starting to sing and having people stop. We sang all the Christmas hymns, and then some other Christmas songs and the best one was 12 days of Christmas because after that we had a crowd of like 100 people filming us and watching. During the 12 days of Christmas some old guy walked right next to me while I was "conducting"  (dancing) and so I started to dance with him and he started to dance a little too! The best…!! The caroling was a really good time and I think it really gave all the missionaries a boost and some happiness during Christmas to be all together to sing and to talk to people about our church. The next day before church we had a member come up and show us a video that was posted on Facebook and YouTube of us singing.. OHHH YESS. Haha she said she saw the video and started to watch and then realized that those were “her" missionaries!!! 

As for the work we are doing really well. We have a lot of good potentials for this week and we have found some really sincere people who want to know if there really is a God and if Jesus Christ is real. I am ready to be back with my companion and keep working. We have transfer calls this week and I am not really sure if I will be leaving or staying. I will let y'all know next week!

I wanted to end with a quote from Elder Bednar that he shares in a talk he wrote about Lighting the World.. He says, "May we increasingly learn and more fully understand that Jesus Christ is the “light which shineth in darkness.” In every season of our lives, in all of the circumstances we may encounter, and in each challenge we may face, the Savior is the light that dispels fear, provides assurance and direction, and engenders enduring peace and joy. May the beautiful lights of every Christmas season remind us of Him who is the source of all light."

I really love this quote because it shows us and just reminds us that Jesus Christ truly is the light. It’s interesting to see that during Christmas there are lights that are set up everywhere. In our homes, on the streets, literally everywhere... And I think there is an interesting correlation between that and the fact that we celebrate the birth of our Savior who is always a constant light in every circumstance that we may encounter. I know that it is true that just like Elder Bednar says, "Jesus Christ is the source of all light."

Vi voglio bene!! [I love you all so much!]

Anziano Spencer 

P.S HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR!!!

Lights everywhere, as mentioned above!

I think this is a group of members/investigators who went to carol with the missionaries.

A favorite friend!

Christmas caroling in Centro.

Christmas caroling by the metro.

Christmas Eve!

A surprise package from the members who hosted them!

It's a hit!

The hosts really were chucking basketballs at them during dinner,
as mentioned above!

Lots of love in this family for the missionaries. Thank you!!!

Christmas Day!

"The studs of the branch"--quote from Tristan.

This sister started her mission with Tristan and was heading home! All done!!

With Anziano Whitaker.

Our Christmas call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The BEST!

Week 76: Dec 19 (Napoli)

BUON NATALE!!

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas this upcoming Sunday! It is special to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. I want to wish you all a Buon Natale and I hope that everyone has a great time together for these next few holidays. For Christmas we are planning on going to a member family's house, which will be really fun. They are a super fun family that are extremely crazy, which I am excited about. After eating with them we are going to come back to the church and Skype my family--which is going to be my most favorite part--and then eat tacos with our new convert Fabio. It’s going to be a great day and I am really excited! Today for P-day we were able to go to the American Base which was so sick but also so weird. I was able to load up on ramen (sooo good mom, haha) peanut butter, those lemon-tortilla chips that I love, and most importantly... Protein Powder! Ohhh yess. 

This week we are pumped for a lot of different things that are coming up. We are planning on going to Rome, but the assistants might have to work with some other missionaries so we are still not sure. But on Friday we are planning the Christmas caroling in the city center which will be really interesting haha. I hope it goes well!  We are planning on inviting all the members and people that we are working with so hopefully things will go well with this activity. 

Okay, so there were two really huge highlights about this week that I want focus my email on. The first thing is L. (the older sister) and J. got baptized!! It was such a special experience. I want to explain a couple things so that y'all get the background of the baptism. So here in Napoli we don’t have a baptismal font and so normally we would have to go to a different city, or go to the ocean. Both of those options were open but we wanted to do our best to have the baptism here in Napoli so that there would be more member support for the girls. We coordinated with some Anziani in Castellammare and they gave us their portable font from their church. Before the mission I didn’t even know these things existed. Basically what it is is a giant blue bag that we build and structure out of pipes. Then we fill it up with water and pray that it doesn’t tip over. Hahaha just kidding--it’s pretty stable, but filling it up with water was pretty difficult because in the church there is no hot, flowing water and the tubes that we had to connect from the sinks to the font didn’t work. We tried all sorts of things to fill it up... My favorite was filling up the sink with water, plugging it, and then putting one end of the tube in the sink and then the other in the baptismal font. I then sucked on the end in the baptismal font to try to create a suction.. It worked a little bit but didn’t have the effect we wanted. Eventually we figured it out by using a lot of tape and the sink. It took around 2 hours to fill up and then after that we put a conductor inside the water to heat it up... After the water was sitting for around 26 hours, it was hot enough and nice for the baptism. It was a process I never thought I would have to learn to do before the mission.

On Saturday we went and picked the girls up at their house and brought them to the church. They were both so excited and so was the mother. I am just so grateful for how everything turned out. We had a lot of members that came to support them, and afterwards there were some refreshments set out for everyone to help them feel welcomed and loved (which I was grateful about!). L. asked me to baptize her and so it was a really special experience. I wish I could explain better other than saying that the church is true and it was a moment that I will never forget in my life. The next day we were able to do the confirmations which was actually a huge miracle because we ended up being late to church by around 40 minutes. Every Sunday we go to pick up the girls in the morning to help them get to church.Unfortunately, this Sunday there was no train that came for 30 minutes. And so it was kinda awkward walking into church 40 minutes late because the train didn’t come but our Branch president gave us permission to have the confirmations at the end of sacrament instead of at the beginning. I was able to confirm L. and again it was a special experience to confirm her a member of the church. The spirit is always really strong standing in the circle of the ordinance.

Another special thing that we did this week was a scambio with the Anziani down in Castellemmare. I was able to work with Anziano Bellini (who was in my same group when we entered here in Italy). We had a great time together and saw so many awesome things from the scambio. Basically he and I had a lot of finding that we were going to be doing in their area which went really well. The first people that we talked to out the door of the elevator were putting up Christmas decorations in the apartment and the mother mentioned to us how she was actually almost baptized into our church a few years ago... Ummmm what?! That doesn't happen very often. We were able to help them and now the Anziani are going to be meeting with her twice a week to help her get back to church! It was a good scambio and I LOVED being in Castellemmare because it reminded me a lot of Trapani. It was small and right alongside the ocean and so it brought back so many memories. I loved it!

We had another lesson with one of our investigators that we are working with. It was pretty interesting because her grandson was there and he was making so much noise that it was hard to talk. But it eventually got better as I called him over and told him that I had a "mission" for him. He was wearing a batman shirt and so I told him that he would become batman if he fought the imaginary monsters around the room in silence... It worked great and eventually by the end of the lesson he came and sat down and prayed with us. My companion afterward was just like, “You're like the Kid Whisperer-- like what on earth?!” Hahaha! I love working with kids and I feel like my swimming-instructor job really helped me learn how to work with them before the mission. A miracle from this lesson though was the grandmother literally was thinking about how she needs to read the Book of Mormon and "where those missionaries went" that she met with a while ago and then we knocked on her door. It was a cool experience when she told us her thoughts, and said how she feels "light" when we talk to her. So awesome.

Last night we had a great time as we went to a main piazza in the city center to do a gesso [chalkboard discussion with people on the street]. As we did so, we found a giant group because there was a giant dancing competition (OHHHH MAMMA MIA) and we saw some of the members there because the daughter of one of the members is like the top latino dancer in Italy in her age group category. Are you kidding me right now?! So we were able to see her and then while we were with the members I started talking to this guy next to us and we talked about the church and eventually it turned into my companion and I with three other members talking to him and sharing their conversions, as Rihanna is blasting in the background.  Ohhhh yes. It was an interesting setting, that’s for sure. I was trying my hardest to focus while at the same time not start dancing hahaha.

Well, I hope you all have a very good Christmas!!! For my spiritual thought I wanted to quote a scripture from Luke 2 talking about Jesus Christ's birth,

"10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

I am grateful that during this Christmas season we can remember more about our Savior Jesus Christ and his brith. In Italian we say "e nato un Salvatore" which I love so much. Christ was born and because of that and his mission that he did for us we can all be saved. We can all have a new life and we can all make it back to our Father in Heaven. We need not fear. E NATO UN SALVATORE! [A Savior is born!]

I love you all!!

Anziano Spencer 

Scambio [exchange] with Anziano Bellini.

With Fabio and Anziano Berger downtown for the gesso.

Playing a little game for Family Night at the church.

The portable baptismal font. 

Baptism Day!

"Funny faces" series--Tristan loves these girls!

Cousins of the girls who got baptized.
Tristan says the one in the stroller tells him she is his little "Spencerina."
So cute!