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!