Week 83: Feb 6 (Roma)

She Chose The Medium

Hey everybody! I hope y'all had a great week. Things are going great here in Rome. Right now we are headed to the Saint Paolo Basilica which is supposedly really cool. There are four basilicas here in Rome and this will be the second one that I will see. Also later today we will also be meeting up with my bud Anziano Blackwell (who was in the MTC with me), because his companion has finished his mission and he is going to be with us for a few days. It’s going to make things more efficient in the center to be in three (because of doing splits with members), which I am excited about. Tonight we receive transfer calls and I am not expecting to leave, so we will see what happens with my companion. 

Well, this week was honestly so full of some awesome miracles. Literally, daily! And it just reminded me of how much I love being a missionary. On Monday once Pday ended the miracles began. That night we had planned to do some finding before family night with all the GANS (young adults) and so we headed out with only like 45 minutes. It was probably the sickest 45 minutes of finding that I have had in my mission. The first person that we stopped ended up being from Napoli (the promised land!!) and had been taught English from the missionaries before and had started taking the discussions. While we were talking to him, another couple came up to us and talked about how they wanted to know where our church was... so sweet. Then, while we were talking to another guy with a massive swag beard who was not really interested, I turned around and there was this guy just standing there... I started talking to him and he told us that, "he has been looking for us..." He then explained that he was not interested in learning English at all but instead he wanted to talk to us about God and faith...Ohhh yes. We then headed to family night and there ended up being around 9 people that came, one of which was a less-active who we are trying to get closer with too. It was a great turn-out and it made me so happy.

Another awesome miracle was Wednesday night. We had a lesson planned at the train station at 18:00 and so we went there and couldn't find our friend. But as we were looking around, we found our other homies (including the one that almost got baptized in London!!!). He has been so hard to contact the past few weeks and never answers his phone and so it was a miracle that we just found him. We started to talk to him and he was super down and did not want to meet with us. But then we felt like we should offer him a blessing. He accepted and we were able to go to the center and do that.. afterward, the spirit was really strong and he started opening up to us so much about what has been going on in his life and his struggles. I am not going to go into detail, but there was something that he said that really struck me; he said, "I did what I thought was living," relating to how he's kinda run his life down into a really bad spot right now. The spirit was really strong though and it was incredible, because it was a very intense lesson with some of the stuff that he was saying. In the middle of it, the door bell rang to the center and one of the GANS walks in for Institute.. which was cancelled that night and he actually normally doesn't even come to that specific class anyway. It was kinda like a weird thing that he was there, but God seriously has a plan because we had the member (who is a new convert from 2 years ago) come in for the lesson and he shared his conversion story with our homie. Our homie then started to completely open up with his thoughts about the church (which he hadn't done with us ever), while just talking to the member. He said, "I want to tell you my small testimony of the church.., he then started to talk and his "small testimony of the church" changed to "I believe these things to be true..." and after he talked some more his words became, "I know that these things are true..." Wow. He began to share his testimony with the member and it was super special. After that we were able to talk some more and then we finished the lesson. If I am going to be honest, it was probably the most intense and spiritual lesson that I have had in my life and one that I am not going to forget. 

As for the work, we are doing really well. We have found some really cool investigators who are super in gamba [“with it”] and really understand our purpose. We met with one of them a few days ago and just had such a nice restoration lesson with him. He understood everything and at the end prayed to God, asking Him if he should be baptized on March 4th, and to know if this is the path that he should take. We also have a new friend from Persia who is really cool as well. She is here working and studying and she is actually a really big miracle as well. She called us on the phone last week saying that she wanted to meet with us. We had actually met her our first week here and then she was not really interested, but we still gave her our phone number. After a while, she contacted us saying she wanted to meet. Things are going pretty well with her, so I am really excited. Also, she is from Persia.. I know I already said that but I think its so cool. Last week I mentioned how we found like the coolest guy on the street and then had a lesson with him. He's 25, already has his own office, and is such a swag guy. Anyway, he came to church!!! He had a great experience and said that next week he wants to bring his father and his girlfriend to come and see. All the members were super welcoming to him and want to help us with the lessons as well.

Also, our English group is growing so much. There has not been much attendance over the past few weeks, but this Thursday we had 16 people. We have been doing a lot of finding for our English group, so we are really happy that more people are starting to come. Hopefully this week there will be even more...but the ones that are coming are super cool. There are a lot of different people from different cultures, which has been interesting to learn about, like Iran, Albania, Morocco, and more.

Okay, so now I want to explain my title with why I said that "she chose a medium." Oh boy, not gonna lie, I was so ticked. Last Tuesday we planned to have a lesson with this couple that we met last week. The guy was 19 and the girl was like 15 or 16 and they had an interest in having the Book of Mormon. At least the guy was interested. He was Buddhist but he wanted to know more. Well, on Tuesday the girl contacted us to meet. We were excited and planned the lesson. Unfortunately, we ended up being a little late and so we felt pretty bad, so we told "them" that at the center there is some food and they could come and see the center and eat. Anyway, we get to the station where we are going to meet and the girl was like, "I have one thing to tell you. My boyfriend just broke up with me." Awesome. Then began the next 30 minutes with this 15-year-old girl hitting on me and trying to flirt with me.. Ohhhh myyyy.  Singing Justin Bieber to me in English while we were walking... Like "friendly" punching my arm because I didn't remember where she was from in Rome...Man, I was dying. Well, I didn’t want her to come to the center, to be honest, because she just didn’t have the right desires. So we said that she would get her gelato instead. Honestly, I have never bought food in the center because it’s so expensive, but that was the only thing that I could think of. Well, we ended up taking this girl to the gelateria and I asked how much it cost for like a small.. Just a small.. It was like 3ish and more euro.. mamma mia that was so much. Well, I said I wanted a small and then my comp got a small... And then the girl said, "I want a medium!" Are you kidding me??! With irritation in my smile I paid the guy and then got the expensive cheap quality gelato and left. That was kinda the last straw, lol, and we went to the sketchiest park we could find and sat down to lay down the law of who we were. I started to explain that we are here to help people to come unto Christ and nothing else. And yes, responding to her question about how we have "girlfriends waiting for us in the states for after our mission." She finally stopped. Then we had some guys come up and offer us weed and drugs and she actually knew the people, lol! It was just a really weird and not a fun situation. I just don’t know how many more experiences I am going to have with girls, and guys for that matter, trying to hit on us. Last week we got invited over to a guy’s house who was "alone" and really wanted us to come. Ummm, no thanks. 

For my spiritual thought I honestly just want to re-quote what I heard this week from one of our investigators. "These past few years of my life I have been doing what I thought was living." I am grateful for the gospel and for the teachings that it has given me to know really what really is living... Maybe not from the world’s standards but in God’s standards. Pretty powerful. 

I love you all!! 

Vi voglio un mondo di bene!!

Anziano Spencer

P.S Yesterday I was able to do a scambio with my good friend Anziano Jensen (the bald one that was in my district for three transfers.. Man I love him). He is going home tomorrow with his group because they have finished their missions. A lot of my good friends are in this group, especially Anziano Garrett. Man, I am grateful for the time I had to serve with him.

Pics from Saint Paul’s Basilica