Hey Family,
I hope you are all enjoying your summer. It is very unreal for me to think that I am at the end of my mission and that I will be returning home next week. Due to everything that is going to be going on next Pday with going to the villa and getting things ready to go, this will be my last letter that I write before I see you all at home. I have a lot of different thoughts about what I want to share about how much I love this great country and how much I love being a missionary and serving God, so I hope that I can make this letter clear and that it’s not all over the place because I know I tend to do that haha.
Last week I was able to do a scambio with Anziano Melling where we basically did finding the entire day. We made specific goals and worked hard to reach them and we saw a lot of success. At the end of the day, we sat down and talked together and he asked me why I feel like the Lord called me specifically here to Rome, Italy. It was a
really good question and something that I hadn’t thought a lot about. I thought about it and started to explain to him that I truly feel like one of the reasons that I have been called to Rome is to find: to find people and share my testimony with them about the truth. I know that sounds kinda simple and not very deep, but looking back over my mission, I can probably count how many times I taught someone about priesthood ordinances with the Melchezidek Priesthood or even about paying tithing. But in all honesty, I can’t count the thousands of times that I have had the opportunity to bear my testimony to people on the street that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God who restored the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today, that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, and most importantly, that Jesus Christ is real and that he loves us and we have the Atonement which allows us to make it back to God. I am grateful for all of those opportunities of sharing that truth which I know with others. That is something that has been an extremely incredible blessing to me on my mission. But, there is something more deep, at least for me, that I was able to think about with the question that I was asked about why I came here to Rome. An apostle (called of God) shared a quote that I really like and it says, "You find your testimony in the bearing of it." I truly feel like as I have been here in Italy doing my very best to find the elect of God that I have truly found myself. I truly have been able to grow my testimony to where I can say without a doubt and without shame to anyone who asks that this gospel is true and that I feel that with a 100 percent assurance. I know that as I have been out on the streets doing my best to find others, I have been able to find myself and my own testimony and strengthen and deepen it more than I could have imagined before my mission.
Last night was a very special experience for me. It was very spiritual but I feel like I need to share it. Before my mission, my father taught me about the concept of returning and reporting with God in prayer every night and being accountable for the things that I have done that day with God. This has been something that has been on my mind often because I have truly come to learn out here in the mission that I haven’t given these two years to God to serve him but he has given them to me. This has made me think and reflect about what I am doing during the day and if it is truly the best use of my time, but every night I always feel like I could be doing better. I guess I feel pretty often that I don’t "measure up," at least to the standards that I hold for myself. Before I explain, going back to the scambio that I did with Anziano Melling, he told me that he promised me as a servant of the Lord that I would feel a part of the love that God has for me for the work that I have done here in Italy in sharing this message with his children. He explained that he didn’t know when it was going to happen, but that it would happen before I returned home.
So last night we had a very interesting lesson with a man who we contacted. He was very interesting and actually was a member in the past, but he converted to Judaism many years ago and is a very strong Jew. He explained to us how he is actually the vice president of the Jewish community in Rome and he is one of the "founding fathers" of this movement in Rome. He was a pretty incredible man. But he explained to us how he served a mini-mission for our church, how he was actually branch president when he was 19 and everything. It was incredible and something that we were not expecting. We had a very nice dinner and continued to talk, and then the moment came for us to share our spiritual thought. At the moment when we were about to share something, I literally felt a spiritual block in my mind to actually not share a spritual thought but to pray and then go. This has never happened to me on my mission before and I was so confused, but literally I felt like we shouldn't. This really kinda ticked me off, if I am going to be honest, and I think he was a little confused too, because he said, “Well, is there anything else that you would like to talk about?" I just shook my head and thanked him and then we said a prayer and left. In the car as we were heading home I was still so confused, but then I had some thoughts that came into my head and the first one was that he would actually be more struck that we didn’t share a spiritual thought than if we did (because he definitely knew how it works as a missionary) and that it would cause him to think more and reflect on it. So that thought really helped me. The second one was that when I arrived home that I needed to pray to God, to do so when I first got home, and do so in English (which I haven't done in almost two years). So what I did is when I got home, I went out to the balcony of our home and I started to pray. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but as I began my prayer I was struck with such a powerful wave of emotion that I can’t really describe it in words. My prayer of confusion of why we didn’t share a spiritual thought turned into a reporting of me telling God everything that I have done in my mission, all my cities that I have served in, and different things like that. I felt during that time such a strong spirit of love and acceptance of the work that I have done here that it is something that I will never forget. By the end of my prayer, I was able to think for a while and I realized that one of the reasons that we didn’t share a thought was so that I would be more humble to truly open up and share some of my questions that I have been having for a long time about my mission and if I had "truly measured up to God’s standards." I truly can say that I was able to receive a confirmation that I have and it was something that I will never forget. It was also interesting to see that this all occurred just because I was so confused about why we didn’t share a spiritual thought with our good friend, due to a spiritual prompting, which led into one of the most spiritual experiences that I have had. God truly knows and loves us and he speaks to us in ways that only we individually can understand. Anziano Melling's promise absolutely came true.
I love this country so much. I love the people here and the experiences I’ve had here. A few weeks ago I was driving with Anziano Draghi and I looked up and saw a plane. At that moment I was hit by another wave of emotion of just truly how much I love the people here in Italy and how I have loved having the opportunity to share my testimony with them, to teach them, and to invite them to come unto Christ. I have loved my mission. I have even loved the hard times, like when I tore my meniscus, because it taught me to be more humble (looking back on it). I have loved working with the other missionaries and learning from them. It is a very special experience to work with older missionaries and learn from their power and experiences, and also to work with younger missionaries and learn from their energy and fire and passion for the work.
I have learned many things on my mission, but I think the two things that I truly want to take away after the mission are the importance of continuous spiritual progression and of inviting all to come unto Christ through his restored church. I am grateful for the many hours of street contacting that I have done because those memories will stay with me, reminding me of the importance to invite my friends to hear from the missionaries, because that is the best way--just as President Hinkley teaches.
I want to close simply with bearing my testimony. I know that the Savior lives and that he loves us. I know that the power of prayer is real and that God truly hears and answers our prayers, even in ways that sometimes we quite don't understand at the beginning. I know that he did the same with a boy named Joseph Smith in the year 1820 who was searching for the truth because he himself was very confused. I know that through his efforts and searching and sincere desire to know, he came to the conclusion that he must pray and ask God for himself. I know that as he did so in that grove of trees that he received an answer to his prayer when God and Jesus Christ appeared to him, explaining to him that none of the churches were right. I know that through different ways of preparation, Joseph Smith received the priesthood keys from Peter, James, and John, allowing us to again have access to God’s power here on this earth. This includes the sealing power that binds what we do here on earth with that in heaven, such as eternal marriage and family. I know that the proof of all this is the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, which can help us answer any question and come to know for ourselves the truthfulness of this message. I know that as we search sincerely through its pages, we will come to know the truth through earnest prayer and desire. I know that everyone can know of this truth and that through the Book of Mormon, we can grow our belief and bring our faith into action to grow our own individual testimonies. I know that God truly loves us and that he will guide those who are searching to the truth. I know this gospel of Jesus Christ is true without a doubt. I have come to know this over these past amazing two years while finding people and sharing this same message with them, while at the same time finding myself.
I love you all so much. I will see you very soon!
Anziano Spencer
