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 

Week 82: Jan 30 (Roma)

Cui Si Te    Si ban se (My name in Chinese)

Hey guys! I hope y'all are doing great! Today for P-day all the Anziani are getting together again to play football at this big park in the middle of Rome. We are going to do like a 7 on 7 match and I am super pumped; it's going to be so fun. Last week we had a mission-wide broadcast where Elder Oaks (apostle), Elder Bednar (apostle), Elder Anderson (also an apostle), and others of our leaders led a discussion about how we could be more effective as missionaries. They touched on a lot of different things and one of the things was our mission schedule and how we can better use our time to establish the Church wherever we are in our missions. They then announced that as part of this they will be changing our daily mission schedule and even our Pday. We are starting this new schedule today and it’s going to be interesting to get used to. The things that switched are when we plan, study, and we even have two hours extra on Pday!! These changes are all so that we can use our time more effectively during the week.. So sweet. There is a lot more freedom in this schedule where we are the ones that decide when to study and eat during the day, so it's going to be more of a choice now than a mandated schedule, which I really like.

As of this week we saw a lot of different miracles while teaching. I have to say though, my highlight was last Tuesday when we got a call from the missionaries serving on Malta, aka my cousin (!!!), asking us if we needed any help in the GANS center! We took them up on that offer and for the first time on my mission I was able to work with my cousin Anziano Cannon doing some finding around La Sapienza for around an hour. We had a great time together and it was great being able to work with him, speak Italian together, and find some new potentials. It would be such a fun thing to be companions with him. He's a great companion and I learned a lot in that hour and I was inspired by just the happiness that he brought when he was bearing his testimony.

With our investigators we are still trying to find solid investigators that will continue to meet with us. Unfortunately, a lot of the investigators that we have found haven’t been able to meet with us more.. the ones that make me really sad are the group of guys that were the miracle find that we had last week. We have only been able to meet with them once and then they always have work from now on, so we are praying that they will have time and that we can meet with them again! So yes, we have been doing a lot of finding and we will be doing some for a good chunk of time this week too. We have found a new finding method that works though, which is super simple and super fun. What we do is we just walk up to people and say, “Ciao, ti posso salutare?" Which basically means, “Hi, can I say hi to you?" But we do it with a big grin on our faces and stick our hands out right in front of them in kinda like a funny way, so then it makes the people laugh like “What on earth are these guys doing haha.." and then they start to talk to us. It works well and we are hoping to continue to see success from it!! We found probably one of the coolest guys from last week who is 25, has work, is super open to the gospel, and lives right across the street from the church. I really hope things keep going well with him.

We were able to see our good friend from China who is an investigator from a few months ago. It was actually a huge miracle because this guy is really interested and he is growing his faith in God, but he just has no time to meet because of school. We had a lesson planned with another woman in a park and she ended up not showing up... but as we were there in the park we saw our friend from China playing basketball with his friends!! It was Chinese New Year and he didn’t have to go to school that day, so that was a huge miracle! We were able to talk to him and then he had a lesson with us in the GANS center. He is growing his faith so much and we were able to talk about baptism and following Jesus Christ. He wants to come to church and know more but his school is so strict that he has school every day of the week the entire day so he can’t come. He said he could come to church with us in April because that’s when he has a break for three days and he will come. We really need to figure out what to do with how to help him get to church. During the lesson he wrote my name on the board in Chinese which was really cool as well. Another guy that we are working with is from the Philippines and he came to the family night that we had last week! He then came again the very next day to the GANS center to be with some other GANS, so we have some really high hopes for him. 

Tonight for the family night in the GANS center we are really hoping that some of our friends will come who haven’t been here in a while. We are starting to work with a really cool member who hasn’t been to church in a while and so we called him on the phone on Friday to talk. He then came to church on Sunday and will be coming tonight to the family night with his friends! I am really excited for him!

This week I was also able to do a scambio with Anziano Houseman. He is such a stud and we had such a good time together. We had a lot of finding to do, but it was so fun and in Rome (I don’t know why it’s like this) in the parks there are green parrots that are flying around. It was cool to be talking to some families, with my bud, having green parrots fly all around where we were.

The other huge miracle that we saw is we had a meeting with the Rome 3 college and they are so excited to have us teach English at their college. They want to give us our own room with like a projector and everything. It’s going to be so sweet and the guy that we are working with is so nice, so it was a really good meeting that turned out so well. 

As for my spiritual thought, I wanted to share a scripture that really touched me this week from the Book of Mormon. It had double meaning for me as well because it was in a talk that I was studying and then in another part of my studies, so it was kinda an answer to my prayers: “But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not” (Mosiah 4:30).

The reason that this scripture really hit me is because I was kinda down on myself on a couple of things that have been happening that are not really in our control here. And then I was missing my past city Napoli, a lot actually, and it was causing me to kinda be down. It was good for me to read this scripture and just kinda get like a "good slap to the face" that if I think these thoughts about how I miss my past city and how things are great here, but very long with the finding, that I am not going to be as happy as I could be. It really touched me and I am trying to keep thinking and pondering this scripture.

Well, I love you all and hope that you have a great week!!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Spencer

P.S Also, my new motto that I am trying to live by is a quote that I saw on a scambio from a missionary and I have kinda just taken it to heart. It was taped on the door of the house and it said, "I implore you to ball the freak out." I like that a lot--kinda like "give it 100 percent at all times" but in a cooler-sounding way haha. 

Cousins Anziani Cannon and Spencer!

Sporting new Italian leather jacket, because everybody should have one of those!
(His Christmas/birthday pick.)

And....zipped up!

With friend.

Zone football (that's right, actual football this time instead of soccer).

 After the football game, they did a little touring of Rome....

Tristan's name is Chinese, as mentioned above.

Week 81: Jan 23 (Roma)

ROMANACIA 

Hey guys! I hope you all had a great week! Today we are playing calcio together with the combined two zones so I am super pumped. I don't have much time but I will try to hit the main highlights of what's going on here in Rome. It’s going to be great with the combined zones because a lot of my good friends are in the other zone, like Anziano Ridd, Anziano Stratton, etc... so it’s going to be a really good time. Right now I am sitting on the metro and it's not moving right now, lol, which could be a problem. This last week the metros were shut down for a day because there were a few earthquakes again right in the region that I am in in Italy. I honestly don't know how serious they were, but I felt about 3 hit when we were studying as our house started to sway back and forth. Another one hit while we were having DDM up on the sixth floor in the senior couple’s apartment. I am just grateful that the apartments are strong and that they sway back and forth and that's it. It’s a pretty weird sensation, but hopefully that's the last of the earthquakes for a while.

We saw a huge miracle last Wednesday that I really want to focus on. Last Tuesday night we planned for Wednesday night and planned basically the whole afternoon open because no one could meet with us... so about 5ish hours of finding. Then we got a call from the missionaries in our district telling us how there was an American family that wanted to take us all out to eat for dinner at a fancy restaurant in downtown Rome. The missionaries had gotten permission and not gonna lie, it sounded pretty cool, but my companion and I decided to stick to our plan and go finding. That night we were having some success but not a whole lot until we met these four HOMIES that we started talking to. All of them are GANS (young adult) age except for one who is a little older and kinda looks after these guys. We started to talk about who we were as missionaries and then one of them cuts into the conversation and starts going off on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and looked at his friend and was like, “ If you want to become Mormon you have to quit coffee.." I kinda cut him off just because I thought he was trying to freak out his friend, but then he looked at me and in English was like, "I was an investigator in England.. I almost was baptized but then I had to move two days before my baptism to Japan for a family emergency. I met the Elders there and then I moved here..." He then turns to all of his friends and was like, “Look at his tag that he is wearing.. it says the Church of Jesus Christ.. that means it's His church.." I was kinda shocked because I was not expecting all of a sudden this huge help from this guy we met, but then he starts talking to his friends about who we are and then talks about how "Joseph Smith could barely read and write, so therefore it is obvious that it was by the power of God that he translated the Book of Mormon..and that it’s true..." Ummm wow. 

The next day we met with our 4 homies and they are all super sincere and all need the gospel in their own different ways. It’s pretty cool. As of now the one who was almost baptized in London does not open up when we ask him questions directly, but when we ask questions to his friends he backs us up. A really cool example of this was when we invited all of his friends to be baptized on the 18th of February. We always try to invite on our first lessons so our purpose is clear with our investigators... all of his friends started talking about how it was way to soon and that they couldn't do that. Their friend looked at them all and was like, "you have not even read the book and you’re saying no.. read first and you will know that this is true." It was so great to have him there. Unfortunately, they did not come to church, but they are going to come to the family night tonight with all of the other GANS and make some friendships. I am so grateful that we did not go out to eat at the restaurant!! Even though it would not have been a bad thing, we received such a huge blessing from focusing on our finding, and our purpose, and I am really excited to see where these four guys go and how they progress.

Another really powerful experience that I had was in a teaching lesson that I was in with Anziano Houseman. We do a lot of pass-off lessons to the other missionaries if we find people that are not GANS and if they are not a guy. First off, it was awesome to be in a lesson with one of my “brothers,” basically, from the MTC and teach together. Second, the spirit was really strong. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation and some questions came up that Anziano Houseman and I were both like.. ummmm ohhh boyyy that’s not your typical “Am I am child of God?" question. But there is a scripture that I want to share that will explain what happened that's found in the Doctrine and Covenants 100:

5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men;

6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.

All of a sudden, I knew exactly what to say and how to respond to his question, and I even was teaching kinda myself as I was speaking. After I finished the explanation our investigator was like, “Okay, that makes sense." Both Anziano Houseman and I were super happy with the way that the lesson went, and it was just another testimony builder to me that it truly shall be given to us in the very hour…even in the very moment... what we should say if we are listening to the spirit.

That’s about it for this week; I am excited to see what happens this coming week! We just finished playing zone calcio and it was a really good time. I think I brought honor to the Spencer name and repped my beast brothers, so I am happy. It was raining too, so it was great. Tonight we have family night and I really hope that we have a good turn out! 

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

Vi voglio bene!!

Love, 

Anziano Spencer 

 

Calico with Anziano Ridd today.

Calcio!

"Just walked by this on the way to an appointment today!"

"Dinner!" (OK, that's pretty weak...)

Villa Torlonio

With friend and Anziano Jensen in front of the church at Piazza Carnaro.

With friend at Castro Pretorio.

With Anziano Jensen. 

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!