Vicenza - Week 9

Another week has gone by and I’m starting to be in a groove. 

Conference was really great. We were at the church all day because we watched all but the Saturday morning session on Sunday (due to time changes). I really loved how President Monson talked about how we need to care more about walking as Jesus walked, not just where he walked. There was lots of focus on following the prophet’s teachings and having a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Eddie, our top investigator came to a session and brought his friend Larry. They both loved it. Eddie is still doing great and loves all we teach him. Larry loves the church, so we are going to start teaching him this upcoming week.

We had a lot of "scambi" this week which are exchanges. I was with another elder in our district in Vicenza for a couple days and we taught in his proselyting area. We committed a family to baptism there. They are a military family and the husband had been deployed for quite a while. We were planning on setting a baptism date with the mother and her sons, but when we showed, up the husband was there. He got back a month early and, after teaching him the restoration, we set 4 baptismal dates with all of them. It was pretty great.

Then we had a zone meeting in Padova where we talked about the big 3 for our zone which is "SYL" (speak your language which is Italian), Companionship Compliments, and Companionship prayers. It was pretty cool. After the meeting I went with one of the Zone Leaders, Anziano J. to the city Bologna to do a scambio with him. We had some pretty good lessons and were out on the streets getting to work. It felt weird not working with the investigators I usually teach but it was really nice to see how other missionaries are and how they teach.

I ate with a lot of people this week. I had a 5 course meal but I honestly can’t say what it was. Also, I had a smoked brisket and pork from an American member. He sent us home with so much. It had been smoking for 14 hours. It was pretty good.

I continue to love it out here and cannot testify more of the need to love what you do. Make sure you find joy in the everyday adventure, and remember Christ in all you do.

Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Anziano Chase

Anziano Chase in his new Italian jacket (he's pretty excited about it - it has Italian stitching ;)! )