Il fine del anno - Week 71

Hey everyone. I hope you had a great Christmas, and that you were able to spend it with someone special! This week was a very happy week for my companion and I. We were able to spend a lot of our time with members, enjoying the holidays with them and remembering Christ with them. Our Christmas Eve was very occupied with traveling to different families. We were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to get to everyone we wanted to see. We had planned out efficiently what we needed to do, and with a little help from above we were able to see 4 families that we wanted to see. I t helped me appreciate a planned out day. If we hadn't really written out what/who we were going to do/see and how it would be accomplished we might not have had the opportunity to see some families. Our Christmas Day was very nice and simple. We went to lunch with the Perez family and watched some nativity videos with them, and spent a good deal just being with them. After we were able to skype our families (who would be excited for that????) and then spend the rest of the night with the Bressans.

Natale con la famiglia Perez

The rest of the week was really mixed with seeing other families in our branch and finding people to teach. We had been struggling lately to find  new people to teach, but really have been blessed these past couple days. When we were teaching G., his friend M. became very interested in our message. We hope to be able to see him. When we were at a members house, his non member mother was very open (well for a very Catholic woman asking questions) and she let us teach her a little. We have been working hard and can see that our efforts will surely be paying off soon.

When we were teaching M., he said something that quite frankly concerned me. He spoke of a concern that members are not as good people as they should be. Although this should not affect personal testimony, it still leaves the worry that our example is noticed, for good and for bad. Testimony IS personal and nothing should be more important than our personal commitment and covenant with our Heavenly Father. But as members, we also need to be living to the standard that our father in heaven wants us to live. People who have never heard of the church will look at people that are members and start formulating opinions. With those first impressions from our actions, a firm desire or no desire to learn about our gospel can start to form in these peoples lives. We should always be examples among the believers, so that when people meet us, they can see the gospel within us. I have a firm belief of personal testimony and I hope that M. can see past the faults of a select few that may have tampered with his testimony.

This week in my studies I was able to really focus on the importance of our father in heaven. My companion and I were discussing how we know he loves us and I started pondering about prayer. He asks of us to pray always, day and night, in faith. He promises to answer our prayers and bless us. I know of that for a fact because I have received many answers to my prayers, but then I started thinking about a more simple reason why he wants us to pray. He knows the thoughts of our hearts, why do we need to pray? For one, to recognize he is there, and two (what really struck out to me), is that he wants to listen to us and talk with us. Have we ever thought about that? That he may just want to be a part of our life? How many times have our parents tried to start a conversation with us and we shut down the conversation thinking that it is an interrogation?  All they usually want to do is speak with us, and be our friend. That is how I know my Heavenly Father really cares. He wants to make our relationship personal, and not just him being the almighty and all knowing dad that he is.

I hope everyone has a great new year, and that we can all start 2016 with a bang! The church is true!

Anziano Chase

Il dono del servizio - Week 70

Christmas is right around the corner and with that comes the time of gratitude and service. This week, with lots of people being busy with family activities and other appointments, we decided to give
some little acts of service. We decided to clean up the front of the church, which had been overrun with leaves, sticks, and lots of pollen (that ended up making me a yellow minion by the end of the
service....) it was nice to be able to just give service to the branch. There are lots of things we can't do due to our lack of mechanic/plumbing/whatever knowledge, but simple yard work we can do. Friday we had our Christmas zone training. It was in Mestre which is a pretty far travel, but it was a nice training. We focused on our Christmas initiative that the church started (È nato un salvatore) and other ways we can give service to people. And then we ended with a gingerbread house making contest. Our gingerbread house was broken in pieces so we decided to just eat ours. Then that night we had our branch Christmas dinner. I was set to be Babbo Natale, and one of the kids found my suit before I changed, and all the kids tried to prove me to be an imposter (just like in "elf") but they loved it regardless and it was a blast. We ate some cultural Gorizian food and it was a nice night. The children had their primary program the next day and then we went with the two youth in the ward for a walk to Fiume Isonso.

Zone training

Babbo Natale 2k15

Monday we were able to see G., and he was just happy to have us over. He does not have a lot going on for Christmas and was happy we wanted to see him. This really made me think about the importance of being a friend to those who may not have a family to spend time with. We all are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, and everyone deserves to feel happy at this time of year. We watched Gioisco il mondo with him and shared a Panatone with him. Yesterday we spent some time with M. sharing some nativity scriptures with him, and went with our English class for a walk in the centro Di Gorizia. We are going to be visiting a lot of families these next two days and I'm very excited. I'm still getting to know everyone, and the spirit of Christmas just makes everyone a little more open and warm, so I'm soo excited.

 Fiume Isonso

Una chiesa di Gorizia

In Italy they don't put the bambino Gesu in manger until Christmas Eve

I've been pondering a lot about this Christmas, and how i wont have another Christmas as a missionary (well until I'm an old buff grandpa being a missionary with my wife) and i thought about how blessed I am to serve full time for the savior. People everywhere in the world recognize (or at least should, hence why we still have to teach people about Christ) Jesus Christ as the savior and reason behind Christmas. I don't have any work, family, dogs, or anything else to keep me from sharing the reason for the season. How amazing is that? We are so blessed to have a savior, and in reality we should be giving to him. Isn't it his birthday? What better way to give to him than by feeding his sheep and sharing the restored gospel with those we come to know? I truly am grateful for this time to serve him. I hope we all can have a wonderful Christmas, and not forget to put the "Christ"  in our Christmas this year!

Porteremo al mondo la sua parola - Week 69

Hey everyone, I hope you all are enjoying the winter season. It's not been too cold but it always seems to reach 0*C at night at some point or another. This week was a very hard working week, but not too much to report. My new companion Anziano B., is a really nice guy. He really loves his mission so far, and just wants to help people. He doesn't know this area too well because he has been here for just a month, but it is a really small city so we have it all memorized already haha. There are no real progressing investigators here, some few long time investigators, but our branch of 35 is really great. They all are really sincere and want to help us, so we are going to do a lot of family mission plans with them.

Christmas lights in the streets of Gorizia

So there are a few long time investigators that I got to meet. L., is an old Italian who just loves to talk to missionaries. This week we made a special effort to see him because his wife was at the doctors all week and he just loves us. He loves it when we call him nonno and he just likes that we listen to him. He believes what we say to be true, he just has a couple of doubts in some areas and an
old man mentality (which means "I'm to old to change") but he is great. We focused with him on Romans 1:16 and not being ashamed or afraid to make steps towards Christ in the gospel. If we believe in something we should never be afraid to defend it or make the changes necessary to stay in harmony with our beliefs. The next man we saw was M., another Italian middle age man. He is also very believing of almost everything we teach, he just has a strong opinion of people and some doubts, but we are focusing on how faith is a personal matter and not a democracy that the people decide.

Church

Other than that we were on the streets 24/7. The city is small and sooo many people know us so the work is slow, but we know as long as we are out doing the work we need to, the lord will bless us with someone who is ready to receive the gospel. Something that really hit me in one of my studies this week was a scripture from Mosia 5:13. "For how knoweth a man the master whom we has not served and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?" This Christmas we recognize Christ as the savior and him with our Heavenly Father as the masters. We can study all we want about this people, but in order for us to truly understand them, we need to apply their teachings through service and works. We start to understand things through their eyes, because we are serving them and doing as they would want us to do. Our hearts combine in a sense, because they are unified in purpose.

 Not bad for a 10 second timer!

Slovenia border

I know this gospel is true. Obedience to the gospel and its commandments is the only way to eternal happiness. I know it. I know Christ gave us his life so that we all may be resurrected. Have a great week everyone!

Transfers - Week 68

Hey everyone, so today I have been train riding so please excuse me if my writing is a little off, it's been a long day. Soooo, I am now in a new city, the city of Gorizia. I haven't seen it in daylight yet, but I've heard it's a nice city. We received a call yesterday from the assistants saying our transfers would be a day early, so it really hit us by surprise. Unfortunately this meant that I would not have as much time to say goodbye to members. It was really sad for me, but I tried to see as many people as I could before I left. (Every missionary was affected by this and members weren't too happy but we do what we have to do) my new companion is Anziano B. He is in his 4th transfer and looks like a real good guy. I have a lot of hopes for this upcoming transfer.

Goodbyes

Sorry that I have don't have soo many exciting details on the week, but I'll try to give some recap on the thoughts I've been having this week. First off is on a quote that I saw. The quote was "winners win, because winners work". I thought long and hard about this. As a missionary I know the best way for me to get the most out of my mission, is to put the most INTO my mission. When we try and decided what makes us a winner, it is easy to get caught up in the competition, and in the end not everyone can win a race. But in God's game, we all can come out winners, if we work to come closer to Christ. When we plant a seed, we work to nurture it so that it will grow. Faith only grows when we work on our testimony and knowledge of the gospel.

The second thing I was thinking about was how I can focus on Christ this Christmas season. Gorizia is a small city with a small branch. I do not know anyone, nor does anyone know me, and Christmas is almost upon us. I could sit around feeling lonely, but I thought about what Christ himself would do, and that is go about doing good to everyone and spreading the love of the gospel. It doesn't matter who we are with or where we are. All that matters is why we celebrate the season. I really hope that I can resemble Christ and help people to remember the significance of Christmas, that a savior is born.

I have a testimony of this gospel, I know that is the truth upon the earth, and that we can all receive a witness of it by faith and revelation. I love this gospel and its teachings! Have a great week everyone.

È nato un salvator - Week 67

Hello everyone. I hope you all had a good week. My weeks are going faster than ever. Although I did not have a Thanksgiving dinner this week, I have plenty to be thankful for. This week I started off with a scambio in Varese with Anziano S. We were teaching one of their investigators who is having a little trouble with his testimony. One of his friends who had been taking the lessons had stopped taking them and was speaking bad about the church in front of him. So we talked to him about the importance of receiving personal testimony. It is easy for us to get discouraged when other things are being said about things we believe in. When we go to our heavenly father we are able to receive our own personal divine testimony, which is truly something that no one else can change. We hope they are able to move forward with him and that he will receive an answer to his questions.

In church we were able to teach some new people this week that a member brought. Two of them really stuck out to me. E. is from the Ivory Coast and only speaks French, but T.G. learned French
when he was young and was able to translate for us when we taught him. I was truly grateful for many things in that lesson. One, that the lord had given us an aid in a new convert at the exact time we needed it, and two, that the spirit is truly the teacher in our lessons. I was not able to speak French directly to him, but I was able to see the spirit testify of every thing my companion and I would say. The Lord really does aid us in every way. The other investigator, F., was also really great. He was really moved by the fact that we aim to learn more in church and that we focus on the teachings and how they apply to us directly. We don't just listen to the talk by the speaker and then go home and say it was a good service. We have classes and participate together so that we can ALL come closer to our Heavenly Father.

Other than that we have been hitting the streets focusing on the new church initiative for Christmas, which is " È Nato un Salvator " which is focusing directly on the birth of Christ. It is easy to get wrapped up in the festivals and activities that come with the Christmas season, but when we take a moment to acknowledge the reason behind Christmas, and more importantly why it is important that Christ was born, we are able to feel closer to him. Yes Christ is the savior and we celebrate his birth at this time, but the focus from this phrase is to discover why it is important that "A savior is born", why he needed to atone for us, and why he is called the savior. I think this type of thought can really help us understand the true meaning of this holiday and why Christ is so important to us.

Anyways I hope you all have a great week, and are able to think about how others can feel the love and importance of this holiday season!

Anziano Chase

Giorno di ringraziamento - Week 66

Well hello everyone i hope you all had a great week. This week went by pretty quick to be honest.

We spent the whole weekend doing Conosci I Mormoni flyers and I think it went really well. We got together with our district one night, and made signs that we put on the tallest Anziano, and then walked around centro with a force of 8 missionaries giving out flyers and talking about who we are. It really went well. We all had the same desire to just give the night our all, and by the end of the night we were completely out of flyers and had talked with thousands of people.

In church the next day we were also surprised to see many new people in church we had never met before. It was really rewarding for us to know that when we work hard we receive more opportunities to help people. We were able to teach them the restoration together and are making plans to visit them this weekend.

Yesterday we had a zone conference in Lampugnano with President Dibb and we focused on understanding gospel principles and how we need to be the best gospel teachers in the history of the church. We focused on what it means to be a seer, and then talked about Isaiah and how much he prophesied of Christ and his actions, hundreds of years before Christ even came to the earth. Sometimes Isaiah can be difficult to understand, but as we were reading the Book of Mormon together as a mission we learned some things. We are focusing on any teaching that mentions Christ, and when nephi expounds on Isaiah we learned all about how Isaiah's words really mimic what Christ did on the earth. It helped us to understand Isaiah more, and now when I read directly from Isaiah I feel like I more fully understand what he is teaching us. We also focused on how we can help people focus on the purpose of christs birth especially during this holiday season. I thought it was a great zone conference.

As far as other investigators go, we had to take a step back with C., until he can follow the little commitments that are holding him back. P. is doing well, we are still trying to figure out to pull out our 16 year old mind that wasn't focused on the gospel (I never thought that would be difficult, but it really is...) to be able to find the way to better approach his desire to grow in the church. T.G. is doing great, he is just doing everything he needs to do, and he is acting as a normal member now.

As Thanksgiving is tomorrow (unfortunately this year I won't be having a big turkey dinner 😐) I really have been focusing on the blessings that we neglect or fail to be thankful for. The lord gives us so much, He gives us everything, and sometimes we never think of it that way. So I tried this week to be more grateful for the little things and decided to write down everything that was a blessing to me during the week. Im not even finished with the week, and my list is already longer than I ever considered possible. We really have a loving Heavenly Father who blesses us. Yes, we receive more blessings when we obey, but when we don't get the specific blessing we desired, we need to look at the many blessings he gave us instead of that. If I'm not rewarded with a person who is ready to be baptized after a hard day of work, I can't think that the lord isn't blessing me. He blessed me with other little things such as patience during an encounter with a person, or making it on a bus even when we were late to the stop. We have so much to be thankful for, and I invite everyone to get their hand turkeys out or a paper and write the little blessings you are grateful for!

I know this church is true, I am grateful for constant guidance from a living prophet, and for limitless love from our father in heaven!

Conosci i mormoni - Week 65

Hey everyone!

This week has been one on the streets, but I really don't mind that right now... Well ok I do care a little because winter is upon us, and we have 100% humidity in the air, so we freeze outside these days!

Well this week was focused on a promotion the church is doing for Conosci i Mormoni, which is Meet the Mormons in English. Until the 22nd of November it is free on YouTube, so we gave out little papers telling people how they can watch this film. I personally love this because it is a way for us to show people how we associate in the world as individuals, that we aren't just missionaries, that the way we act in society is a result of the care and love we have for the gospel. If people aren't interested in our message, they can still watch this and not feel like we are forcing them to listen to us, but through this we can spark the interest of many!

Also this week with all the attacks on Paris, I decided to put a major emphasis on hope and charity, because we all know that unfortunate events like this unite people for a change, and when we all hope for a better future and turn to our Heavenly Father for help he is able to open our hearts to even more change and joy in our lives.

T.G. is doing great, he has been just so happy with his new fellowship in the church, and really feels like he has a family and friends here now. He is trying to get us to teach his sister, but she has not given him an answer yet

C. is doing well. We really had to focus on the comparison of the bible and Book of Mormon. He always felt like we would replace the bible because we would teach him using scriptures from the Book of Mormon, so we taught him a simple principle. We taught him why missionaries teach in two. We each are different individuals, we have different experiences, and are different in our age and time on a mission, but we teach the same thing using the same spirit. Our methods are different, just like the Book of Mormon and bible are different, but we teach of Christ and of his gospel, just like the scriptures.

P. is doing well. He came to church and is very interested in the activities done by the youth program. We are trying to fellowship him a bit more with some of the young men, because when it comes down to it, many teenagers prefer to receive advice from the people their age (I did).

We have a lot of new potentials that we are visiting this week, and we hope that we can teach people from this effort we put into the week. As we think about who we are as members of the church (or even not) I hope we all strive to make ourselves better every day, whether it is being a little more humble, being a little nicer to our siblings, or just trying to do a good deed every day. I promise that we will feel an assurance of our improvement from our Heavenly Father, and that he will help us in our decision to be better individuals!

Have a great week everyone!

La verità che troviamo dal libro - Week 64

Hey everyone,

This week has been quite the week. I get to stay in Busto for another month with Anziano C., I had a visit from a member family in my first city, and we had a baptism!

So T.G.'s baptism was this weekend and it was just fantastic! The member support in the program was great. He's a decently big guy so we made sure we filled the font extra so that we did not have problems getting him in the water. The program went well, and as I was translating for him during his testimony, he started speeding up super fast causing my translation to be a little cut off, and it was funny because I would speed up too, and then he would speed up more because he was just super happy. Everyone got a good laugh out of it. Something he said though in his testimony really stood out to me though, he said when we first met him we didn't have time to talk so we gave him a pamphlet to read. He said he read it and just felt something, but he became so worried that he would never hear from us again. He prayed that we would meet again and we called him a few days after we gave him the pamphlet and he was just soo relieved. He knew he had found the church he needed to worship at, and that we had a message of upmost importance to bring to him. He's just sooo awesome.

Also, the day of the baptism the M. family took a trip out to visit me while we were filling the font. It was so good to see them and just reminded me of all the relationships we make with people and how much I appreciated them in my time in Vicenza.

Soo most of the week was spent getting his baptism all coordinated and such, but now that I am staying another month, I am excited to keep all the good work going here. C. is doing well, we have
focused on how when we read scripture, we need to read it for what it is, sacred teachings written by prophets of God for our learning and understanding. If we read it as a literature book, it is harder to
focus on the spiritual aspect of the book, because we only follow the story and wars and chronological events that happen. We can gain a testimony anytime we read the scriptures, but when our focus is to be inspired and taught by the writings, then it will make such a difference in our reading.

We met M. again after a break, and he seems to be doing good, and we also focused on the importance of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon truly is the source of all truth in this gospel. Yes, we believe in the bible, as translated correctly, we believe in latter day prophets, we believe in personal revelation, but in order for us to know this is the true gospel Jesus Christ and that his church is established on the earth again we have to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. All of the truth of the gospel, of this latter day church is based on the fact that this book is true. If the book is true, Joseph Smith did in fact have the vision of the father and the son, that the priesthood has been restored on the earth, that prophets are on the earth today to guide us. Without the Book of Mormon, we would have no reason to believe a 14 year old boy had a vision, we would never be able to receive our own personal testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that everyone can receive their own testimony if they act in faith and read the Book of Mormon as sacred scripture.

Have a great week everyone!

Doing good no matter what country you are in - Week 63

Hey everyone, this week went by quick and things are rolling.

T.G. is all set to be baptized on Saturday and this week really has been just making sure everything will run smoothly with the program, clothing, and everything else. He is thoroughly excited and I'm just excited that I am still here to see him make this covenant with our Heavenly Father.

C., after a brief break has been getting back on track. We are focusing on setting meaningful spiritual goals, with ways to achieve them and dates to achieve them. When we want to grow, we have to push ourselves to reach our goals. If we want to grow our testimony and say we want to read the scriptures more, the best way to do it is through setting specific goals, such as reading 5 pages every day for a week, or by the 15th of November I want to have read all of the gospels and this is how I will do it. This has really reinvigorated him and he seems to be progressing a lot more.

We met a new guy through C. named P. He is a nice Italian man who loves Americans. We have talked to him before, but his interest really sparked when he met some missionaries in Spain who gave him a pass along card. He did some research because he knew us too, and now wants to know a lot more from us directly.

We did a blitz up in Varese to help their work grow, and we had a really nice discussion with a man at a beautiful park in the mountains. Things were just falling into place and we were like "this guy knows too much about our doctrine, he has to have met missionaries in the past" so we asked him. He replied with the answer of having been an exchange student in Utah, where he met a lot of members. We exchanged information with him and hope that he meets with the Varese Anziani. This just helped me realize our impact on others, especially our friends. People really watch what we do, they pay attention, and we can have the best influence on them if we live the gospel standards, if we live like our savior lived.

The district singing together

Scenes from Varese

Today we decided to go to another country, Switzerland. There is a chunk of southern Switzerland in our mission and who would turn down the opportunity to go to Switzerland?! Let me just say Switzerland is a beautiful place. The weather wasn't the best today, but it was still awesome. Now I can say I've been to 4 countries in Europe, England (where our plane flew in), Italy, San Marino, and Switzerland. Now I just need to touch Austria, Slovenia, and France haha. Also side note, Swiss chocolate is the bomb!

Switzerland!

Well, I just want to leave with a little thought on being an example. As I was saying before, other people watch what we do. There is a Mormon message titled "You Never Know" and it is about a mother who, after getting everything done on her to do list, was not able to see her cousin. Feeling depressed and saddened she felt like everything about the day was awful. She then looked at all she had done for others and realized that she had done many good things for others without thinking about it. My thought is that we all have so much to give to others. When we feel as if we are failures, do not get down on ourselves and just keep on doing good. We can help so many people, and hopefully are already being a help. When we give our time to help others we can never feel down or like we made a wrong choice. Charity is the pure love of Christ. As a missionary, I have truly learned that even when I don't find a new person to teach, I know I have been doing good and hopefully made a difference in someone's day.

I know this gospel is true. The gospel is simple, loving, and precious. We have all the counsel we need to return to our Heavenly Father, and He guides us in all we do.

Have a great week everyone!

Anziano Chase

Perché egli vive🇮🇹🇮🇹🇺🇸🇺🇸

Grazie a dio - Week 62

Winter season has begun here, and the dark rainy nights are settling in. Dark and rainy by 5 and still have 4 hours to do work before we enter the house for the night.... It’s not my favorite time for missionary work but we still try to be as happy as can be.

So this week was pretty long and eventful. We had the opportunity to have Sister Burton, general relief society president, Sister Oscarson, general young women's president, and President Johnson, second counselor for the Europe area presidency in Milan for a little conference. This conference was really focused on the sisters, which for the few elders who were close enough to attend, made it not as fun. They gave some good points about how we mold ourselves throughout our mission, but most of the attention was focused on the sisters so I won't talk about much else.

T.G. is doing great. We had his interview for baptism and he passed with flying colors. His testimony has been so strong, and we can't wait for his baptism in a few weeks. He keeps being such a good example to his family and friends, and really has embraced Christ in his life.

P.r is doing good. He has been busy with school but keeps trying to find time to see us. His desire to be a pro soccer player mixed with school makes him a busy person. But hey, I was always busy in my high school days as well, so any time I can see him is great.

We had stake conference this weekend so it was a very busy weekend with lots of talks to be heard. The theme was how members in ward council could work with the missionaries better. Communication, I felt was the main point addressed. When everyone knows what is going on, and not just a select few, we are all able to have a combined effort in our choices of action. When we all make sure that we involve one another it makes ideas flourish. More opinions noted usually leads to better group decisions, and a greater unity to the work. But it didn't just leave that invite to the members, but to everyone, and it made me want to make sure I let everyone be a part of my missionary work. I'm here to help the members of this area, and when I leave, there needs to be a support system for my investigators, and that is through the members. So I need to make sure they know what I'm always doing.

Monday was Anziano C.'s birthday and we had a nice day. We made some nice Guatemalan food to celebrate his culture, and had a meal with one of our members.

Anziano C.'s birthday lunch

I've been thinking a lot lately about the connection of blessings through obedience. I thought a lot about how we get blessings from God and we think he is just showing us mercy or felt like giving us something because he loves us. Yes, he does love us, but that does not mean he will just give us everything. In order for us to be blessed, we have to follow something he asks of us to do. I have spent a lot of the time this week observing the blessings I have received and then pondering what I might have done to receive them. I don't know which specific blessing followed which specific commandment I followed, but I knew it came from my obedience.

I know this gospel is true, I know God blesses each and every one of us according to our obedience. I know everything is done for our benefit and that we should all trust him in our path to the celestial kingdom. Have a great week everyone

Anziano Chase

Perché egli vive

Anziano Chase made french toast with buttermilk syrup for the district

Chinese Buffet

Duomo Milano

"Fort Night"

Dead People - Week 61

This week felt super short, and it doesn't help that we have our pday one day earlier, but I'll try to wrap up some good stuff for you all. As the subject header says “dead people”, I will now address that. I had another elder come down to Busto with me for an exchange and we took a bus near our house to where we were planning on seeing one of our investigators. It was about 8 at night and pretty dark. We got off the bus and saw a cop car with it’s lights on about 15 meters from our house. The cops usually never do anything in Italy so we joke saying someone probably got shot. After a few minutes, our investigator still hadn't shown up so we called him. He told us he won't be coming because a man was shot nearby and he doesn't want to be outside. Being in shock, we started to walk by the car, because it is only about 50 meters from our apartment. As we looked to our left we saw a lifeless body on the floor. Only one meter away is a man in handcuffs. We saw a guy dead, shot by another person. It was quite shocking for us.

Now that that experience makes me want to always lock my windows and carry a gun with me, I'll talk a little about our investigators. T.G. is making good progress. He wants his life to always be in harmony with the gospel. He doesn't want a job or association with things that are against God’s commandments. It's really inspiring.

P. is doing well. We had the lovely opportunity to talk about language..... He learned his Italian from all the teenagers and sometimes he just lets words slip out... A lot.. So we talked about how reverence to the Lord is a big indicator to our faith and that when we are good examples to our friends in reverence and language, we show that we care more about God’s opinion than theirs. We also included how it is just a big help to others and how the example to others promotes good things in life.

W. is doing awesome he is just going through some hard times at home, but this man’s faith is like no other. He really has a testimony of the gospel of Christ and he follows it with all his heart. Although he is having to make a decision with the Lord, he has faith and hope that everything will be able to make him happy.

I've been thinking a lot lately about why things happen especially through the times with Wilson, and all my investigators and companions. God's plan is so perfect, that every single thing we go through was the ONLY way we could be the happiest. No other way would allow us to receive that true happiness from the Lord. Every struggle, every blessing, and every decision will be for us to be the happiest possible. When we are down we can know that God is helping us grow so we can be truly happy.

I've also been thinking about personal revelation and it really comes down to three key points: we need to pray and have the desire to receive help, we need to seek, search and do the physical study for an answer,  and we need to ask and we need to accept the revelation we are looking for.

I hope you all have a great week. Keep on going strong and having fun and sitting in the sun!

Anziano Chase

Perché egli vive🇮🇹🇮🇹🇺🇸🇺🇸

A Vegan meal

The Ward Mission Leader

At the Rho Fiera Expo there is a little wall at the entrance where we could flip the colors, so we decided to advertise a little. We thought we were brilliant!

Taking a selfie with his Ipad in it's new cover

Le lesione che non siamo mai pronto a dare... Week 60

I hope you all had a great week. Quick shout out to my dad who has his birthday TODAY! Our week went by wickedly fast for some strange reason. As you can see from the title, we gave some lessons that no mission prep book ever prepares you for. Note, these lessons we don't teach but sometimes you get stuck and have nowhere to run, so you just listen and try  to be nice as you are talking to these people. So, we met this lady at a train station who was waiting for her train. We were also waiting for our investigator to show up.  She starts asking us who we are, and before we could even introduce our message she goes into a detailed discussion about her marriage  problems that are so strange I do not want to go into detail. We, being  stuck, due to our investigator about to show up at this spot, had to sit  down and listen. We are just 19 year old boys. We don't know anything about marital problems. So we just tried switching to how God gives us trials and  that when we turn to him we become refined into different people, who know  much more happiness than before. As our investigator shows up, we are leaving to go with him and she doesn't want us to leave so we, not knowing what to do, did a weird split where one of us was listening to this lady and the other was teaching our investigator. We stayed within sight and sound in case any problems arose, but as soon as our lesson was over, we booked it out of the station saying we had other places we had to be. We hope we left her with some spiritual experiences, but I hope my lessons never have marriage counseling ever again.

Well now I'll talk about the work haha

So T.G. is doing great. His birthday was this last Saturday so we got him a gelato and had another wonderful lesson with him on the word of wisdom. He just keeps moving forward. The E. family is doing well also. We brought a member that knew the father many years ago and that brought a whole new spirit to the lesson with the family. They will be coming to church next Sunday and thus should help the less active father be a big role in the lessons with his sons who are taking our lessons. C. has been doing ok, he just needs to know that he can push a little harder than he is. I truly believe we could all use the realization that we always have a little more in the tank than we think. We met a lot of new potentials and Anziano C. and I are doing work!

Sorry this week is a little short, but we were a little busy today. I'll just leave with a little thought. President Spencer W. Kimball explained, “There must be works with faith. How foolish it would be to ask the Lord to give us knowledge, but how wise to ask the Lord’s help to acquire knowledge, to study constructively, to think clearly, and to retain things that we have learned" we all need to do our part to grow in the gospel. You can't grow an apple tree without giving it water and sun, which also applies to the gospel. We have to study and pray. I know that we can receive the help we need, when we are doing all that we can! I know this gospel is true!

Anziano Chase

Perché egli vive🇮🇹🇮🇹🇺🇸🇺🇸

Anziano Chase made this Thai Curry