Week....I don't really count (Vicenza - Week 25)

Hey everyone, another week, another email about the life of a missionary. We have continued to make progress here in Vicenza, and the work keeps moving foward. Where to start....

Well first off, we had a country wide fast in Italy for the progression of the temple in Rome, and our whole Sunday was dedicated to the blessings of the temple. Now I always am happy to talk about the temple because of all the blessings I have seen from working there, so I was especially excited for the 6 hours of church (2 wards). The spirit dwelled in the church the whole day, there was just a feeling of complete joy. Everyone here in Italy wants to have a temple, and we could all tell by the amount that fasted and bore testimony of the temple. There was one thing I especially liked. I can’t remember who said it, but they talked about temple recommends. "If you don’t have access to a temple, STILL be worthy and GET a temple recommend" The idea behind this is to me, two things. One, if there ever is the chance for us to visit a temple, we will have our recommend. The second, and more important I think is, with a temple recommend, we are practically showing ourselves and God that we are worthy to take the covenents in the temple and to dwell in the house of the Lord. What greater blessing can we receive than if we are worthy to be in the most holy of places??? We all need to be worthy of a temple recommend, and if you can get one, GET one! There is no reason, no excuse for not wanting to go to the temple. Our progression does not end after baptism. We still have sacred ordinances to perform in the temple!

In the Italian Branch I had the lovely privelage of translating from Italian to English for a member who does not speak Italian. It was a great learning experience but I know the gift of tongues works because being able to hear everything in one language and saying it at the same time in another language, especially when I am still not perfect at the language, is not easy. I know I was being blessed to speak better, and it helped me know my Italian is growing and that I am getting really comfortable speaking to anyone and everyone.

Lots of good things going on. We were not able to meet with Josephine this last week but we have an appointment with her tomorrow and hoping for the best. The work with Daniele though, has improved better than we thought. We taught him the piano di salvezza, and he said that in times past when he heard this same message that it did not really make a difference, but he feels like now is the time for him to make that next step in his life. We are meeting with him Saturday and hoping to set up a baptism date with him.

We met another new investigator named Freedom, from Nigeria. He loves letting people preach to him, so he naturally accepted our invitation. When we taught him the restoration, he was like "Of Course, that makes perfect sense, there should be a prophet and apostles". We are hoping that he continues to have the desire to make a change, as we know that it is going to change his life for the better.

We also have been making slow progressions with Luke and Katelyn. We taught the plan of salvation to them with the McBryde family and there was a calm that just settled in when we taught. They have not expressed a desire to be baptized, but they do believe what we are saying is true doctrine. They both head off for a few weeks so we won’t be seeing them for the next little while but we are praying that this message continues to run through their mind. Even if they are not baptized we know that even hearing our message is going to help them. That is something I have really learned out here.  There will be rejections, there will be people who just love our message, but not want to change and be baptized, but why do we teach and invite others to come unto Christ and be baptized? Because we want every soul to return to our heavenly father.

Little spiritual thought or two:

Alma 37:36 There are two things I especially like in this verse: "Let all thy doings be unto the Lord" and "Let all the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord" - I feel like the first part of doing everything unto the Lord comes from when our heart is first placed on the desires of the Lord. If HE is on our minds first and foremost, our actions will naturally follow in his name, and in his ways.

Alma 14:13 "Be it according to the will of the Lord. But, behold, our work is not finished" - The Lord will always guide us and let us know what is to be done. If he wants us to stop, it will be his will, but if not, keep going. All of us still have lots of work to do for the Lord, we are not finished. We still have a mighty work to do, whether it be in the home, at work, as a missionary, as a parent, husband or wife, teenager, whatever it may be we still have work to do!

I know that we are in a marvelous time, and age where we are able to freely follow our beliefs and that this gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the true and restored Gospel on the Earth. We can know for ourselves through reading the Fruits of the Gospel, The Book of Mormon. Through asking God we can know that it is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that Thomas S Monson IS the living prophet on the earth today. "If Any of you lack Wisdom, Let Him (YOU) ask of God" I know all of us can receive the same comfirmation of the truth from our loving Heavenly Father. I know these things to be true!

Buon Settimana e ci vediamo!

Anziano Chase

Vicenza - Week 24

Hey Everyone,

Transfers calls were this week and I am...... staying in Vicenza for my 4th transfer. Doing 6 months in an area is certainly long, but the relationships with investigators and members I wouldn’t change for the world. This week we were especially blessed in finding new investigators. I can testify of the power of Family Night activities with non-members because in this last week we have met two great couples who agreed to hear our message. Did I also mention that both these couples came from the same members?? All these members did was invite us over to Family Home Evening to participate in their lesson. They did not ask us to try and meet with them, but they did want us there in case they asked questions. They did not want to push their friends, and in return the friends started asking the questions without being talked to. It was great!! We hope that we can get something really going with these couples and I know the Lord has already touched their lives.

We started working with an ex investigator named Daniele this week. We were looking through the notes other missionaries had written about him and he seemed to be a very receptive person. We gave him a call and he gladly invited us over. He is a nice man of the age of 47, who just loves to talk with missionaries. We taught the Restoration to him and his friend Mario. Both of them agreed that the principles taught in our church were great for society. We have another appointment with them this upcoming Saturday and we hope that they will continue to have the desire to follow the path towards baptism.

We also have been working with a Nigerian named Josephine. I think I’ve mentioned her before, but we made a big step with her this week. She believes in everything we teach, and has been taught all the lessons. Her only setback is not wanting to go against her husband’s wishes. She has not talked to him about wanting to be baptized but we set a baptismal date with her this week and are going to pray that she might have the courage to speak with her husband, that his heart will be open to her being baptized. We are praying fervently for her and hope she exercises her faith this week

I was reading a talk this week by Joseph B Wirthlin on lessons he learned as a boy. I really liked a section where he talks about taking his eye off the football for a split second. He talks about how if we allow ourselves to get distracted from the object or goal we are seeking, there is a much higher chance of us dropping the ball and falling short of the potential we have. In today's society it is very easy to get distracted and take our eye off the ball, but we need to stand firm and be strong in our concentration towards the eternal plan of redemption.

I know the Lord has a plan for me here in the city of Vicenza.  I know that I am a servant of the Almighty. I know that the Libro di Mormon is true and that we all can have that same confirmation through humble and sincere prayer. I know that I can work mighty miracles through faith, and that we all can be missionaries of Christ. I hope everyone can take the time to invite a friend over for a family activity and that you take the time to share a little message, if they don’t seem interested, there is no need to throw the missionaries at them, but the Lord will bless all that share what they believe to be true with others. I know this gospel is true!!

Anziano Chase

Vicenza - Week 23

Hello my good friends!! (That was way too formal and strange)

This week was definitely a better week. It has been just so spiritually uplifting. This week we found 4 new investigators!! We have been working with a lot of families and there is a new private, Luke, who is working on the base. We invited him to hear the gospel and he was all up for it. We are teaching him again today and we just hope that he keeps his enthusiasm up, because he said ever since he started talking with us, he has been much happier with life and himself. On Sunday, we did a pass by with an African member named Anes, to stop by a lady named Patricia. We taught her the Restoration, and the spirit literally overtook the room. I had a hard time opening my mouth because I just wanted to sit there and take it all in!

On Monday we didn’t find anyone, but what we did find, was a smoking cool Ferrari just parked outside our apartment. I know I am in Italy, but every time I see one, it still gives me the same wow factor. So naturally I took a picture with it.

Yesterday, I gained a huge testimony of fasting again. We decided to start a fast to improve the work of investigators. I started with a prayer and just asked if we could get our message across to everyone we spoke to the next day. We started off the morning doing some park finding. The first person we spoke to listened right up and accepted our invitation to meet again. We were both shocked because the finding percentage of people who say yes to us is soo low. The next person we speak to, surprisingly says YES too! It happened like that 4 times!!! We were soo blessed. We also were able to meet with Josephine and teach her about Esther and the courage that she had to face her fears, and she started tearing up with joy. I know the Lord blessed us in our fast, and that we had the faith to receive these miracles in our lives

I know that as we go throughout our lives, if we use the opportunities the Lord has given us to receive blessings, then he will thereafter pour them out to us!

One last message: I was reading about families and this little thought popped up. Heaven is a continuation of the ideal home. If we set our principles on the foundations of the gospel, then we will see all the blessings that come from God, and it will be as if we never even left home. I know that we can have our own little piece of heaven if we set our standards in our homes and that we can help others by being that example!

Have a fantastic week everyone and ci vediamo il prossimo settimana!

Anziano Chase

Vicenza - Week 22

Well First off, I personally think it is really weird that the week I got snow, you all got snow too.... But anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed their New Year’s parties and are ready for this wonderful upcoming year of 2015. This week in Italy, there were still holidays going on until yesterday with the 6th of January being the last winter holiday, the day of Epiphany. I won’t describe the holiday in detail because I know you all have the means to look it up yourselves haha.

This week we consecrated ourselves to working on the streets to find some new investigators. In the midst of the freezing cold, we were stopping people and knocking on doors trying to get someone to listen to our message. With the lack of success we were having this week, I started to wonder what I was doing wrong, trying to figure out how we could do a better job finding more people, and I couldn’t figure it out. But I didn’t let that discourage me because out here in Italy, it is going to be hard.  I am going to have plenty of weeks that I would sure love never to go through again, but as quoted in Batman Begins "What do we do when we fall? We pick ourselves back up". Myself and Anziano L.continued to keep our happy faces, and tried to make as much fun as we could out of street contacting. We sang horribly out of tune songs, cracked jokes to each other, and acted like weird Italians. As soon as we changed our attitude about finding work, we were able to start seeing some success. We received a lot of potential investigators that we are visiting this week. We had worked our butts off, and slowly started to see something come out of it. It certainly boosted my testimony that if ye are diligent in your labors, you will receive the fruits of them. I certainly am starting to taste of the fruit

This week we were also able to, in addition to finding work, start family mission plans with a lot of member families. We go to their house and work with them on things they can do, through goal setting, to increase their activity in missionary work. One family was so excited that they invited us over this upcoming week to follow up on their mission plan that includes 2 families they want us to teach. I know for a fact that when members get involved in missionary work, that it grows exponentially. So, as a missionary who's job it is to teach and invite people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, I ask that every member see what they can do to aid missionary work.

I would like to just leave with a little quote:

"Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun is out"

If we are not constantly praying and giving thanks to our Heavenly Father when he blesses us, than why would he want to bless us when time gets hard? He loves us and will always love us, so we need to always love him and pray always to him, not just when we have no where else to go.

Hope everyone has a great week and can see many blessings!

Anziano Chase 

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