Andiamo avanti - Week 46

Hey everyone. 

This week certainly was full of good memories. To start off, we found ourselves a furry little friend one day. We were at one of our local parks looking for people to talk to, and my companion spotted something along the walkway. We took a closer look and it was a hedgehog! We noticed it wasn't running away, or hardly even moving. At that instance we knew it was going to die. So we decided to take him and try to nurse it back to health or at least give it a nicer way to die than be attack by an animal in the park. We brought him back to our apartment and he ate some spinach. We named him Bernie. He sadly parted this life like we expected him to, but we think he was much happier to go out the way he did. We made a memorial for him.

On Saturday we had scheduled interviews in Rimini. We got to Rimini, and there were no buses that would come to take us to the church in the time zone we had to get there, so we walked probably for 45 minutes from the train station to the church in our suits, in 29 degree weather (Celsius). We get there and as soon as we sit down in the church, our president calls us and said he had to cancel our interviews due to the overwhelming traffic to get there. We were a little upset to say the least, not mad, but upset. We now had to make the same walk back in the summer sun. We got back to Pesaro and my bike had a tire pop, and to top it off I got a really bad ingrown toenail. I couldn't think anything positive about the day.

God has a way of making things better. We were able to on Sunday, have a great lesson with Darlington on the word of wisdom, and he shared with me how much more he has been noticing God in his life. He said he still has hard days, but when he does something pleasing to God, he is able to notice the blessings that come from it. This made me feel exactly the same way. Sure I had one rough day on Saturday, but I was able to have a great Sunday, and still find the good things in everything. We cannot acknowledge a great day if we haven't had a sucky day. Darlington has been progressing a lot and it just was so great to see him help me out as well.

We have been doing a lot of member visits and less active visits. We went to visit one of our less actives that is a caretaker of a villa, that I've mentioned in the past, but this visit I really think made an impact on him. We had a good discussion about how experience shouldn't limit your faith, but how faith is ever growing and even when you have experienced many things in life, faith or belief still leads to action. You can't dwell on the past if you truly have faith in something. Faith is change going forward, action that shapes your future, because you are the one acting on your faith. "Faith without works is dead". We can't tell ourselves, well I had faith but you haven't experienced what I have in my life. You don't understand how hard of a time I have had. Faith is a desire to believe and change. True faith is unbreakable. We all live different lives, have different experiences, but faith is what keeps life moving forward. Without faith there is no progression, no desire to make anything of life. I'm not even talking just about faith in God, but faith in general. Faith in a better future, faith. This really struck the less active we talked with. He has had a hard life, and claimed his experiences can't help him believe in anything, but when he looked in his self, he realized he had lost faith in anything. He was at a standstill. I really think this helped him look for some sort of faith to change his outlook on life.

I know that this gospel is here to bless us, and helps us make the necessary steps to return to our Heavenly Father. I love him, and even more I know he loves me. Have a great week everyone!!!

Anziano Chase