La vita è bella - Week 54

Hey everyone,

So the end of the week started to pick up with people and work, so we feel like we are running full steam ahead again. So I had the opportunity to do an exchange in Varese with
Anziano Mastino. They have been trying to pick up the work in their area, so we hit the streets looking for people who were interested. We used the question, "what is the purpose of life?" as a thought provoking intro to people we would stop. Naturally as we were stopping people, they would say they didn't have time or were not interested, but right as we were about to finish our street contacting, one woman said just the best response, she said to be happy. We got so excited to hear someone say that we threw our hands up in the air, and said "that's the perfect answer!" She laughed and we started talking more about it and she wanted to know more. After that we really had a renewed fire in us to stop people. This time we wanted to change our question to "how does God help us find happiness?" and we really got a lot of good response to that question. God is the master of all things, he knows exactly what we need to be happy. He gave us the Plan of Salvation aka the Plan of Happiness. He gave us his gospel, ways for us to receive blessings, and he never leads us down a path of sorrow. I really put that into perspective this week.

Prosper, he is a stud. He really understands the gospel of Christ. We were teaching him the principles of the gospel, and he just applied it to himself right away. He is only 16 years old too! I really believe God gives us so much wisdom and that no matter how old we are we can receive knowledge we never thought possible. Prosper just embraced our lesson and really took it upon himself to apply the teachings. He is making great progression.

Charles is continuing on slowly but surely. We had a great talk about the purpose of fasting and tithing, and with fasting we were able to talk about how it is another way to receive knowledge from God. We invited him to give it a try if he truly wants an answer. That if he has the faith, he will receive an answer. He said he will think on it and maybe give it a shot.

We met a new girl named Roberta this week. She is 20 from Brazil, and she speaks Portuguese, and a little bit of English (no Italian). She recognized my companion and I in our missionary clothes, and told us her mom in Brazil is a member that feeds the elders. We talked with her and she told us she was wanting a change in her life. We invited her to receive the lessons from us and she said yes. We had a powerful lesson about Jesus Christ and how through him we can return to our Heavenly Father. If we want council or are in need of guidance, prayer is the way of communicating our needs to the Father. She told us what we were doing is a beautiful thing. We really enjoyed teaching her, but she will be learning from the sister missionaries for now on. I am sure she will notice a great change in her life, and with the spirits guidance she will know of gods love for her.

I was thinking about how life can be rough at times and a scripture came to mind that just made everything better. 6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass... (Alma 37:6) I was thinking about how God asked all the ancient prophets to write down their spiritual promptings in a book. It really is nothing big, but after thousands of years it became the bible and Book of Mormon, which are huge things. The same thing goes with everyday life. A simple smile really goes a long way. A short testimony given to someone may have been simple for you, but made a big change in someone else's life. God doesn't ask us to build an ark these days (well at least not me anyways) but he asks us to do small and simple things, because it is the everyday little things that make really difference. I told Roberta that life isn't a walk in the park, but gosh darn it, it's worth it. We don't have to create the first artificial human, or solve cancer to bring forth good things, we just have to do the little things that God asks us to do, to receive an everlasting joy. Almost every testimony starts from a little thing, everyone has a seed in them, and through nurture and care, it grows into a forest of a testimony. I know this to be true, the gospel is simple, and it's requirements small, but it's rewards are great.

I hope everyone enjoys their week!

Anziano Chase

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You Mormons?? - Week 53

 Hey everyone,

So this week was one of the rougher weeks, just with everyone seeming to be gone for the middle of August. Our bikes are being repaired and on Saturday it was Ferragosto, a holiday in Italy, being the longest day of the year. Everyone was gone, everything closed, and no buses. We ended up walking over 10 miles that day. But there are still so many tender mercies of the Lord. Oh, also transfer calls came and I am still with Anziano Mortezazadeh for another transfer. We are excited, and think that there are some people in need of the gospel from us.

The Esse family is still on vacation, but they return tomorrow, and we are looking to keep them on track (Delfino, Pierre, and Prosper) for baptism. We think they truly are a big help to each other.

We had a great lesson with Charles about sabbath day observance. We let all worldly things take place on Sundays now. Shopping, partying, big sporting events (I was a big failure when it came to watching sports) and other big shows. We allow ourselves to think of Sunday as just a day maybe to go to church, and then just another free day to do whatever. God didn't ask us just to go to his house of worship on Sunday, he asked a lot more. He asked us to give 1 day in 7 to dedicate our thoughts, actions, and feelings towards him. To restrain from everyday labors. Keeping the sabbath day holy doesn't come and go in the 3 hours of church. We are asked to go about doing good, thinking of him, study his council. When we have the attitude of making God the center of our focus on Sunday, we become happy. We get more out of the day. It is a dedication of our love and faith to him. Charles really liked that. He still wants to receive an answer of where to worship, but he does believe in being focused on God in his actions on Sunday.

We found a really nice man named Luigi this past week. He was talking about our nationality and how we were serving missions and he wanted us to come teach his family about who we were. We got all excited and set up a day to meet them. My companion and I went to a train station in Gallarate, a nearby city, and called him to see what stop he wanted us to go to. He told us a city up on the north side of Lago Maggiore. It turned out to not only be out of our area, but out of the zone limits. We were heartbroken, because we knew we couldn't go to his house to teach him, but we knew the missionaries in that area would be great for him. We told him our dilemma, and sadly he said that it was ok, and he would call the other missionaries. Then he told us he is just staying in that city for the summer and then would be returning to a city in our area and will be coming to our English class after. We knew we were blessed for following guidance given to us. If we would have left to see that family we might not have been able to make a good connection with them, but I truly believe that because we followed the teachings of our mission president we are going to be blessed.

So a lot of people canceled on us this week, we had long days of walking, rainstorms, closed shops when we were hungry, but overall we were pretty happy. We had some funny moments with people. One day we were on a bus and a guy walks on with a beer. He looks at us and says "Mormons?" "Yes we are" "I'm drunk, do you speak English?" "Why yes we do!" With that little questionnaire we started to have a very casual conversation with him, and ended up giving him a couple of pamphlets for when he sobered up. It was quite funny. He kept asking us strange questions and then adding things that are only funny when drunk people say them. Another day we were walking down the street and a guy yells as us singing "God bless America" and then to top it off, we were walking on another street and pass a guy and before we can say a thing to him he smacks his chest, right on his heart and gives us a pleasing nod of approval. So despite having some rough appointments there were always good, funny moments to be had.

In my studies I've been tackling 3 nefi, and I was reading something in chapter 12 that hit me.

44 But behold I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you;

45 That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good.

There are plenty of "difficult" people in the world, but as God has commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, it refers to everyone, regardless of what we do. The purpose behind it is for us to be like God. God doesn't treat anyone lesser than another, "he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good" he wants us to use our "sun", our "light of Christ" towards everyone, good and bad. We can't be like our Heavenly Father if we don't love one another. It is not easy, but nothing is meant to be easy, or being like Heavenly Father wouldn't mean as much to us.

I truly believe that Heavenly Father wants us to be an example of his teachings. I know the truth of his gospel, and I'm here in Italy sharing it with all who will listen, good or bad. I know everyone deserves to hear the truth, and that the gospel blesses all of us.

Have a great week everyone!

Anziano Chase

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Cantiamo con gioia - Week 52

Hey everyone, another week, another euro I'm not making, but saving
souls means no complaining. I really don't know if that rhymes or
makes sense, but I really have a better job out here right now -
bringing souls to Christ.

This week honestly didn't bring up too much new adventure, but it did
move forward in a good direction. Delfino spent a week in Bergamo with
his aunt, so we focused our teaching efforts on his brothers Pierre
and Prosper. Pierre struggles with his Italian but is really intrigued
about our doctrine and the plan of salvation. Just yesterday we spent
a good time with Prosper, who is the youngest at 16, talking about how
our faith really can't be outdone by anything else. We don't need to
see something to know its true. When we allow faith to guide us, we
will get the knowledge we need to confirm it. With that, we had a
great lesson with him, and now he is preparing to get baptized along
with Delfino. We will be inviting Pierre next appointment, and we
really have high hopes for these brothers.

Charles is being the same ol Charles, but this week we talked about
ways we follow God and show our love by Christ. We talked about the
Ten Commandments and how really in the world, 4 of the 10 are widely
accepted still. No killing, stealing, lying, and honoring mom and dad.
But the other 6 have become so regularly disregarded, and almost
recreational to break. For the most widely accepted doctrine of God
among Christians, how is it that we can't follow even 50% of the Ten
Commandments? We really need to have our eyes open to he simple
commandments God gives us. If we want promised blessings from him, it
starts with following his commandments. We can't receive anything from
God, unless he gives us something to do. Other wise there is no just
way to bless one person over another. That is what allows God to
freely bless us, when we follow his teachings.

Clifford has been doing pretty well. We have been teaching him
alongside Terry, who has been a great influence to him. We invited him
to be baptized and he told us he would pray about it. He knows baptism
is sacred to God, and he has been baptized in the past, so he wants to
be sure this restored priesthood is true. We are going to address that
more in detail with him, because we know the Lord has prepared him,
and that every step we take in life is just leading us to the next
place we need to be.

We met another friend of Terry's this week also. His name is Christian
and he is pretty new to Italy. Terry gave him some pamphlets about the
church and he wanted to meet us so we explain these things more to
him. We got through a pretty good restoration with him, but we had to
cut it short because he had to leave for a meeting. We hope to be able
to see him grow in his faith.

Saturday night we decided to stop by a part member family, the Flores.
The husband, a less active member, is engaged to a non member, and
they have 3 little girls. They are not so well off, but love their
time together as a family. We stopped by and started to teach. The
little girls, all being younger than 6 were quite loud and wild. It
was a little hard to get our lesson across. But as we progressed we
starting asking the little girls thought provoking questions they
could answer. They wound down, and we started to have one of the most
spiritual lessons I have felt in my mission. The mother testified of
her desire to be baptized and about how we are all imperfect, but
Christ's love for us makes it more than possible for us to come back to
him. The husband testified of how being brothers and sisters in the
church really is a strength. There is a love and fellowship that can't
be felt really anywhere else. There are not many places that you can
have so many people rushing to help you when you are knocked down, or
facing difficulty. It was truly a spiritual evening. We really are
hoping that they can get there documents to be married, so the wife
can be baptized, and the family united together.

This week my companion and I studied a lot of stuff. We truly
expanded our knowledge of a lot of things. Things I never really asked
myself, I started searching for the answers to them. We were
discussing a lot of this and I started thinking about how sometimes
the simple principles give us the most knowledge we could ever
achieve. Why do we study the Book of Mormon, and the principle of
faith multiple times a month? Why do we always repeat lessons about
the restoration of the gospel, or the plan of salvation? It's because
we always have things to learn from them. I think about my reading in
the Book of Mormon. I've written down my thoughts, highlighted verses,
and felt promptings. A few days after I've written my thoughts, I go
back and read the same scriptures and this time something else hits
me. I still had a remembrance of my previous thought, but now I was
learning another principle from the scripture I didn't notice before.
Our room for growth is incomprehensible. Our limit for knowledge we
can obtain is so large we physically can't learn it all before we die,
even if we did study 24/7 everyday for our whole lives. We have a lot
to learn. God would not want us going over the same principles, he
wouldn't ask us to always read the scriptures if there wasn't more to
learn from them. I truly believe we will always learn from the basic
principles of the gospel if we open our hearts to it.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and the church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints is his church on the earth today. I know it, I
cannot deny it.

Anziano Chase

Perché egli vive🇮🇹🇮🇹🇺🇸🇺🇸

E mediante il potere dello spirito santo... Week 51

Howdy everyone, 

I hope you all had a filling week. Today, instead of going to visit a pretty place, we decided to be men, and be at the gym all day shredding, and toning our Italianized bodies. I can't move a muscle in my body, but we like to be healthy and strong, so we can do more. 

As we have officially entered August, Italy has gotten smaller in natives and larger in tourism. Those natives that are still here are either about to leave, or are working through the whole month and don't want to see us. It is quite the favorite month of the missionaries.... said no missionary here ever!  We, however decided to take the month by storm and try to find as many people as we could to teach during the month, regardless of who will be staying or going. 

Delfino has been quite something lately. He is really taking everything we say seriously. He studies it and ponders it. He really is progressing. In fact one day he was telling some of his friends about us, and they are evangelists, and they want to know what is different about our church. So we have an appointment with like 4-5 raggazzi (teenage boys) to talk about religion. For me this is pretty freaking awesome!

One day we decided to stop by Delfino's house even though we did not schedule an appointment. We just thought we would say hi. He wasn't there, but his older brother, Pierre, was there, and his younger brother, Prosper, too. They let us in and when they told us Delfino wasn't there we got the grand idea to ask them if they wanted to know more about our religion. Being the religion their father is a part of and the religion their brother is investigating, they said sure. We had a great restoration lesson with them, and now they are wanting to know more as well. We really hope that they all continue to share this desire so they can be united with their father (who is less active, but we will change that) and continue to feel of the savior's love for them.

Charles is doing really well. We shared with him the video Hope of God's light and he really had a feeling in him. We talked about how sometimes it takes us a while to know that God has been answering our prayers, but once we get that feeling in our heart, the feeling of the Holy Ghost, it pushes us to find it again. We can't expect to sit in darkness waiting for someone to turn on a light. We need to take steps, even if they are just one at a time. The feeling we will get from the Holy Ghost will give us all the confirmation we need, to know that where we are going is the right path. We told Charles that the feeling he felt during that video was the Holy Ghost and that that was thing the thing he has been searching for. He recognized it, and although he is still not fully acknowledging that he knows what we say is true, he is making those little steps he needs to come closer to the savior.

I would also like to express the power of just having your friends over when the missionaries are around. We were teaching one of the new converts in the area, and his friend walked by him. We introduced ourselves, and himself likewise, and then he started walking away. I at first said out loud to myself, "shoot I didn't get to ask him if he would want to listen in on what we were teaching" and then our new investigator, hearing what I said, immediately yelled at his friend to come back real quick. This time I was able to ask him, and he happily said yes. Now we are teaching Clifford (this friend). It is surprising how much people are more open to sitting and listening to you if a friend is here with you. If we would have met Clifford while we were on our own, who knows if he would have said yes to us, but with the comfort of a friend, it is so much easier to feel less burdened to sitting with the missionaries (like we are a burden....)

Other than that, we are really hitting this area with all we got. It's been tough weather and no one on the streets want to listen to us, but we try never to think of the rough times. We are only inviting the uplifting moments. We are really focusing on the spirit. The Holy Ghost is such a patient and calm teacher. It can be easy to get worked up when an investigator is saying things that you either don't want to hear, or are not true. It's easy to get defensive, to get upset. But when we teach by the power of the Holy Ghost, we are only able to teach to the heart and upon the soul. We study what we need to know, but we let the spirit be the ultimate decision maker. And when we allow the Holy Ghost to play his role, we can better see its affect on ourselves and others. When we think of the promise in Moroni "and by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things" it really is true. The Holy Ghost is our personal witness of the divinity of the gospel. We won't all see visions of God and Jesus Christ, but we will get that witness from the Holy Ghost. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." John 14:26  The Holy Ghost brings to remembrance, the truth we ALREADY know. By the power of the Holy Ghost we can know all things.  I have a huge testimony of this. I have seen it work in the lives of many people I have taught here in Italy, and in myself. He works differently for all of us, but he is that still small voice, that comfort, that assurance that we get when we know something is true. And he will help us come closer to God. He is always letting us know.

I hope everyone eats a nice ciok mente gelato, and pets a dog this week. Yes I know, weird things to say, but I do it almost every week, and it always brings me happiness. It will do the same for you!

Anziano Chase

       Me sleepy after long hours of work

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