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

Conferenza Generale - Week 59

Hey everyone,

I hope you all got to witness this wonderful General Conference we had this past weekend. I was truly inspired by our prophet and apostles.

This week was really short due to transfers and conference, but nevertheless it was full with spiritual enlightenment and blessings. My new companion, Anziano C., is just a stud.  He's from L.A and is just a happy dude. I'm helping his Italian and he's helping my Spanish out so we can teach people in Spanish in addition to Italian and English. It's quite fun to have different languages to speak.

We were given the opportunity to watch conference this weekend, and for us it had to be a 3 day event because our time zone is too far ahead and the afternoon sessions start way too late in the day for us to watch them. We invited all our investigators to watch conference, and T.G. came with us to watch a session in Lampugnano, a section of Milan where the stake center is for the Milano Ovest Stake. The day before conference, we had been teaching him about how the prophets give us latter-day revelation. When we told him that the prophet would be speaking to us, he said he had to be there so he could follow the council of the prophet and see what he sounds and looks like. We watched the priesthood session with him and he was just so happy to see the prophet. He is doing whatever it takes to be closer to our Heavenly Father.

We were able to visit some people this week and use conference talks as our lessons with them this week. My personal favorite talk was by President Uchtdorf during the Saturday morning session.  He talked about how we need to simplify our path to discipleship. I like how he said we chase after shadows, we peruse matters of little value.. The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. The fourth article of faith states the simplicity of it: Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Yes, we make more covenants with our Heavenly Father, and are asked to follow certain things, but sometimes we get caught up in the things that really are not important, or get caught up in the fine details of things so that we forget the core of the principle. We search for explicit information from extra resources and disregard the truth we can already rely on. Our Heavenly Father wants us to progress, but we can only do that if we continue to work on the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I also really loved the talk by President Monson during the Sunday morning session. We know that life has it’s tolls on the human body, but what I learned from the end of President Monson’s talk was that his faith and his firm testimony was more important than anything else. As he was struggling to finish, he would not quit until he got those final declarations of faith said. That is how we all should approach our testimony of the Savior. When we get weak, when things get hard, would we still lay down our lives for the Savior?? It was all the confirmation I needed from the prophet to know that we all need to do more than we are currently doing.

I hope everyone is able to see the Lord in their daily actions this week, and ask yourself the same question Larry R Lawrence asked. "What is keeping me from progressing?" and then make that change!

Have a great week everyone,

Anziano Chase

Perché egli vive🇮🇹🇮🇹🇺🇸🇺🇸