Come vediamo I nostri azioni - Week 42

Hey everyone,

So transfers calls are here again and Anziano Cameron will be going to Morbegno. It is hard to see him go but I have had a great time with him, and to think I've have had 3 months in a city with him and 3 months as his companion is even crazier. Time flies out here! My new companion will be Anziano Richardson from Arizona. He has only been on the mission for 4 months so I will be the senior companion. It is an interesting change for me because I will now be the one making more of the decisions and will be the taking the lead here in Pesaro. It will be strange not having a companion who can correct my Italian whenever I need help, so studying will be much more desired, knowing I will be helping my companion speak.

This week we spent a lot of the time saying goodbye to members, investigators, and working on some documents for the government. Darlington was sad to know Anziano Cameron was leaving but was happy to know that there was still going to be missionaries here to teach him. It helped us realize that people do want to hear from us, whether we think it or not. We might not ever know the way we touch people, but when we are doing the things God desires of us, He does the touching for us.

I have also been thinking a lot about how we take action and only judge the results that come from the action. We cut ourselves short when we only look at the results. If we lose a baseball game, we only look at the loss, not the 2 for 3 batting night we had and a diving catch. God is a rewarder of those who seek him, yes, but he does not always reward us when we want. We see it as a failure, but our actions should be the success. I love sharing a parable of how God asks a man to push a huge boulder. The man pushes it for hours, takes a break and sees that it hasn't moved. He tries again for a few weeks this time. Still it hasn't move. He tries again for another month, and nothing. God returns and the man says he has failed because he did not move the boulder. God replies by telling him, "I never asked you to move the boulder, but to push it. If I wanted to move the boulder I would move it myself. What you neglected to see is by pushing the boulder for those months, you have more muscle on your body". We can't sell ourselves short by thinking that if we don't get the solution we were expecting than we are failures. God never tells us to be perfect, just to always improve.

I really hope that everyone can see the good they have in themselves. God gives us so much, and we realize so little of what he gives us. I am truly grateful to be out here in Italy discovering the talents and gifts so many people have. I am grateful I can see myself grow, and I am grateful that God never leaves my side. Everyone have a great week!

Anziano Bryant Chase

iPads - Week 41

This week has been full of excitement but in reality not
too much happened. I mean I guess it is pretty cool that this week we
received IPads to enhance our work in the mission. We will not be
using them quite yet for online work, but we do have access to so many
church resources that we can have with us to share to all our
investigators. We had a training Monday and then have had to do some
trainings yesterday on the devices. I truly believe these will help us
be more ready to share special messages with those around us.

A lot has gone well with our investigator Darlington this week. We
taught him about the Sabbath day and why we need to keep it holy. When
we think holy, we usually think "go to church" or "don't go shopping"
but in reality it means to keep it sanctified by turning ourselves
over to God to do good. We don't go shopping to allow people to be
with their families, but we also need to be looking for ways to be
there for others. Sunday should be our biggest day of service. It
doesn't need to be physical service, but spiritual. Visit families
that you think need love, be with your family, try and feel the savior
in your life. There is no other day where you will feel the spirit
than on Sunday, and we need to recognize that is a week to help us
reflect on ourselves and make the choice to become better the
following week. Darlington really liked that and committed to coming
to church on Sunday.

We have been struggling to find new investigators lately but are
really getting to know our members here in Pesaro. Granted, there are
only around 12 or so, but we really feel like we are part of the
branch family, and hope that helps us make connections with the people
they want us to teach.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying themselves as summer is just around
the corner, I hope everyone stays focused on the sunshine, and don't
search out the storms. Life is beautiful and we can only choose to let
it take us down. Have a great week everyone.

Anziano Chase

Also Anziano chase minor and I got ourselves a great Temecula Stake photo

Pesaro - Week 40

Hey everyone. I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day. Missionaries tend to like Mother’s Day, but I think even more our mothers find the greatest joy in the day. I can’t imagine why. It was great being able to talk to my family, and it is weird to realize that I have been on my mission for a whole lot longer than I’d realized.

First off, for PDay I had the opportunity to see the Harlem Globetrotters who were doing an Italian tour. It was great American culture for the Italians, but none of them understood a little of the comedy they used in regards to soccer. One of the players was kicking the ball and bumped into a defender and pretended to be in enormous amounts of pain. Once there was no call, he got right back up perfectly ok. My companion and I laughed, but no one else understood it.

We had an up moment and down moment with a family we have been working with. The mother, Assunta, shared with us the reason she has a hard time with dealing with faith, and right now is just really closed off to anything else until she resolves it. On the plus side, she wants to allow her daughter to follow her beliefs, and her daughter, Francesca, has been really following what we have been teaching her. She truly is interested in what we have been teaching.

We also met with our investigator, Darlington, and he expressed how it is not every day that someone comes in only wanting to help you grow as an individual. Usually there is some sort of prize in return, a type of deal made in service these days, but to truly know that we only wanted to see him happy was really special. It helped me realize how much service and genuine care can means to people. Once you take the desire of yourself out it makes your desire to help others really mean something.

I know as we look for ways to help others that we are instruments in their lives, no one person can grow without the help of another, whether it is a family member, or a friend. We need to always look for opportunities to be there for those in need. I know this gospel to be true!

Have a great week!

Anziano Chase

Primo Maggio - Week 39

Hey everyone, so I don’t have a lot to talk about this week but I hope everyone else had a great full week. In Italy the first of May is a huge holiday celebrating Italian Liberty, so everyone went out with their families to have picnics, meals, and just be outside. The weather has really been clearing up lately so it has been fantastic outside. Elder Cameron and I went on a hike with our branch in the Pesaro mountains near a monastery. We had a picnic, which was more elegant than any normal picnic I have had (just Italian culture) and we took a tour of the monastery.

During church, a new investigator showed up with a recent convert and we were able to have a great discussion with him. Something he said that I really liked is: it does not matter who you are trying to please on this earth in this life, if you are not trying to please God. That really stuck out to me because, if we are trying to please God and do his will, nothing else really matters. The eternal perspective highly outweighs the temporal.

A great miracle is one of the families we are teaching that had a son just get baptized this weekend show great emotion for the gospel. The mother got really emotional and happy at her son’s baptism and the daughter wanted to skip fun activities on Sunday to go to church! We really hope that they have this desire to be united with their son in the gospel, because family unity strengthens better than any other person can.

One little thing I really focused on this week is the power of gratitude. I was talking with Elder Cameron and we started talking about what we ask for in prayers and we started talking about what we neglect to be grateful for. Often enough the things we forget to be grateful for, others are praying to receive. When we took that into perspective it made us realize how much God gives us, little things, to the big things. We need to constantly be thankful for ALL that we have, because so many people are less fortunate than us.

I really love this gospel and how it provides the perfect path in life. I love how we always are growing, spiritually and physically. I am grateful for the atoning sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ. Have a great week everyone!!!

Anziano Bryant Chase

Elder Bednar - Week 38

Hey everyone,

This week certainly was one to put in the memory book. Our mission had the privilege of having Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles visit us. Every missionary in our mission went to Milan on Monday to have a conference with him. We spent 6 hours together discussing many subjects. It was great to see him in a more casual environment because he was more relaxed and had fun with us. He and his wife would joke about each other and it was just so pleasing to see. I was able to ask him a question myself and get a great answer. A couple of things we focused on were how we need to be agents and not objects. When we are objects we allow things to act upon us and control us, but when we are agents we are the ones who are acting making our own choices. He also mentioned how we need to use personal revelation more. We shouldn't only rely on answers from apostles and prophets, but we can go through prayer to Heavenly Father and ask him directly. Revelation in short definition is thoughts to the mind and feelings to the heart.

The Duomo in Milan

With all the information we learned from Elder Bednar, we are all pushing hard these next few months to increase our desire to work and share the gospel. One of the many ways we are going to be pushing forward is through sharing the gospel in every way, through personal face to face, and sharing the gospel through online methods. Our mission is going to be adding in some additional ways to share the gospel with the Italian people through Mormon.org and other sites where we can message them online. So many people these days go straight to the internet to find answers to their questions, so this will be a great way for us to be there to answer questions and find more people this way. We hope it will help us reach the society that we now essentially live in, the digital age.

With the Bednar Conference taking up most of our time we were not able to visit everyone we wanted to teach, but we were able to go on a stake activity hiking in the mountains. We brought an investigator named Moret with us and I really think he enjoyed the fellowship given to him. We hiked in the Tuscany mountains to a peak that overviewed many hills. It was certainly amazing to be able to get out in the forest and view another part of Italy.

I know this gospel to be true. I love it, and want others to know that. Everything we have is possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We need to give thanks to him daily. I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Anziano Chase

What is Success? - Week 37

Hey everyone, another week goes by and the time seems to be going faster than it ever has. Anziano Cameron and myself had a pretty good week, and met some great people.

We went and visited a family this week of a recent convert that asked us to visit his family. We brought our branch president who ended up being a huge help. We expected the mother, Assunta, to be the one asking all the questions, but when we started explaining the fundamental beliefs of our church it was the 13 year old daughter, Francesca, that started throwing questions at us left and right. It really took us by surprise too because she was throwing out intellectual questions I did not think I would even have to respond to in the lesson. Our branch president really helped us out by volunteering to go into a good explanation about her questions, and it really helped us create a good beginning to the lessons that we will be teaching them.

Also, we met a great new friend named Darlington. He is from Nigeria, and really enjoys talking about the life of Christ. We spent a couple of hours with him just talking about the beliefs we had in common, and he got really excited. He hasn't found a good church to go to so we invited him to church on Sunday and he happily accepted.

Things are really going fast, as we are seeing Elder Bednar on Monday. We have been trying to spiritually prepare ourselves to have a good meeting with him. It made me think about how people measure success and what it truly means to be "successful". In the dictionary success is, achieving something you have been trying to do. In many ways that makes us successful and failures every day. We all compare ourselves to what we think we need to be every day. We tell ourselves, I need to be the star player on the Los Angeles Angels, or I am a failure. And in dictionary definition if we don't make it we fail. It makes me think about how God measures success. I truly believe that God doesn’t measure success by what you achieve, but by what you become trying to succeed. All of us grow in ways that we don’t see when trying to achieve that ultimate goal we set. We fail to notice our talents we learned on the way, or the small things we accomplished during the attempt. It all applies in missionary work as well. We get all caught up in how many people we baptize or what title of leadership we receive. But it isn’t about that. Sure it is important to strive to be the best, but our success should be focused on being the best we are, not the best others think we have to be.

I know that the gospel allows all of us to see our true talents and gifts, and that each of us are a successful child of God. I love this gospel and love sharing it with others. Have a great week everyone!

Spring time Continues - Week 36

Hey everyone,

First off I would like to give a special birthday shout out to my mother that turned an amazingly young 26. Don't believe me ask my dad hahaa

Anyways transfer calls were this week and the trio has ended and Anziano Revorado is going to Udine. However, I am staying in Pesaro to be with Anziano Cameron again, so needless to say I am excited. They are not sending down any other missionaries to be in Pesaro so it will just be myself and Cameron. This will be really interesting for me because I have never been alone in a city with another missionary. All the work is now solely for us to do. No pressure right??

So this week has been full and quite busy. We had our preparation zone training for the conference with Elder Bednar, and are really trying to consecrate ourselves more fully so that we can get the most out of his visit. On Saturday we also helped a family move their belongings from the 6th floor of an apartment to the first. I think overall we did about 200 flights of stairs that day. I was pretty dang sore for the next few days. But we were really able to bond with the grandma of the family. She was grateful for our willingness to help, and even more surprised we would do it for free. She asked for a book of mormon so she could get to know our religion better and we hope that something good will come from it.

The rest of this week was focused on saying goodbyes for Anziano Revorado. We visited a less active that hasn't been to church in a few years, and he was very delighted to see us. He had been having marital issues and needed the friendship from us. He works as a caretaker for a formula one driver's house. the owner is Gianni M. Anura, the caretaker took us to M's villa and it was pretty stinking awesome. It has the prettiest view of Pesaro I have ever seen, and it just screams luxury. But best of all aside from the villa, Anura wants to come back to church.

The work is progressing and we have a lot of great possibilities this week. We are keeping our eyes open for people who want to hear our message. Just to finish with a little portion that Elder Ballard said last year. "Catch others doing something good" Too often we look to point out the negative. Our inner selves tell us that we need to see the mistakes in others to make ourselves feel better. But how does that help us truly be better people? It doesn't. If we want to "catch" other people doing good things, we can notice is so much more, and make it known. Everyone wants to know they are a success, even if it is just in the little things. No one wants to hear everything they mess up on or do wrong. We need to help them realize the talents they have.

I know this gospel is true, and that we can all apply the Christ like attributes in our own lives, through service and love. I hope everyone has a fantastic week!