Ancora ci siamo - Week 75

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a good week. Ours went fast and the strange thing is I really can't remember half of the stuff we did...

Well to start we had the mission broadcast, which was sent to all the missionaries around the globe, and it was very nice. It helped give me a little push to finish off strong. It was centered on repentance and baptism, and I really enjoyed the thoughts about repentance. True conversion really comes from the steps of repentance we take. It is our signal to Heavenly Father that we believe in him and his teachings to us.

We were able to see P. and M. this week and they are doing well. M. is having a couple of doubts with some of his past teachings he grew up with, but P. is still going really strong. We talked about how necessary reading the scriptures is. We need that 10 minutes of spiritual strength in today's world. We need to be able to have God in our lives, and when we read the scriptures we enlighten our minds and give us a spiritual defense from the sin of the world.

M. is doing better, we have been trying to find a way to get his concerns resolved, but it is taking some time. We really have been focusing on what pushes him in the gospel, and what is the strongest part of his testimony. When we recollect on our spiritual foundation, we really help reinforce it.

We were also able to see G., and his grandchildren, A. and J., and had a nice spiritual lesson with them. A. and J. have been coming to our English class, and now my course, which is the less advanced group had about 8 new 12-18 year olds in it, and it is giving us good opportunities to introduce the light of the gospel in their lives in a normal way.

There is a church also nearby that on Sunday's at 6 a lady always comes in to play the organ, so we decided to visit and just sit and listen. It was really dang cool. Oh oh, I also got to see a couple of members from the Vicenza Italian branch that are in stake priesthood/auxiliary members in church because our branch was being reorganized so that was really cool.

A couple funny things that happened this week. We have been doing some polls in public lately, and one day we were walking and there is a bar we always pass by called Charlie's Angels. When we walked by I noticed one person was looking at our sign. Once I noticed that, I saw that every single person in that bar had stopped what they were doing to stare at our sign. We were just walking by, and it was just funny to see how much attention we attract doing this. Another funny thing was we were walking down the street, and I saw a car that was super iced, and there was a person scraping the ice off to leave in the car. Out of nowhere I find my face connecting with a light post... My comp couldn't hold in his laughter, nor me and my embarrassment, but it was a funny thing to laugh about after.

Anyways, my thoughts have been really centered around the imperfection of human beings. We really are so imperfect. We make so many mistakes. We have to learn so much. But the marvelous thing about being imperfect is seeing the growth within ourselves when we do good and when we improve. There is no limit to our growth, and with the aid of Heavenly Father and the atonement of Christ, we can always work on bettering ourselves. We can accept that we are imperfect, but we can also strive to be the best we can knowing that we will be helped along the way. It is a never ending journey of growth we are on.

I know this gospel is true. I know we can all be perfected through the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Sushi??

The closest I'll ever get to being in Slovenia....#onlyapprovedtohaveonefoottouching

Andiamo avanti - Week 74

Hey everyone, I hope you all had a great week. This week was a decently busy.

Giovedi we saw S., one of our less actives. He really likes the missionaries, he just has to work on Sunday's keeping him from church. In Italy it is really hard to find work these days, so we decided to talk about fasting, and how we can receive revelation on what we need to do. After that we went to a nearby city to order a new part for our phone. The screen broke, and we have visibility of only 1/8th of it... We visited G. and had a nice discussion on how we need to push ourselves to be spiritually minded in order to overcome the natural desire to sin.

Venerdi we helped Sorella T., the wife of our branch president, move a bunch of old furniture out of their home. As our reward they fed us lunch. After that we had a good lesson with P. and M. on the law of chastity. They really accepted the law to stay pure in our thoughts, words, and actions.

Sabato was a more calm day with finding work. We gave out a bunch of English class flyers and then were able to meet with P. We had a nice conversation, and she invited us over to have a dinner with her and her family!

D. was really nice. P. and M. came to church and we had a really good lesson with them on the word of wisdom. With the help of some members we really we able use their testimonies of it. They enjoyed the meetings and really feel like they are progressing.

Lunedi we were able to see Z. and talk to him about the priesthood. We focused on the importance of setting our standards higher. The priesthood is a power given to us and with this power we need keep ourselves always worthy to have it. We have the authority to use god's power only if we are spiritually worthy to receive it.

Martedi we had a good time doing white board finding. We posed a question with a "yes" or "no" section for them to respond. After they put their response we would ask them why they thought that way. It really got a lot potentials for us. After that we had our English class and we were able to set up a time to have dinner with the A. family this weekend. They have shown a lot of interest in
our message and we are glad that we have this opportunity to go teach them.

Oggi was quick. We did some planning, and are about to watch a mission broadcast for all the missionaries in the world (it starts in 10 minutes or so....) so I am excited for that.

My mind has been focusing a lot on how we allow the natural man inside of us to control what we do. It is not natural to do service or say nice things. But we receive spiritual promptings and choose to act on them. As soon as we make that decision to help someone, or do something that was given through a prompting, we make it easier to receive spiritual promptings and do good things. If we never followed our spiritual promptings, we would naturally want to do nothing. It's sad but true. We need to push ourselves to do good, and as we focus on that desire we receive help.

I know this church is true and that his gospel is on the earth today!

Week 73

Hey everyone this week was another nice week. Lots of rain, but pretty eventful. So Friday we spent practically the whole day on the train due to a zone training in Mestre. It takes 3 hours each way in train and our zone training was really short. But it was nice we talked about the importance of bold invites. We cannot expect someone to see the importance of our invites if we don't make it seem important ourselves. We need to show these people we truly are devastated when they don't accept our invites and should be very happy when they follow our invites.

Saturday President Dibb came to Gorizia for interviews. They got to the church a little late, but it was nice to talk with him. We only get to have interviews with him usually once every three months, so every time he comes it is a pleasure to talk with him. I'm sad he finishes his mission two weeks before I do, and that I will have my last interview with a new mission president, but I'm excited for the last 5 months I have with President Dibb here.

Sunday a lot of members were sick, but we had a very nice sacrament meeting. We were able to visit G. and his grandchildren A. and J. were there. A. was very open with us and we were able to share a neat message with them. We also were able to see M. and got him to pray, which he hadn't done in front of other people for 10 years. We also saw P. and his friends, and P's desire to be baptized has really sky rocketed. He knows baptism is essential for his growth in the gospel

Monday and Tuesday I was in Udine for an exchange with Anziano C. He is in his 2nd transfer but is an awesome missionary. We went and gave service at a center for the handicapped and disabled. They truly are amazing people and we spent time sharing bible stories and playing games with them. Then we were able to visit some families in their branch to help spread the relationship of member/missionaries a little bit.

Today we went to Trieste to go to a cave called Grotta Gigante. It is a really nice cave that goes decently deep into the earth. The experience was awesome and even though no pictures came out well due to it being a cave it was awesome to go through something like that.

My mind has been thinking about the meaning of true sacrifice lately and how we truly do give up so much for our Heavenly Father. There are so many things we give up to follow him; substances/objects, time, jobs, relationships, temporary pleasures. Many people think we do it because we know that it is an advantage in the world to come or that we will receive certain blessings because we sacrificed that specific thing, and that is true. But even more important is that our sacrifice comes from our love and devotion to our Heavenly Father, and not just the promised blessings that follow. As a missionary I know I will be blessed for my sacrifice, and I know my family has been blessed for it, but I am also sacrificing my time because it's something I want to do for my Heavenly Father. In essence it isn't a sacrifice to me, but a pleasure. True sacrifice can be difficult but having the love for our Heavenly Father to do it, makes everything worth it.

C'è neve in questa missione - Week 72

This week has been jam packed with stuff so we are just going to get right to it.

So for New Year's Eve we had our district meeting and then were required to be inside at an earlier hour due to festivities that may be uninviting for missionaries. So we spent the day really inside. From our balcony we can see the city's castle, and at midnight the castle had a firework show that lasted for a full half hour. It was a nice little thing that the city does.

Our New Year's Day was really nice. A lot of people were asleep and inside most of the day, but we spent it visiting investigators that we knew were not big party people. G. was at home and he was with his daughter and her family. It was really nice and we were able to invite them to English class and are also possibly going to visit them at their home! After that we went and had a visit with M. I think he really is listening to us, and on the fast Sunday testimony meeting, he got up a bore a sincere testimony of prayer. We just need to help him get over his little doubts and issues he has with being rebaptized.

Saturday we were doing casa and it was cold and just had been a long day. It had been raining and our spirits were pretty low. We get to one apartment complex and starting calling all the doors and on the last one we see someone look at us, and we just get so surprised when she says "venite" (come) so we slowly walk in and then we get even more surprised when she asks us "so you said you have a message about families?" (Our approach to teaching some people) usually we don't get that surprised, but when we do door approaches seldom do people let us in and then actually ask us about our message. It was a mother with two little girls, and we shared a little bit about the plan of salvation and how it blesses families. She invited us back, and told us she knew a family that were members so that is why she let us in. We felt extremely blessed to have met her.

Sunday we spent the day with some members trying to fellowship and help with family mission plans, and we ate some of the best food I've ever had in my life.

Monday I woke up to just a wonderful site. SNOW. We had snow proprio falling almost all day. We were set to have an exchange so the udine missionaries were coming to do the switch so we decided to make our first snowman (and by us I mean the two Californian missionaries and the one Arizona missionary. The Idaho missionary aka my comp has made plenty) after the snow play day, Anziano L. and I were able to meet some new people. We taught a man named prince about the restoration and he invited us to come and teach his friends at the end of the week. The snow brought so many people outside and everyone became super friendly.

Tuesday was Anziano L's birthday so we made a big breakfast to celebrate the end of our exchange and his birthday, and then took him back to Udine. The snow was almost all melted which was really sad, and our snowman was melting, and fell so we were a little depressed, but we talked to some good people and found a couple more potential families.

Today we took a trip up to the city Tarvisio, a city up near the border of Italy, Austria, and Slovenia. There was a ton of snow up there, and we went on a hike that was just soo epic. We felt the we were the fellowship in Lord of the Rings embarking on an adventure. The city was just so calm and full of snow. There was a ski hill nearby and just pretty things. It was a really cool find.

So with so much going by this week, my mind has been very scrambled, but I read something pretty profound from President Monson. “Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required." Sometimes patience is a pain in the rear, but how much more do we learn when we exercise our patience? We can see the blessings come from the patience we have. If a trial came our way and two seconds later it is immediately lifted, we would always get mad when after two seconds our trial was still here. As a missionary, we practice patience daily, and always are working on our patience. But when we truly are patient we always receive the blessings.

Il fine del anno - Week 71

Hey everyone. I hope you had a great Christmas, and that you were able to spend it with someone special! This week was a very happy week for my companion and I. We were able to spend a lot of our time with members, enjoying the holidays with them and remembering Christ with them. Our Christmas Eve was very occupied with traveling to different families. We were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to get to everyone we wanted to see. We had planned out efficiently what we needed to do, and with a little help from above we were able to see 4 families that we wanted to see. I t helped me appreciate a planned out day. If we hadn't really written out what/who we were going to do/see and how it would be accomplished we might not have had the opportunity to see some families. Our Christmas Day was very nice and simple. We went to lunch with the Perez family and watched some nativity videos with them, and spent a good deal just being with them. After we were able to skype our families (who would be excited for that????) and then spend the rest of the night with the Bressans.

Natale con la famiglia Perez

The rest of the week was really mixed with seeing other families in our branch and finding people to teach. We had been struggling lately to find  new people to teach, but really have been blessed these past couple days. When we were teaching G., his friend M. became very interested in our message. We hope to be able to see him. When we were at a members house, his non member mother was very open (well for a very Catholic woman asking questions) and she let us teach her a little. We have been working hard and can see that our efforts will surely be paying off soon.

When we were teaching M., he said something that quite frankly concerned me. He spoke of a concern that members are not as good people as they should be. Although this should not affect personal testimony, it still leaves the worry that our example is noticed, for good and for bad. Testimony IS personal and nothing should be more important than our personal commitment and covenant with our Heavenly Father. But as members, we also need to be living to the standard that our father in heaven wants us to live. People who have never heard of the church will look at people that are members and start formulating opinions. With those first impressions from our actions, a firm desire or no desire to learn about our gospel can start to form in these peoples lives. We should always be examples among the believers, so that when people meet us, they can see the gospel within us. I have a firm belief of personal testimony and I hope that M. can see past the faults of a select few that may have tampered with his testimony.

This week in my studies I was able to really focus on the importance of our father in heaven. My companion and I were discussing how we know he loves us and I started pondering about prayer. He asks of us to pray always, day and night, in faith. He promises to answer our prayers and bless us. I know of that for a fact because I have received many answers to my prayers, but then I started thinking about a more simple reason why he wants us to pray. He knows the thoughts of our hearts, why do we need to pray? For one, to recognize he is there, and two (what really struck out to me), is that he wants to listen to us and talk with us. Have we ever thought about that? That he may just want to be a part of our life? How many times have our parents tried to start a conversation with us and we shut down the conversation thinking that it is an interrogation?  All they usually want to do is speak with us, and be our friend. That is how I know my Heavenly Father really cares. He wants to make our relationship personal, and not just him being the almighty and all knowing dad that he is.

I hope everyone has a great new year, and that we can all start 2016 with a bang! The church is true!

Anziano Chase

Il dono del servizio - Week 70

Christmas is right around the corner and with that comes the time of gratitude and service. This week, with lots of people being busy with family activities and other appointments, we decided to give
some little acts of service. We decided to clean up the front of the church, which had been overrun with leaves, sticks, and lots of pollen (that ended up making me a yellow minion by the end of the
service....) it was nice to be able to just give service to the branch. There are lots of things we can't do due to our lack of mechanic/plumbing/whatever knowledge, but simple yard work we can do. Friday we had our Christmas zone training. It was in Mestre which is a pretty far travel, but it was a nice training. We focused on our Christmas initiative that the church started (È nato un salvatore) and other ways we can give service to people. And then we ended with a gingerbread house making contest. Our gingerbread house was broken in pieces so we decided to just eat ours. Then that night we had our branch Christmas dinner. I was set to be Babbo Natale, and one of the kids found my suit before I changed, and all the kids tried to prove me to be an imposter (just like in "elf") but they loved it regardless and it was a blast. We ate some cultural Gorizian food and it was a nice night. The children had their primary program the next day and then we went with the two youth in the ward for a walk to Fiume Isonso.

Zone training

Babbo Natale 2k15

Monday we were able to see G., and he was just happy to have us over. He does not have a lot going on for Christmas and was happy we wanted to see him. This really made me think about the importance of being a friend to those who may not have a family to spend time with. We all are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, and everyone deserves to feel happy at this time of year. We watched Gioisco il mondo with him and shared a Panatone with him. Yesterday we spent some time with M. sharing some nativity scriptures with him, and went with our English class for a walk in the centro Di Gorizia. We are going to be visiting a lot of families these next two days and I'm very excited. I'm still getting to know everyone, and the spirit of Christmas just makes everyone a little more open and warm, so I'm soo excited.

 Fiume Isonso

Una chiesa di Gorizia

In Italy they don't put the bambino Gesu in manger until Christmas Eve

I've been pondering a lot about this Christmas, and how i wont have another Christmas as a missionary (well until I'm an old buff grandpa being a missionary with my wife) and i thought about how blessed I am to serve full time for the savior. People everywhere in the world recognize (or at least should, hence why we still have to teach people about Christ) Jesus Christ as the savior and reason behind Christmas. I don't have any work, family, dogs, or anything else to keep me from sharing the reason for the season. How amazing is that? We are so blessed to have a savior, and in reality we should be giving to him. Isn't it his birthday? What better way to give to him than by feeding his sheep and sharing the restored gospel with those we come to know? I truly am grateful for this time to serve him. I hope we all can have a wonderful Christmas, and not forget to put the "Christ"  in our Christmas this year!

Porteremo al mondo la sua parola - Week 69

Hey everyone, I hope you all are enjoying the winter season. It's not been too cold but it always seems to reach 0*C at night at some point or another. This week was a very hard working week, but not too much to report. My new companion Anziano B., is a really nice guy. He really loves his mission so far, and just wants to help people. He doesn't know this area too well because he has been here for just a month, but it is a really small city so we have it all memorized already haha. There are no real progressing investigators here, some few long time investigators, but our branch of 35 is really great. They all are really sincere and want to help us, so we are going to do a lot of family mission plans with them.

Christmas lights in the streets of Gorizia

So there are a few long time investigators that I got to meet. L., is an old Italian who just loves to talk to missionaries. This week we made a special effort to see him because his wife was at the doctors all week and he just loves us. He loves it when we call him nonno and he just likes that we listen to him. He believes what we say to be true, he just has a couple of doubts in some areas and an
old man mentality (which means "I'm to old to change") but he is great. We focused with him on Romans 1:16 and not being ashamed or afraid to make steps towards Christ in the gospel. If we believe in something we should never be afraid to defend it or make the changes necessary to stay in harmony with our beliefs. The next man we saw was M., another Italian middle age man. He is also very believing of almost everything we teach, he just has a strong opinion of people and some doubts, but we are focusing on how faith is a personal matter and not a democracy that the people decide.

Church

Other than that we were on the streets 24/7. The city is small and sooo many people know us so the work is slow, but we know as long as we are out doing the work we need to, the lord will bless us with someone who is ready to receive the gospel. Something that really hit me in one of my studies this week was a scripture from Mosia 5:13. "For how knoweth a man the master whom we has not served and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?" This Christmas we recognize Christ as the savior and him with our Heavenly Father as the masters. We can study all we want about this people, but in order for us to truly understand them, we need to apply their teachings through service and works. We start to understand things through their eyes, because we are serving them and doing as they would want us to do. Our hearts combine in a sense, because they are unified in purpose.

 Not bad for a 10 second timer!

Slovenia border

I know this gospel is true. Obedience to the gospel and its commandments is the only way to eternal happiness. I know it. I know Christ gave us his life so that we all may be resurrected. Have a great week everyone!