Roma 1 – Week 6

Ciao!!

This week has been really nice and sorry I don’t have a ton of time to write today, but I will tell you about my week and what all we did.

Well last P-day was a lot of fun and we just walked around Rome and saw some things, since Sorella Arnold is headed back home this week from her mission. We ate at Subway (which was really expensive for Subway), but it hit the spot for sure. We then just went around to some other significant places and such and didn’t do anything too new, but I still love just getting to walk around.

We received a fair amount of biedones (where we get a lesson cancelled), but that is OK and we just keep on working. A lot of our investigators are about the same as last week. We only got to see a couple of them this week. We saw Riccardo and he is just still struggling to find his faith and it’s hard. We are trying our best to help him find it and understand that faith is action (Peter 2:17). We have to have action to exercise our faith. Without it we won’t receive testimonies or answers if we never pray and ask Heavenly Father. He wants to hear from us and has so many blessings in store. We just have to sincerely ask for them with real intent.

Then we met with Claudia and she has the same problem with understanding why bad things happen to good people and she is still trying to find an answer to that. We are going to have to continue to keep helping her through that. If we never had sufferings we wouldn’t know what joy is (2 Nephi 2:11-12). Without the opposition in all things we just would never be able to progress. I am thankful for the trials that I have gone through. They have helped me grow and become someone I am not sure I would be without them. The lord allows things to happen for our benefit, even though they are hard, and I am sure that it is hard for Him as well to allow them to happen and watch his Children suffer. I think that Jesus was perfect, but yet he endured persecution and sufferings that none of us have ever had to go through. He then took upon him the sins, sufferings, and afflictions of everyone that was, is, and will be on the Earth. He did it all out of love for his Father in Heaven and for us. That is so amazing and I love the hymn “I Stand All Amazed.” It is really wonderful that he cared enough for us to die for us.

We didn’t get to see any other investigators this week, but we got to see some members and less actives, which was nice. We got invited by a brother that was here in Rome studying classic architecture and he invited us over for lunch before he goes back home to America. He is an architect and did this schooling to study classic architecture and his firm works on temples, which I thought was super awesome. It was a lot of fun to get to know about what he does for work and it was super cool. He served a mission in Haiti and it was awesome to get to hear about his mission and to feel and hear his love for the country and the people. He is really exctied about the temple there and is hoping that he will be able to work on it, which I really hope that he does too.

The lunch was super nice and I really enjoyed getting to know him and talk to him about all sorts of stuff. He was super nice to have us over to do that and it was one of his favorite restaurants and it was super good food. I had ravioli, some mozzarella on tomato that I forget the name of, torta (cake), bread, of course, and then rabbit. The food was amazing. The rabbit was awesome. Definitely going back there when my family comes back here for sure. It was good.

We then had some service we did with a less active and then lunch and a short lesson this week. They are a super nice family and the wife is really active and the husband hasn’t been to church for a while. He served a mission and we just need to find out how we can get him back to church.

We had a lesson with John and he is super cool and is interested in finding something that can benefit him. He is catholic but is always open to finding something that he feels and thinks will help him in his life. He is really cool and super nice and I look forward to getting to meet him some more.

I have a funny story I want to tell. So in Italian to say “your turn” or “my turn” you say “toca a te” or “toca a me” (i think the spelling is right on that) and we were getting ready to say a closing prayer after daily planning and we always take turns praying. The only thing is the literal translation of that in english is “you touch it” or “I touch it” and Anziano Calvagna instead of saying it in Italian said “You touch it?” in English and I was super confused. We were on our knees and I was like “what??” And he repeated it and it took me a minute to realize what he said. I just started laughing and was just telling him in my head I was like “touch what?” We were just laughing for a long time and then we tried to settle down to say the prayer and as we were getting quiet I just said “Ok. Ok. I’ll touch it” and we both just lost it. It was super funny hahaha.

Well we also had transfer calls Saturday and it ends up that Anziano Calvagna is getting transferred to Terni and will be the Zone leader for our zone. It was a little bit of a surprise. My new companion will be Anziano Rasband and he is coming up from Malta. Transfers are on Thursday so we will have 3 really busy days. We have tons of people to see and a lot of things to do. Will be fun for sure.

We had 2 dinners with ward families this week and it was a lot of fun to get to talk to them and get to know them better.

I am a little nervous with Anziano Calvagna leaving regarding my Italian as well as the work. But the Lord knows where we need to be so we just have to have trust and faith.

We do this thing at district meeting where we open these things called kinder eggs and predict our transfers. It’s like a little treat made of something I don’t know, I just know it is good. and then a toy. We predict according to the toy on what will happen to people. Sorella Arnold is going back home to England this week and is finishing her mission. Sorella Jones has been here for 6 months, and this is her first area, and is now going down somewhere in Calabria [she is going to Cosenza]. Anziano Calvagna to Terni. Then the rest of us are staying. It will be a fun week.

I have to get going now. I love you all and hope the best for you all this week.

Love,

Anziano Garrett

Roma 1 District, May, 2015
Back row: Sorella Cano, Sorella Arnold, Sorella Nagliati, Sorella Jones, Sorella Memmot.
Front row: Anziano Garrett, Anziano Calvagna, Anziano Memmot