Tràpani – Week 21

Ei buondi!!

Hope that everyone is doing well. Sorry that my emails didn’t make it through last Monday. I resent them to everyone so hopefully they all got there and everyone was able to read them. President Waddoups did a good job of scaring the crap out of me too. I had just had my interview and Anziano Spencer and I were finishing up a sick night of finding in Palermo and I got a call from him and he says, “Well Elder you’re in trouble.” I was like oh crap, “What did I do?” He replies it, “It wasn’t what you did, it’s what you didn’t do.” My reply, “Uhhh…” Thoughts were running through my head. Did I miss someone to give a pass along card to or something like that? He then explained that I didn’t email my family and everything which was really weird since I spent like 3 hours in the church emailing. We got it all figured out and I sent them off the next day while we were waiting for Zone Conference to start.

Last week went really well though! Monday night we had a really awesome lesson with this family and it went super well. We were talking about the plan of salvation and they really enjoyed it. We could feel the spirit super strong at the end as we bore our testimonies on the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that has been restored through Joseph Smith. Super awesome lesson and we are going back over there tonight to watch The Restoration film with them and then have dinner. We are excited and really hope that it goes well.

Tuesday we did a scambio with the Palermo B Anziani in our district, so Anziano Jensen and I came here while Anziano Spencer and Anziano Brandon were in Palermo. It went really well and was good to get to know Anziano Jensen some more because we didn’t get many chances to talk one on one in the MTC. We were able to have a pretty successful scambio together and I definitely took a lot of good lessons away from it. We were able to randomly meet so many people I knew on the street that I never really see at all. It was really weird, but we turned out to have a lot of really good conversations. We finished up the scambio visiting some members and having lunch with them. We headed back to Palermo Wednesday so we could get there for interviews. Anziano Spencer and I teamed up again and went out for a night of finding that went really well and we were able to talk to some really awesome people. Hopefully the numbers will go places for the Anziani there. We stayed the night with the Anziani at the Palermo 1 house with all 4 of the anziani plus the assistants as well. It was fun, as always, to get to talk to everyone before heading to bed.

Zone conference was a lot of fun and we were able to really learn a lot from all our leaders. President Waddoups did two really good addestramentos. One on becoming a consecrated missionary, based around Tad R. Callister’s Becominng a Consecrated Missionary talk. It was super good and a really good reminder for me to make sure that I am putting my all on the altar of sacrifice for the Lord during my service over here. He then focused on the Book of Mormon and we have the challenge right now to read it in three months which is going really well. I am excited that we are all really trying to focus on Preach My Gospel and the Book of Mormon right now. The assistants, Anziano Flynn and Anziano Taranto (Toronto), gave an amazing addestramento about focusing on Preach My Gospel. Sorella Waddoups also had a really awesome activity that she did where we were able to share our thoughts on two missionaries, then the Book of Mormon, and finally the Savior. It was really awesome. Super fun zone conference for sure.

We did a lot of planning Friday night and then coordination meeting with our branch mission leader. Saturday we were able to have 4 lessons which was really awesome and they all went really well. The one with our new investigator from English course went really well and we were able to read Alma 32 together and it was awesome. We really look forward to seeing where he goes and how he progresses. He came to church too!! It was so awesome. I really love him a lot and really hope it all works out with him.

We went to Segesta again today, which was really fun, and we were able to go with Anziano Palazzo, Anziano Trejo, two other members from Palermo 1 and then an investigator of theirs. It was super fun.

Something that I really enjoyed from my study this week was from this morning was 2 Nephi 9:39.

39 O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.

I really like the last sentence. It is so true that as we are spiritually minded it truly helps us make the best decisions in life and helps us avoid falling into temptation from the adversary. I really liked that a lot to just be spiritually minded which will help us get to where we want to go, our enteral home with our Heavenly Father.

I love you all very much and hope that you all have an amazing week and that you enjoy life in all ways possible. Talk to you soon!

Vi voglio bene,

Anziano Garrett