Ehi!!

I hope that everyone had a great week and that all went well back home with Thanksgiving and what not! It didn’t feel like a normal Thanksgiving this year, but everything went well and we had a nice hard day of work and then finished off the night with a pizza for dinner hahaha. Hope all the nice home cooking was a great treat for everyone and you all got to spend some great time with your family and friends.

So this was our first full week in Sciacca and it is going so well!

We are really loving it here and we are putting a lot of hard work. We are doing our best to make sure that we are doing all we can to help all the people we can come unto Christ. We didn’t have any new investigators per say this week, but we were able to pick up some of the people that the last missionaries had been working with and they are both awesome! We had some great lessons with both of them this past week and we were super happy with the way that they both went! We had one lesson with one of the guys set up for Tuesday and he didn’t come, which was a bummer. We rescheduled for Thursday and we thought he wasn’t coming again but he came just a little late. It was a little weird but we had a lesson with him and then there was a little kid form English group that sat in on the lesson too. The lesson was still going really well and then we had another English group member come in and he sat down too so it was a little weird, but all went well!  So it was a little strange lesson that we had, but then we scheduled another one for Saturday and we were able to have our Branch President there and the lesson went so well. We read 1 Nephi 1 with him and then extended commitments to read, pray, come to church, and be baptized!  He accepted all of them and the spirit was super strong in the lesson!

We were really excited and we really feel and believe that he will make it if he puts in all the hard work to look and seek for his answer. It will be super cool and he is such an awesome guy that is 20 so that will be really special! Hope that he keeps putting in all the work! We are also seeing a lot of progress out of the other friend we are working with! He started reading more this week and had an incredible recollection of all the things that he read! We are going to see a lot of wonderful things with him as well.

We were able to meet the members this past Sunday and it went really well. We had a great meeting with everyone and the branch is really small but super powerful in spirit! We are really able to see and feel the strength of their testimonies. It was a super special block and the time is a little stranger than other places I have been because we go from 10:00-12:30 in the same room all together and it is back to doing sacrament last which is a weird switch! It was awesome though and we had one of our sweet friends in church which was super awesome.  We were super happy and excited about that!

Everything is going so well here in Sciacca and we are loving it! The other cities in our district are Agrigento which has Anziano Jensen who is in my group and Anziano Bolton, and that is a branch over there! Then we have a group in Caltanisetta where we have Anziano Bowers and Anziano Lancaster. It is a nice and strong little district that we have and we are all seeing a ton of miracles. For instance this past Sunday in church Agrigento had 9 people in church excluding their members! They had 6 investigators, 3 potentials, and then also less active that haven’t come in a while! That was such a cool miracle to hear and to see all the blessings that the Lord is pouring out upon us all!

So this past week the new church Christmas initiative released and it is so awesome!! It is called Light The World. The video is super amazing and it is really powerful. It talks and shows about how we can be lights to everyone around us by living a life of service just like our Savior Jesus Christ did! It is awesome and I would invite each of you to watch it!

Better yet, though, it has a program that we can follow to these acts of service each day in many fun and creative ways! It is so amazing and I would also invite each of you to look into that and look at how you can be lights to the world. I know that He is the Light of the World and has done everything to save us. He put His love into actions by doing everything that God asked Him to do. I am thankful for the life and love of Jesus Christ in my life and the light that he brings and that shines into my life always. I pray that we will all see and feel that as we go about everything that we are doing at all times in life.

I know that He is there for each and everyone of us and He always is searching us out. Love you all and hope that you all have a fantastic week!

Love,

Anziano Garrett

My new greenie, Anziano Hughes

With Anziano Hughes on the steps of the theater in Palermo

Palermo zone missionaries at the Palermo Teatro Massiomo, November 21, 2016

Some Gelato in Palermo