Main Menu

Sciacca – Week 3
Transfer 15, Mission Week 92

Ciao tutti!

I hope all is going well now that all the Christmas festivities are in full swing and you all need to enjoy this month of December! Things have been nice and busy as normal this past week and we are loving it!

So we had a busy week being able to see some people and then we were in Palermo a couple of days as well! It all has been going super well and we are doing a lot of great things down here in Sciacca!

We had a great lesson with one of our investigators last week and he has been doing really well. It was a super touching lesson and we were able to pass over the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and see what his testimony and remembrance was regarding that lesson. He remembered a lot in detail about the lesson so it was able to be a simple pass over with a great opportunity to go into some more detail with him. We look forward to being able to see him tomorrow night and talk about the plan of salvation with him. He is a great kid and I really feel like he will make it to baptism for sure if he keeps working hard to find his answers.

We had a referral that was given to us the other week from a member that lives in Bari that was passed to us through the Palermo 2 Anziani. This lady has been so prepared from God! She was so excited to hear from us and meet us the other day! She is really wanting to make sure that she is drawing closer to God and finding greater peace in life. You can tell and feel this sincere desire that she has. It is so cool and special to feel the spirit as she asks questions that you know she just needs the answer. We are excited to see where we will be able to go with her and how we are going to be able to help her and guide her down this path to finding greater happiness! We are excited at how prepared that she is. So a few weeks ago she had a moment to sit down and reflect on where she stands before God and felt like she just had to make some changes. She kind of went through her head and went over all the commandments that she needed to make sure that she was keeping and coming up in that was the word of wisdom. She was all of a sudden able to realized without evening having a knowledge of the word of wisdom to give up smoking and drinking alcohol! It was so cool to hear that testimony from her. She is great and we are excited to be able to see her again this week!

We had a rare occasion this week and I am sorry for putting this down all the way here! We had some emergency transfers this week and I got a new companion  who is Anziano Campbell! I will definitely miss Anziano Hughes and hope that he will keep finding success all along the way! We were only together for a short period of time, but it was really great! I am glad that we were able to share the experiences that we did and I was able to learn from him! He is great and will keep doing amazing things! Anziano Campbell is awesome though and he is from Layton, UT. We are getting along great and we are excited to see all the things that we will be able to do here together and accomplish with one another. We are going to do great things and we are already seeing a ton of miracles together. I hope that we will continue to be able to have a great time with one another and recognize all that the Lord can teach us and is blessing us with.

We had a great time in Palermo for Specialized Training and I was able to learn a lot that we can apply into our work here in Sciacca.

We are excited to see what we can apply from what we learned to make sure that we can get to where we need to go. President Pickerd went through all the baptisms from this past transfer and it was great to be able to see all the pictures and hear all the miracles that are happening in the mission! One was this new convert that was baptized a week or so ago! She was the sister of this new convert that was baptized a few months ago! So the new convert was in fact someone I spent a pday with in Segesta with the Palermo zone leaders and Anziano Spencer a long time ago! She was doing well when they were teaching her, but then the Anziani decided to rest her for a little and she was picked back up a few months ago and was so ready to learn again and made it all the way to baptism. I think it is super cool because last winter when I was on a scambio in Palermo Anziano Palazzo and I were doing street finding for a Christmas sondaggio and we stopped this new convert’s other sister (one that isn’t baptized yet) and that is how she met the Anziani. It is amazing how different everyone’s stories are and that she was able to finally make it to baptism. Super cool to see how it can all start with one simple conversation on the street and helps you know to just keep going and opening your mouth.

This week went really well and we are excited to see what next week has for us. We were able to walk forever yesterday all the way out to a less active’s house and I think that they were super excited to have us over and they were surprised that we walked that far to go and see them, but it went super well and we had a great little lesson with them last night. Hopefully we will be able to see some great things happen with them because the wife is the only member of the family and they have 3 boys. Would really be amazing! Everything is going great though! We had fast and testimony meeting yesterday and I am thankful that we have the opportunity as we serve God and do the acts that Jesus Christ would do for others to come to really know our Savior, not just know things about him.

This talk that Elder Bednar gave last general conference really touched me and I would invite you all to read it because he really helps us realize that is important to know the Savior and we can do so through the simple steps that he lays before us.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/if-ye-had-known-me?lang=eng

It is a great talk and don’t forget to keep checking Mormon.org on how we can do these acts of service daily this month! Love you all and hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Anziano Garrett

Palermo Zone, December, 2016

Palermo Zone, December, 2016

Palermo Zone Anziani, December, 2016.  My new companion, Anziano Campbell, is on the far left.  He is in his 4th transfer.

Palermo Zone Anziani, December, 2016. My new companion, Anziano Campbell, is on the far left. He is in his 4th transfer.

Tràpani – Week 23
Transfer 8, Mission Week 53

Ehi tutti!

I hope that everyone had an awesome week and that you were able to find the time to do everything that you had to do.

This week went really well for Anziano Spencer and I and we were able to see a lot of cool things happen in our work. We really hope that we will continue to see awesome things as well.

This past Monday we had another good lesson with that family and we were able to watch the restoration video together and it went really well. We really think they understood at least the major differences between our church and theirs and we hope that they will continue to search out this for themselves. We really love them a lot and they are super awesome and we really just want to help them as much as we can, but it is up to them to act and keep the commitments that we leave to find out for themselves whether or not it is true. We had a good lesson after that with another family and it went well. It was kind of a crazy dinner with a lot of random things happening hahaha. It was short because we got done eating dinner so late, but they invited us to come over again Thursday night so we will see how it goes.

Tuesday after our DDM we started our scambio and Anziano Trejo and I were able to ride back to Trapani with the Wurdles who are a senior couple in Mistretta right now. They are super nice and they had to come down to do another apartment check so that went well and we were able to enjoy getting to know them better and chat with them the whole way down. They are super awesome. Anziano Trejo and I had a good night of finding, English course, and then we went over to visit a member’s home. It all went really well and I always enjoy learning everything that I can from all the other missionaries, since there are so many things that we can learn from everyone. Which is why I like so much that we have different people speak in church each and every week and never the same people each week. We can all just learn from everyone.

Wednesday we got two bidones and then we went to visit this member house for lunch but things got swapped around so they gave us food as they watched us eat because we had to get back to Palermo. She wasn’t going to allow us to leave without eating something so we sat their and ate a quick lunch before heading back up to Palermo to swap back.

The scambio went really well and I can just see how much Anziano Trejo cares about the members and the people he works with. He is also really good at being super bold with everyone he meets which is a super good quality that he has, that really helps him in so many different aspects of the work. I was really kind of having a rough day that day as well and we were on the bus home and I just was kind of down. I was really hoping as the bus filled up that I would get someone to sit next to me and on the last stop the last guy to get on sat down next to me. It was super awesome and was able to have a really good conversation with him that really helped me a lot. It went really well.  It is just unfortunate that he lives on one of the islands off the coast of Tràpani so seeing him is near impossible. Well I really wanted to get him a Book of Mormon so we exchanged numbers and said that we could possibly meet the next morning down near centro where he would be staying before going on a boat to his home. We finished off the night trying to find some less actives and trying to visit all of them if we can. [Read more…]

Tràpani – Week 22
Transfer 8, Mission Week 52

Ciao tutti!

Hope that everyone had a great week and that you were all able to accomplish the things that you needed to do! Our week went well for us.

Monday night we were able to go over to that family’s house and were able to have a nice meal together and then share a shorter spiritual thought than we had originally planned, but it went really well! They are super awesome and the mom was able to read in the Book of Mormon which we were really happy about. We hope that she will be able to continue in it and that we will be able to really get the girl to get started in it as well. We will be watching the Restoration film with them tonight so we are excited.

Tuesday we had our DDM, which went really well, and Anziano Brandon and I started our scambio and we stayed in Palermo. It went well, and we were able to do a good amount of finding for the night before English Course. It was really cool to see some small miracles while we were finding. One guy in particular stuck out to me. We were walking and we both made eye contact and I just think that he knew I was going to say something and I had a small feeling that he would stop, but also possibily go on. He stopped and watched the video that we were sharing and it went really well. Hopefully they will be able to see that guy soon. English course went well and then we were back to the house. The environment of a four man house is a lot different. It was really funny because Anziano Trejo is trying to eat better and put on more muscle and of course Anzinao Palazzo knows what he is talking about. He just has to ask every night what he can and can’t eat hahaha. Pasta was a big no no, but he couldn’t find anything else so he let temptation beset him and Anziano Palazzo wasn’t happy with him. His punishment was getting punched in the stomach for his ab workout the next day. It was really funny hahaha.

Wednesday started with a good workout and we were able to finish up our scambio with some more finding after doing some permesso stuff for Anzinano Brandon.  We headed back to Tràpani after Anziano Spencer and Anziano Jensen showed up. W finished up our night with some finding in Tràpani.

Thursday we started off with doing our program sheet to keep track of Book of Mormon reading for the members. I really hope they will undertake the challenge to read it within four months. We were really pumped for English Course because afterwards we were able to share the film Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. It went really well and I think that the English Course students definitely enjoyed it and they were able to definitely learn more about the story and history of Joseph Smith. I am definitely thankful for all that he has done for us and all the sacrifices he made to keep doing the will of the Lord. I know that he is a prophet of the Lord and has done so much for us I love these scriptures in D&C 135. [Read more…]

Tràpani – Week 21
Transfer 8, Mission Week 51

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

Sometimes sidewalk chalk drawings are used for finding on the street.

Sometimes sidewalk chalk drawings are used for finding on the street.

On the beach at Tràpani, Sicily

On the beach at Tràpani, Sicily

Segesta excursion, Feb 22, 2016

Segesta excursion, Feb 22, 2016

Zone conference fun, Palermo Zone, Feb. 2016

Zone conference fun, Palermo Zone, Feb. 2016

Palermo 1 District, Feb. 2016

Palermo 1 District, Feb. 2016

[Photos of zone conference from Sister Waddoups’ blog]

Palermo Zone, February, 2016

Palermo Zone, February, 2016

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups' blog)

Palermo Zone Conference, Feb. 2016 (from Sis. Waddoups’ blog)

Tràpani – Week 20
Transfer 8, Mission Week 50

Buon San Valentino!!

Hope that everyone had an awesome week this week and that you all enjoyed everything that you were able to do!! This week was filled with a lot finding and then a nice and busy Saturday full of lessons.

I will start off with a miracle that we were able to see Monday. After getting done playing pool with two of our friends at the bowling alley, we had some lessons planned at the church. We were waiting forever for one of the guys to show up but, unfortunately, he literately took forever. So we waited and waited and he finally came with 3 friends and thought we were doing some sort of English lesson. It was weird hahaha. Well he left and so we decided to go and try a less active again. Well she was home, but didn’t feel like answering the door, so we decided to move on from that too. We got to one of the busier streets and literately saw only one person. We then decided to go up to him and ask if we could share a quick video with him. He said no and brushed it off super fast. Anziano Spencer then asked about English course and he was interested in that. He is really good at it since he lived out of Italy for a while. The conversation just kind of went on and he asked what church we were a part of, which then, in turn, allowed us to share the restoration with him. He sat there and listened, intrigued. We asked him what he thought of that and he said he wasn’t really thinking too much about it, but he believed that things happen for a reason. He said that he normally never talks about religion with others at all so he said this may have happened for a reason as well.

It was super cool and we were super pumped because then he asked us to do a little homework and he wanted to know how the gospel changed our life and in what way it affects us daily. We were pumped and then asked when he wanted to meet and he said tomorrow or the next day. We got an appointment scheduled and everything. We were super pumped to see how it all laid out.

Tuesday was really cool at District Meeting to be able to meet all the new missionaries in the district. They are all super cool and really funny. We have a super funny district and it will be a lot of fun! It was really awesome to get to catch up with Anziano Jensen as well. We will be going on a scambio this Tuesday as well.

Back to the miracle guy. Well Wednesday comes around and the miracle guy never showed up and blocked our phone. We had confirmed and everything, and he had asked us more good questions through texts.  It was hard to see, but I thought that he handled it well with moving on and we kept going.

Saturday turned out to be awesome. We started off the morning with a less active lesson that one of our members drove us t,o which was super nice of him. We then met with one of our English Course students and had a lesson in English that went super well! He is so awesome and it was great to get to know him better and share our message with him. He accepted a baptism date and everything that we will be helping him work towards. We are super excited to be able to work with him and are really happy with the way it all turned out. We never know who is ready to receive the gospel. We could never tell if he was interested in our spiritual thoughts, but he is truly ready for the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are pumped for him. We got to meet another awesome guy that evening and the lesson went super well there too. We were able to share a really good Restoration lesson with him and he is excited to read it. It will be really sweet to see where he ends up as well. It was so very nice to be blessed with all of that on Saturday and it was really just amazing. Church was awesome this Sunday and I was able to really learn a lot and enjoyed it a ton. [Read more…]

Tràpani – Week 17
Transfer 7, Mission Week 47

Ciao!

I hope that everyone had a great week! This week we were able to have a few more lessons, but we are still working really hard to be able to find some more work right now. It was a great week though!

Monday we were able to go bowling with a friend of ours which went super well and it was a lot of fun. We were able to play pool too, which I haven’t played in so long so that was a blast. He is super cool and we were able to have a super good conversation with him afterwards and invited him to take the lessons. He said yes which was so awesome to us and we were super pumped up! We then got ready and did finding after that and it went super well! We had to make the decision to go left or right out of the apartment and we went left and ended up right away meeting someone that was in a hurry to the postoffice. We were doing the sondaggio on the scriptures, and he gave a quick response that didn’t show at first that he had much interest, but he was just in a hurry. He stuck around though and we talked for while and were able to get his number and an appointment with him which was super cool! We then kept going in finding and we ended up meeting that less active we had met by the stadium just two weeks prior in the exact same spot. It was super awesome and he asked for our number so it was super sick to be able to see those miracles that were happening that night. It is really amazing the things that Heavenly Father allows us to be a part of. We then finished off the night with a family home evening with a member family. We were able to have two lessons this week that went really well with one of our investigators. He is really intelligent and a super nice guy. He is a lot of fun to talk to, but we unfortunately can’t see him right now because he just expressed to us that he isn’t really ready to commit. Hopefully down the road the Anziani will be able to meet with him again and he will be ready then. [Read more…]

Tràpani – Week 16
Transfer 7, Mission Week 46

Ciao!

I hope everybody’s week went by well and you all really enjoyed it. It is crazy how fast the time goes by here in the mission. All of a sudden it is Sunday again and its just really weird how the time just rolls by here on the mission. I can’t believe I am rolling up to my year mark. That to me is insane.

The weather turned around all of a sudden and now it has been super windy and pretty cold. The wind is pretty crazy here in Trapani because of the way that the city is laid out around the sea we have wind that can come from all directions so when it starts to pick up it is really strong. Had to bust out my heavy winter coat for the first time last night.

We had a lot of finding this week. We had a good DDM as usual on Tuesday in Palermo and came back for finding around Trapani. We do what is called “White Board” finding. We a question on the board and do a little survey or sometimes we will write “Corso D’Inglese Gratuito!” It is fun and we have some good conversations from it.

We had good English Course lessons this week and we saw some new faces there which is really nice. We always love getting new sick students that become really good friends of ours.

We were able to hit a good number of families in the branch this week to get started on our member plan that we prepared for them. It will hopefully yield a lot of ways to get the members more involved in the work with us and help strengthen them at the same time. We were able to talk to some really awesome people this week, and we hope that they will be willing to meet with us so that we can help them in any way that we can.

We got two new investigators this week. It is a younger couple which is really cool. We gave the first lesson at a Tabaccheria because that is where they asked to meet us.  It went really well, but next time we will be meeting in the church which will be a lot better in order to avoid distractions and better to be able to feel the spirit more strongly. They asked a lot of really good questions and she really wants to know the truth which is really sweet.

We had a good Sunday yesterday as well. We ate at one of our regular families we go to after church on Sunday. They are super awesome and just so so so nice. We finished off the night with some less active and white board finding. We asked the question, “Perchè abbiamo le scritture?” (Why do we have the scriptures) and it went really well. We got some really good conversations out of it and a few phone numbers. [Read more…]

Tràpani – Week 15
Transfer 7, Mission Week 45

Ciao!

I hope everyone had a great week! Good to hear the weather back home is doing its normal jump arounds. This is easily the warmest winter I have ever had in my life. It’s weird.

Right now we are on the bus going to Segesta, an old Greek temple and I am enjoying a new ride I have never taken, enjoying the Sicilian countryside. It is really beautiful. Today is Anziano Spencer’s birthday which is cool! So we are going to do something really cool today.

Segesta, Sicily

Segesta, Sicily

Sorry I didn’t explain what an “ape” was last week. It literately means bee, but In this case it is like one of those three wheeled small car things with a truck bed. So it was funny to see all this stuff piled on the back of it.

"Ape" referred to last week was probably similar to this!

“Ape” referred to last week was probably similar to this!

This week went well though! We are really trying hard to be the best we can be. We are trying to work hard smart, and effectively as possible.

Right after pday last week we started the evening off with some finding. We were talking to people next to the soccer stadium heading down to a street that usually has more people and we tried to share a video with a man that didn’t have any interest, so we kept walking.

After noticing this man in the car witnessing the rejection, Anziano Spencer waved at him. All of a sudden we heard someone say, “Hey guys!” (in the Italian version) He had gotten out of his car and wanted to talk. We got to talking and found out he is a member. He didn’t have any interest right now in meeting with us but said he would come to English course. We did see him there and he participated really well in our spiritual thought and it was really cool to see him in those small moments where he came to Christ more in his life. It was a really cool miracle.

Wednesday we had district meeting in Palermo and got stuck there a little longer than we had initially intended to because it was La Festa di Befana, which is some sort of witch that comes and takes all the Christmas stuff down and then either leaves gifts like candy and such or coal for the children. I don’t know how I feel about this holiday. We are already letting Santa in our houses and we have trusted him over the years, but I don’t know about some old witch coming into people’s houses.

Another miracle I saw this week was with another corso [English course] student we have that is super cool! We have a really awesome friendship with her and she is super fun to talk to and her English is very good. She studies all sorts of languages so it is cool to see someone that is very gifted with learning so many languages. We were able to share our testimonies with her after English course and had a more in depth talk about the gospel with her. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said that she would read it! It was super cool!

We did some corso finding down to centro [downtown] and back on Friday night and talked to a really nice family that we think we will see at English course.

Saturday we traveled over to Valderice for a lesson and came back in the afternoon. Unfortunately we don’t think we will be headed back over there. The family just wasn’t ready to listen to our message. They were super nice though.

Valderice.12

Sunday we were able to begin our member missionary plan. We are helping the members kind of design a plan that fits for them individually. We are really looking forward to it because we think that it will help strengthen the members at the same time. It will be a fun time being able to work it out with them. We had a fun time during some finding this past week even though we didn’t have any success in getting numbers or appointments with people. It is a lot of fun having conversations with people where we can show them that we are pretty normal people. We are definitely peculiar, but normal all the same. [Read more…]

Tràpani – Week 14
Transfer 7, Mission Week 44

Ciao!

I hope that everyone had a fantastic New Years celebration and that everyone started the new year out super well!

So this week we were able to accomplish some really cool things. Monday we had a lesson with one of our investigators and we unfortunately had to drop him. He just wasn’t in the right mindset to listen right now and wasn’t keeping the commitments necessary to be able to keep moving forward.

He expressed interest in English Course so we hope to be able to keep in touch with him through that and hopefully in time he will be ready to meet with the Anziani down the road. We then were supposed to have a lesson with a potential [investigator] after that and we had a member there with us as well, but the investigator showed up late. We got to talk to the member, though, while we were waiting and it ended up being super worthwhile because we were able to help him out and we could feel the spirit super strong while we were talking with him. It was super cool and special for us to be able to have that. Literally as soon as our member had to leave the investigator showed up. It is interesting and amazing how that all works out. We had a good lesson with our investigator. He kind of takes things he likes from all different religions and flows with that so we will see where it goes. If he reads the Book of Mormon everything else will fall into place.

Tuesday we had district meeting and then a member lesson after we got back from Palermo. It went really well and we were able to help the Sorella out the best we could. We then had English Course that night and were able to have a nice lesson with them. I really love our English Course students a lot. They are all super cool and super nice. We always enjoy getting to see them and then sharing the spiritual thoughts at the end.

Wednesday we tried to go down to centro twice to be able to find some service opportunities but didn’t come up with anything. We had correlation that night with our branch mission leader and we were able to talk about all the work going on. Our branch mission leader is super awesome though. He is so nice and really funny.

Thursday we had a super cool lesson with an new investigator, that we had originally met with a random text in October when Anziano LaPray was here. These were the texts.

Random Phone Number: Buon pomeriggio signore Antonino chiedo scusa per il ritardo che avrò nei suoi riguardi. Farò lo più presto possibile.

Nome. Grazie (Good afternoon Mr. Antonino excuse me that I will be late. I will do it as soon as possible. Name. Thanks!)

Us: Simao I missionari che facciamo il corso d’inglese io gratuito.

Possiamo aiutarti con qualcosa? (We are the missionaries that have a free English course. Can we help you with something? We thought that she was originally asking for English course because we had received a call from someone with the same name a couple days prior)

Random Phone Number: Siete voi che fate il corso d’inglese io pensavo che erano i mormoni. Dove lo fate e che giorno? (You guys teach the English course? I thought it was the Mormons. Where do you do it and what day?)

Us: Sì. Siamo i mormoni e facciamo questo corso per servizio. Lo abbiamo ogni martedì e giovedì alle 18:30 Bella Nostradamus chiesa.

Via Della Provincia 5-7. (Yes we are the Mormons and we do it as a form of service. We have it every Tuesday and Thursday in 6:30 I our church.)

Random Phone Number: voi date anche il corso operatore socio sanitario che ad iniziato ieri? (You guys also give a social sanitary operator course that started yesterday?)

Us: Allora. Non facciamo quello corso. Mi dispiace. Ma, hai l’informazione per il corso d’Inglese? (So. No we teach that course.

I’m sorry. But, you have the information for he English course right?

Random Phone Number: No ne ho l’informazione. (No I don’t have any information.)

Us: Lo abbiamo ogni martedì e giovedì alle 18:30 nella nostra chiesa.

Via Della Provincia 5-7 (we have it every Tuesday and Thursday in our church at 6:30)

We totally thought this was some sort of prank. We had to give her the information twice so we totally thought it was some monelli (rascals).

We then are doing finding a little later and end up meeting this lady on the street and it ends up being that same person. It was super weird but really cool! She came to English course once but hadn’t come back since. Anziano Spencer and Anziano Trejo met her on the street during the scambio and now we are teaching her. She is really cool and has a lot of faith and great relationship with Jesus Christ and our Father in Heaven. She said a lot of awesome things during the lesson and hen after said some really profound stuff that really hit me. It was super cool, and you could feel the spirit very strong. We had English course again but only two people came because it was New Years Eve but it still went really well! We shared this super cool video about the New Year. It is really cool and I really like the message.

It counsels us to not look back at the past, but to look forward with faith and keep going forward with our savior. It is really good and I would invite you all to watch it.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-12-21-new-years-look-not-behind-thee?category=mormon-messages/mormon-messages-2010&lang=eng

For our celebration for dinner we made some beans and had resses and jones soda. It was a good way to celebrate. It is crazy to think another year has come and gone and it just absolutely flew by. I hope to be able to set some really good goals for this year and keep moving forward and progressing as much as I can.

For New Year’s Day we were inside all day cleaning. We cleaned non stop except for a short dinner break and then went right back to cleaning.

It was good though and we were able to get some things thrown out and did some good cleaning and the house looks even better now. We had to throw out and old fridge and a member came and picked it up in an ape [autocorrect error??].

It was hilarious. I wish I had a picture of it hahaha. Saturday we saw a member and had a less active lesson and it went really well too.

Sunday we had a great meal after church and we ate some good food. We had a pasta del furono shock was killer. It had some different meats in it boiled eggs, and a nice ragu sauce. It was awesome. Then we had some beef wrapped around prosciutto with Parmesan in the inside and along the outside, with salad and bread of course. Went to our fruit next where I had a pear. Then finished it off with empanadas looking things with ricotta in the inside. It was an awesome meal. The food is really good down here and we were able to share a spiritual thought for someone who isn’t a member afterwards. Had some finding after that down to centro and back home to close up the week.

This week I got an email and it was talking about missionary work and she said how exciting it must be to help people change their lives and how one person can just change someone’s world. It caused me to reflect on that and I thought it about the Savior. He did that he changed my life, but not just mine. He literately changed everything.

All of our lives. I am so grateful for that. For the cleansing power of his atoning sacrifice and how we can truly change our lives through him. I am thankful for the savior and know that everyone of us can look to draw ever closer to him this year.

I hope that you all will have a wonderful week and that you will be able to enjoy everything that life throws at you. I love you all and talk to you all soon!

Love,

Anziano Garrett

Excellent missionary food

Excellent missionary food

Excellent missionary food

Excellent missionary food

Anziano Spencer is ready to eat!

Anziano Spencer is ready to eat!

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Caroling in Palermo, Dec. 24, 2015

Tràpani – Week 13 (Christmas Week)
Transfer 7, Mission Week 43

Ciao Tutti!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas week and a good time celebrating with friends and especially family. The week was really weird. I was in Palermo from Tuesday until Thursday doing a scambio with Anziano Palazzo. We had a really good scambio and I definitely learned a lot from him. We were able to see this new investigator that they received. Months ago the Sorelle met this younger guy on the bus and they were talking to him and he was asking questions and they said it was a really good conversation, but he wasn’t interested to meet and learn more. They felt they needed to leave him with the Book of Mormon so they did. Then just about 2 weeks ago he showed up to English course and he had read the introduction and something really hit him about the Book of Mormon (the spirit). He is now super interested and wants to learn more so we met with him and had a really awesome lesson on the restoration. He is very intelligent and understands things really well. He is such a humble guy and super nice. We then had English course there and talked about Christmas for the lesson which was a good time.

Wednesday we did finding in the morning for English course and then switched it to a Christmas survey before lunch. We handed a ton of English Course bigliettini [cards] out. Then, disgustingly, I somehow ate 425 grams [15 ounces] of pasta in a sitting and was still hungry afterwards. That was really gross. In the evening we went to this Palace in Palermo and sung for the employees there. It was super cool! A member had set it up and invited the missionaries. We then did finding on the way back to Palermo 1’s church. Anziano DaPonte and I went out and did Christmas Survey finding together which was a lot of fun. We were then able to finish up the night with another lesson with that super sick guy. The plan of salvation really went well and he is such a good guy.

So for the holidays it worked a little different than a normal week.

We had somewhat of Pdays you could say starting at 1:00pm on the 24th and going until 6:00am on the 26th. And we had permission during this time to skype our families, go to members for meals, watch 2 animated movies, and other pday appropriate activities. Thursday we had our zone blitz where we sang Christmas carols with all the missionaries in the zone. It was a really good time, and my voice definitely hurt afterwards. We had some members and investigators there with us singing as well. We sang at the two big piazzas where the opera houses are in Palermo. They are really cool. So we had a really nice backdrop for our caroling. We were talking to people that were walking by and listening to the caroling. We shared the Christmas video with them and tried to receive potentials for the Palermo areas. [Read more…]