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Catania – Week 9

August 1, 2016 By Leave a Comment

Ciao tutti!

I hope that everyone has had an excellent week and that you are all continuing to love the summer! It is definitely hot and humid here and we haven’t seen rain in over 2 months if I am not mistaken, but I am fine with that since it would make it even more humid. There has been no shortage of sweat that is for sure. We are really loving it though!

We were able to see some really cool miracles this week and are still working at trying to blow up our work right now. We were able to go and travel to see our investigator that lives a little outside of Catania. He is so sick [missionary-speak for awesome] and has been doing well in reading the Book of Mormon and really enjoys meeting with us and learning more and more.

He shows such a big faith and has a big desire to find the truth and follow the will of the Lord. He works every Sunday and work is something that is hard to find here in Italy right now so we are trying to figure out how to go about this and how we can help him have the faith that the Lord will help him make it to church. I think that we will teach him about fasting and prayer and that he will be able to receive more and more guidance on what to do. He is doing super well though and we had a really special lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the simplicity of the doctrine contained within. Faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and enduring to the end. It is such a simple plan that allows us to receive so many wonderful blessings in this life and the blessings that we can receive percent after this life if we do all we can to live worthy to receive them here.

We had another cool miracle when we were finding the other day! We were sitting in the park for a minute and I was trying to find something in the scriptures. This lady then came up to us and asked us if we were Mormon. She had met with the sisters about 2 years ago and then after transfers she must have gotten lost sort of and she was happy to be able to find us again. It was really cool and special that we were able to have a lesson with her and set up a return appointment. Another one was that we missed the bus we were running to get and did finding in the park next to it while we were waiting for the other one and the first people we stopped about English course ended up asking questions about who we were. It was cool and when I asked if they would want to meet up sometime one of the guys was super excited. He has a sick beard and is a really cool guy. We have a lesson with them this evening and he is bringing two friends as well!

We are enjoying Catania for sure and are loving all the members and the work that we have going on. I hope that we will continue to see these wonderful miracles as well! Tonight we get to go on scambio with the Zone Leaders which will be a wonderful opportunity to get to see these two awesome missionaries work! I am definitely excited for it!

We will have zone conference tomorrow which will be really good! Hope that you are all doing well and enjoying life. There is a scripture that I would like to share that is from Alma 38 where the prophet Alma is teaching to his son Shiblon and sharing with him his conversion story. He says.

8 And it came to pass that I was three days and three nights in the most bitter pain and anguish of soul; and never, until I did cry out unto the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy, did I receive a remission of my sins. But behold, I did cry unto him and I did find peace to my soul.

9 And now, my son, I have told you this that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn of me that there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness.

I love those verses and the testimony he shares of the reality of what happened to him. I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real and will cleanse and purify each one of us as we turn to him and do all we can to obey his gospel. I love my older brother Jesus Christ and all that he has done because it is truly only through him that we can receive salvation. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Garrett

[This photo is courtesy of Sister Daniela Battezzato, whose daughter, Stefania (center in blue dress) returned from the mission two months ago.  She and Taylor both served in the Rome East Zone when Taylor was a greenie]

 

Sorella Battezzato (center) returned to Italy to visit family in Catania and this is a picture of her with our district at church on 7/31/16.

Sorella Battezzato (center) returned to Italy to visit family in Catania and this is a picture of her with our district at church on 7/31/16.

Filed Under: Assignments, Catania Tagged With: ,

Cosenza – Week 11

May 30, 2016 By Leave a Comment

Ciao tutti!

I hope that everyone had a great week and that everything is going well wherever you find yourselves! This week went really well and flew by too! Monday we were able to have a couple of lessons with people and one which was just spontaneous, but ended up being really cool. It is super neat to see how when we have these unexpected opportunities the spirit really guides us to know what we need to share and it’s been really cool to see that this past week. The lesson with our one really sick [awesome] investigator went really well and it is awesome to see that he doesn’t try to find criticism whatsoever in the messages any more, but he just adds things that go right along with the message. It is super cool to see his progress even if it is slow sometimes. I will definitely miss him a ton.

Tuesday we were able to have DDM [district meeting] in the morning, which ended at 11:45 and we had to catch a bus at 11:50. We made it to the bus station and bought our tickets, but we ended up missing the bus. We asked one of the workers for the bus line where the next closest stop was so we could go and catch it. He said there wasn’t one and so we took off running after the bus and we ended up making it! Then 2 minutes later there was a stop that we could have easily made it too hahaha. We had a good visit with a less active person and were able to share a talk with him by President Uchtdorf entitled, “You Matter to Him.” It was a great visit and he is such a funny guy. He is really lonely so he really loves the comapany that we give him as well when we are over there. One of the few people that I have met here that really understands sarcasm hahaha. We then almost missed the bus that was supposed to head back into town as well, thank goodness we were blessed with another miracle. We had English groups that night and then we had a meal appointment with a member where we were also able to bring our sick investigator to. He is so cool and is awesome to see how integrated he already is into the ward and how polite and kind he is. He is so cool. We were able to have a good dinner with a good spiritual thought as well.

Wednesday we got on the train and headed down to Messina and then to Mistretta. Before we got on the train we did notice a sign that said something about a strike so we were a little worried, but it said our train was coming and we ended up being fine. We got down to the right station and then we were able to catch a ferry over to Messina. Once we got there we walked to the train station and then we were trying to find out where our train would be and this guy comes around the corner and starts speaking perfect English with an accent to us. Of course we were at the train stations so someone came up asking information about trains since they think we look like workers hahaha. It is good for service!! He explained how the train may get cancelled because of the strike so we needed to ask about what was going on. Well he commented on us in what rubbed us the wrong way and walked off. We went over near him and he started talking again and then we were able to get a good conversation going. He is half Italian and French, teaches at a university in the DC area, has 4 doctorate degrees, studied at Yale, speaks 4 fluent languages and has studied some others, and was just such a smart guy!! It ended up being a super cool miracle though since we were able to talk to him the whole ride down. We were able to have some really good things in there and he accepted the mini Book of Mormon that I had. We wrote our testimonies in it and gave it to him. It was super cool to see that we were supposed to go down there for even just a miracle like that. We were able to have some really good appointments up in Mistretta as well. It was really cool to see some of the work and the people that Anzinao Nessen had worked with and the love that you can see and feel between all of them. There was a family in particular that was super fun to meet, and it was so great to really see the love they have for the missionaries and the great faith that they all have. It felt super good to be in Sicilia again and was a lot of fun/productive trip! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Assignments, Cosenza, Food, Italy, Missionary Work, Places, Sicily, Transfers Tagged With: , , ,