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The Christmas Skype Call
A whole hour to catch up!

Once-a-week emails are great, but there’s nothing like interacting in real time, asking questions, getting answers, and being able to see each other!  We got to have a nice, hour-long conversation with Taylor yesterday (Christmas).  We had some technical difficulties to begin with (bandwidth issues), as he was connecting from the church in Tràpani, but once he had done a router reset, turned off another bandwidth-hogging computer, and determined, with Anziano Spencer, that they would go one at a time, it all worked.  Even though it took about 45 minutes to get it working right, once it was working, things went fine.

Taylor wanted to share a Christmas greeting for his blog, first in English and then in Italian.  So here it is:

My apologies for video quality.  I was shooting with my phone from a little ways away from the TV, but the sound is OK.

Tràpani – Week 12
Transfer 7, Mission Week 42

Buone Feste!!!

Hey I hope everyone had a great and fantastic week! I hope that you are all doing well! This week’s email will not be super long. I have been trying to send out some emails that I haven’t had the chance to in a while.

I don’t have a ton to report on this week. We had a good week and were able to meet one of our new investigators and trying to really help him feel the love that the Savior has for him. We have been able to visit some members this week and I always love getting to know them and help them in any way the Lord needs us to.

This week will be a little different with Christmas and such. I will be in Palermo for a while starting tomorrow for a scambio. We have a zone blitz as well where we will sing Christmas hymns together and do finding like that for awhile on Christmas Eve, then have a zone lunch and gift exchange. It will be a lot of fun.

I am excited to be able to Skype home! That will be really awesome and really amazing to talk with my family again. Face to face at least.

We are excited for Christmas. We have a branch activity tonight and we get to do the spiritual thought which will be really nice and it will be a good activity. Unfortunately it starts pretty late so we won’t be able to spend much time here at all.

Hopefully we will be able to go over to a members house this week for Christmas! That will be fun if we get the chance to. The weather is super nice so it feels weird that Christmas is already this close. I am so very thankful for this season that we have though. This time that we have to remember the Savior’s birth and the importance of Jesus Christ in our lives. I am so very grateful for this. I love these verses from Luke 2.

10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

I love these verses. I love that gospel, when taken back to the Greek meaning, means good news. This is really neat to me. The Angels brought the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This wonderful news that we have a Savior given unto us by our loving Heavenly Father. I am grateful that we too can all share this good news with others. Through our Christlike service and as well as sharing this wonderful message of Jesus Christ with others. I am so very thankful for him and all that he has done for each and everyone of us. Our older brother who is perfect. Who we can always look up to. Who is there with us in every moment of our lives. I love him so very much and am thankful for the relationship we have. I am grateful to that this relationship will always be able to grow and grow. I am thankful for this time of the year and the Christmas season. I really do love it.

I love you all and really hope that you all have a merry Christmas! I am thankful for all of you and being able to hear from you all! Thank you so much!

Love,

Anziano Garrett

Tràpani – Week 10
Transfer 6, Mission Week 40

Ciao Tutti!

I hope everyone had a wonderful week! We had to email in a cafe today because the Internet is out at the church. Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season back home! It is different here for sure. They have a festa tomorrow so a lot of the shops will be closed because that is the day that they put out their Christmas tree. It’s from the tradition that the Angel Gabriel visited Mary to announce that she would bear Jesus Christ. So tomorrow hopefully will be a good time for finding for us.

This week we were able to see 2 of our investigators and they have been reading in the Book of Mormon which is great. We want to help them progress and really be excited about how much blessings are in store for us as we embrace the gospel. I really know that with the gospel we will be able to have the most joy and happiness not only in this life, but in the life to come.

We were able to have some other really good lessons with some less actives as well as members. It is so nice and amazing to be able to follow promptings on spiritual thoughts and see that it was fit and really needed by the people that we share it with. I am thankful for the people I have the opportunity to know here and the friendships I have made with them. I hope that I will continue to get to meet amazing people and helping them to the best of my abilities.

We got our transfer calls this past Saturday and I will be staying here in Tràpani and Anziano LaPray will be heading up to Terni. It has been awesome to be able to work with him and I am thankful for all that I learned from him. He has showed wonderful examples of love, charity, awareness, and boldness. He is an awesome missionary and he speaks really awesome Italian. He is going to do amazing things. I look forward to being able to see him again later down the road in the mission. My new companion is going to be Anziano Spencer and he is coming down from Terni. We are just switching companions hahaha. It will be awesome though. Anziano Spencer is awesome and this will be his second city. Excited to start work with him Thursday! [Read more…]