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Tràpani – Week 6

Ciao tutti!

I hope that everyone had an amazing week and that all is well back home wherever that may be for you! We had a good week this week and we were able to have some really great lessons. The weather is treating us well here in Tràpani. It is really pretty with all the sunsets and just the beauty of the city. We found USA food in a grocery store.  [see photo below] We also got 2 meters of pizza within 24 hours. We did not eat the entire 2nd one thank goodness. That one was shared with 3 others. We had gnocchi yesterday too, which was the first time since home. And more horse.

Tràpani is an amazing city with amazing people and I really look forward to being able to meet more and more of them. We are really having some good success in talking with a ton of people, but are still searching for those that are willing to listen to the message that we bring them.

This week we had an awesome first lesson with a member’s friend and we are really looking forward to continue to meet with her and her family very soon. She has a strong desire to learn more and to grow. She will be super awesome to meet with. We were also able to have two really good lessons with our investigators and last night we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. It was super cool and I always love watching that film. The spirit you can feel when talking about Joseph Smith. I am so grateful for everything he did. I know Jesus Christ truly restored his Church through Joseph Smith. It is amazing to know that God still talks to us today and provided the evidence necessary to know spiritually that this is Christ’s church on the earth once more.

This week for my ponderizing scripture I chose Hebrews 9:11

11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

With Christ even through times of difficulties there will always be good things to come. I love the Mormon Message with the same title. Good Things to Come. I love this quote that from the talk it is based around by Elder Jeffery R. Holland.

Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.

I would invite you all to watch the Mormon Message. It is really good as all of Elder Holland’s talks are.

Anziano LaPray and I will be staying another transfer together here in Tràpani. It will only be 4 weeks long because the Church doesn’t want to be having missionaries travel during the Christmas season. So the transfer after that will be 8 weeks long. I think I will be here for that one as well. We love working together and we are really growing together. We are really hoping to see a lot more investigators as we continue to try our best to talk with everyone we can. I love working with Anziano LaPray. He is super awesome. He is really funny and we are having a great time working with each other.

Everyone else in the district is remaining here other than Sorella Argyle, who is being transferred to Ostia for her last transfer.

Sorry I don’t have much else to report on this week. We are really looking forward to these next 4 weeks. I am loving Italy. It is wonderful getting to meet and love people here. It is an amazing place. I’m so very thankful for the opportunity to be here. I hope that everyone is enjoying life and soon Thanksgiving, which I don’t think exists here… But you all will enjoy it! Hope everyone has a wonderful week and I will hear from you all very soon!

Love,

Anziano Garrett

USA Food in a local Tràpani grocery store. Anziano LaPray has already picked out some pancake syrup.

USA Food in a local Tràpani grocery store. Anziano LaPray has already picked out some pancake syrup.

Tràpani – Week 1

Buongiorno!

I made it down to Sicilia safely and made it to Tràpani. We found out Wednesday night I had to be staying in Rome 2 [for the night]so President and Sister Waddoups came and picked us up. We stayed the night there with some others that were parting to different areas. We got picked up by a senior missionary that took us to the airport early in the morning and our flight was supposed to take off at 8:25 but was delayed just a little. The flight didn’t take too long at all, but I was surprised they flew us down instead of putting us on a train. Tràpani is really nice and is a lot different than Roma. It is less busy with people on the streets for sure. When we landed the other missionaries were waiting for us and we got on the bus to go to Palermo and then caught a bus to Tràpani. The ride was very pretty on the way to Tràpani.

Adjusting to a different area is weird. I feel like I was in Rome for so long I just knew my way around everywhere and knew the members super well. It will be an adjustment, but one that will be great for sure. I haven’t had a chance to meet too many members at all. Just a handful of them. Still getting used to the area and how to get around.

I haven’t run into a ton of difficulty with the language down here.  The two languages of the bilinguals are Italian and Sicilian, which sound so much different hahaha. I did hear two people speaking it one day while doing some finding and it sounded so much different. I couldn’t really make anything out at all.

So we are in the Palermo 1 district which consists of me, Anziano LaPray, Anziano Kennedy, Anziano Trejo, Sorella McFarland, and Sorella Argyle. So we are going to be doing district meetings in Palermo.

Since it was conference weekend we were able to watch every session except the last one. I really enjoyed conference and look forward to being able to study the talks more here soon. It was really good and the talks given were really good. I especially liked Elder Holland’s, President Eyring’s in priesthood session, President Nelson’s, and President Uchtdorf’s from the general women’s session. It was a really enjoyable conference. One of the most important things with conference is taking the things that we learned and applying them in our lives. We can set goals that will help us be able to do this and I need to sit down and set some goals for how I can improve on the path of discipleship. There are always things that we can work on in our life and like President Eyering said our faith is either increasing or decreasing. There is no middle ground. And we can always look to progress in our lives.

It was also very awesome to see the 3 new apostles called to the Quorum of the Twelve. I look forward to getting to know them more and hear from them in the future conferences. I will miss Elder L. Tom Perry, Elder Richard G. Scott, and President Boyd K. Packer and the beautiful messages they always gave. They have left us with wonderful teachings and things we can still continue to learn from. [Read more…]