Ciao tutti!
I wish to speak of the growth that I've
accumulated on my mission, in all the various forms that I feel comfortable
talking about. As many of you know, a mission usually lasts for two years for
all male participants, and I'm happy to say that I've completed one whole year
of my life as a dedicated missionary. The 27th of June, 2018, I entered the MTC
at 12:17 pm and started classes at 12:45 until 8 pm where I was then taken back
to my room after a dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and fell asleep
pretty quick. I couldn't speak the language, I weighed 260 pounds,
understandably I was very insecure of myself and the new surroundings didn't
help me at all with these feelings, and I had a very limited knowledge of the
gospel seeing how I didn't have the greatest study habits before the mission
for either school, or the gospel and because of this I was sorely under
prepared to face life outside of home and the testimonies of my parents.
As time went on, as it always has and
always will, I began to realize just how badly I needed to grow and how hard it
was to do so. There's a difference in growing for yourself because you want to,
and growing yourself because you need to. Serving a mission in a place where
the predominant religion is catholicism and the people are Italian can and
does, test my mettle every day. In order to teach, I needed to talk. In order
to talk, I needed to learn. In order to learn, I needed the spirit, to have the
spirit, I need to pray. That's why I pray every morning, and why we are asked
to do so every day, so God can bless us with his power and strengthen us as we
go throughout our day that we may come out the Victor.
After a year in Italy, I consider myself
fluent in Italian (not enough so that I could just bust out a ten minute talk
in sacrament meeting without warning if needed, but I can translate those talks
pretty good) and seeing how the whole month of July last year I was struggling
to put the words together to ask how your day went. Whereas now, I can tell you
how Joseph Smith was called of God and received the priesthood to guide the
restored church on the earth, with no difficulty. I'm just saying, if you don't
think you need to grow, serve a mission. That attitude will change in the
course of 30 minutes after you arrive in the MTC and realize how little you can
do on your own.
The Week as it stands:
Monday: We had zone calcio with
President Pickerd. It was his first, and also last zone calcio before he goes
home. He left this Saturday, and was replaced by President Smith from Idaho.
Good stuff! I was super burned as I believe I mentioned last week, but anyhow,
that's still a thing that happened and I'm pretty recovered from it now. The
trek home from the temple that day was a nightmare because our first of two
busses "broke down" on the way to the station. I'm pretty sure the
dude just wanted to take a break because we were driving fine and when we got
to a stop we pulled over and he kicked us off while the bus was running. He
closed the doors, and then just sat on his phone for twenty minutes until the
next bus arrived.
From that bus we took it to a stop close
to a metro station, and walked ourselves to the metro. (side note, metro is the
best way to travel around Italy because they're on time and frequent. Busses
are faster, sure. But they never show up when the schedule says they should.)
once on the metro, we rode it all the way to the last line we needed to take in
order to get home. Well, someone fell onto the tracks half an hour before and
so that stop was closed, but a quick ten minute walk down the street to the
next stop on that same line allowed us to get home before 21:30 and then to
sleep. Fun stuff.
Tuesday: The Zone Leaders came over for
a scambio and we cooked up a solid amatriciana. Well over a kilo of pasta and
sauce, with 650-700 grams of pancetta as well because everybody loves a bit of
meat with their pasta, and two whole pots that normally would feed my family
pre-mission. Funny how much more a group of six missionaries can eat than a
family of that same size, plus one. Once food was eaten and everyone satisfied,
the other four anziani went to termini to teach a piano course but couldn't get
there thanks to the strike (sciopero) that was going on. There are tons of
these all the time and I don't know why, but they're always annoying and always
when we actually need to take public transport somewhere. The zone leaders
ended up driving them.
Anziano Bellazetin and myself went to
teach English course but couldn't get in to the church because the only key
that we have only works on one door out of the four. All the other doors work,
but no one saw fit to give the missionaries keys to the other doors while this
one was broken. So, English course occurred on the grass outside. It's ok
though, a change of pace is always nice. Once course was over, we all mad eit
home and that was the day. I was feeling pretty sick, so I went to bed at 21:00
not 22:30 as usual.
Wednesday: After mostly recovering my
voice, we all attempted to make it to the temple for district council. Because
we have a car that seats five thanks to the presence of the zone leaders, only
four of us could get a ride to the temple. This meant that my companion and I
were given the privilege of walking to the bus stop. The first bus came, but
the second one never did so we were picked up by the zone leaders and then
driven to the temple just in time for us to run into President Pickerd and his
wife. We ended up having to move council because the sorelle had a different
meeting they needed to attend with other church members.
We all made it home eventually and did
our studies, followed with some food and then we sat around talking for a while
because that's one thing we like about the Italian culture. They talk to one
another all the time about everything, everywhere. And they're passionate. Even
if they hate Americans! Especially then, but it's always older Italian men that
hate us and I couldn't tell you why exactly. Probably a grudge that was passed
down from father to son, but it's not too important. Point is, they have passion.
Thursday: We were planning on going to
the post office today in order to start the renewal process for my permesso but
the other anziani forgot to bring some baptismal clothes with them when they
started the hour long trek to the place where they needed to be by today. So,
we were called and then we brought the clothes with us so that the baptism this
Saturday could go without a hitch.
Then, we were greeted with one of the
first unfamiliar faces that we've had in a while at English course. It's a lady
from Egypt who learned English years ago but forgot it due to neglect of usage
and wants to learn more about that and also the gospel because she accepted a
book of Mormon and all four of us taught her the restoration in what was
actually a very impressive improvisational lesson. When we made it home, we
were called by the Zone leaders and asked if we could do a scambio tomorrow. We
could, so we accepted the invite.
Friday: The Zone leaders picked us up at
around 10 am and we drive to their house to start off with a little bit of
finding and just some sight seeing because I've never seen their house or area
before. The area is so big that they can't get around without a car, so they
have one that they use often. I went with Anziano Hansen while my companion
went with Anziano Payne from my mtc group. It was a fun time, and I went
finding at a castle! We also did door to door and were invited inside to talk
with a bunch of people. One of them believed in nature, another was some
unnamed religion and the third was an atheist who studied psychology as a
hobby.
We spoke about the book of Mormon and
the atheist was trying to tell me that all the feelings I feel whenever I speak
of God are just my mind and that God isn't real because science. So I bore
testimony of the truthfulness of the book and challenged him to do what Alma
32:27 states and "experiment upon the word" but he wasn't having it.
We left the book with them, and we were invited to a party next door in the
same breath. We declined and then walked ourselves to where the gelato was. I
didn't eat any because they don't accept card, but I'm sure that I can get some
somewhere else.
Saturday: President Pickerd was replaced
and we now have President Smith as the head of the mission. We meet him on
Monday as part of a mission wide conference. Aside from that, Saturday was
pretty average but there was a baptism so we went and saw that, while lending
support as well. When the baptism finished, there was a concert and that didn't
end until about 21:30 and so we were donned to be home at around eleven. With
that knowledge on our minds and also with how "precise" the bus
systems are, we struck our way home.
On the way home, nearly at our stop, we
looked out the window to get our bearings and saw seven scantily clad reasons
for why we have a curfew and are not normally out at 23:18. Ladies of the night
are not the kind of people we should be talking to, and so shortly after that
we made it home, safe and unharmed. A little shook, but otherwise fine. It was
a wild week, I'll tell you what.
Anziano Anderson
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