Ciao tutti!
I hope your past week has been full of games, goals, and good smells.
Anziano Leavitt and I had an awesome week... We even got to feel like
TRUE missionaries on a couple days this week when, thanks to the sun,
we could walk around without jackets on. I feel so much more
missionary-esk in just a white shirt and tie. ;)
I felt like my soul was on fire a couple times this week. We taught a
couple learned men this week and as I bore testimony to both of them,
neither one was actually listening. The first was a less-active man
named Anura and the second was a non-member. I'll tell the story of
how we met the non-member really fast because it was really cool:
On Monday, we attempted to go to an old investigator's house from
several years ago that we found in old area book records named
Lamberto, but were having a little trouble finding his address.
Luckily, God is pretty perfect with his timing and sent us to
Lamberto's house right when Lamberto was arriving home for the day. He
pulled up to a nearby parking lot and we asked him (not knowing it was
Lamberto) if he could help us find the address we were looking for...
He was more than willingly to help us because it was his address! He
let us into his house and made us dinner (if you can call a big plate
of spinach and seafood, dinner). Yesterday, we went back to his house
for a lesson.
In the lesson we had with Anura and Lamberto, my soul wanted to jump
out of its mortal frame and shake their souls. Both these men were
very intelligent, yet weren't able to feel the witness of the Spirit
due to their hard hearts. It killed me! Anura speaks four languages,
spends hours studying mid-eastern philosophy everyday, yet has
completely lost his testimony of Jesus Christ as our Savior. Lamberto
has an IQ of 180, has been a prominent figure in the Italian political
system, yet is too cynical to open his heart to the potential
existence of God. I consider both these men to be great, upstanding
people- and that's what made it so much harder for me seeing them
discard the pure doctrine we taught as a thing of not. These lessons
made me grateful for the testimony I have.
I'm also glad for the testimonies of the faithful members here in
Italy. On Saturday, we got to attend a stake priesthood meeting in
Florence and I got to see the lots of members from Pistoia and Livorno
again. It made me feel so good seeing how excited the members were to
see me again! I know I'm not the most spiritual, the most
hard-working, the best looking, the most personable, the missionary
that speaks Italian the best, but none of those things seemed
important to the members as they greeted me! It's a natural human
desire to want to be loved and to feel important and the members here
give that love so unconditionally!
Throwback moment: I remember when I was serving in the office a few
months ago when Anziano Thompson was still my companion. I don't
remember exactly how it happened, but Anziano Thompson and I ended up
at the mission home with Sister Allen one afternoon. She gave us some
of her famous cookies and then serenaded us on her piano with a song
she had recently learned named Gethsemane. After she was done playing,
she recounted some personal stories and we started talking about the
characteristic of meekness. I remember feeling very frustrated during
the conversation because I didn't understand meekness. She was talking
about what an important attribute it was and all I can remember
thinking is, "I don't want to be meek! I want to be more confident!" I
got that being humble and teachable was important, but I really didn't
understand how having a meek character was a Christlike attribute.
This week, I've be studying meekness and I'm starting to get it! I
want to be meek. Meekness isn't a sign of weakness at all, but rather
a display of self-mastery. Our respected leaders are meek (both inside
and outside of the church). My study is far from complete and my
intentional application of the principle is limited. But, I'm striving
to become a man of meekness!
I love you all and pray for my Olympia friends every day!
Vi voglio bene,
Anziano Anderson
1.Rimini Zone
2. Us with some Peruvian friends after eating some gooood food
3. We bought some bread and I took like 100 selfies in our kitchen before eating it. This is one of my favorites. ;)
4. I got a good chuckle out of this handicap parking sign
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