Making a Peruvian cake with my Peruvian mom, Lili

I'm sorry in advance if this email seems a bit scatterbrained. Despite my 8 hours of nightly sleep and my daily fruit consumption, my energy is at an all-time low (and there is a cold sore on the way- oh no!)! Fortunately, the deja-vu gust that hit me on Monday is keeping me going. Anziano Simmons came to the office as the future Anziano Scoggin! Anziano Scoggin isn't going home until the middle of next transfer, but Anziano Simmons arrived here on Monday so he could be properly trained. For the next month, I'll be in a companionship of three again! 

I'm not sure how much I've talked about Anziamo Simmons in past emails, but I've spent quite a bit of time with him already in my mission (hence the deja-vu gust of Monday ;)). Anziano Simmons was in Bergamo when I was there with Anziano Stahali. Then, later we met up when I first arrived at the office because he was my zone leader. Now, we're companions! He's a fantastic missionary and I've definitely felt a little bit humbled hearing him speak Italian- he's good!!

Although teaching in three isn't always the easiest, we've had a very successful week with our investigators and member families! Investigator wise, Cristian has committed to praying every day this week. That may sound like a small thing in itself, but it's going to be the first, non-memorized prayer he's offered in his life. And as for Salvatore, he still has doubts about being baptized, but has committed to reading the Book of Mormon everyday- a thing that's been known to eliminate those pesky doubts. ;) 

During our recent member visits, we've been asking the members to text one of their friends, in that very moment, and asking if they'd be interested in learning more about Jesus Christ by means of meeting with the missionaries. It's a really bold invite, but we teach a really bold lesson before giving it- the message of the restoration. The message of the restoration breaks everything down in a really logical way and the member's love it. Although we believe in some really big things, everything makes so much sense. I'm praying there will be some fruits from this new initiative as the members feel the power of the message.

Remember a couple weeks ago when I told you guys about my car accident? Well, last night I got in another one! Anziano Scoggin and I were driving downtown to do some proselyting and WHAM, I ran into a car while going through a roundabout. The man driving the other car didn't yield to me, so I ran straight into the front end of his car. We weren't going fast. No one was hurt. It wasn't my fault. Yet, the whole incident was really stressful. The little, old man driving the other car wouldn't accept the blame and so the police came to file a report. It's a little unfortunate that I damaged a brand new car, but thanks to our insurance, I think everything is going to be just fine. :) I felt the exact same way I felt on prom night a few years back after I nicked that other car on the freeway. Car accidents are no fun. I made Anziano Scoggin go with me to get cookies and milk after the whole fiasco was over to heal my morale a little bit. 

Other than last night's ordeal, it was a really good week. Halloween was non-existent for me last year, but since I'm in a residential neighborhood in a bigger city this year, I felt a little more American this time around. I gave out quite a bit of candy on Halloween night! I wanted to strap pass-a-long cards to the candy to give the kids a little treat that doesn't rot their teeth out, but President Allen didn't think it was the best idea. ;) 

Halloween night at the Cruz's house (Alex and Samuel)!! :) 

The festivities didn't end on Halloween, the next day a less-active member of the church that we visit invited me over for lunch to celebrate my birthday. In between every bite of that meal, I wanted to cry. We were fed some sort of meat (it's better for all of us if I don't find out what kind of meat it was), cheesy-plantains, and a warm oatmeal drink. The members of the church are so gracious here, but some of these South Americans have taste glands that don't match up to mine! 

On a more missionary note, I issued a tracting challenge to my district this week involving sincere prayers. Anziano Scoggin and I have been doing the challenge (except for last night) and have gotten a couple new contacts this week from our finding efforts. One of the new contacts, Cristian, let us in while we were knocking on apartment doors! Him and his family are from Romania and they said we can come back tonight. We are planning on bringing a less active ex-missionary that served in Romania to help us out. We're stoked! :D

Regarding some exciting news for our mission, we now have area book/daily planner capabilities on our iPads! I love the app and in my eyes, it's a tool that's going to help track investigators' progress easier and help missionaries use their time more effectively. Although, it's a little funny using the virtual area book because we have to be a lot more careful (and creative) on what we say about our investigators because of privacy laws. For example, I wouldn't be allowed to say that Alessandria (my fake investigator) is living with her boyfriend. Instead, the church instructional videos have taught me that I need to write, "During our appointment with Alessandria, there was a male present that didn't participate in the lesson."  

For any of you that don't have a gift to Jesus for Christmas, you should read the Book of Mormon between now and then! On Thursday, I convinced one of the AP's and Sorella Hoopes to do this Christmas challenge with me. Feel free to join in too (I'm only a couple days ahead of you). ;) And can I just say, that book is SO true?!  The more my gospel knowledge grows, the more I notice what a masterpiece it is. I read the verse 1 Nephi 14:10 today where it talks about how there is only two churches- the church of the lamb of God and the church of the devil. The scripture mentioned that whatever church doesn't belong to the God belongs to the great and abominable church. It reminded me of our lesson with Salvatore this week when he told us that the Lutheran church signed a contract-thing with the Catholic Church (I'm sure you know more about this than I do). I don't think this scripture was supposed to be taking literally, but I don't think it's cool that our church is going to become a bigger and bigger outlier in respect of the other churches because we belong to the Lamb of God's church.. We are living in the days when the latter day prophecies are being fulfilled. It's incredible! 

I've been feeling a little strange since waking up yesterday; I've broken out of the teens! This is the decade where some pretty crazy stuff happens. College, marriage, career, first kid??? Luckily, for now, I'm still in the protection of the mission field. I had a really great day yesterday! For my birthday, Anziano Scoggin and I took a little break from missionary work for a little birthday adventure... 

There is an inactive family in our ward (who I've mentioned to you before) that is seriously the greatest. Although they haven't been to church in years, every time we went over to their house, they would stuff us with delicious food and just watch us eat (they don't have a lot of money and they literally gave us everything they had). We haven't seen this family in about 2 months because after after our last visit, the husband and the wife got into a really bad fight and the wife confessed to us that her husband beats her. It was a really, really sad night.... We told the bishop the following Sunday and were advised not to visit them for the time being. SO, for my birthday wish, we made peanut butter kluckers (I forget the actual name, but they are the peanut butter Rice Krispie treats with chocolate on top) and delivered them to this family last night. ....I also wrapped the two scarves you bought me for my birthday and left them with the treats. I really appreciated the scarves, but considering one of the scarves was rainbow (a little too flamboyant for me), I realized that they were actually meant for the little boy and girl in the family! It worked out perfectly. We weren't sure how we were going to get into their apartment building, but luckily for us, the main door to the building was left open! So, we dropped off the goodies in front of their door, rang the doorbell, and ran. ;)

After sharing that story about my birthday success, I need to tell you about the two tragedies of the week (luckily there isn't anymore car accidents to report on). First off, Armando. Armando was a guy we met while street contacting last week and he told us he was interested in learning more about our church, so we scheduled an appointment for this for this past Wednesday. Anziano Scoggin and I were super excited to get a new contact. Unfortunately, when I called him on Wednesday to confirm the appointment, he asked me a really weird question while on the phone.... "Do you like little boys?" I didn't know if he was joking or not but I also didn't really care, that was the end of Armando! 

The second tragedy of the week has to do with Gian Luigi. We were doing some street contacting earlier this week and had an awesome conversation with this man who we ended up giving a Book of Mormon to. He said he'd be interested in hearing more from us, but I was unprepared... I had forgotten the pass-a-long cards with our phone number on it and didn't know our phone number by memory. So, when Gian Luigi told me to enter our phone number into his phone, I entered Anziano and Sister Hoope's number (I was able to read it out of our phone's contacts). I then gave the Hoope's phone a quick call so the number would be saved in their phone and we could just collect it from them later. TRISTEMENTE, I must have inputted the wrong number because the Hoopes didn't receive any call! Moral of the story: don't forget pass-a-long cards!!! I have committed to memorizing our phone number so that experience will never happen again. The good part of the situation is that he does have a Book of Mormon, so if he's truly interested, he'll find a way to get ahold of us. 

I'll end this story with a slice of happiness. We were meeting with Vito this week, a less-active who just got home from his mission two years ago. We visited him a couple weeks ago and he told us he wanted to take the sacrament again (he hasn't taken it for a year and a half). We commended him on his goal and invited him to church. The following Sunday, he came (this was the first time I had ever seen him in church)! Even though he came, I saw that he didn't take the sacrament and during all three hours, he was on his phone.... When we met with him this week, we had a really powerful talk. We helped Vito to make a plan to take the sacrament again and to get control of his phone habits. It was really cool walking out of his house knowing that we had helped him!

Choose the right and have a great week while doing so. :)

Lake Como

Besides from getting into a little car accident, it's been a pretty peachy week for me. The "car accident" was a a major mood-killer, but everything ended up working out okay in the end. Anziano Scoggin and I had made our way to the city center to do some proselyting and there were NO parking spots. When I saw a space that I thought I could make into a parking lot, I decided to act. Unfortunately, I misjudged the girth of my car and ended up tearing off some paint from the car next to me. Lucky for me, there was no noticeable damage to our car and we ended up getting the number of a really cool contact later that night when we finally did get around to proselyting. :D I left our contact information on the person's windshield and now the insurance is taking care of all the messy work. I have to say though, when I went into President's office the next day to tell him the news, it felt just like I was going to confess something to dad... 

"President, I did something not-so good yesterday." 

"Anziano Anderson, I don't believe that for a second! You never give me reason to be disappointed in you." 

"I got in a car accident." 

"Ohh... that isn't good."

Do you remember the old, grouchy, report filer on Monster's Inc? The one that always screams, "MIKE SVAGOWKSY!" Well, I know the real life version of her! Story time: I need to make frequent trips to the post office to pay an assortment of bills and to send off packages, so I get the pleasure of working with a grump-pot postal woman. Over the past couple weeks, she's been getting progressively shorter with me. On Monday, I went in to pay €94.96 worth of bills and to send off a package to Elder Holland (the fact that I was sending a package to Elder Holland isn't important, I just wanted to name drop him ;)). I gave the woman two €50's to pay for the bills and she gave me 4 centesimi in change, telling me that she would give me the €5 when I came behind the counter to mail the packages. To my surprise, after I had gone behind the counter to mail my package, she said that she had already given me all of my change. I told her she had not and she accuses ME of trying to short HER. I politely asked her if she could do a cash count on her money till so we could get to the bottom of the situation and she told me that she couldn't because there were other clients waiting. I wasn't 100% sure she was purposely being deceitful or not, but I decided I would take the €5 loss and not cause a scene.

When I got back to the mission office, I suggested to Sister Allen that she should make some cookies for us to take over to this woman. Later that day, Sister Allen brought over a plate of cookies and sat it on my desk. Considering that's kind of a normal thing being an office elder, I didn't realize the cookies were for my grump-pot friend and ate them all! Fast forward a few days to Friday and I needed to make another trip to the post office. At the post office, my grumpy friend tells me she's not going to work with me anymore because of she couldn't read the numbers on the check I had wrote (they were VERY neatly written). I couldn't contain myself and started laughing at her ridiculousness. She then proceeded to mumble under her breathe, "Dang you, DANG you", except she isn't saying dang! I was SHOCKED. So, when I got back to the office, I asked Sorella Allen to make cookies for this woman. After we worked out the fact that she had already done so and I had eaten them, she whipped up a new batch for me to take over. When I took over the cookies, the woman didn't seem the least but grateful for them... But, I'm hoping that we can have some better interactions in the future!

On a more spiritual note, I had a really special moment on Sunday when a member pulled me over to the side for a minute and told me how much the blessing I had given him last week meant to him. Remember a few weeks ago when I told you that I didn't understand why I had given someone a faulty blessing- in the sense that the words I said weren't the events that came to fruition? Well, I had prayed, fasted, studied my scriptures, and watched General Conference with that question in mind and didn't feel like I was getting an answer. I still don't know the answer! But, it's not important to me anymore. On Sunday, this brother was bawling as he told me about the power that my blessing had had... It was a moment of complete peace of mind knowing that as faulty as I may be, I do have access to a real and divine power.

Distributing Debit Cards

It's weird how sometimes we put a lot of effort into something/a person and don't end up seeing any results, but then are blessed with something else in return. When we do our part, we're going to be blessed even if it's in a different way than we expect. Salvatore was a miracle dropped into our lives... he's so elect! He was a missionary for his evangelist church as a youth in Germany, he studied theology in college, and now he's literally teaching people at OUR church without being baptized. I thought I was going to die last Sunday when Salvatore was explaining to someone what genealogy work was! The reason he isn't baptized is because of his companion. He's waiting for his divorce to go through with his ex-wife, so he can marry his companion. He's not currently living with his companion (she's working in Spain), so he theoretically could be baptized if he committed to not moving in with her until after she was baptized. He's an incredible artist and song writer (side note: he LOVES the Mormon Tabernacle Choir), but unfortunately he has a pretty dumpy job working at a hotel right now. He's SO knowledgable, but he's missing a Godly remorse for his past sins. I already love he guy so much and I really hope I can play a small role in his conversion.

I had some moments this week where I deeply appreciated being an office elder... When it's pouring down rain and I'm sitting in the comfy chair in front of my computer with heat, apple cider, and homemade cookies at my disposal, a little smile is necessary. ;) There are times when I wish I could just be a normal missionary and go battle the storm, numb hands, and rejection in an attempt to stop people on the street. However, I can't complain when I know my missionary work day is a lot cushier than most. A lot of the big highlights of my week have come from seeing the little changes in my companion. It's a really rewarding experience seeing people change right in front of your eyes.

October 15, 2016

It seems like a lot has happened since we last chatted. I'll try to bring you guys up to speed, so I can share about my miraculous moment last night. 

First, I went to an opera in the Scala last Saturday and I was able to appreciate the glorious history of the experience with the realization that operas have been a means of fancy-people entertainment for centuries. That being said, it was painfully boring and I read General Conference talks on my iPad the whole night to avoid falling asleep. 

Moving forward, it was transfer week this week and we sent home 13 departing missionaries and received a whopping 31 greenies. I really enjoyed being behind the scenes this week because I felt so un-autistic! I don't know any better way to describe it. Sometimes I feel like I am unable to express myself as clearly as I want or don't know  how to interact in a certain situation. However, this week I really felt good about my leadership skills. In the midst of the chaos, lack of sleep, and inevitable problems, I contributed to a very smooth week for the other missionaries. 

Unfortunately, transfers also affected our office staff and Anziano Thompson left to Como to become a zone leader. He's a great missionary and I've learned a lot from him. It's not easy being a "consecrated" missionary when you're in the office alł day, but I've learned from him that we can consecrate ourselves in different aspects of our lives. He hasn't baptized anyone here, but he's helped a lot of people change their lives.

Now, I want to share with you guys what happened last night. Anziano Scoggin and I were following up on a referral we had gotten. The referral was written in Spanish, so we were a little apprehensive visiting him when we don't hablar any espansol (assuming that he recently moved to Italy from a South American country). Low and behold, this man is an Italian that was living in Spain! His name is Salvatore and has been meeting with the missionaries for the past year and a half. It was a total "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" moment when he opened up his phone and pulled up the gospel library app- he's been reading the Book of Mormon everyday!! He assured us he'll be coming to church tomorrow. #stoked 

I have no idea why this man isn't baptized (other than the fact that he's not married to his companion), but I'm beyond excited to meet with this guy more often. Right now, he's living with his mom and sister and so they joined us last night as we talked about the church. The mom was so fond of us, she told us she was going to go to her kitchen and bring us a dolce Calibrese... AKA, a special dessert from Calibria (a city known for bomb Italian food). I was expecting some pretty delectable stuff from my experience of eating Calibrese food. The woman literally brought out RAISIN BAGLES. Oh Italy....

Then, this morning, after we went to a member's house to help him sort out his storage locker. It was ridiculously hilarious! He is a total pack rat and I had trouble containing my laughter at points because of the worthless stuff he wouldn't let us throw out. But, it was really cool because after we did the service, we gave his family a spiritual thought and they gave us a name of a woman that's interested in learning a little bit about our church.. We are going to be having a family home evening with her and the member family next week. #MiraclesOnMiracles

October 8, 2016

Zone BBQ

I had a handful of mixed feelings on Sunday when talking to a sister in my ward named Monica. 

BACKSTORY ON MONICA: She is from Ecuador and is an angel of a woman. She was married to this hunky Ecuadorian guy, but he went off to war and died. Now, she is here in Italy and has an 8 year-old daughter with an Italian man who is older (my eyes are telling me there is a 30 year age gap). They are waiting to be married as soon as both of their divorce papers go through. Currently, Monica works as a caretaker to this crippled woman named Gilda who is in a wheelchair and speaks almost inaudibly. I say " almost" inaudibly because Monica can surprisingly decipher what she says, but to our ears it sounds a lot like a two year old's goo-goo talk.

Okay, back to my Sunday conversation with Monica. I started out the conversation with, "Hey Monica! How did your driving test go?!"

BACKSTORY ON MONICA'S DRIVING TEST: She has been super worried about her driving exam and always tells us how much she's been studying for it. Earlier last week, the night before her exam, we had gone to Gilda's house while she was working and I had given her a blessing of comfort. 

Back to our conversation. Monica told me that her exam went terrible! She said that she failed it by a long shot. I didn't even know how to react considering I remembered saying in the blessing I gave her that the exam would go well because of her diligent studying. I felt really bad for her and also a little awkward. But, what she told me next turned my emotions around. She said that right after we left on the night we gave her the blessing, Gilda stood up and walked (for the first time in 10 years)! Gilda exclaimed that she had been giving extra strength from God from our visit.

Last night, we went back over to Gilda's house (with the accompaniment of Monica) and taught her the Plan of Salvation. There was a point with the spirit FLOODED the room. Anziano Thompson mentioned what a blessing it was to have the opportunity to come to earth and receive a body which prompted Gilda to ask an inspired question. She looked at us hunched over in her wheelchair and asked "why?" Anziano Thompson proceeded to bare testimony about how Satan's followers want what we have, but they'll never be able to it because they didn't follow God's plan. It was a really cool moment. 

I still am not completely sure why I blessed Monica that her test would go well when it didn't... But, there is no doubt real power in the priesthood! Gilda walked! 

I'm a Pachuco - Anziano Hoopes has been calling me a pachuco because I roll up myshort sleeves ... apparently there's an old cigarette ad where aguy had his shirt rolled up with a cigarette box and the term becamereally popular! So, yeah!

!

Farewell Anziano Thompson - he moves on to be a zone leader next week