Anyways!
#justabruzzothings
This week I've asked myself a lot of questions, and I'm afraid that not very many of them were profound. With these pieces of paper that I'm carrying around and trying to listen to the still small voice of the spirit, I sometimes feel like I'm just writing down things I think are cool or things that I think you will all like instead of really following the spirit. Yes, I'm a vain person and I want to have good emails where people will think "wow that's a really spiritual guy he obvs knows what he's doing." But is that really important? Is that why the Holy Ghost gives promptings? Or is it for the edification of all? That was one of the first things I asked myself this week. Why do I do the things I do? Am I doing them because I'm committed to the Lord, or because I want to look good? It's a good question to ask yourself.
Other thoughts this week include:
- Remembering I need to work for the spirit. It goes along with what I was first saying. I've felt like I haven't really had anything given to me directly from the spirit. That's when I remembered something my sister said at the beginning of her mission. It was a phone call from the SLC airport the morning she left. I said something about how the spirit has to be super strong because she's on a mission and how jealous I was. She then said "oh yeah it's strong out here...but I still have to work for it everyday." I realized that too often I've been sitting there waiting for the spirit to hit me and give me
inspiration when that's not actually how it works. My favorite Mormon message (the hope of God's light)
has a quote in there that says (soz won't be perfect) "spiritual light rarely comes to those who merely
sit in darkness waiting for someone to flip the switch. It takes an act of faith." BOOM! So I worked on that these last few days, and it's made a huge difference.
saying goodbye to Felix who's headed to Milan
- Can ye feel so now? I love love love alma chapter 5. One thing I realized this week is that he's talking to members in that chapter. He's not talking to a random crowd. He's talking to people who know the truth, who know the sweetness and joy the gospel brings, who have had a testimony of the Savior. He's talking to us. We know...or we knew. Can we still say we know? Can we sing that song of redeeming love? If not, what do we need to do to change that? I'll be honest it's really hard to get caught up in the little things out here and to forget that song. I've analyzed my emotions, spent some time studying that chapter, took time and wrote down thoughts, and now I'm working on setting some goals so I can say everyday that "YES!" to Alma's question. I've also thought about it with relation to happiness and joy. That's what this gospel brings. Can we honestly say we're happy right now? What needs to change? Elder Ucthdorf has a talk entitled "It Works Wonderfully!"
and it has some key points that I feel have helped me in this process.
- One of those points was simplicity, and that's something I also thought,about this week. I thought about it first with an investigator who we're teaching. He loves the gospel, but I don't think he quite
understands why it's important and why he needs to become a true follower of Christ. I said it awhile ago, but there's a part in preach my gospel
where it talks about teaching so simply that no one can understand. I don't need to worry about being the greatest most in depth teacher there was. I only need to teach and bear testimony of simple truths. Our experience in the church doesn't need to be complicated either. We can simplify our faith in the Savior and, at the same time, increase our testimony. What do we need to do to simplify?
- Aaannndddd going along with goal setting, I had a conversation with one of my zone leaders on a scambio this week. He asked me if I had any goals for my mission and I said yes. He asked what they were, and I couldn't remember them. You'd think after what I said awhile ago about goal setting that I would've remembered, but I didn't. Goal setting is not just about setting goals and forgetting about them. It's also about accountability and review. If you've set goals, review them, adjust them if necessary, set a new goal to review them more often, and then find someone to be accountable to!
A Friday night meal appointment. Gosh, I love Italy!
- This week I've started a study on love. What is it, why it's important, how I can increase my love for others, the role that God's love plays in my everyday life, stuff like that. There's still a lot I don't understand, but there are two HUGE points I wanted to write quickly about. One, it's a gift. "Savior may I love my brother?" Love is not something we are capable of on our own. It is a gift from God.
Two, it is not an emotion. It is a defining characteristic of who we are. It's an attribute. A scripture I read talked about how we can't say we love our brother and then say we don't love God. Similarly, we
can't say we love one person but not another. Why? Because that's not what love is. Love is not something we can control. Yes it's an emotion in the sense that it's something we feel and have for all
those around us, but it is not something where we can pick and choose who we have it for. I really hope that makes sense to you all, because even just talking about it makes me feel like I'm not explaining it very well. Hope you'll be able to understand😁👍🏼
- Lastly, I've wondered whether I'm the same person with the tag on as with the tag off? And on an even bigger scale, am I only changing here as a missionary, or am I becoming a better person too? It's a question we could all ask ourselves. Am I the same person in church as I am everywhere else? Just something to think about.
This week was really good! We got lots of good things done and did our best to be productive. That's a question I got really comfortable with asking myself. What can we do to be as effective as possible? We also did two scambi this week! Those were fun. One with Anziano Gunnell who just barely come into the mission and is in l'Aquila, and the other with Anziano Coe, a zone leader. It was just me and him because the other zone leader came and did a trio with my comps. It was nice to go back down to two for awhile. From him there was one thing I specifically learned, and it's that I need to tell people I appreciate people more often. It feels good for both people☺️ also talked to some old ladies fell Napoli on Monday night at a family home evening. They are crazy hahaha. The member made pizza and they hated it and totally let him know ahahaha it was hilarious. Other than that we had some other meal appointments with members this week. I really love the people in this area! We're also going to Rome this week for a mission tour, and I'll get to see my district from the MTC! We'll all be there except for my comp, Anziano Alexander. Still exciting though! Also did service yesterday and got to move a bunch of things up 7 flights of stairs. Yup. I was extremely sweaty, but we met some super cool people because of it!
pizza with the zl's (zone leaders)
That's all for this week. I'll work on sending more pictures! Promise! I'll even make it a goal😉😂
Vi voglio un mondo di bene!
Che la gloria sia sempre a Dio
Anz Hansen
