Title from this week refers to all the stuff that happened haha. Man right when I thought I was starting to get the hang of Reggio Calabria, the Lord decided to send me away.
"New comp! His name is Anziano Adepoju. From Nigeria. Gonna learn how to make some good fufu😎"
Side note: This is Anziano Adepoju's story:
So the first question that might come to mind: where is Anziano Hansen now? For your information, I'm in Palermo 3 now. Palermo 3 is apart (hey mum you see how I spelled 'apart' correctly this time? Yeah that's right, I'm learning English still lol) of the Palermo zone, and is in Palermo itself. I mean, that's probably kinda obvious, but I figured I'd clarify just in case. It's one of the biggest cities on Sicily,
and it's now the biggest city I've served in. That doesn't seem like so much of a curveball, right? I mean, it's just another city.
To a degree, that's true. But here's the twist: I'll be speaking English. The second question that comes to mind is probably: but Anziano Hansen, you're in Italy! Why would you speak English? And the answer to that is pretty simple: Palermo 3 is the international branch for the people who speak English. That means a few things. 1) it means that my sacrament meetings will be in English for the first time in almost a year 2) it also means that for the most part, I'll be teaching in English 3) I'll be spending almost all my time among foreigners.
Initially I had a lot of doubts and fears and I'll be honest, I was also kind of angry. I had all these reasons that justified me in being upset. For one, I was called to speak Italian and preach the gospel to Italians, right? Secondly, I was just getting to know how to do the work in Reggio and we had good things going for us. Why take me away now? What about all the people that I'd worked with and loved and had found and was teaching? Thirdly, what about my Italian? What if I lose it? Heck! I don't want to speak English! And for all you guys, all these reasons will seem petty. And you're right. They were petty, and I was being childish. I really just didn't want to go. I don't know what it was about it that made me not want to go, but I had an unwilling heart.
I had some experiences though that were really humbling for me and got me thinking about what humility really is and the role it plays in our conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
One of the first things I learned was something that Anziano Governici (my district leader while I was in Reggio)
"Last pic with these guys for awhile (Anziani Vance and Governici [middle]...homies!)"
mentioned to me. As I was talking with him about it, he said something that I'd honestly never taken thought for. He said "You weren't called to speak Italian or to teach the Italian people. You were called to labor in Italy." And to that, I'd add that I was called to labor in Italy under whatever circumstances he deems I'm in need of for my own spiritual progression as well as that of those around me. The lesson I got from that was that we first have to put aside what we want. We truly have to sacrifice our will and put the Lord's will first. That makes me think of the Italian word 'sacrificare' (to sacrifice), which derives from the Latin words ...(I actually can't remember the Latin words but I remember that we had a Sunday school lesson where we talked about this. Just look up the Latin words yourself okay😭)... which mean "render" and "sacred". That's pretty cool. In that sense, when we're sacrificing something, we're making it sacred. So cool!
"Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."
I've been working really hard this week and trying to have good prayers and beyond that, it's been quite the experience trying to just allow what I want be swallowed up in what he wants. And we can do that all the while understanding that he only has our well being at heart. I'm so grateful for that. Humility isn't my strongest point, and in no way do I claim to be an expert on it now after these few days, but I have a clearer understanding of how God functions now and how much he actually loves me. I'm still a little nervous, but I'm so excited for these new challenges and opportunities that I have to learn and grow. How blessed am I to be a missionary!
Other than that, there's not much to recount. It was a hectic week with transfers and trying to get around and say goodbye and what not.
"One last pic with anziano Peterson"
It was actually a huge blessing to get around and see all the members in Reggio before I left, and I'll really miss them. It was a good closure though. I'll really miss the district I was with as well. Mannnn those guys were so cool! I'm now in a 10 man district though, so I don't have much reason to complain haha. This district is about half as big as my last zone haha. It's a good life, peeps.
I'll have a better email for you guys next week telling you more about the area and what not. For today though, it's enough to say that we went to a beach and played frisbee because today was our last day to be at the beach. IT WAS SO PRETTY!!
"Went to the beach for p day today! Such nice weather!"
Here's some other pictures as well from just walking around the area.
"I feel bad for all you Americans who don't know what focaccia is"
"We ate Sunday lunch at the senior couples' house in our area. They're so cool! And the food was so good!😧"
I feel like there's so much more to say hahaha but all I hope in writing all this is that in someway, it'll help you guys. Maybe not today, this week, or even these next few months. But I know that humility is important and needs to play a major role in our gospel experience in order to be truly converted. That will mean different things for each one of us, so I won't tell you what to do. But I invite you all to study humility and ponder on it. And then maybe even bring a question about it to general conference because that's THIS WEEK WOOOOOO!
I love you all and hope ya have the greatest week!
okay so i'm not entirely sure where i'm going to go with this email today, but i'll just begin writing and see what happens. also, i'm using the church computer today which is really nice because it's been SO LONG since i've been able to use a keyboard. ahhh man i miss these things. it's really frustrating though because it's formatted differently. this might actually take a longer time to type than if i used my ipad. ah well. we'll see.
"And here's a picture from last week that I don't think I sent. If I did, sorry."
also my mum told me last week that my english grammar is getting really bad and i think i confirmed that when i went back through my weekly email and (keep in mind though that i only had a few minutes so i wasn't able to be very thorough) wasn't able to find anything wrong with them? that makes me sad because although i love italian, english will forever by my mother language and the fact that i'm forgetting how to speak it properly is breaking my heart.
sad day.
but on the flip side we did get 5 kilo bag of freshly picked oranges from an investigator, so there's that. we also found out today that our favorite cookies were on sale today. two euro for one kilo. TWO EURO FOR ONE KILO THAT'S SO GOOD. but also bad, because we're both already fat. gosh dang it italy is going to kill me.
another thing to be happy about is that we're going to palermo
this week! and i'll get to see anziano young (my companion from brindisi) and anziano anderson (from my first district in pescara -- we were in the same district for 6 months) again!! ah man i'm so excited to see them again. i'll be sure to take lots of pictures and send them all. that's also why there's going to be hardly any pictures this week. i figured that i'll just send a ton next week. (yeah i know that's actually a lie i just didn't take any pictures this week. sorry.)
"Sorry for the lack of photos this week"
anyways! this week was pretty good. after a really nice p day with sun and what not, it got extremely windy and stormy and we actually thought we might die on our boat ride back to reggio from messina (we were there for district meeting). luckily, prayers work, and we had smooth passage despite the raging storm. the weather though did make it a little hard to do missionary work out on the streets and what not, so we spent quite a bit of time indoors calling old contacts. that actually turned out really well, and we were able to find quite a few cool people that we'll hopefully meet with in the upcoming weeks!
"She wrecked both me and anziano Peterson in checkers and she's 10"
honestly i think we've had more success doing calls than we've had contacting people on the street haha. and besides that bad weather, anziano peterson was sick for a little while so we stayed home for that as well. the weather has recently cleared up though, and it's now burning hot outside. oh goodness i think i might die of heat exhaustion. i'd still take the heat over the cold though. but MAN you don't know heat until you experience an italian summer as a missionary. and to top it off, this next summer is going to be a SOUTHERN italian summer. oh boy it's gon be hot. all the more reason though to go and get gelato though amirite? other than that, we just did a lot of finding and had some cool things happen. but before that, i want to talk about the important lesson that i learned.
so last week i mentioned all that stuff about rising to a new sense of commitment and moving into the realm of where you don't know what to do and how that's where miracles happen. here's that quote that i used from elder scott.
"When you push against the boundaries of experience into the twilight of the unknown, the Lord will strengthen you. The beauty of your eternal soul will begin to unfold."
and that's exactly what i tried to do last week! i pushed past those boundaries and moved into the realm that i hadn't known for awhile. it was a realm of consecration, of obedience, of willingness to do whatever the lord asked. and my thinking was "okay cool i'll move into this realm and everything will just happen perfectly. god will make miracles happen."
but that's not how it works. in fact, that's never how it's worked. god has always required faith before the miracle. why? because miracles don't produce faith, and it's not until after the trial of our faith that we will see miracles (or have the confirmation of our faith...however you want to phrase it). and that was the second step for me this week. step one was rededicating myself to the work, and step two was taking that leap of faith and trusting the lord enough to do something about it. and what i've been reminded of this past week is that the lord works by small and simple means. that brings me to alma 37:6-7 which says the following.
"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.
"And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls."
i sometimes feel like i need to be working miracles to find new investigators. i feel like his hand should be evident in everything that i do, every single moment of the day. but the fact of the matter is that it's not typically like that. and once i realized that the lord wasn't asking me to move mountains but move individual pebbles, the work became much easier. and that's what i think i love about the gospel so much is that it pushes us just enough to get out of our comfort zone, but not far enough that we can't do it. i love that so much about the gospel. we can be completely sure that we won't fail because this isn't the work of man, but the work of god. we can trust him completely. whatever the result may be of our actions, as long as we took that jump, we will be successful. and i've seen that this last week in the smallest of ways in the impressions to call a specific person, in the feeling to go to a specific place, in the desire to continue to share the gospel after a day of rejection, and above all in the hope that i feel at the end of each day thanks to the savior. it's an amazing thing to be a part of this great work. while i haven't seen the greatest success come from all this, i've felt joy all the same because i know that i'm doing the lord's work, and when we do the lord's work, we can be sure that we're not wasting our time. he will bless these people through me. whether or not i see those blessings come to them is of little importance to me. what does matter to me is that i'm worthy, dedicated, and doing what the lord asks so i can become who he needs me to be for these people now and all the people i'll meet in the future.
that's it for this week. sorry that this is so long and has hardly any pictures. my b. i'll be sure to compensate for that next week.
ooohhh and before i forget i thought i should mention to you guys that GENERAL CONFERENCE is coming up soon! i'm so excited for that! and i wanted to invite you guys to begin to prepare for that now! i may not be an apostle, but i can promise you that as you begin to prepare yourself to hear the words of the lord now, you'll be much more receptive to what the spirit has for you when it does come around. just something to think about.
You know, I remember back to those days when I used to get up on Mondays and think "well, dang. It's another Monday." But now, Monday's are some of my favorite days of the week because I get to write too all of you guys and see lots of bell'Italia 🇮🇹 yeah. I love this place! Today, we're in Messina with the missionaries here. Apparently, there's a member here who owns one of the biggest trampoline parks in Europe, and that's how we'll be spending p day. I feel badly for the people who have to do things like, I dunno, do water colors of avocados. It's just, what do you do for p day if you can't go see some thousand year old wall and then jump on trampolines, ya feel?
Happy carnival 😎👌🏼
But that's besides the point. Today, I hope y'all are ready to hear about the week that is literally changing my mission. I probs won't be able to explain it well at all, but I hope in some way you'll be able to understand everything I want to say.
This week was really really good. As I mentioned in the last email, we had zone conference
Catania Zone, February 2017
from the which I learned a ton! I got a lot out of it for myself and our area. One thing I especially loved though was just from my own interview with president Pickerd. Recently, I've been having a rough time feeling completely committed to the Lord. It's not that I've been doing huge, terrible things, but I knew there were small things in my daily routine that needed to be fixed. It was hard to find the desire to do that, and I knew there was something that needed to be changed, I just didn't know where to begin. President Pickerd helped me begin though. He directed me to some studies that I could do, and beyond that, I started doing studies of my own. Some of my favorite scriptures with regards to this topic are from 2 nephi chapter one where lehi speaks to his sons. He says things like the following:
After phrases like that, how could I not recommit myself to the Lord? And as I thought about it a little more, I realized the real reason why I've been struggling recently. It's really just because I was afraid of not being enough. I was afraid of trying again -- REALLY trying -- and failing. But there's a few things I learned with regards to this that calmed my mind and brought peace to my heart. One, learning to trust in the Lord. The big promise for me that I've been relying on is that when I open my mouth, it'll be filled. It's hard to begin, but when we do, the Lord helps us. That was actually demonstrated really well when on Saturday night we were riding a bus and I saw a guy with a New York hat. Whenever I see people with articles of clothing with cities in America, I always try to talk to them. It's typically pretty easy to approach them, but man I just did NOT want to talk to this guy. I was tired and hungry and a big part of me thought "nah he'll just brush us off anyways." But I tried. Turns out, he met the missionaries over 20 years ago and has read the Book of Mormon a few times. He mentioned as well that he's been having a rough time lately, and I honestly can't even remember most of what I said, but I remember that at the end he was committed to read the Book of Mormon again. No, he didn't want to meet with us again, but he said he'd read, and that's a start. And that's what it's about. It's about pushing ourselves beyond what we believe or even want to do and allowing the Lord to take over. I read a talk by Elder Richard G. Scott this week, in which he explains this concept beautifully.
"When you push against the boundaries of experience into the twilight of the unknown, the Lord will strengthen you. The beauty of your eternal soul will begin to unfold."
Cool, eh? And what I love so much about this is that we can completely and entirely trust the Lord. We can give Him our all, holding nothing back, because we know that His will is perfect, that he is perfectly capable of helping and strengthening us, and that he is perfect in keeping His promises. But it takes faith. Faith enough on our part to push past what we know and where we are comfortable unto the realm of what we can't understand. It's in that realm that miracles happen.
That makes me think of another quote. I don't remember who said is, but I've always loved it.
"If you only do what you can, you'll never be more that what you are."
Man if only that weren't true. Progression is uncomfortable. But when we take those steps and stretch ourselves, the Lord will strengthen us, and that's something we can be completely sure of.
That's really the big reason that helped me get over that bump of feeling lazy and uncommitted - trusting the Lord. There's a few other things that go into it as well, such as: loving the Lord and therefore having a desire to do his will, loving Christ and desiring to share my testimony of Him, and love for the Italian people. If you didn't catch the theme behind all of those, it's love. There's another quote that goes into this from the prophet Jospeh Smith. He said "“Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race. This has been your feeling, and caused you to forego the pleasures of home, that you might be a blessing to others, who are candidates for immortality, but strangers to truth..."
I've reawakened to that, too. I remembered why I'm here, and it's because I love these people. That's nothing new to me, but something that I'd forgotten. I thought back though to what it was like when I opened my mission call.
I was by myself in my basement on a Saturday morning in October. When I read that I'd be serving in the Italy Rome mission, I knew of a certainty that it was where he needed me, and I knew that because I already loved them. Long before I got my mission call, long before I even knew I'd be graduating early and stopping soccer and making sacrifices to come out here, I loved them. The ones who say no, the ones who say yes, the ones who don't say anything. I love them all. It's amazing what love can do.
Sorry all that was really just about me and what I learned. Hopefully you'll be able to take away something from this email. I just love the mission and how much I'm learning and growing. Yes, it's uncomfortable and difficult, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Ahahahaha this was from one of the attempts when anziano governici messed up lol
"Hey beautiful"
We got all the anziani who knew how to do backflips and attempted a photo. Ehh. Could've been better😂
Anyways, to a little bit more of the work this week...there's not much. We've been trying really hard to be creative and get the work pumping here. It's been a long process, but I think we're finally getting there. Saturday we actually went out with a whiteboard trying to show people the gospel library app. We've been trying to reach out to the youth more and we felt like this would be a good way to do it. Ahahahaha it was so hard to transition from that to getting appointments, but it was really fun and we actually had more people stop and talk to us than we had that just said no. That's the first time that's ever happened on my mission where people have listened more than rejected us. It was a good day☺
We also had a lesson with a part member family yesterday evening. Anna, the wife, isn't a member but she's sooooo ready. She actually told us yesterday that she wants to be baptized and knows that it's the right thing to do, but she has some reservations and a few questions she needs to answer for herself before she's baptized. The lesson started out really hard though and I was praying SO HARD to know what to do and what to say because what we had prepared was not at all what we needed to teach and it turned out well. We just kept coming back and using the Book of Mormon to teach doctrine and answer questions and then pose questions of our own. It was a really cool experience to see the spirit working throughout that whole lesson, to see God do His work. She's definitely one step closer to making that commitment.
I also found out that this week that we get to go to Palermo on the 16th because anziano Peterson needs to get his permesso and I'll get to see anziano young AND anziano Anderson again and I'm SOOO EXCITED!
Sorry this email was v long. If you stuck it out to the end, here's a thumbs up to you👍🏼
