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Mornin, homies.

This past week was really good! No, we weren't able to get a ton of people to meet with us, but we got a lot of cool contacts and were able to hand off a few referrals. We were also able to set up some good stuff for this upcoming week, so we're looking forward to that as well.

"District photo"

Highlights of the week include...

- a lemonade stand we did yesterday in an attempt to talk to people about how Christ is the living water haha. It definitely wasn't the easiest thing we've done, but then again, we're missionaries and finding people is never the easiest thing. It was a lot of fun though! We met Davide, a 16 year old who's excited to play ping pong with us (and hopefully learn about the gospel, too☺🙏🏼) as well as Piero, a family man who wants to know how to have a better life.

- Finding a new favorite gelato flavor: peach! Ohhhh goodness it was so good. My favorite gelateria is still back in Reggio Calabria, but Palermo has a few good ones haha.

"New favorite gelato combination: peach and coconut"

- Doing a pass of the lesson with the zone leaders for Bernardo. Unfortunately, we won't be able to continue teaching him as he's in their area of the city. Fortunately, the lesson went well and he's excited to meet with them just as much as he was to meet with us! And it's Anziano Campbell who'll be teaching him anyway. I've known him for awhile, and he'll do just fine! I'm looking forward to hearing how they do with him.

- Jerry! It's been forever since we've been able to meet with him again. A few weeks back I mentioned that we'd gone over to his house and met his two non-member sisters. They're so cool! We were finally able to meet with him again and got him committed to reading the Book of Mormon once more. He's a great guy!

- Oh yeah I almost forgot that last week, we went hiking up to some caves as well as a WWII bunker out in a city nearby. It was really cool!

"We also went to see a WWII bunker"

"How we had to get into the bunker"

"Part of the view from inside"

"View from one of the windows in the bunker"

"Hiking to the caves"

"We were trying to get through to spaces like this"

"Inside!"

On the more spiritual side of things...

- I was reminded of how joyous this work was. Lately, it's been really hard for me to get excited about doing missionary work (finding and stuffs like that). It's so much easier to just go get gelato haha. But thinking back to the MTC, I remember a talk we watched where he said something along the lines of how our extremity is God's opportunity. I love that! Because as soon as we reach what we would deem our limits, God steps in and provides whatever it is we need as long as we're committed to just giving our all. When I reached those points this week, God always stepped in and made the work joyous. I'm so grateful for that!

- I gave a talk in church on Sunday about obedience, and as I studied for it, I was struck once again by how important the small things are. If we'll just do that, we can always be strong in the gospel. It's not about how good we are at the big things like not killing, not lying to get a million dollars, stuff like that. It's actually about how diligent we are in daily scripture study, how committed we are to personal prayer every morning and evening. That's what God wants. He wants the other stuff too, obviously, but meaningful obedience that changes lives begins with the fundamentals.

All in all, it's been a good week! Never the easiest, but far from the hardest and exactly what I needed. Work hard this week at the small things, homies. God will bless you for it.

Spread the love!

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen