I miss the Bosch

My people! It's a wonderful life, no?

Elder Hansen with Rome Temple in background

Anyways, I'll get right to it. This week has been pretty good! We haven't really done much, but it was good. P day was a lot of fun! We did studies, went to grab some food for the week, and then we went to centro and just looked around for awhile. I was actually down to 25 euro (28.07 US Dollar) cause we've spent a lot of money traveling lately, so I only bought two ties. But hey, two ties are better than no ties! After that we got lunch and went to the church to email. After we were done we pulled out the ping pong table and played around for a few hours.

This photo was from his first week in Rome, when they played ping pong at the church

After that we had an appointment with V and his family. They're African and they've been here about 5 years or so. There's TONS of Africans here, and they are some of the best people to teach!
It was awesome. We had a good lesson on a talk from President Uchtdorf

with them and they loved it. After that we helped them wrap some bags of clothes. We didn't finish, so we're going back on Sunday.

Tuesday was awesome! Mainly because it was my first district meeting, and that was an awesome experience. Our district consists of the 4 elders and 2 sisters in Pescara, the 2 elders from l'Aquila, and the 2 elders from Oscali (not sure if I spelled that right). We did our studies in the morning, and then we all meet at church around 10:30ish. For the teaching part of district meeting, we all had 5 minutes to talk about the Book of Mormon.

President Waddoups had issued a challenge a few months ago to have the Book of Mormon finished by the 16th of this month, which is why we all talked about it. It was awesome to learn about these missionaries and their experiences with the Book of Mormon. After that was over we were all going to go out and eat lunch, but uh, all the elders from Pescara had no money, so we ended up going home to make lunch while everyone else went out. Sad day. Sall good though because Anz Williams made a pretty good lasagna! The rest of Tuesday was easy going. We finished up our studies and
went over to the church for a lesson with M. She ended up not coming until 5 minutes before English course begins, so we weren't able to teach her that night. English course was awesome though! A lot
of new people showed up, which could give us some new potentials! It was a lot of fun👍🏼

Wednesday was definitely the highlight of the week for me. Not because we did a bunch of good things, but because of a few things I learned. I am going to be honest. Being a missionary is difficult. Not the schedule, not getting up early everyday, not sharing the gospel, not being away from my family. I mean yes that stuff is difficult, but it's manageable. The hard part for me is finding people who want to listen. I know they're out there, and I know there are people that have been prepared to hear this gospel, but I don't know how to find them or approach them. Right now, we have one investigator. It's hard to not look around at the other missionaries with 4 or 5 investigators and wonder what I'm doing wrong. But I was talking with Anziano Maxwell

Anziano Hansen e Anziano Maxwell (District Leader)

Wednesday morning when he said something along the lines of how it's not always the will of God for us to have 4-5 investigators. That really got me thinking. God has a perfect plan, and He will see His righteous purposes accomplished in one way or another. When I try to share the gospel and they don't accept it, that doesn't mean I've failed. It only means that now isn't their time, or I'm not the missionary meant to help bring them to the truth. Maybe all it means is that I'm planting seeds. Tiny seeds, but seeds nonetheless. It also helped me realize something. I used to think it was hard for me to approach people and share the gospel solely because I didn't know what to say and also because it's hard. That's not it. The real reason I've been hesitant is because I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of reaching out and not being able to say what he wants me to say. I'm afraid of them rejecting the gospel. But that's the thing! In missionary work, as long as you're trying, you can't fail. Our purpose is not to save them, because we can't. Only Christ can. Our purpose is to invite, to help, to love, to share, to be fearless. There's a great scripture in the Bible that talks about this. It's 1 John 4:18-19.

 "18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

 19 We love him, because he first loved us."

I love these people, and although there's a lot of things I worry about, I know I don't have to worry about their salvation being on my shoulders. So why not share the gospel? I see it like this: us sharing
the gospel with them isn't going to be their only opportunity to hear the gospel. They'll have more opportunities because the Lord has promised that each person will hear the fullness of the gospel
proclaimed in their own tongue. However, we only have a finite amount of opportunities to share it with them. So we need to reach out and share it with whoever we can.

Also! On Wednesday, the Pescara missionaries were invited to lunch with a member and some of her friends. We were asked to make the main dish, and they wanted us to make tacos! And I'm going to be honest they were pretty good! I mean they weren't actually tacos because they don't have taco shells here, so we had to use tortillas, but they were still good! Anyways we get there and we have a few appetizers and then eat the tacos and I eat two because I think it's all we're eating. I'm super full, but then they start talking and think it's a good idea to cook up some sausages and bruschetta

(Source: http://www.taste.com.au/images/recipes/sfi/2009/05/tomato-and-basil-bruschetta-17527_l.jpeg)

for us, and THEN they bring out a homemade cheesecake. It was so much food😳 and my companion said that it was the least amount of food he's ever eaten at a members house. Great😅

Wednesday night we went to go see the P family in Chieti.

(Source: http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Chieti.8.gif)

They had actually forgotten that we were coming over, but they gladly welcomed us in and we had an awesome lesson with them! That's actually how we spent a lot of time this week - going and seeing members so I could get to know them, but also to try to pump them up about missionary work. It's been a lot of fun getting to meet them all!

Thursday we started out with a lesson for P, who's a less active from Nigeria. We talked about the first two commandments in chapter 4, and it went really well. The Africans here are awesome. The majority of them are less active, but not because they don't have faith. It's usually because they just can't get to church or because they need to work. Stuff like that. Their faith is rock solid though, and it's inspiring. Already, I've met tons of refugees here in Italy trying so hard to make it work. Their stories and backgrounds are unbelievably sad, but they're here, they're happy, and they're working hard. After that, we (attempted is more like it) made cookies. The thing is though, we don't have a mixer. Or measuring cups. Or cookie sheets. But we had a recipe and a will, and when you have those, there IS a way to make somewhat decent cookies. But DANG. I miss my bosch. We
went to see Fratello D, and we taught him and gave him some cookies, and he gave us two ties and some spread for bruschetta, as if we have enough money to actually get good bread for bruschetta. Ah well. We then had a lesson with M, then English course, then
ended the day with daily planning.

Friday we had plans to go to Popoli

(Source: http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Popoli.8.gif)

to see the M family and then go from there to Teramo

(Source: http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Teramo.8.gif)

and see some less actives, but we found out the train times weren't what we thought they we're going to be. We ended up only having time for the M family, but it worked because it left us time to do weekly planning that night. Popoli is a tiny mountain town, and it's SOOO beautiful.

(Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/3/3a/Popoli.jpg)

But when we left Pescara, it was nice and sunny. When we got to Popoli, it was windy and rainy.
And we had no umbrellas. Or jackets. Yay. It wasn't a very long walk to their house though, and after we had had lunch and shared a message, it was back to being sunny. And like I said, we went home

"Some weird thing we found walking home"

and did weekly planning then got some DANG good pizza for dinner👌🏼

"The first pizza (not the pizza he was talking about above) I bought (Earlier this month). Wasn't as good compared to some of the other stuff I've had!"

Saturday was so much fun! We started with correlation with the ward mission leader which was good. We then came back for lunch and studies. Afterwards, Anziano Cowden and I went to centro for a lesson with a referral from the sisters. He didn't want to meet at the church, so we had our lesson with him on a bench in the middle of centro. It went well though! He didn't agree to a return appointment,
but he said if he had questions he'd call us, so we'll see what happens. We wanted to go to church after that because the ward was having a party, but the buses weren't running. So we walked the
distance, which was probably a good 2 - 3 miles or so. BUT. On our way, we were stopped by a girl who'd had lessons with missionaries before, and we ended up getting her to agree to meet with us! So it was good. Anyways, the ward party that night was themed for the 70's and 80's, and it was awesome. The decorations were spot on, the music and food was good, and there was even a bar where you could order drinks and have a bunch of different juices or flavors mixed. Haha it was hilarious. And a lot of people invited their friends! So it gave us some great opportunities for making new friends and getting some potentials. The Anziani from Ascoli (finally figured out how to spell
it), Anz Anderson and Friedman, also came. They stayed the night at our apartment too, and came with us to church on Sunday, and stayed over that night too. They're here for p day with us, and they're also staying tonight because tomorrow is district meeting. Anyways, Sunday was good. We had a new bishop called, so the stake president was there. My Italian comprehension is at a solid 60% half the time. Needless to say, it was difficult. But still good!

Afterwards we had lunch, then went to help V with some stuff. We spent our Sunday night out doing exchanges, and we turned it into a game. Points were based on how many lessons you taught, how much time they let you talk for, how many doors were slammed, that kinda stuff. It made it a lot of fun! Anziano Anderson and I taught one lesson (which actually went really well btws) and got a return appointment, so it was a good night.

Today we had plans to have a barbecue on the beach with our district (Pescara, Ascoli, l'Aquila), but l'Aquila cancelled on us so we're going up to the Chieti mall instead. Should be fun!

This work is def not easy, but I'm loving it. Also, sorry for the long emails. I'll work on cutting them down. But if you did read this far - grazie!

May the glory ever be to God.

Anz Hansen