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:
"O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep..."
"Awake! and arise from the dust..."
"And he (the Lord) hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence."
"...arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity;"
"Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust."
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👍🏼
Make this week something worth remembering.
Che la gloria sia sempre a Dio
Anziano Hansen
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