Fancy cars

Helllooooo everybody

Hope your guys' week was as good as mine was! Real talk though, this week flew by so fast haha. Honestly feel like just two days ago was Monday, but here we are again! Today for p day we're going to be bowling for one of the Anziano's birthdays! Haven't been bowling in such a long time haha. I'll update you with who won next week👍🏼

"There's just something about the super tight alleyway thing that's characteristic of Italy that I love" 

Anyways, there's a lot of cool stuff that happened this past week. We've been working a lot on establishing relationships with people here, and it's been going really well. But let me just intervene for a second and mention how lucky you guys are at home! Sharing the gospel is so much nicer of an experience. Out here as a missionary, you feel really stressed with the amount of time you're given. It's hardly enough to build and maintain solid relationships, and when you share the gospel, it often comes off as just some random person trying to convince someone else that they ought to change churches. Obviously, as missionaries, we try to avoid and do everything we can to not come off like that, but it still happens often. As a member though, you're not pressured in any of those areas. You don't have to invite people right away. You're not pushed for time. You can just share the gospel in small and simple ways. We do that as missionaries as well, but MAN is it so much easier to do that as a member. People don't assume you're doing it solely for the purpose of trying to convert them😂 it actually reminds me of a quote that I want to share really quickly! It was elder Holland who said "Asking every member to be a missionary is not nearly as crucial as asking every member to be a member!"

Just something to think about😊

It's been a nice experience though being able to really get to know these people and just focus on loving them. It does mean we've been slacking a bit in picking up new investigators, but I feel like it'll be worth it as we've created real friendships with these people.

We also went to the catacombs here in Palermo this week! Hundreds and hundreds of skeletons and imma admit that I was a little creeped out haha. Here's a picture I took right before being chastened for not having read the "no pictures" sign.

My b I won't do it next time.

Other oddities from the week include
- Tripping for the first time in a long time while walking up a flight of stairs and getting a ginormous bruise on my thigh🙃
- Talking to a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses this week!...inside our members house🤔 hahaha we showed up to get one of the members sons to come with us to a food festival (didn't even end up coming), and while waiting for him, we talked with a different member until the JW's came knocking haha. It was only a little awkward. It got really uncomfortable though when they assumed we didn't speak Italian and began whispering to each other loud enough for us to hear that it was awkward for them as well😂
- EATING ARROSTICINI AGAIN!

Let me explain. In the region of Abruzzo (within the which Pescara (my first city) is located) they eat these things called arrosticini. They take tiny bits of lamb and put them on skewers and after cooking them, they brush them using rosemary sprigs dipped in olive oil and put on a little bit of salt. They're so good! The only downside is that they're not super filling and literally have to eat 100 of them to be full hahaha. I paid €2,50 for three skewers, but it was totally worth it.

- Speaking of arrosticini, we had the festival! It was super cool. For a couple days, they blocked off the Main Street and just filled it up with all these little tents of different cultural foods. They had English food (fish and chips, obviously), American food (hot dogs and hamburgers😂), Brazilian food, Hungarian food, Thai food, Pakistani food, and a lot of food from different regions in Italy. It was so cool!

- Attending a catholic choir concert where a friend was performing! It sounded really cool and the experience was one I won't forget. I mean, sure we only got there and caught the last few songs, but it was awesome!

- Talking with more Jehovah's witnesses who were infinitely cooler than the other ones we met haha. They also spoke English, and we talked the entire tram ride about the English premier league and soccer haha. Man I love just being friendly and talking with people! Best way to share the gospel you know☺

- Making and eating like, 6 pounds of fried rice.

We decided this week that we'd each just buy our own food to eat instead of cooking lunches together, and I thought "yeah I'll just buy a ton of ingredients and make loads of fried rice and eat that for most of my lunches and dinners.

I'm so sick of eating friend rice now hahahaha.

I think that covers the majority of the noteworthy stuff that happened this week haha...except for zone conference!

"The zone!"

"Me and my MTC comp at zone conference!"

I really really loved this zone conference. We focused all on the Book of Mormon and setting goals in the mindset of the talk "Good, Better, Best" by Elder Oaks

given a few years back. Here are some of the thoughts that came to mind as we discussed these things:

- We are our own investigators! I can't remember exactly what it was that made me think this, but I imagined how much I study and care about investigators and how hard I try to help them nurture their testimonies, and then thought about how I also need to be doing that for myself. It was an interesting thought. Am I nurturing myself spiritually to the point that I'm able to continue to progress and strengthen my testimony?

- We don't teach Mormon doctrine. We teach Christ's doctrine. That's an important distinction that I love about this church. We don't claim it to be the "Mormon" church. This is Christ's church. And what's so cool about our message is that it's all about Christ. He is the cornerstone of this church. He's the center of everything we do and say and it's awesome that I get to teach about that! It's also interesting inviting people to learn more about it. As they study and pray, they come to know for themselves that this is Christ's church and this is his doctrine. Love it!

- There was another super cool thing that was said by one of the apostles. I can't remember which, but it was in a mission president training seminar video that we watched where someone mentioned that behavioral change without Christ as the focal point isn't repentance. It's more than just a behavioral adjustment, it's a literal change of heart. I love how in the scriptures the heart is often portrayed as the total sum of our desires and wants. And that's what Christ can change! I don't understand how, but I have faith that Christ can change even those desires of the natural man that we have.

- We also talked about how as missionaries in Italy, we all get to the point where we say "eh. It's just another thousand year old building" or "eh. It's just another castle." We talked about the true beauty of Italy and how just because its old to us doesn't mean it's not beautiful. We then related that to the Book of Mormon and how we often forget its beauty and importance. We talked about how it answers specific questions and how we ought to use it as our main source for teaching, and I realized that I don't know it nearly well enough. So we all accepted the invite of asking ourselves a question each day before we began studies that we'd find an answer to, and it's been really cool thus far. I invite you to do the same!

I'm loving the mission life. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. This upcoming week we're going to be doing lots of finding, so expect to hear some miracles next week😉

"Just one of the hundreds of mentioned 'fancy cars' from the title. Never seen a car so nice😳" 

Have a good week y'all✌🏼

VVB e buona settimana☺

May the glory ever be to God

Anziano Hansen