2nd Week in Italy, Week 8

I'm still alive. Not a surprise. Italy is absolutely amazing.

So I'm going to start with something Landen always talks about: how I saw God's hand this week. Here are just a few ways I've seen His hand this week.

So one pretty cool miracle that happened this past week was with one of our investigators Antonio. Currently his baptismal date is July 19th, just in a few weeks. This past weekend, he went home to Napoli, where his family lives- He told us that he hinted at the fact he was planning on being baptized into the Church. When he did that, his family basically said that was a bad idea and he shouldn't do that. This next part is why I see it as a miracle. Before this time, we were trying to discern if he was truly ready for baptism. He's a really quiet guy and we just weren't sure if he had a testimony of everything yet or not. But in his text to us about all of this happening, he told us during this time that he is deciding if his family will be accepting, he's is going to keep resisting temptation because of the Light of God he has seen in his life, and keep reading and praying. We now know without a doubt that his testimony is strong as ever and we see that from this it is only going to grow.

Another sweet experience happened on our way to meet with one of our investigators, Iqbal. We were on the metro on the way there and came to a stop. Anziano Taylor had a quick brain lapse and thought we were on the wrong metro so we jumped off real quick. Immediately after doing so, we realized it was the right one. We took like 10 steps toward a bench and a guy was like, "Are you guys Mormons?" This guy, whom we never would've met if we had stayed on that metro, has been taught every lesson by the missionaries and almost was baptized like a couple years ago. Now he is going to meet with the missonaries in his city right outside of Milan and probably get baptized this time. Just what in the world...

So yea miracles all over the place. So I've now been asked to share some stuff just about Italy. So I'm in the center of Milan basically. 2 really cool places are the Duomo of Milan and Castello Park. Go google them. They're cooler in real life. It rains probably once a week here. Not too bad. It gets pretty hot here. Breakfast is always cereal and eggs. Lunch is normally pasta that we take turns making. It's delicious still so I'm not complaining. And we really only it dinner if it's with an investigator at a member's home. Otherwise we skip dinner which isn't difficult. The food here is, as you can imagine, amazing. They have 15 different foods that I call pizza. Just different shapes and sauces and stuff. It's all pizza though and it's all amazing. Pizza from every where is amazing. No bad pizza. Pasta everywhere is amazing. All food here is to die for.

So I live right outside of Milan and we take the metro into Milan to do everything, Church, finding, lessons, etc. So it's a ton like NYC basically. The people here are great. Our ward is mainly Peruvian and Ecuadorians. A few Italians here and there hahha. Days are mainly spent waking up, studying till around 1 unless we have a lesson. Then lunch and language study till 3-ish. Then after that it just depends on the day. Some days we have meetings, other days are spent in lessons, and the worst days are spent finding from 6 hours. The past few days have been spent finding. We've been bidoned (Italian for dumped kind of hahhaa) by 10 investigators in 4 days. Just rescheduling lessons or not showing up for them basically. So we spent all the time finding which is less exciting than lessons but still awesome.

Here's the Duomo in the center of Milan.

We had Zone Training and I met my Granpa, Anziano Smith.
He trained my trainer.

I guess the last thing I really want to say is just something about a scripture I read recently. In 2 Nephi 2:1-2, it's Lehi talking to his son Jacob. He says,

"1 And now, Jacob, I speak unto you: Thou art my firstborn in the days of my tribulation in the wilderness. And behold, in thychildhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow, because of the rudeness of thy brethren.
2 Nevertheless, Jacob, my firstborn in the wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain."

We all experience rough times, rough days, rough weeks, rough, months, rough lifetimes. Sometimes it has nothing to do with us. Sometimes it's the people around us that kind of bring your spirits down. Put your name into those two verses and read it. We're never left alone. Heavenly Father is going to take all that bad that we experience in our lives, and he's going to consecrate it for our gain. We grow from that stuff. I know I have.

Oh yea and everyone should read this talk by Elder Holland: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=795

I love you all and I'm praying for you.
Hope you're all doing amazing.
Anziano Guthrie