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12/18/18
Wow, the weeks are going by lickety split, I can't believe the next time I'll be sitting down to write you guys it'll be Christmas day!
This past week we saw a lot of new faces, had some great lessons and have learned a lot about the patience needed to see the work of the Lord roll forth!
On Tuesday we met with an English course student and his friend to have a first lesson discussing of their past experiences with the missionaries. We invited them to continue coming closer to Christ by meeting with us and searching to gain a testimony of the restored church! Anz Belnap and I have been able to have some great lessons together in this first transfer, and it's cool to see all those tiny teaching moments I've had over my mission, really show in visiting with the people here Terni.
On Wednesday we had an absolutely freezing cold night in the main piazza. We talked to one person for an hour and then met a ragazzo on the other side piazza who was just sooooo in tune! There are so many people who just totally have a knack for understanding the deeper meaning of life and the truly important things! We got to bear some pretty personal testimony about why we came out here to serve a mission.
To finish off Wednesday evening we met with a man who came into the church during the week and asked the member he saw there, if he could learn more about what we believed. Turns out God wanted to give us a Christmas miracle in being able to teach someone so open and prepared for the restored gospel. We were talking about prophets and apostles in our first discussion with him and a chapter I had read earlier that day during my language study in the Book of Mormon immediately came to my mind. It was Alma 13 and it talks about the way leaders in the church of Christ are called (chosen), which perfectly answered his question about current church leaders!
On Saturday we got to follow up with him and have dinner with one of his friends, just chilling and talking in English. Then we told them of the invite from Moroni, that we as missionaries have the opportunity to challenge the world to try! Whenever you invite someone, the spirit just comes as you remember all the personal experiences you yourself have had doing that same thing. Then the confirmation comes proving you're on the right path!
We wrapped up the week with a solid round of church meetings #goodbye3hours (last Sunday with both gospel principles and priesthood after the normal Sacrament meeting, mamma mia!) and then a lunch with a family we're friends with from Morocco! They made us cous cous! So fun to get to know other cultures - God and his children are pretty incredible!
Comunque [anyway], I hope all of you can think of ways to light the hearts of your family members this week for #SiiUnaLuce. Everyone needs a pick-me-up and what better time to do it than today! It's been fun showing people the #SiiUnaLuce videos and challenging them to serve! I love the Savior for His shining example of service and the love and healing that are in his wings. We just have to have the patience to remain steadfast and diligent in His service!
Anziano Samuel Parker
"Always remember the promise of good things to come, both now and hereafter, for those who are firm and steadfast in the faith of Christ."
D Todd Christofferson
1- Cool presepe in centro [crib in the center]
2- New Sister here in Terni, benvenuta [welcome] Sorella Torbit!
3- Making pizza with Izzy!
4- I may not look satisfied, but this is the best bread my companions ever made! #kingson
5- #californianutty
6- Thinking about picking up one of these classic Italiano nonno hats!
[The beginning of December is the Baby Jesus Season!]
12/3/18
We've been doing solid here in Terni, but it's definitely getting colder here. Anz Belnap. the Utah boy, finally had to whip out the long pjs. This week we also started wearing scarves! #inverno
So pumped for Christmas!!!!
Let's just say that #SiiUnaLuce is going to get Terni lit!
We're planning on sharing the new message of #SiiUnaLuce with members and trying to help them serve! If you guys have any ideas for service shoot'em to me and we'll try to put them in practice!
This past week Anziano Belnap and I had a really good time talking to people and also teaching lessons, here are some of our favs:
-skating in a Piazza (almost got kick flips down!) and talking about the restored church with some skater bros!
-doing an activity in centro inviting people to the temple open house!
-teaching a person who recently moved to Ireland over FB Messenger
-Getting to ask people about what strengthens their faith with Anziano Belnap on our first cold night of December
-Playing soccer before English course in our church parking lot with some neighborhood ragazzi
-making lots of bread and pizza and then getting sick from an overload!
Recently I've been studying diligence and it correlates a lot with faithfulness and enduring to the end. It's incredible how much the mission experience can change each of us and give us a chance to come SO much closer to Christ, the Savior of the world and the reason for the season.
Un abbraccione a tutti voi!
[A hug to all of you!]
Anziano Samuel Parker
11/19/18
Anziano Belnap and I had a shorter p-day this week. We were in Rome and did some service there. We went to a big mall and talked to a gelateria dude about the temple and invited him to the open house. Then we spent the night with our homies Anziano Castro (my ex-comp) and Anziano Kane (Belnap's bud from the MTC). We had the classic pasta bianca I would always eat with him and then a glorioso pandoro, the Christmas bread!
On Thanksgiving day we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving! Instead we headed to Rome and had a big conference for the majority of the mission, with Massimo De Feo, one of the General Authorities of the church. He trained and taught us all day long about missionary work, and how to be a more Christlike servant with the faith that there are those elect people who are out there ready to hear about the gospel. He told us there will be even more changes coming to the church in January, with increased emphasis that missionaries play a bigger role in members returning to activity. We also heard the final testimonies of 19 missionaries going home. 19!!! So many incredible missionaries I've been able to serve around and be influenced by. The spirit is so strong when testimony is born by those who have sacrificed and gone through the act of consecration in order to come closer to the Savior and serve others. It was especially crazy because I saw many of the sisters in that group come into the mission, and now they're finishing it!
We've been doing a lot of work with the recent converts that were baptized shortly before I originally got here in Terni. It's so fun to meet with them! John had a visit from Anziano Hansen this week and he got a combination scripture set that he was super excited about! At the end of our last lesson with him, we ended on a spiritual high and he prayed for about 8 minutes!! We were grinning from ear to ear as we walked out of his apartment! Bright and Alfred two other new converts, have friends we've been able to talk to about the church, and we're trying to help them start taking the lessons more seriously in the future.
On p-day we went to Assisi and ran into a member family! They were so happy to see us. The husband actually served in the Padova mission! His mission president is a member I got to know during my time serving in Pescara. It was also cool to see another city that is comparable in some terms to the Vatican City because of it's historical religious significance. People are capable of some incredible things thanks to faith, and I'm grateful we have Christ to count on. Without him it would be pretty tough!
Anziano Samuel Parker
1 & 2 - Assisi trip
3 - Heading to Mission Tour
4 - six beautiful pizzas with the Perugia Anziani #bontàdibuona
[Rain, Rain, Go away!]
11/11/18
Transfer Update - So, my new companion is Anziano Belnap and we've been rocking it these past 3 weeks! He's from Sandy Utah, has a great sense of humor, that I don't always fully catch on to, and is so ready to hit the road running and just dive into Italian! We've been doing all we can to help him practice speaking and getting up to speed with the language.
Siamo rimasti molto bagnati questa settimana! [We were very wet this week.] It rained at least once every day, if not multiple times - luckily we had a couple evenings free of water! Anz Belnap and I have had several cool miracles already and I'm seeing the hope that comes from the faith of a new missionary - it's awesome!
Vi racconto il mio momento preferito [I will tell you my favorite moment] - Last Sunday evening we were contacting on our phone, messaging contacts that have been in our address book, but haven't been contacted since. It's something I've done in the past to pull old contacts, from previous missionaries "out of the woodwork." We got a couple conversations started, one with a guy named Lucky who lives in the new apartment of a new convert in the ward!! It was pretty fun to answer his questions about the connection between Love and God. The highlight of this contacting was getting to know a previous member of the church. Her name wasn't written, just her number and the indication that she was a former member. We said hello and asked her how her week was going, and she explained to us she's been better - she had just cut her hand pretty seriously the day before and was in the hospital to have it all sewed together. Anziano Belnap, my amazing companion, suggested we offer her a Priesthood blessing - and about 3 minutes later we found out that was a spiritual prompting to answer the needs of this sisters burdened heart! She told us she had thought about the church and maybe reaching out for a priesthood blessing multiple times that day, but always pushed the thought away. We ended up being the answer to her silent prayers, and visiting her last Monday night was incredible! We got to talk with her and her family who were present before having the opportunity to give a priesthood blessing - and as I opened my mouth to help her hear Heavenly Father's words, the entire room was dead silent and the spirit was able to speak loud and clear!
We've had several other cool visits with members during the week, in addition to the Halloween party we put together for our English course! Funny thing is we planned it for the day after Halloween, or "all saints day," and we totally forgot that everything shuts down on holidays like that. We only ended up having 3-4 people from our English group come - but we a lot of fun playing games and eating our massive amount of sweets we had prepared. Anz Belnap made 2 big batches of Chocolate Chip cookies and I made cinnamon rolls.
During the week I studied and thought a lot about faith in Christ and how key it is in our inviting others to learn. Christ is the universal connector between all Christians, and it's solely our faith in Him that allows to be saved or makes it possible to repent. Tutto è grazie a Lui. [Everything is thanks to him.] As we're able to talk about the blessings we receive through faith in Him and active involvement in His restored church, others around will slowly but surely be drawn to the light.
Acts 4:12 - "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
Have a great week! And whether you're a missionary with his name on your chest or a believer with His name on your heart - look for ways you can personally invite others to come unto Him!
Ci vedrem!
Anziano Samuel Parker
1 Halloween festa
2 Super cheesy Cheese Pasta
3 Mio Nuovo Verdino!
4 Distretto di Terni, Sorella Ricks, Sorella Muñoz, Sorella Hickey, Anziano Belnap
5 & 6 We've been going hard on the pizza game!
11/4/18
This transfer is going by real quick - but we had a really cool time Friday night visiting some members that haven't come to church for a while. There were about 4 in one neighborhood, so we decided to stop by their homes to see if there was any way we could help them. The first one we dropped by had moved, but that didn't stop us from buzzing all the doors in the palazzo! We buzzed one house on the citofono [intercom] and a man responded to me in Italian. He said to wait for a minute and then he opened a window and said "Hey bros!! How's it been!" It turned out I had talked with this guy on a bus about 2 months ago when I was with a zone leader on a scambio. He was excited to see us and invited us to come back and visit him the next morning! We had a great lesson with him about the Restoration, and my favorite part was answering a question he had about the Law of Moses and how Christ changed in it when He "fulfilled the law." We read a chapter in 3rd Nephi that I remembered reading during the summer while studying Christ's teachings. In chapter 15 Christ explains how law is overwritten by God when necessary and that things change over time, and it made complete sense for him! (He also calls Anziano Belnap "Mr. Salt Lake")
Anziano Samuel Parker
"The pleasant future belongs to those who properly use today." - Marvin J Ashton
"It's not where you serve but how you serve" - J Reuben Clark
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