Caserta | week 8 {become like a little child, warmer weather, another earthquake!}

First of all, I just have to say that these past two weeks have been an absolute blast. Im learning for the first time that missionary work can and should be a blast as well as spiritual. 

I wanted to start of by talking a little bit about our District Meeting last week cause I thought it was funny and it helped me out a lot this week. It was all about 3 Nephi 11: 38 which says, "And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God." Anyways, we talked for 30 minutes about how we can become like little children here on the mission and it was really instructive and funny at the same time. We talked about how kids are always doing their thing no matter what. It doesn't matter if they are at the grocery store, on the train, at school, in church, with adults, or whatever. They are always being kids. Anziano Bennett said similarly we should always be missionaries no matter where we are or what we are doing. That image of always being a missionary like a kid is always being a kid made me laugh. He also told us about how when he was a kid playing soccer he was never afraid to shoot from midfield or try new tricks in a game and he never stopped trying no matter how many times he messed up. It was the best DDM ever. That night Anziano Hatch and I were super inspired to go do street contacting like little children. It was funny because the first two people Anziano Hatch stopped gave us two of the worst rejections I have seen on my mission. It was actually kind of funny. The next lady we stopped was an angel and we had an awesome conversation. It was the strongest testimony of becoming like a little child in that we just laughed it off when to people told us off and we kept going with big smiles. I learned this week that missionary work is a lot more fun and rewarding when we do it like a child. 

So along with having fun this week, we also taught the most lessons than any other week on my mission by far. I am learning so much from Anziano Hatch from his teaching skills it is insane. Related to the last point, I have learned our investigators are most receptive/feel the spirit the strongest when we teach so simply that a child could understand it. It is amazing to me how simple the gospel of Jesus Christ really is. You dont have to be an intellectual genius to feel the power of these truths that can touch anyones soul. We are all children of God and He wants everyone to know and understand the purpose of life and how we can be happy. 

So this week was also amazing because Marco is like the best member missionary I have ever seen. He is 24 and he was baptized last year and he just brings all of his friends and family to church like a boss. We met with him and his friend Maurizio twice this week and it was literally perfect. Member referrals are the best because they dont feel awkward coming for the first time since they already have a friend. Marco also brought his 17 year old cousin Rafael to meet with us on Friday. We taught him the whole Restoration and he seemed to love it. He came to church on Sunday and had a really good experience as well. One of the best experiences of my mission was on Sunday night. Marco invited us over to his house for a pancake dinner with his mom, Rafael and Rafaels girlfriend. After dinner Rafael grabbed a Restoration pamphlet and started going through and showing it to his girlfriend and teaching it to her. It was so cool. Then he got to the page about Joseph Smith and said (in English), "Joseph Smith is the King. He's a boss. He knows what it is." It was easily one of the top 5 funniest moments of my mission. That got his girlfriend pretty interested so we taught them together after dinner and it was great. After the lesson, she prayed for the first time in her life and it was a really sweet experience. We are teaching them together with Marco this Friday and it should be great. 

Alina and Salvatore continue to be amazing. As I have said before, Alina works until 3:30am Saturday nights and this week she and Salvatore were in church at 9 for sacrament because we promised them blessings if they would come for sacrament. Their faith blows my mind. Salvatore actually prophesied something this week, legitimately. We met on Saturday and he was like, "This warm weather is strange for January. Last time it was this warm in January we had an earthquake." This morning we had another earthquake! It creeped me out! Anyways, I love them to death. They are the best people on the planet. 

Something cool happened at English Course this week as well. We started off by asking everyone how there day was and what they did. After everyone responded, they asked us what we did. They obviously know we are missionaries because we leave a spiritual thought every week, but they don't really know what we do all day. So....we told them our schedule of what we did that day and they were all shocked. They literally couldn't believe it. Then they asked what we do for fun and we told them that is what we do every day all day. Then they asked us what we did on the weekends, and we told them that is what we do on the weekends too. Then they asked us how old we were and I said I was 19 and Anziano Hatch was 18. They all thought we were like 25. Anyways, we got like 5 contacts who we have met with/still want to meet with us. Since I have been on my mission I have gotten used to this schedule and work, but it is still shocking to the people of the world. It made me think, if only they knew how shocking the blessings of this gospel are and the eternal truths we have, then they would completely understand why we leave everything behind to share this gospel all day every day for 2 years as teenagers. If they understood the power and authority that comes with the priesthood of God, they would understand by what power we do it. I just want everyone to understand this! 

Comunque, I hope this transfer never ends, cause we are having a blast and Anziano Hatch and I really enjoy working together. We are both working as hard as we can at the end of each day we are able to look back and see the significant but subtle blessings (like Anziano Bednar said last conference) of the Lord each day. I think later this transfer we might also go down to Catania (which is in Sicily) together to pick up Anziano Hatch's permesso. That would be way fun. There are many things to look forward to in the near future. Missionary work is the best!

Love,

Anziano Smith