Brindisi | week 8 {free pizza for english lessons!}

This is the pizzeria where Regan and the other elders got free pizza for teaching an English lesson. They were invited to come back every Monday to make the exchange! Regan said this place could have been straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean :)

Anziano Pizza, Anziano Alvey, Anziano Jepson, Anziano Smith

This week started off my meeting an amazing couple named Maria and Batista. We met them on the street and got their number. We called two days later and they actually said we could come over which was a first. They live in a super nice apartment right off the center. They told us they respected us so much for leaving our homes and learning a new language to share this message they would at least take the time to hear us out. Turns out they already knew a lot about the church from the internet, and we got to explain a lot about how we have the Book of Mormon and why it is so important. They also had a question about Adam and Eve so we read pretty much all of 2 Nephi 2 which they really enjoyed. They said they would invite us over to Pronzo and we could talk more. I am super excited. Hopefully we get a call soon.

The next day was miracle day. We have been teaching on average about 3 lessons a weeks since I got here. Lame, I know. Last Friday we taught 5 lessons. First we taught Corridino who is making unreal progress. He is keeping all of his commitments: reading from the Book of Mormon and praying each day and he is also smoking less and less. I am so happy for him. I know he is taking the steps he needs to make to come closer the Savior. Next, we taught Verah. It is a true shame I have not written about her earlier because she is amazing. However, we have only been able to meet with her once a week the past 3 weeks and she cannot make church on Sunday. Nevertheless, I can feel how special she when we teach her. She is from Nigeria, and she learned English in school so it is great to be able to teach someone else in English. Our last visit with her we taught about the importance of prophets and we read a lot from King Benjamins address to his people in Mosiah 2-4. She loved it and we left her with the talk "The Race of Life" by President Monson. We then went to Fratello Grecos house to give a message to him and his wife who is not a member. We had an awesome lesson on faith center around Alma 7:11-13 and how this is the absolute core of our faith. We left that lesson and went outside and there were three rainbows on top of each other. It was so legit. Then we taught two more lessons to English course people. Our English course got up to 25 people this week!

On Saturday we had a branch activity in the morning which ended up being walking to a park that was about 15 minutes away and then shooting some hoops and having a spiritual thought. It was kind of random, but I liked it. Right after the spiritual thought an American guy named Tim showed up. We met him earlier that week and told him we would be playing bball possibly and we gave him the address. We didnt call him or anything and he just showed up. He wanted to hang out with us really bad because his two best friends growing up were Mormon and served missions, so he just wanted to see what mission life was like I guess. He was awesome. We ended up staying to play basketball with him longer with some other people at the park. We ended up having on odd number so I said I would just go on a jog around a little trail they had that went around the bball court cause I missed running a lot (no worries, I was within sight and sound of Anziano Pizza). I ended up going 62 minutes and almost 8 miles. It felt so good in the moment. Sunday morning my legs ceased to function. Today I am finally almost healed. That night we taught Victor and Blessing. It was bomb as usual. Victor is an amazing cook and always gives us dinner. On Saturday he made us really good chicken to go over some rice and really good fruit. I love them more and more every week.

Monday night we went and taught English course at that pizzeria I talked about last week. We taught a 20 minute English lesson to the 6 people that worked there and then they told us to sit down and brought all of his free pizzas. They said they wanted us to come back every Monday night from now on. We will so be there for English course, spiritual thought, and hopefully more free pizzas.

So, I have gotten to know Anziano Alvey and Anziano Jepson a lot better this week. They are both amazing guys. The past 2 weeks I have been super locked in and focused so my personality/sense of humor hasnt really come out with them yet. However, Anziano Alvey is the funniest missionary I have met yet. Today he was like Smith do you have a girl writing you and if so is her name Barbara? Haha, Im glad I get at least 4 more weeks with them.

So, yesterday I was reading in PMG in the first chapter about my purpose as a missionary. One sentence really stuck out to me. It said, your desire to share the gospel will increase as you understanding of the Atonement increases. Then next morning I decided to study the Atonement out of Gospel Principles. I realized that I can gain knowledge about the Atonement when I read from there and the scriptures, but understanding of the Atonement only comes through personal experience with it. I need to try to have more experiences with the Atonement through my faith and repentance. When I use the Atonement through repenting a becoming better and feel the fruit from it, then I will desire to share it more and have more power behind my words. Everyone take care! Love you all!

Anziano Smith

Brindisi | week 4

So this week some very exciting things happened. On Saturday I went on an exchange with Anziano Brown to a city called San Vito. We visited a man named Victor and his wife Blessing who is a new convert. They have come to our Gospel Principles class 3 times but it was great to go to their home and get to know them better. They both speak English fairly well so we got to teach the lesson to Blessing in English which was a relief for me. We taught her about service and she committed to accept a calling soon. Then she made a delicious dinner. Also, they are moving at the end of the month, so it will be great to be able to help them out with that.

On Sunday we had two people we met last week come to church! They both had a great experience  and could feel the love of all the members in our branch. One of them is a man from Ethiopia. He showed up to church and told us the address on our passalong card was wrong. We looked it up it and it was. Missionaries have been using that stamp for passalong cards and pamphlets for the last year. I honestly do not know what to think about that. Anziano Pizza and I have under control now though. The other man is from English course and he has come to church the past two weeks. Anziano Brown and I got to teach him about prayer in Gospel Principles, and he committed to pray each night this week. At English course last night he said his prayers were going great. 

So on Sunday night Anziano Pizza and I met an awesome family. We were walking by the Marina where there is a ton of restaraunts and they were setting up for a concert. I have no idea why we decided to go there because no one was going to stop and talk to us, but for some reason we ended up down there. Out of nowhere I heard someone yelling Elders! Elders! There was an American family eating a restaraunt and they offered to buy us dinner. We told them we could not eat, but we could talk for a little while. At first I thought they were a member family on vacation, but it turns out they have lived here since December for work and they are moving back to Charleston this December. I am still not sure how they knew the missionaries or why they offered to buy us dinner, but they were a super nice familly. They live across the water and you have to get a boat ride to where they live and they said we could come over this Saturday or next Saturday so we are really excited about that.

Overall, we have been doing a lot of finding on the streets. We went to a new area that is close to the Marina which is super pretty, and we got an appointment to go back a talk with a lady this Friday. While we were exploring new parts of Brindisi, we happened to come across this market which we will definitely be going to in the near future. Also, we found a place here that sells Buffmozz (not sure on the spelling). It is a specific kind of cheese that is made from buffalo milk. We each bought a huge ball of it with a couple tomatoes each. I think it is better than the pizza.

Today for pday, we ended up going back to Lecce again for some shopping and soccer. We found small shop that was closing down and bought some soccer jerseys and funny nba hats. I got an awesome Italy jersey, but I have no skills to back it up. We grabbed a quick lunch and played soccer again. Brindisi came out on top this week. Next week will probably be our last game of the transfer.

This week I learned a lot about the power of faith in Jesus Christ. When I just trust what he says and try my best to do his will, miracles happen. This morning  I read a scripture in the Book of Mormon that said God will protect those who think of him and obey him like a father protects his son who serves him. There are a lot of voices that compete for our attention in the world. I have learned that when we just think of the Lord and try to do what he would do, we can find peace and joy that can come from any other source. It is by doing this that we can lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven. 

Anziano Smith

Regan is officially in Italy!

Regan with the Italy Rome Mission President and his wife

The group of new missionaries that arrived in Italy with Regan

Regan officially arrived to Italy last Wednesday! I meant to post this last week, but I was out of town and am just getting back home. We are so happy he made it there safe and sound, along with the rest of the missionaries. We received the long awaited phone call from Regan when he was at the airport before his flight (the ONE phone call missionaries are allowed to make home, besides on Christmas Day and Mothers Day!) We sent him various calling cards and tons of quarters just to make sure he had everything he needed to use the payphone at the airport! We were overboard excited about this call :) When we saw an unknown number come up on my mom's phone, we knew it was Regan. When we answered, we put him on speaker phone and connected Allie in. We all spoke to him for about 25-30 minutes. We were so grateful for that amount of time because we thought he would only have around 5 minutes.

It was so good to hear his voice, and get a majorly condensed version of his MTC experience. He sounded so happy, and even more excited to finally go to Italy. He gave us advice about things we could do to further strengthen our personal testimonies, based on various lessons he learned during his time at the MTC. He closed the phone call by sharing his testimony with us. It was extremely powerful and left us all in tears. We are so proud of Regan and could not possibly miss him any more than we do already! 

A day later we received an email from the mission president's wife, attached with the 2 pictures above. They took pictures with all the missionaries and let them email home saying that they arrived safe and sound. Words can't describe how grateful we were that the mission president and his wife did this for all the missionaries and their families! They seem like extremely nice people :) After arriving at the mission home in Rome, all the missionaries received letters telling them where in Italy their first assignments were (I only know this from reading the blog of the mission presidents wife!). We are anxiously awaiting his Pday email this Wednesday letting us know where he was assigned to go!

MTC | Week 3

So this week in the MTC was pretty much the same as all of the other weeks. Class, teaching, class, eat, and sleep. The amount of information we are learning here is unreal. I learned a few really amazing things this week I wanted to share with everyone.

The first really only applies to future missionaries who will be learning a new language. We have 6 or 8 hours of straight language study every day, but the style of learning is totally different than any school in the entire world. This week, kind of like the first two weeks, we got a little frustrated because they were teaching us so much information so fast. Our teacher, Fratello Jeter, whipped out a quote that I had never heard before by Joseph Smith. He said the gift of tongues is the least important of all spiritual gifts, yet it is often the one we seek after the most. Fratello Jeter then ducktaped an eraser and some cleanser in Anziano Rigby's hands and told him to try to vaccum the room. He obviously couldn't do this. He compared doing missionary work to cleaning a room (weird analogy I know). Italian isn't a tool, it is only our gloves. Learning Italian is not the goal here in the MTC or in Italy. It is the least important thing we will do on the mission. However, it is necessary to be able to use the rest of our tools or spiritual gifts/qualities we must develop to be successful missionaries (faith, hope, charity, humility, revelation, ect.). There aren't any grades here in the MTC. Learning the language isn't a competition. It is completely irrelevant if you are fluent in Italian if you can't teach the gospel by the power of the Holy Ghost and express your love and concern for people. The next day was Sunday, and I didn't even look at anything Italian all day. I just read a lot of the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel in English and prayed a lot. It was so refreshing to do this. Church was awesome too. It gave me a ton of renewed strength and energy.

The next thing I wanted to share was some lesson I learned from a talk by David A. Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve called "The Character of Christ." It was a recorded talk given in the MTC on Christmas Day in 2008. This talked changed my entire perspective of the mission. He started by saying that as an apostle, he visits those who have been baptized into the church within the last 6 months everywhere he goes. He asks everyone what the missionaries said that made them interested in the church and eventually get baptized. Everyone gave the exact same answer. "All I remember them saying was some crazy story about a kid finding gold plates in the woods. I thought it was one of the strangest things I have ever heard. However, the reason we invited them back was because the spirit and power they brought into our home that we have never felt before." As a missionaries, it's obviously necessary to know the gospel, but it is not our words or our intellect that will ever help anyone. It is the converting power of the Holy Ghost to let people know this message is unique. He also told us that before our missions we learned a lot about Christ along with the rest of the Christian world. Now is not our time to learn ABOUT him, it is our time to learn OF him. The difference between learning of Christ and learning about Christ is huge. Then he started talking about how the character of Christ teaches of him. The character of Christ is to turn outward, when the natural man would turn inward. He then opened up the New Testament and gave several examples of how Christ turned out during very difficult times. I'll briefly relate just a few. When Christ took the three chief apostles to the Garden of Gethsemane, they couldn't pray with him for an hour. Then Judas betrayed him. 4 of the 12 who Christ invested everything he had for the past 3 years in didn't come through. They let him down when he need them most. He then talked about the incomprehenisble horror and terror of what Christ actually went through in Gethsemane. He was on his way to the cross, and he healed a guard's ear who was come to take him to his death. Then he forgave those who hung him on the cross. Then he started talking to and doing missionary work with the thieves on his left and on his right. He then started giving instructions for his mother to be taken care of. He was NEVER thinking of himself. Not even in his darkest hour. It was never about him. He then asked the question, so what? Why does this matter to us? He then gave us the definition of character and how we can develop the character of Christ through the Atonement. Character refers to moral qualities strongly developed, strikingly displayed, and consistently lived. During this talk he read Mosiah 3:19 at least 7 times. I seriously think this is them most important verse in the whole Book of Mormon. This verse talks about how the natural man is an enemy to God and we can only change through the Atonoment of Christ and develop his attributes. We will never be able to do it on our own. He said some people think they will change by constantly being busy and having a huge check list to accomplish. This will never work. It is only through the power of the Atonement which comes through the ordinances and covenants which Christ has established. Through these blessings, we can gain strength from God. He said on our misisons we will have to love the whiners, the complainers, and the proud. Christ loved these people. He loved his enemies. He loved the people who crucified him. The only way we can develop this Christlike love and completely change our natures is the through put everything on the altar of sacrifice to God (our fear, our pride, our disobedience, ect.) and realize that we are 100% dependent on Christ. We need his power and his image in our countenances. At the end of his talk he invoked a blessing upon us that through our desire and dilegence we would have an increased understanding of the character of Christ and therefore be able to develop every spritual gift/blessing to truly become converted to him and never fall away (Alma 23:5-6). Yesterday I bought a new copy of the Book of Mormon. I am reading it from cover to cover before I leave the MTC with one question in mind: what is the character of Christ? Yesterday I read the first 26 pages and I learned something about the character of Christ on every page.

The next experience I wanted to share happened yesterday. Sorella Miles was teaching us about how to be good missionaries (that's kind of what we learn here at the MTC). She said if your not speaking from you heart, you are merely a robot or a salesman. She said we need to share with everyone our personal conversion story on the mission. She had all 8 of us in the room share our conversion story in Italian. It was really powerful. All 8 of us were born into the church, but we have all come to know it for ourselves through our own experiences. You can't live off of borrowed light on the mission. After that experience Anziano Romano looked at me and pointed at a picture of the prophet. Then he showed me a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. Then he pointed out the window at all the missionaries walking around.  The he said, "There's no way the church isn't true."

I only have like 5 minutes left. Overall, I learned a lot about humility this week. As a missionary, I have to be ready to share my testimony 24/7. Testimonies can only be shared out of love and genuine concern for others. Therefore, my mind has to be on higher ground all of the time. Elder Bednar promised us that if we completely forget about our own concerns and problems and the mission, we will find ourselves and become who we truly want to be for the rest of our lives. It won't necessarily be the best two years of my life, but it will teach me things and do things for me that will lay a foundation for the rest of my life that could be learned no other way. Our district is also all really close now. We all can't wait to go to Italy. The MTC is great, but come July 23, we will be ready for the real thing.

Sincerely,

Anziano Smith

MTC | Week 2

Second week in the MTC was a lot smoother than the first week. We are all in a lot better rhythm and we all feel like we have been here forever. However, it has gone by fast at the same time. It doesn't really make sense. Anyways, I learned a lot this week. The World Wide Missionary meeting thing was incredible. I can't believe I got to see 11 of the 12 apostles in person! When they walked in the Marriott Center, everyone stood up and it was dead silent. The Spirit came into the room very powerfully. I learned so much about missionary work during all of their talks. I got some awesome notes. I don't want to talk to much about it though since everyone got to listen to it at home. There is only one point I want to share. President Packer said that he wished he could promise us we would be successful if we worked hard and studied hard but he couldn't. The only way he could promise we would have success is if we followed the guidance of the Holy Ghost. That pretty much sums up missionary work. It's not my thoughts, my words, or my actions that are going to do any good. It's only when I am humble enough to listen to the voice of the Spirit and follow it with faith and courage. It will be the same principle for everyone I teach. I also learned that I have to live every principle I teach or else I'll be a hypocrite.

Anyways, we had devotional last night, and I have to talk about that for a little while. I walked in with Anziano Kelly, Romano, and Kekoolani. We were all banking on an apostle speaking since they are all here to train the new mission presidents (btw: we have had sac breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 5 days because the apostles and mission presidents get the cafeteria. It's been rough). We walked in and saw on the sceen that it was Sister Janice Kapp Perry. Anziano Romano and I looked at each other and in perfect unison said, "Naptime!" She proved us so wrong. She was so funny and her message was incredible. She told us when she was a freshman at BYU she had a midterm in her music program where she had to play the flute or something. 2 minutes before she went, her future husband (who she had never talked to before) walked up and said, "Your lips were made for something much better than playing the clarinet." Everyone lost it. Then her husband got up and kissed her in front of everyone. Classic. She told us that she wrote about 20 hymns in the children's hymnbook and a few in the regular hymnbook. She led us and we sang 1 verse of 6 of them: A Child's Prayer, I Love to See the Temple, I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus, Army of Helaman, Love is Spoken Here, and one more. It was so powerful when we were sing Army of Helaman because ususally it goes, we will be the Lord's missionaries, but instead she changed the words to "WE ARE NOW THE LORD'S MISSIONARIES." There were about 4,000 missionaries at the devotional and probably half were crying. It was incredible. She then shared a quote with us from President Packer that said we can learn lessons quickly through music that would otherwise take us a long time to learn. So true.

So, the lady we have been teachinng whose name was Valeria turns out to be Sister Miles. She started teaching our class this week. She got back from her mission to Rome in March. She told us that when we were teaching her, she was acting out someone who she actually taught on her mission. She showed us pics, and it was really cool. She is such an amazing teacher. She said one thing yesterday that really hit me hard. She said that we will be home from our mission before we know it. If I don't lead those I teach to Christ, then they won't make any real progress. If they don't come to know Christ and I leave, then I didn't really do anyting meaningful. She told us to challenge every person we teach to commit to read and pray about the Book of Mormon because it is the best tool in the entire world in converting people to Christ. I really do know that is true. My whole mission is about helping others come to know the truth of the restored gospel and become spritually indepent because I won't always be there to teach and testify to them.

This week our dorm got powerful hot. I have no idea why but it is getting stuffy and a lot of kids are sick. There are kids from all over the entire world here which is really awesome. The other day someone said, "That means all the diseases from the entire world are probably here too." There might be some truth to that statement. I have managed to stay healthy though. Anziano Gardenhire (tubo del giordino aka "gardenhose") has gone running with me everyday the past week. He ran cross country and track in high school so he is way better than me. I'm so grateful though cause he is keeping me in shape. The only time we get to work out is either or after a solid 12 hours of work/study. Either way we are exhausted during our workout time. Most kids don't workout. Everyone in our dorm does though. Hence, we have earned the name "Swole Patrol." It's starting to get serious. I won't name any names but someone grabbed a brownie today at lunch and another elder through it in the trash and was like, are you part of the swole patrol or not? We are having a bunch of fun. It's part our language learning program to SYL (speak your language) as often as possible so we started putting sticky notes on everything in or room with the Italian word on it. We keep getting better. It's hilarious though cause we mess up all the time. Anziano Mortensen told us a story from his first month on the mission. A family asked him what the purpose of temples was he started talking about how we make covenants with God and we can be sealed together with our families so we can be with them for eternity. The Itaian word for seal is "suggelare" and the word for deep freeze is "sugerlare." It turns out he told them we deep freeze families together forever in temples. They were like, does the government know about this? And he was like, yes of course. Another funny story about the language. The Italian word for thank you is pregho. Ther were a bunch of Sister missionaries coming to the door and Anziano Romano opened it for them. When they were all saying thank you he was just like "pregho, pregho, pregho." They didn't know that was the Italian word for thank you and though that he was making a reference to them looking pregnant. It was so funny. Another random funny story, we were at a meeting early this week and there was a kid sitting in front of who need to scatch his back and didn't know his been was open. He wrote all over the back of his white shirt with his pen and didn't even know it. I died. Okay, I'll stop now. I don't want to waste anyone's time with my dumb sense of humor.

Today 7 of the 10 kids in our district had to go up to Salt Lake to get their visas. That left Anziano Romano, Kekoolani, and I here all day for pday (for those of you who aren't familiar with mission lingo, pday is our day off to do laundry, write, take a nap, ect.). It was great. We have to do service every pday from during which I cleaned toilets and dusted pictures. After that, the games began. The three of us went to the temple after that. I got good pics with Anziano Kekoolani and Anziano Romano. I will send them shortly. It was said because the temple is closing for cleaning for a month or so, so I think that is the last time until I get to go in Rome. I totally forgot! I met the mission president night. He's awesome! He told us the target date for the dedication of the Rome temple is September 2014 and it was his goal to let every one of us go before we go home. I can't wait. He told us all about the Rome temple. He said that in Rome, no one can build anything if there are ancient ruins underneath the site. The church found the only plot of land that would work and they dug to look for ruins and there were none under the whole temple grounds. 50 feet outside the temple grounds, there are ruins. Miracle. He also told us there can't be any building in Rome in which there isn't a public part that can be used by anyone. In the visitor's center is a family history center for anyone to come and do ther family history. He also told us that the Christus statue is going to be the biggest one ever! It will make the one in Salt Lake look small. That is so cool. I can't wait to see everything down there.

Thank you for everyone who wrote me this week. Mail is much appreciated! Sorry this email is all over the place. I think I covered all the highlights of the week. I miss everyone a bunch, but the first two weeks of the MTC have been eventful and if they are any indicator of the rest of my mission, I know it will be great. This isn't my time right now. It's the Lord's time, but is for me. I'm so grateful for this opportunity, and I can't wait to get on that plane! Btw, there are 22 of us going to Rome, and we'll all be on the same flight. Looking forward to it!

With love,

Anziano Smith

He is Off!

Hi everyone! Regan went into the MTC (Missionary Training Center) yesterday June 12th! It was an amazing experience, but quite hard for the family. We are just going to miss him so much. We know he is so happy to be where he is, and we are especially proud of him. You can reach him at his email address throughout his entire mission. His email address is: Regan.Smith@myldsmail.net

He will be in the MTC through July 23rd, and his address for that location is:

Elder Regan Smith

JUL 23 ITA-ROM

2007 N 900 E

Unit 97

Provo, UT 84602

AFTER July 24th, he will be in Rome and can receive packages and letters can be sent to the following address:

Elder Regan Smith

Italy Rome Mission

Piazza Carnaro, 20

00141 Rome RM
Italy

Regan's Mission Farewell Open House

Regan and Jacob Winters both gave their farewell talks on Sunday June 9th. They both gave amazing talks and were followed by returning missionary Nathan Harries. It was one of the best meetings I have ever been to! After church, we held an open house for Regan and Jacob. Numerous friends and family members attended and it was a special night. Afterwards, Regan was set apart as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Viva Italia! 

Pam Winters made a variety of desserts, including these mini-missionary cookies!

Jacob's mission call to Richmond, VA speaking Mandarin Chinese & Regan's call to Rome, Italy

Jacob Winters, Nathan Harries, Regan Smith, Matthew Harries

Regan Opens His Mission Call!

Regan opened his mission call on March 1, 2013 right when he got home from school. Mom, Dad, and his two friends Joe and Allan were there in person, but Allie (Regan's other sister) and I had to be on Skype since we were in Utah. I was the only one taking pictures, so that is why these are pictures of him on our iPad! They still do a good job of capturing the moment :)  I don't think our family has ever felt that type of joy and excitement that we experienced when Regan read his call. We all went crazy when he read that he was going to be serving in Rome, Italy! We are all so proud of Regan for his life-long dedication and preparation to serve a mission. I am truly happy for the people in Italy that will have the opportunity to be touched by such a special spirit.