Back to Pisa

We got transfer calls this past week and the news is I'll be going back to Pisa again! My new comp's name is Anziano Mattson and I will be meeting him there tomorrow. All I know about him at the moment is that he is going into his fifth transfer. It'll be interesting to see how we manage since we're both still pretty green! It's crazy to think that I'm already done with my first two transfers and am therefore finished with my training. I still have so much more to learn to be able to feel comfortable with the language, but then again I'm not sure I will ever be satisfied with it haha.

We worked hard in Livorno and I grew really close to my two companions Anziani Brown and Jensen. Both are amazing guys, full of laughter and desires to work hard! I learned a lot from them and with them and I hope to get the chance to serve with them again sometime in the future!

I've really enjoyed the past few weeks that I've been in Livorno. It's really opened my eyes to to how much the Lord supports us. I've had many conversations in Italian in the past few weeks, a thing I didn't think was possible after only four months of studying a language. But not only that, I have seen hearts change and ears open with the words that we have said. Not because of our ability to speak eloquently, or even intelligently, but because the spirit spoke for us where we lacked. The Lord does not expect us to be perfect, he only expects is to try, and when we try our best, he magnifies our efforts!

Sorry for the short email, I don't have much time to write today! Anyway, have a great week everyone!

Miracles

(Anziano Wilkinson)

This week was a very successful one for us! We had some great lessons and I continue to meet more great people everyday. One of our lessons was with a man named Gabriele, who is absolutely amazing. We teach him in English because he speaks perfect English (He translates/makes RPG board games from English to Italian for a living, way cool if you ask me!)

Gabriele has been an investigator for a good bit of time, but he is starting to make progress again. He is reading the Book of Mormon with greater depth than most members (and amazingly doing it in English, not his native language). He brought up a really good question in our lesson about miracles. He told us about how often in the news and in traditional Catholicism there are miracles like crying Mother Mary statues and other somewhat odd claims. He seemed rightfully skeptical and asked us if we believe in miracles.

We explained that we do believe in miracles, but to illustrate the kind of miracles we believe in, we had Anziano Brown share a miracle story that had happened to his family only two days earlier. Anziano Brown explained that his family has never had much money and also that he  as a brother who is severely mentally handicapped. His dad co-owns  a charity (basically it's a Free Store) which helps people get up on their  eet again. A few years back this charity helped a woman who was in dire need. This woman recently won a lawsuit for a huge sum of money. Her first move was to find this charity that helped her out and give back. Catching wind that the Brown family was in need of a new house, she offered to have one built, specialized to accommodate Anziano Brown's special need bother.

This miracle story brought the spirit very strongly and we could not help but bear our testimonies to Gabriele that God does indeed love us and answers prayers. Know that our Heavenly Father is watching over us and is always there for us in our times of need. I know that he answers prayers, whether it be through grand miracles like the one that happened to the Brown family or little ones when we need them. Miracles are real. And as long as Heavenly Father lives that will always be true!

Have a great week everyone! Be a miracle for someone this week!

(On a side note, I had the best burger I've ever had in my life in a small burger shop in downtown Livorno; I feel like I'm betraying America by saying that, but I'll just defend myself by saying, Italy really knows how to do food!)

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

Yes! Candians do celebrate Halloween!

(Sister Cummings)
Well to be honest I don't really have time today to write much plus not too much has happened this week. It felt kind of like the quiet before the storm, with Hurricane temple being forecasted in the near future with the opening of the doors to the public this Wednesday. Our Preparation day is even cut short in order to have training. But none the less this is what happened this week. First off before I forget, we received our transfer calls early and it seems that Sister Rawlings will be leaving me to go English speaking. However I will be receiving Sister Blanc! She was my third companion in the field and I am sooooo excited to have her (and her food) with me again! =D Anyways let us continue...

Yup thats right elders with swords. Scary experience. Sister Rawlings and I gave a training in our district on the amour of god and how obedience is our protection in our work relating each piece to a certain council that we are given such as studies, planning and of course the sword of the spirit. As we had about three weeks to plan the training we decided to make it intense. Each Elder got a sword and Sister Rawlings and I made bets on who would break it first. We were right.

This week was the ward Halloween party where we found our buddy the Canadian Mounty. Hmm sometimes I forget I am in a different country, mind you everyone here speaks French but still somehow it is more of a culture shock to see a little kid running around in a red uniform on Halloween than ordering food in French. Either way Sister Rawlings and I took the initiative to make our mission to Canada complete by taking a picture with a Mounty. Check!

​The day of Halloween was pretty hard. We literally had no one to see planned. But we called up a few people and it turned out to the one of the best Halloweens ever! We started off with raking leaves, a perfect fall activity. Then we decorated someone’s house for a Halloween party and finally we passed by a family just as they were getting ready to carve pumpkins! So we helped them out =D Things got pretty intense once the power tools were brought out =D

Well I hope to have even better pictures next week! I love you all!

Choose the Right, Be Changed by Your Choices

(Elder Cummings)
This week Elder Ballard and I had the opportunity to teach a lesson at a baptism.  In the ward that we are in there are always 4-6 missionaries who live in the same apartment complex (when transfers come we walk across the parking lot), attend all dinner appointments together, and teach one of the missionary lessons at the other companionship's baptisms.

The baptism was for Ler Vang and it was incredible!  He loves the gospel of Jesus Christ and has changed his life for it.  Even though Elder Ballard and I haven't had an "success" as it is often phrased, it makes us both so full of joy to see others come unto Christ.  It is always wonderful.

We taught about the Plan of Salvation and the role that the Gospel of Jesus Christ plays in it.  As we were teaching I impressed myself with how fluidly the Hmong just rolled off of my tongue.  The only time I thought in English as I spoke was also the only time I didn't have a word to say.  I felt the Spirit very strongly.  Earlier that day I felt the Spirit the same way when translating the members' testimonies in sacrament meeting.  The ability to speak and translate a language is a talent, a gift, and not one that comes without work.  God does not bless us unless we are actively working for the blessings we desire.

The closing hymn for the baptism was number 116, "Come, Follow Me," and verse three touched me.  It reads:

Is it enough alone to know

That we must follow him below,

While trav'ling thru this vale of tears?

No, this extends to holier spheres.

That is a pretty good question!  Is it enough for us to only live a good life now in mortality?  No, it isn't.  Why isn't it?  We read in the Book of Alma that "this life is a time for men to prepare to meet God" (Alma 34:32).  If we intend to be prepared then we cannot make a temporary commitment.  We cannot commit to this life only.  Heaven is heaven because those who make it there have become heavenly through their mortal experience.  God is an all knowing God.  He knows what choices we will make, he knows how it will end for each of us.  As hard as we try we can never surprise our Father in Heaven.  If mortality is only about the choosing the right then it is a vain existence.  We are here to become something.  As a result of our choices we become the people worthy of the highest of all blessings, eternal life.  If we are not changed by the choices we make then the choice hardly matters.

This is a period of growth.  It is a perfectly personal test.  It is the refiners fire.  Through the righteous use of moral agency we can return to live with God and live up to our birthright.  No one is predestined to fail.  My prayer is for all of us to not just choose the right, but to be changed by our choices.  Blessings are there and they are limitless.  All that remains is for us to become worthy of them.

I love you all.  Have a wonderful week!

Elder Cummings

Shoua's Halloween costume.  Shoua is hands down my favorite person I have met on my mission so far.  She is a fantastic sister with an amazing conversion story.

This is a teaser for Hmong New Years (starts December 26!), but these are Hmong clothes!  Back in Thailand and Laos this (minus the white shirts and ties) is what would be normal wear for farming.

Speaking of Lao, Elder Ballard has taught me a few characters, and I am just barely starting to learn how to read.  I know about five characters out of about sixty.  It is a cool language.

Dropping Kenjie

(Elder Cummings)
We have had a great time this week!  As a Hmong speaking missionary called to the California Fresno Mission the call to serve is almost a two year call to serve on the Pioneer Park ward council.  You spend the vast majority of your service in that ward.  One Elder who went home shortly before I came in spent 21 of his 24 months serving in the ward boundaries.

It really is a great congregation.  There are so many committed saints, singing praises every week in Hmong, English, and on occasion a little Lao.  It is so much fun to serve a missionary here.

I had a great learning experience this week.  Kenjie, an investigator who I have loved teaching since I entered the field, has been dropped.  He has been a lot of fun to teach and has been investigating for over a year.  He has a solid Bible background, and is a lot of fun to talk to, plus his Hmong name, Kong Mang Vang (Koob Meej Vaj) is the same as mine.  We bond over that.

Flash back a little bit and I would like to talk about a different miracle.  On Wednesday I was fasting for inspiration on setting some goals for the next transfer, the next six week, and nineteen hours into what became a twenty-three hour fast I was feeling pretty weak and had just been handed a bottle of water by yet another kindhearted niam tais.  For those of you who don't know, fasting is a voluntary abstinence from food and water for an extended period of time.  It brings the "natural man," or our physical desires, under the control of the spirit.  It helps us to be more receptive to revelation, and since I was seeking inspiration as to what goals to set I was fasting.  With the water in my hand I was contemplating ending my fast.  I had already gotten the answers I was looking for, and I was really thirst and finding it increasingly difficult to simultaneously stay awake and decipher through this woman's thick accent.  It doesn't seem like it would be a bad thing to end early.  I said I was going to fast until our dinner appointment, but fasting until now seemed alright.

Lately I have been studying Christ's suffering and prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane and I have love what I am learning!  In this, my moment of weakness, a verse that Christ spoke to Peter, James, and John in the Garden that I had been pondering the day before in personal study came to mind: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."  (Matthew 26:41).  It felt like an inspired thought, so I did as the verse directs and prayed.  Immediately the thirst began to subside and the Holy Ghost told me that I had chosen right and that in the next appointment for the day, one with Kenjie, Elder Ballard and I needed to invite him to be baptized.

Off we went to the lesson.  As my companion and I taught and testified together Kenjie began to understand for the first time in his year of investigating that the state of his eternity following death hangs on the question of whether or not the Book of Mormon is truly God's word.  If it is, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church that has the authority of God necessary to save.  Kenjie is a strong Christian, and when this understanding finally dawned on him, the Spirit pierced his heart, we invited him to be baptized, and we knelt with him as he prayed to know what he should do.  He was now deep in thought and visibly moved by what he felt as he prayed.  My companion and I set up a return appointment for the following Friday.  We left the lesson ecstatic.

Kenjie has been taught that you cannot trust emotions as a medium for receiving revelation from God.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that emotion is half of the way we are even capable of receiving revelation.  Kenjie had received a witness from the Holy Ghost, but by the time we returned on Friday he had talking himself out of it.  He cited concerns with the doctrine that didn't make logical sense with his interpretation of the Bible.  In a strange reversal of roles he called meeting with us a trial of his faith.  He was not willing to read the Book of Mormon to find for himself if it is true.  Every missionary who has ever taught Kenjie has felt that it is only a matter of time before he joins the church, but because of his decision in the appointment on Friday, it will still be some time before that happens.

One thing that impressed me about the interaction with Kenjie is that if you choose to try to prove to yourself the truth of the Book of Mormon by any means other than what the book teaches, through prayer and diligent study, receiving a witness of it by the power of the Holy Ghost, then you will never get the confirming answer necessary to obtain a testimony.  Unless you are doing as the book directs you are already denying the truth in its pages.  The invitation is made clear, and the promise is clear that he or she who asks with a sincere heart will know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the book is true (Moroni 10:5).  I know that is how it works.  I have tried it myself many times and every time I have received the same answer: the Book of Mormon is true, Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith is the prophet of the Restoration, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is "the Lord's kingdom once again established on the earth, preparatory to the Second Coming of the Messiah." (Introduction to the Book of Mormon).

I invite as many as are willing to ask or re-ask the question, to read the Book.  It will change your life, it will help to secure your salvation.  This is a promise, and I leave it with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

With love,

Elder Jared Cummings

One More Added To The Fold

(Sister Cummings)
Hello everyone!!!!! I just have to get this out there but Vanessa was baptized this week!! It was quite a stressful week in preparation for her baptism. Although I have had previous investigators baptized in the past this is very much the first one that I had the opportunity to plan. And boy. Did we plan. Everything was planned down to the hair thanks to the amazing organization skills of my amazing companion Sister Rawlings. There was one day in the week that after our appointment, back-up, and emergency back-up cancelled we went to the church building to check out the font and to sweep it out. Good thing we did because there were maybe five or six families of various insects profiting in the quiet and peaceful environment of the baptismal font. They were promptly evicted as were the sparse yet still present colonies of mold. Lets just say we don't baptize all that often in Canada =D

Besides a quick stumble to find a piano player after the one planned for cancelled last minute everything went quite smoothly. The font was finished on time with water that was neither too cold nor too hot. Vanessa only needed to be plunged once as the ordinance was performed perfectly on the very first time. There were enough towels. The television properly showed the restoration while Vanessa was changing from her wet clothing. And there was just the perfect amount of food afterwards for a short reception. Needless to say it went...perfectly. Which was exactly NOT what we were expecting. But it happened and we are so grateful that it did.

Not much time but I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your prayers given for Vanessa. They were answered and one more lamb was added into the fold.

I love you and hope you have an amazing week!

this is us updating the area book with Vanessa's Baptism

This is me having fun with my camera while Sister Rawlings was doing her emails

Yup thats them. They are cute together =)

Martin came and visited Laval ironically the day that Vanessa received the Holy Ghost. This is him and his return missionary of a girlfriend that should be getting married around april though the question has not been popped yet =)

Livorno Bound

(Anziano Wilkinson)

Okay, so I think I may have had the craziest two weeks ever. I'll just start at the beginning.

So on Wednesday after emails Anziano Robinson and I were lucky (or unlucky?) enough to get a ride home from a member. While entering the car, Anziano Robinson hit his head on the door frame on accident and I guess pretty hard too. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal, except for the fact that he was already getting over a concussion and so his head was already weak. This second hit was enough to cause the headaches and other symptoms to flare up again. So we were given orders from the mission doctor to yet again stay inside and not leave the house for any reason.

So to our dismay we were suddenly launched back to exactly where we were over a month ago. Then the next night we got a call from the head mission doctor over all of the European missions and he all but told us right then and there that Anziano Robinson would have to go home to rest up and be in the care of American doctors. The next day we got the official call from President Dibb and suddenly my companion had a flight to catch on the next Monday morning. We were both really sad about this, but he handled it very well I think, even though going home was the very last thing he wanted to do.

That Sunday we went to church (I gave a talk) and Anziano Robinson gave his departing testimony, then we both headed up to the mission office in Milan. I had to stay in Milan for the next three days and it was there that President gave me the news that I wouldn't be going back to Pisa, but instead was to go to Livorno (pronounced leave-or-no) for the rest of this transfer (it's about fifteen minutes away from Pisa by train). And if you were wondering, yes I had to be the one to make the awkward call to tell the bishop that there wouldn't be any Anziani in Pisa for the rest of the transfer.

On the bright side, I ended up being able to go to a conference with the General Relief Society President and General Young Women's President, which was a conference that all the Sorelle were invited to as well as the Milan Anziani, because the conference was in Milan. After the conference I caught a train with the Livorno Sorelle back to Livorno. They were the reason I stayed up in Milan so long, so that I wouldn't have to travel alone. That was a slightly awkward train ride though hahaha. Anyway, so I met the Anziani in Livorno that night and thank goodness I have a solid companion again! Two of them in fact! We went back to Pisa to grab my stuff the next and now I'm officially moved into Livorno.

I know what you all are thinking at this point, that the Italy Milan Mission is a crazy and disorganized mess, but let me assure you that President Dibb and the Office elders tried their best to make the best situation for me they could out of what they had. The timing for my companion to go home was absolutely atrocious considering the conference that was held here this last Wednesday. That being said, good came from this fiasco too, in the form of meeting new people, getting practice with the language (I carry the phone for the Pisa Anziani for the next three weeks), and seeing the examples of many different missionaries. I learned a lot from this experience and I honestly am grateful for those things that I learned, even if I had to see a friend go home a few transfers early (hopefully they'll let him come back out).

And best of all, from what I had heard from literally everyone is that 1) My new companions Anziani Jensen and Brown are amazing people, and 2) Livorno is the best city to serve in and the ward here is the best Ward in the mission. The shear volume of praise for Livorno that I had heard was astounding and I'm can now see that it is well deserved! Plus, president said he will most likely be putting me back in Pisa next transfer; I have come to love Pisa, so I would be very content if he does!  So anyway, things in Livorno are going great! We are teaching a high school age kid named Giacomo (Jacob) right now and he is growing in his faith every day! At first our approach was simply to help him feel comfortable with us because he is a very shy kid, but now, especially after the ward Halloween party this last Tuesday he is really open with us! He prayed with us for the first time in our last lesson and it was really powerful. He is such a great kid with a very sincere desire to learn more about Christ and His gospel! He has a baptismal date set for November and your prayers for him would be more than appreciated!

As I mentioned before there was a ward Halloween party this last Tuesday and it was extremely well done. Lots of people showed up, both members and nonmembers and I think everyone had a great time. I got the chance to meet a lot of people there and got to even sit down and hold a few conversations with some of the people who came. Ever since coming to Livorno I've been putting a ton more effort into engaging in conversations with people and I am surprised every day at the blessings as I simply take the leap of faith to try.

It's still scary at times and often difficult to understand what people say and to respond intelligibly, but as I've trusted in the Lord I've found that it always pays off when I do. I gain confidence, learn new words, become more familiar with the grammar, and hear new ways to say things every time I do so. But not only that, I witness the gift of tongues work within me each time and it always fortifies my faith and inspires me to try again and again. Faith is like a muscle, you can feed it all day with nourishment (like the scriptures and words of the prophets) but at the end of the day it will not grow until it is exercised!

At the Halloween party we shared a spiritual thought about overcoming our fears, which topic is very applicable to me right now as I just mentioned. One of the scriptures that has really helped me overcome my fears so far in the mission is 2 Timothy 1:7, which says "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I love this scripture because it shows us that no fear of ours is one that is given of God. Heavenly Father has not given us our fears, quite the opposite in fact! He has given us sound minds, and His power, and the spirit of love! Therefore, of what have we to fear? If God Himself has endowed us with His power then there is no reason to fear anything as long as our pursuits are righteous! The bible dictionary describes fear as "something unworthy of a child of God." What is there that can be said more than that? As children of our Heavenly Father, fear is beneath us! Therefore, let us press forward in faith and cast fears far from ourselves! I encourage you all this week to face your fears in faith and follow the council of our loving Heavenly Father to "Look unto [Him] in every thought; doubt not, fear not." I promise that as you do you will find that the Lord will provide a way for you. Give him your fears and He will turn them into faith and you will feel His love poured out upon you. So in honor of Halloween, conquer your fears! There is no better time to do so!

Have a great week everyone and Happy Halloween!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson