Alo!! Hump Day!!

(Sister Ellsworth)

Remember how last week I said I didn't like rain? Well I think Heavenly Father kinda smiled and was like "Oh, yeah? Watch this." It rained sideways rain every day this week, all day long. After two minutes in the rain you kind of just give up and try to jump in all the puddles. It's more fun that way :) The roads were flooded for most of the week too since Portugal is paved over and there aren't many grassy or dirt areas to soak up the water. The cobblestone also gets pretty slick!! On one day when the rain was particularly bad with no sign of letting up the Elders called us and asked if we could bring them umbrellas but coming from the Sisters house, the only umbrellas that we had to give was a paisley umbrella and a bright pink umbrella. I think the best memory I have of this week is watching our two elders walk around the city with pink and paisley umbrellas!!

We got to go to Lagos again for our Pday and It stopped raining long enough for us to go to the beach and draw messages in the sand. We picked up sea shells and explored the caves. It was really neat!

We also passed by one of our investigators houses this week to say hello and when she let us in we kind of noticed that the whole family was very sad and upset. We asked what was going on and they shared that their dad had passed away the night before. We shared a very touching moment with them about the Plan of Salvation and the opportunities that they have to prepare to be baptized and then afterwards take the dad's name to the temple.

Haha there was also another moment that was really great.... We had found this cute old man on the road who seemed really happy to see us even though i had never seen him before. Just imagine the old man from up... It was him. So we marked a return appointment and came back the next day to meet his wife. Oh he was so excited.. So we get there with the hopes to teach this cute old couple and they invite us in. The old man stops me for a second while my companion was talking to the old lady and he mentions that his wife has Alzheimer’s. I was like okay... that's not a problem. And then this cute old man says "Well I'm going out for the night. You guys stay here and talk to her." And then he ditches us in his house. I looked at Sister Foster and was like... so.... what do we do now? Before we know it this old lady has us in her front room with two coca colas and a plateful of cookies and she talks and talks and talks. But she only knows three stories. So we sat there and smiled and kept her company laughing inside because of course this would happen to the sisters. But we didn't complain because those cookies were really good.

Also I hit 9 months this last week!! Here are some of our adventures we did to celebrate....

We stole our investigator's beer and threw it away. #quittingforjesus #sisterpower

We also made homemade In and Out fries!! MMMM!

Pretty pictures of my favorite beach!

What else to you do with all the lighters that your investigators give you?

LIGHT STUFF ON FIRE! Traditional burning of your trainer's skirt... (don't worry we had a bucket of water and everything haha)

Nine months later and the Church is still true. I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and I still don't understand the language perfectly but I know that Christ loves each one of us and that through service we can find the joy in everything. When I walk in the streets and talk to people I know that there is a loving God who is aware of our circumstances and he wants us to be happy.

Much love,

Sister Ellsworth

Temples, Eternal Marriage, and the Pope?

(Anziano Wilkinson)

So the pope came to visit Monza (the city right next to Muggiò) this week! It was truly a mess, but we survived it! Fear 24 hours they closed down all traffic in and around where the Pope would visit and drive past, so we basically could not use the car the whole day... Luckily for us though, we have bikes so we put them to good use! But even on bike navigation was tricky, as crowds upon crowds of people (almost everyone in Italy is catholic after all haha) clogged the streets, each trying to get a view of the pope when he would drive by. We stopped for a second and watched as he rode by waving at the people from the side seat of his FIAT Tipo. I don't know what I was expecting to see him riding in, but I certainly wasn't imagining a navy blue hatchback haha. I guess it just serves as a reminder that he's really just a normal guy like all the rest of us. Anyway, not being able to use the car didn't stop us and so we still scheduled a full day of appointments, however, after a whole day of riding bikes I was thoroughly beat! So I guess what we can take away from this is that if you want a solid workout, just invite the pope over for visit!

Apart from that, among other things, we had a really special moment while teaching one of the newer members in the Muggiò Ward! His name is Francesco (I know what you're thinking and no, not pope Francesco :P) and, seeing as he has not yet been able to visit the temple, we decided to explain in more detail the importance of temples and the work that is accomplished inside. He's long been eager to go and finally be sealed for eternity to his wife, who passed away decades ago. The hope and relief that came from the realization that his relationship with his dear wife could be made eternal though the blessings of the temple played a huge role in the development of his faith in Christ his restored gospel.

We explained to him that temples are sacred places, houses of God on earth, and that to enter he must be spiritually prepared through obedience to the commandments of the Lord. We taught that inside he would learn through the impressions of the Holy Spirit and even be "endowed with power from on high". We taught that inside he could make promises with God and with his spouse as well as perform ordinances of salvation for those of his family who have passed away never having been able to do so for themselves. We explained to him some of the symbolism of the temple, including the brightness of the decor and the angel Moroni that sits atop the steeple, proclaiming "the everlasting gospel to preach unto... every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Revelation 14:6). Beyond these, we explained the feelings that he would experience inside the temple; feelings of peace, tranquility, and joy; the kind that can only be felt by means of the Holy Spirit.

As we taught, the Spirit confirmed the truth of the things we said in the heart of Francesco and his desires to visit the temple grew immensely! There are so many blessings that the Lord offers us through his holy temples and every single one of them is something to get excited about! However, the greatest of all the blessings of the temple is that of being sealed for time and all eternity. With the proper priesthood authority, not only marriages, but families can be together forever. This is one of the greatest blessings that God can give us! Our Heavenly Father's plan of happiness for us is based around the family and the incomparable love that can exist there between, husbands, wives, children and beyond! To me, heaven would not be heaven if I couldn't experience it together with my family and I am unbelievably grateful that it has been made possible through the holy temple!

Well, I hope you have a fantastic week! Till next time!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

Missionary Work and Sacrefice

(Elder Cummings)

This has been an exacting week as a missionary.  The work has stretched me and has asked of me to sacrifice more of my heart, mind, and attention on the Lord's work, and more specifically, on doing the Lord's work the Lord's way.

Early in the week we saw our teaching pool reduce again. Over three days we taught only one investigator, and our finding efforts yielded no fruit.  I have been blessed to serve in a mission where the work progresses readily, but at times in spite of our best efforts things get harder.  After offering several disappointments, and several mighty prayers we commenced again to labor Thursday morning.  We felt inspired in our planning that day, but the outcome was not inspiring.  Finally, at 8:30pm of another trying day we said a prayer that we would be sustained by the grace of God.  We were.  The lesson we began teaching less than a minute later was profoundly inspired.

His name was Jonathan.  He was 18 and was a high school drop-out.  He recognized us instantly as servants of God sent to him.  His mother came out of the house in tears.  She had been praying for someone God to send someone to her son.  Her father, an active and faithful member of the church, had recently passed away.  She felt, Jonathan felt, and we felt the Spirit of the Lord.  God has a plan for that family.

Friday we found three new investigators, and Saturday and Sunday were in their own way miracles.  We had a lesson in a member's home and the investigator was touched.  That investigator came to church, and then introduced us to her friend, who also is interested in coming closer to Christ.

This week has caused me to reflect on the need for sacrifice in the Plan of Salvation, and in a much smaller sense in missionary service.

God must try us.  He must demand eventual perfection from us or He cannot provide eventual exaltation with our families.

God tried Abraham.  He required his only son, Isaac, to be given as a sacrifice.  Abraham loved Isaac, but Abraham loved and trusted the Lord.  He prepared and he and Isaac obeyed, being stopped in the actual act of literal sacrifice at the very last moment by an angel of God.  The scriptures teach that "Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God" (James 2:23).

Sacrifice purifies us.  Through sacrifice we each can earn, in our own way, the title given deservingly to Abraham.  When we feel that our spiritual growth is slowing, we can ask ourselves, "Am I a Friend of God?"  If we feel the answer is no, sacrifice to be made pure.  If we feel the answer is a "maybe," sacrifice to be made sure.  If we feel the answer is a "yes," we will desire to sacrifice more.  He loves us.  I know he does.  He wants us all to reach our potential.  As D. Todd Christofferson put it, He is a God of great expectations.  He will take us as high as we can go, "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," if we will trust Him (Ephesians 4:13).

-Elder A. Jared Cummings

The British Are Coming and Bible Bashes

(Sister Ellsworth)

Olá!!

This week... whoo hooo. It was one of those lovely weeks on your mission when absolutely everything goes wrong but you have some of the most amazing miracles! We ended up laughing all of Sunday night looking back at our adventure of a week.

On Monday we had a great relaxing Pday and then our 3 appointments that night fell through and we walked... and walked... and walked... Much like Pioneer children! But that's okay because I got to show Sister Foster the very pretty beaches and contact all the elderly British tourists that are flooding our area. We also found out that we can't speak English very well anymore and that the gift of tongues to teach doesn't work very well in English!

On Tuesday we found this crazy guy who was one of the revolutionists that changed the Portuguese government. Unfortunately I can't tell you his name because apparently he's been banned from the US and lots of other things. We had a very interesting conversation with him about how Mormon missionaries are not CIA spies! He's a good buddy of ours now! We also taught this Brazilian man named Reginaldo about the plan of salvation. He had a whole bunch of theories about where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going and I just whipped out my little picture things of the plan of salvation and blew his mind.

On Wednesday we found half off Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. 'Nuff said.

Those little tubs are normally like 7 euro. That little tub of peanut butter ice cream was probably my favorite tender mercy this week!

On Thursday it rained. I don't like rain.

On Friday we saved a bunny!! This little girl lost her bunny and it was running around in the road and hiding under the cars. We were walking past and I saw five or six people chasing this little white rabbit trying to catch it for like 10 minutes and I told Sister Foster... Hey service is service right? So we tightened our shoulder bags, put our hair in ponytails and chased that rabbit. I caught it in less than 5 minutes! #bunnywhisperer.

On Saturday we were trying to find some of our investigators and we ended up crashing a Jehovah's Witness party. Our Mission President always tells us not to Bible bash with them... So we listened quietly as they pulled out these useless and poorly used scriptures to try and get us angry. We just smiled and waited until they ran out of steam, thanked them for their time, and we left them with a card that invited all 40 of them to go to church with us. It was definitely a huge test of willpower XD

On Sunday we found this young guy, probably like 25, who said he was atheist but accepted a lesson with us. We had a really amazing moment with him as he said his first prayer. In a timid but yearning voice, he said, "God. Um..." (Long pause) "...Thank you for my family whom I love very much.." (Another long pause) '... and I would like to know if you exist and if you love me..." As soon as he said those words the whole room just filled with the Holy Ghost. It was the ultimate warm and fuzzy!  I peeked at him and I could see that he was concentrating really hard and then he had a twinge of a smile and finished the prayer. When asked him what he felt and he said "I feel good.... Does that mean that God exists?" We smiled and said yes. Oh man... Moments like those make everything worth it! It's like doing a high five of success with the Holy Ghost!

Anyway. Life of a Missionary is an adventure. It's my favorite adventure ever.

Love all of you!

Sister Ellsworth

Baptisms, Faith and Treasure

(Anziano Wilkinson)

This week was pretty great! We have been seeing so much success in teaching the Gospel lately as a mission and more specifically as a zone! We have a mission goal from July of last year to have 300 baptisms as a mission before the Rome temple is completed and what an amazing change in the mission this goal and our mission president have brought to the mission! We are half way complete and the trend is only going up! In the last month alone we've had 10 baptisms as a stake! There are people here who are so ready for the gospel in their lives and we are doing a better job than ever as a mission getting this message to them.

In other less-exciting news, this week Emmanuel, the man we're teaching that has planned to get baptized next month, got sick this week and so we haven't gotten to see him. The ward, however, is doing a great job fellowshiping him and making sure that he's doing well and feeling like a part of the family! We had a lesson on tithing the last time we met him and, come to find out, he had read the gospel principles lesson manual on his own the week before, so he walked into the lesson already knowing everything haha. Also, Viviana, the person we help with math, came to church with last Sunday without the rest of her family, who we are also teaching. The rest of the family couldn't come because they were all were sick, but on the phone Viviana told us that she was feeling fine and still wanted to come even without them. Her faith is growing so fast!

This week I read Luke 6:45 which says, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." This is so true! No good person is comfortable doing wrong and no evil person is comfortable doing good. For the one will fear doing wrong and will be uneasy and the other will hate doing good and complain and whine and make excuses and cut corners and lie and do anything not to do it. I think at times we fall into both of these categories. Sometimes we resist following a certain counsel because we don't think it's important or likewise with a task that we don't want to do. But the thing about the discomfort I mentioned above is that the more you do what is uncomfortable for you, the easier it will get. So if you do bad things despite discomfort, eventually you will get comfortable with them, and vise versa, if you do good things, despite the discomfort, you will eventually become more comfortable with the good! That is the difference between the grace of Jesus Christ and the "power and captivity of the devil". So let us choose to do good despite the difficulty it may bring! The natural result is that with time we will become good people, and it's not that the point of why we are here on this earth? To become more than we are now? How great it would be if we could all recognize and apply this principle in our own day to day lives!

Anyway, I hope you're doing well! Talk to you next week!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

The Spirit Teacheth a Man to Pray

(Elder Cummings)

Week one with Elder Sparks has been a blast.  We have had some great lessons and many great miracles.  One example came Tuesday night.  We were invited by a group of young men over to their house for pizza and gospel discussion.  They (politely and with sincere curiosity) drilled us with questions about LDS theology, and we (calmly and kindly) explained eternal truths out of the scriptures.  The Spirit was there in power.  They felt something.  Two interns at a community church, one full time employee of the same church, and one young man graduating this spring with a degree in Bible studies felt the power of restored truth as we taught them out of their own Bibles of things that they had never even considered to be possible, let alone true.

That isn't even the half of it.  It has been a miraculous week.

We have had some investigators who have started to struggle.  They understand the doctrines of the church intellectually, but spiritually they do not have a growing conversion.  Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, diagnosis a crowd he is preaching to with this same symptom in 2 Nephi chapter 32.  In verse 7 Nephi says:

And now I, Nephi, cannot say more [he just finished teaching about the doctrine of Christ, the need for faith unto repentance, unto baptism]; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance [Nephi can't teach anymore!], and I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be.

Nephi cannot teach more because the people will not spiritually receive more.  In verse 8 he teaches how we receive spiritually in teaching settings, and invites the people to do as he directs, or really, as the Holy Spirit directs:

And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts [Like he just said, they will not understand great knowledge]; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.

What does he say that all people must do to gain spiritual knowledge?  They must pray about it.  Without prayer personal scripture study or group discussion on gospel topics will never yield the fruit of conversion. There are some things that we cannot understand just by thinking deeply on them.  The gospel of Jesus Christ can only be known and understood through personal revelation in response to personal prayer.  We cannot grasp these truths alone.  Pray about them.

I have full confidence that all who pray in confidence to God will receive from God.  He hears our prayers, and He will answer them to the extent that our faith, humility, and real intent allow.  Live the gospel, pray about the gospel, and you will come to know gospel.  That is my prayer.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

With love,

Elder Jared Cummings

Transfers/Teaching Alby

(Elder Cummings)

Goodness, there has been so much that has happened this week!  We had another MLC, transfer calls came in, and we had a mini-missionary for the weekend!

Good news: I don't have to pack my bags.  Bad news: Elder Tongish and Elder Sullivan do.  Good news: that means I get Elder Sullivan's memory foam mattress.  The trio has been fun.  My new companion is Elder Sparks from Rexburg, Idaho.  He was trained in the Fresno North zone when I was here the first time around.  He comes to the area Tuesday morning!

One of the lessons we taught this week was to a girl named Alby.  We actually met up with her twice, once to teach the Restoration and again to teach the Plan of Salvation.  Last week we contacted her at Taco Bell, and immediately she recognized that we were sent to her by God.  Ever since we taught her about "apostasy" she has been using it as an explanation for the lower points of her life and the lives of her friends.  She gets it.

When we were laying the Plan of Salvation out for her there was power behind our words because we were teaching with authority from the scriptures.

There is so much power in God's words!  The more we study them and let them direct our lives, the happier we will be.  I am grateful that God has reached out so many in love to teach the truth.  I am grateful that the truth has been recorded by those prophets.  I know that God is still speaking.  He will speak to all of us in answer to our prayers!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Elder Cummings