Rome Training pictures

Stuffed on Turkey day!

This week was a very member filled week. We have eaten more meals at member's houses this week than we have at all in my entire time in the mission. It has been wonderful, but we are all a little bit sick. Just kidding. It has been wonderful. We did a Thanksgiving activity for our English course students and they loved it. One man said that he was grateful to have found another family at this point in his life. I can see very clearly how English course is planting seeds for people and I am grateful to be a part of it. Anziano Kimball found a church for Robert, and he is very excited to go. He leaves for Bangladesh on the 19th and he said the members could call him as early as the 20th. We taught him about the temple, and we gave him a small picture of the Salt Lake temple that my mother sent to me, and he told us that he was excited to tell his family about being sealed together. When we started the lesson, he believed that after we died our spirits wouldn't know each other, and I think that he was very excited to learn that even though he has to be away from his family now, he has the opportunity to spend an eternity with them. I'm sad that I probably won't be able to see him be baptized (since the goal is for him to get baptized in Bangladesh) but I'm so excited that his family will be able to be there and feel the spirit of this covenant.

We did a mostra a few weeks back, and I met a woman named Kanthi from Sri Lanka (It's pronounced Candy but with a sharper T sound.) I was so excited to meet her, and I told her that she had the same name as my mother, she then asked me if my mother was from Sri Lanka, and I explained that it's a fairly common name in the US and that it means caramello (candy in Italian) I'm pretty sure my enthusiasm about her name is the only reason that she gave me her number, but we had our first meeting this week, on a busy piazza where we almost didn't find her. When we finally did find her (well she found us, it's fairly easy to spot a blonde in Italy) she asked if we wanted to go grab a coffee. We finally compromised and went to Burger King. It was really funny, because she insisted on buying us food, then she ordered us more food on top of what we ordered, and then she ordered herself food, which she did not eat, but instead progressively fed to us. So by the end of the lesson, we were stuffed and we had a Thanksgiving dinner with an American family immediately afterwards. Cool because even though we were in a Burger King and she was fairly preoccupied with making sure that these two girls who were so far from their families (family is very very important to her, and all 9 of her children live near by, and call her daily) had enough to eat (I don't think she understood that we receive money monthly because she was also concerned that we didn't have work) and Ke$ha was playing in the background, she still felt the spirit and agreed to meet with us again. Needless to say we will NOT be meeting in a Burger King again.

I am learning to see how the Lord answers my prayers, sometimes in really unexpected long term ways, but I know that he has a hand in our lives, and he is always trying. He literally never gives up, sometimes we sink so low, and if I were in charge of giving second chances, I probably wouldn't give them as generously as the Lord does (I definitely wouldn't), but he does, and when we don't take it he gives another, until we finally accept him in our lives. I am also learning to see why people behave the way that they do sometimes. My mom always said that anger (and also hate but she didn't say that, I'm just beginning to see how the principle applies) is a secondary reaction. It always begins with fear, or loss, or hurt, or even guilt. Those feelings are painful to deal with and so people turn to feelings of hate, and racism, etc. I'm trying to keep myself from ever progressing to hate and see that everyone is a child of kind, and everyone has motives for behaving the way they do, and it's never because they are simply evil.

On another note, I just found out that one of my investigator's from Siracusa is getting baptized! I have to go down to Siracusa for my permesso, and I hope that I can go for his baptism. When I left Siracusa, president told me that my purpose had been fulfilled, and I think that Angelo (the man who is getting baptized) was that purpose. Right before I left he had told us that he didn't really have time to take the lesson's, but when I went to see him the last time (and cry all over his plant stand) I think it pushed him to consider how important this gospel was, so while leaving Siracusa was hands down, the hardest thing I have done in my life I can see how the Lord was working through it.

Here are a few pictures I stole from the mission blog.... I am always so grateful for glimpses of her anyway I can get them!

Learning to be happy where we are

So missionary work is still hard, I still feel like crying sometimes, but I'm learning to stop focusing on me. I have learned two really important things this week. The first I learned in young womens (their normal interpreter was giving the lesson, and so they asked me to come and interpret for the 3 americans.) and the lesson was on happiness, and they talked about how happiness is created and worked for, it's not just something that some lucky few just discover. What they specifically focused on was not waiting for an event to occur in your life that will make you happy like marriage, college, etc, It is incredibly easy to do this as a greenie (I will be happy\ a good missionary when I can speak the language, when I'm not being trained, when I have more of a say...etc.) and I realized that I am really tired of passively waiting, I will not be happy until I start being happy with where I am, and what I'm doing. I also learned that if your priorities aren't in the right place, missions are terrible. They are difficult regardless, but they only begin to become worthwhile when you are sacrificing everything for someone else. If you are a missionary or planning on serving a mission, just get out there and work. Work if it's raining, work if you are tired. If you don't, the spirit won't be with you and it will be a terrible experience.


This week we taught our investigator Florine (from Romania, stopped the sister's on the street.) He has a lot of questions that he isn't willing to accept simple answers for. I think that he wants to believe in God he just has this desperate fear that he will reach out to Him and find that there is no one there. I know that he wants this and that it will make him happy, but he is too afraid to make the next step. Due to this fear the lesson was very off topic, very long, and didn't really have the spirit. We are hoping to teach him again tonight and try to keep it focused. I think that he needs the base and then he can begin to find, and accept the answers to his questions.
We are working with a less active named Thelma, and she has a great testimony, she even wants to serve a mission, she just doesn't feel comfortable in church, and I think she is afraid to start making the steps to make friends and start becoming part of the LDS culture. One of the young women's counselors is getting ready to serve a mission and she came with us to teach a lesson. She offered to invite Thelma to the next young women's activity.

We had 5 investigators in church this week!!!!! Two were long term investigators (who I still have not met.) But three of them came for the first time!!! Two of them we met while doing a mostra, and they were really receptive. The ward really really reached out to them, and they are excited to learn more. They are the cutest old men ever. One of them asked us for a copy of the Book of Mormon and gospel principles in English so he could make sure he wasn't losing anything in translation. The last investigator was Robert. Robert is the man from Bangladesh that we have been teaching. I have been wanting and praying for him desperately to come to church, but because of work it's seemed like it's not an option, but he works on a boat in the river, and because of all the rain this week (which seemed like such a trial), he was sent home early and instead of going home early, he made the trek across the city to come to the last hour of church, and he asked me twice if we had found a church for him in Bangladesh. I have learned more about love from this man than I have any other person that I have thus far met. He works constantly and he sends all of his money to his family. He is making such a great sacrifice. He sees that we have the truth, and he wants it for him and his family.
We also met women from Egypt this week, and I'm not sure how interested they are in the church. They are really really interested in Christ and in talking to the missionaries but I'm not sure how much they have truly latched onto the idea of the restored gospel. They are trying to become part of the Italian culture (they have both even changed their names to Italian names) and they were so touched that we invited them to a Thanksgiving activity. We spoke more in depth with the brother named Atta/Abramo, and I could actually see desperation in his eyes. He wants desperately to belong in this country, and I hope that he can find that in the church. He gave us flowers when we left. (he works in a flower stand.) I love these people and I feel so honored, that our Heavenly Father trusts me to help these people. I'm not perfect and this is really really hard for me, but I know that this is where my Savior and my Heavenly Father want me to be. I have thought about going home 1,000 times, but I know that leaving will be the hardest thing I ever do, and that my mission will become better and better as my priorities shift.

I love you all dearly, and I pray for you more than you realize. I hope that the holidays are wonderful, and that you are learning and growing from the experiences the Lord is giving you.

I want to be a missionary that does work!

Well everyone missions are hard. There are days when you wonder if there is any point to you being here, if you will ever be able to say anything other than scusi me abbiamo un courso d'inglese gratuito (excuse me we have a free English course) in Italian, and if you have failed completely. This week was full of those days. I finally hit a point where I realized that I have been out for four months, and I have done nothing. I have been very very thoroughly trained in how to be a missionary, but I have yet to really do any work. I have taught a handful of lessons, I have taught a lot of people phrases in English, but I have yet to spend a day where I have completely served my Lord. So I prayed and I asked if Heavenly Father really wanted me to be here, and if it would be better for me to just go home, and I didn't receive an answer.

So I got up the next morning and I started on our daily schedule, and we had our first day where we left the house a little before ten (we are supposed to leave at ten, but sometimes we have to make adjustments because of bus schedules) and we didn't come back till 9:30pm and we did work all day, and not just busy work. We legitimately helped people, and I felt great, and I realized that was my answer. Heavenly Father wants me to be here, but only if I'm doing work. So I'm finishing the end of my second transfer, (so in a week or two, I will no longer be a greenie) and I have decided what kind of missionary I want to be. I want to be a missionary that does work. I want to be a missionary that truly brings people closer to Christ. I am going to spend the next year and a half trying my hardest to be a utensil in the tools of our Lord.

So I had a couple of cool experiences this week with my newfound determination to truly do something with this time. We are teaching a man from Bangladesh named Robert, who doesn't speak great English or Italian. He loves the church, and Jesus Christ, and the Book of Mormon, and he wants to get baptized, but after my first conversation with him that he doesn't realize there is any difference between our church and the Catholic church. (which is the fault only of the language barrier) So we started back from square one and re-taught him the restoration. I think he understands better but he doesn't quite get it. Luckily for us, the church has translated the film "The Restoration" into a number of languages, and we are hoping that he can watch it in his mother language. Also he is going back to Bangladesh for Christmas, and has agreed to meet with members there, and hopefully they will explain it better. I'm hoping that he will be able to be baptized in Bangladesh so his family can be there to see him make that first step. It would be absolutely perfect if president would authorize me to be there but that is unlikely to happen.

Yesterday we did a mostra in a busy part of the city,(a mostra is really just finding with a giant sign that attracts people's attention, making it a little easier to talk to them) and we all received one number, and an agreement for a return appointment. The woman who gave me her number was named Kanthi which is pronounced like Candy with a harder t sound. She was really excited to hear that that was my mom's name too. I was also able to teach the first discussion to a man visiting from Denmark. He was really interested in learning more about the Mormon's because "we seemed so normal, and I don't think that that show sister wives is a very good representation." He had also seen some very well dressed young men in Denmark, and he was "pretty sure they were Mormons too." so I told him that the show sister wives was in fact a poor representative of the church and that we believed that we had the restored gospel, and that we had this great book, which he agreed to read, and I gave him a website where he could find missionaries closer to his home. When I finished I went and told Sorella Williams about the experience, and we were both really excited, until she said "And you had a restoration pamphlet, and Book of Mormon in English? That's awesome!" I did not have a Book of Mormon or a restoration pamphlet in English. Every piece of literature I gave him was in Italian, and neither of us noticed, I hope that he felt the spirit enough that he will visit that website I gave him, and try to find a Book of Mormon in Danish.

vi voglio bene
Sorella Madyline Spencer

Cleaning House

I wish I had more to tell you about the work, but this week has been really slow. Sorella Merenda was sick, so we all rotated staying with her. I cleaned out all of our resources and now they are all arranged by language, and type. It was kind of fun because I found some really weird stuff. Our apartment has been owned by the church for a very long time, and it has very gradually accrued a lot of useless things, for example a mayan calendar, which is now hanging on our closet door. I also found about 7 numbers which needed to be called and a really cool talk that talks about doing missionary work through members,that several of us are trying to implement. (Sorella Fossa hasn't had the opportunity to read it, because it is in English.) I don't know how old it is, or how easy it will be to find but it's definitely worth reading if you are preparing for a mission,or serving currently. Susan Fulcher: A case study. Also as a word of warning it is about 14 pages long, but as everything else in missionary work nothing worthwhile is easy.

There is a member in our ward who cooks for us every month. She is actually fairly infamous in the mission because she prepares traditional Italian 5 course meals, and she believes in feeding us well, so sometimes it can be a tad bit to much food. I was a little nervous going in but it ended up being one of the coolest things I have ever done. It was so elegant (I had a cup for fruit and a cup for water, and an exorbitant amount of silver-ware. I have always loved things elegant and classy, so I had an amazing time. She promised to give me recipes for Christmas, so I'm really looking forward to doing something similar for all of you when I get home. I'm sure I can recruit Faith to help.

Also I gave my first talk this week. Bishop called Saturday night and told Sorella Fossa that he was really busy and he was wondering if one of the sisters would be willing to give a talk. She asked if he had a sister is mind and he said I was thinking about the new one. Sorella Fossa asked if he meant Sorella Spencer and he responded oh I don't know, the really really blonde one, so I am a little mad at my hair for making it impossible for me to blend into a crowd in Italy. Anyway I had less than 24 hours to prepare a talk, translate it into Italian, and do some basic preparation. I was only able to practice it twice, and I ended up reading it, which is not generally how I choose to execute public speaking. I'm not sure I said anything or if I just made sounds. It was really interesting because my dad really enjoys good public speakers so he has kind of developed that talent in me, over the years, and I felt that I had regressed back into the fourth grade version of my-self that was so uncomfortable with public speaking that my teacher gave me special permission to face the board.
I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas. :)

When in Rome

I am in love with everything about this country. I have an Italian companion so I'm really starting to understand the language, which is greatly greatly deepening my relationships with the people. I love gilatto, and all the art, and the love that all Italians have for their families, the gospel, their heritage, everything they interact with. The greatest thing I have learned thus far on the mission is love. If you do everything else right in your life, if you go to church every week, have a good job, and are consistently contributing to society, and you never passionately loved something whether that's a person, art, or a hobby, you will have lived life to a lesser degree. You will not have lived the life that our Father in Heaven wanted for you. I sincerely believe that all the other things are important, the commandments that we are given, the lives that we are expected to live, but they are less important. If we love our Heavenly father, his children, and all the things that he created for us, everything else will fall into place. I would love to see members of the church stop focusing on the rules and start focusing on love. If we genuinely love our Heavenly Father we will want to keep his commandments. I feel like sometimes we are treating the symptoms instead of the problem, if we loved our Heavenly Father we wouldn't lie, steal, or cheat, so instead of teaching lessons on lying, stealing, and cheating, encourage to consider people to think of how their Heavenly Father touches their lives everyday.
This week was really cool. We went to a Halloween party of a family in our ward, and they asked us to give the spiritual thought. The other sister's gave a spiritual thought on the armor of God (and the elder's dressed up in a "costume" of armor, how clever are they.) It was really interesting, because normally I try to participate when missionaries do spiritual thoughts, just to get conversation going, and for the first time, the spirit prompted me not to say anything, and our spiritual thought evolved into a beautiful testimony meeting, and there were tons of non members there. From this experience we talked to 2 people who are interested in learning about the gospel! (one of them was an immigrant from Nigeria, who I later found out was actually a member, so I have no idea why he said yes when I asked him if he wanted to learn more about our faith. My only thought is that we were speaking a different type of English, and I talk quickly when I'm nervous, so he didn't really understand what was going on and was just agreeing with everything I said to make me stop talking.) and a less active member told us that he was interested in being reactivated! So because Christmas is coming up, I would like to ask all of you for a Christmas gift. Host a Christmas party, or a small dinner, or a FHE, and invite your non-member friends, and then ask the missionaries to give a short spiritual thought. As missionaries we can't do this without your help, and our only goal is to bring people unto Christ, and it is infinitely more effective with the help of members. Also if anyone has any EFY music, or Piano Guys, or Christian rock, or Christmas music by any artist that they are no longer using I would be very very happy if you put it on a jump drive and then sent it to my mother, but the Christmas party is more important, so the music is just an extra. :)

Last night we had a small miracle. We had a member appointment in the evening, and the buses were being really unreliable, so they agreed to come pick us up near the home of the less active we are working with. They called to let us know they were there but they couldn't find us and we realized that we had given them the wrong street. We gave them the correct address and they told us to wait in front of a flower stand in that area that they were familiar with. As we were waiting in front of the flower stand the owner came out to talk to us, and we ended up talking a lot about English course and a little bit about the gospel, and he was fairly responsive. So we invited him to come to courso, and then went to our appointment. That night I couldn't stop thinking about him, so we are planning on following up with him this week, to see if he is interested in taking the lessons. I am a huge believer in fate (that may not be the best word to use in this context.) especially on the mission, so I am really excited to see how that turns out.
Also the language is coming along great! My companion is Italian so she is learning English as I'm learning Italian. It's great for a couple of reasons. A) My comprehension is going up soooo much, and I am better able to communicate with ward members and investigators. B) I really feel like I'm contributing. I can help teach her as she is teaching me, which makes me feel like I'm actually contributing. Also we have English and Italian investigators, so she needs my help with the English speakers, as much as I need her with the Italians. I feel like I am finally doing missionary work instead of just watching.

Vi voglio bene
Sorella Madyline Spencer

The following are pictures from the Mission Blog kept by Sorella Waddoups.

This first one has her new companion seated next to her with the dark hair. Her name is Sorella Fossa.

An Unexpected Change of Scenery

Ok so keeping with my theme of not hiding the difficult parts of a mission, and also because those who have served missions will understand pieces of what's going on and realize that something happened, I will just come out and keep everyone posted instead of letting you all jump to your own conclusions which are probably worse than what is actually happening.

So as many of you, (probably anyone that has ever spoken to me actually) know I struggle a little bit with anxiety. Loud noises, and anything unexpected have the tendency to really startle me. This anxiety is occasionally accompanied with a mild panic attack. Knowing that the stress of a mission could very well escalate this problem I went to see a doctor about regulating it, and she prescribed me a very very mild anti anxiety pill which I have been religiously taking for a few months now. Under normal circumstances this would have been more than enough to correct the problem, however, every now and again this type of medication can have an opposite effect. Apparently my body has an opposite reaction to pills that are supposed to be mood regulators. For example when I had my wisdom teeth removed and I was given laughing gas, instead of becoming giggly and care free I started to sob uncontrollably So the pill that I was taking to prevent panic attacks was causing panic attacks more severe than I ever have had before. This week I had one that was particularly bad, so my companion called the president and he made the decision to transfer me. So I got on a plane and went to Rome.

When I arrived in Rome I had an hour appointment with the mission doctor, who caught the problem, addressed it (I am going half dose this week, and then coming completely off next) and cleared me to go back to Siracusa, BUT through this experience president had spent a lot of time praying about where I should be, if I should be sent home, or transferred to a state side mission, or to a different part of Italy, and at first the only strong revelation he received was that my purpose was fulfilled in Siracusa and I was not to go back. So after to being cleared to return to Siracusa, president told me that he wasn't sure where to put me, just that it wasn't in Siracusa. So I spent the next day with a companionship in Rome 1. President eventually decided that I would be staying in Rome serving with Sorella Fossa who is from Milano. So here I am sitting at an internet point in the middle of Rome, and the last place on earth (well in Italy) that I expected to be.

It has been a really difficult situation. I cried more leaving Sicilia, than I did leaving America, but I can see now why this is where I am supposed to be. There were about 4 variables that led to me having these panic attacks, and if just one variable had been different I wouldn't have struggled with this at all, but they did and here I am. Also I already have a love for Rome and as much as I love Siracusa I can't imagine leaving here. I know this is where the Lord wants me to be. I can feel it. I wish that he had done it the more orthodox way through transfers, but maybe I, or someone else who was affected through this had something they needed to learn.

In fun happy news, one cool thing about leaving your "birth city" is that people stop looking at you as a greenie. Instead of going up to my companion to talk or fix appointments, because they assume I can't speak they come up to me! I even translated yesterday! It was rough. I finally decided that if I wasn't saying anything doctrinally incorrect, and that I was following the basic topic of the lesson, that I would make stuff up. There is a senior sister missionary in our ward who has agreed to let me practice on her until I get better.

So in summary there was a little bit of craziness this week but I am doing well and getting better.

Con amore,

Sorella Madyline Spencer

I found a picture of her on the mission blog. It isn't much, but I was happy to see her! (She is the blond to the right of the picture of the Savior.)

I just received another picture from an awesome mission mom! You know who you are. Thanks again for always coming through for me.

"Missionary work is hard and sometimes it breaks your heart"

Well this week was transfers which was absolute madness, and we didn't get as much work done as I would have liked. As much as I love scambios (I think those are called exchanges in English) and zone conferences, and district meetings, sometimes I wish we could spend less time doing them and more time just really getting into the work, but this is the Lord's errand and not mine so I will continue to do it His way. Which is probably for the best because, my companion just got called as sister training leader which means I am probably going to be spending a lot of time out of Siracusa this transfer so that she can do scambio's with other sisters in the zone, which will mean a lot of bus rides, which is fine because I definitely have not thrown up on a bus in the last month.... {she didn't share that 'throw up' story for the blog, but it wasn't one of her better days}.
Besides the chaos of transfers this week has been spectacular. English course has grown into something we can no longer control, and we may have to start teaching 3 or even 4 classes a week. While that may seem like its detracting from the work, our last two baptisms have come from English course, and all but one of the investigators being taught now are from English course. English course is a golden, golden finding idea. Speaking of which there are not doors in Italy, only apartment buildings that you have to be buzzed into so the tried and true method of door to door finding is non existent for us, so if anyone has any really great finding ideas from their missions I would love to hear about them. Ok back to English course. We just got a new sister fresh from the MTC, so I have left my comfort zone of my 100 percent in English advanced course and I am now teaching basic. While I'm sad and a little bit intimidated to leave my class, I think it's right. I feel that I have offered them everything I can (in a spiritual sense), and that I have nothing else to help them progress. I hope that Sister Price can give them what I cannot, and that's the reason that we do transfers because sometimes the Lord gives his children a missionary that can spark their faith and plant a seed, and a completely different missionary to harvest it.
We are still teaching Angelo, our plant stand man, and for the most part he is really receptive. We read Moroni 10 3-5 together and he absolutely loved it, but it kind of backfired and he now thinks that his heart is not sincere enough for him to pray. If anyone has suggestions on how to resolve that, please tell me, because I am at a loss.
I know that I usually keep these emails fairly light but I read a talk this week that made me think that maybe by doing that I am cheating my family, friends, and myself, so this week I learned for about the 100th time, that missionary work is hard and sometimes it breaks your heart. I have an English course student who is always very very responsive, and shares beautiful insights during the spiritual thought, and is reading the Book of Mormon. This week I asked her if she would like to learn more about the gospel, and as we were talking, my companion and I ended up giving her a kind of impromptu lesson, and during this lesson she revealed that she does not believe in religion. She believes that it is something man invented to give them comfort, and a sense of moral direction, but there is no truth behind it at all, and then she backed it up with some very logical reasoning. Reasoning that I had never heard before, and by the time I got home, my faith was thoroughly shaken, and the only thing that I could convince myself was that I didn't care if the gospel was true or not. My life was better for it and I was going to continue living it, and I got on my knees and I prayed and for the first time in my life, I felt nothing. The following morning I got down on my knees, and again I felt nothing, and I was furious, because here I was promising people that if they just reached out to their Heavenly Father he would respond to them, and here I was a missionary, taking the greatest act of faith I can imagine having taken, having left my family and friends, my country, and my language for 1 year and a half just to serve him, and I felt nothing? So I started reading in Third Nephi, mainly because it was personal study, and I was too upset to focus on my investigators, and I read a verse. I can't remember where it was but it said something along the lines of 'I was going to write the words that they said but the Lord forbade it, saying that he wanted to try his children's faith', and I realized these experiences happen so that we can grow, and through a lot more personal study I realized that if we can be strong during these moments of doubt our testimony will become firm and unshakable, so I would just like to share with you all, that I know that this gospel is true, and because it's true does not mean it is easy. If it were easy we wouldn't grow and the whole point of this life would be defeated. You will sacrifice more than you can possibly imagine, by remaining faithful to the gospel of Christ, but every painful step of it is more than worth it. Even if I didn't have the promises of eternal life, the joy I have gained in this life would be worth it.

She also sent several pictures this week! It is so exciting for me to see the growth she is experiencing already and we have only just passed the 90 day mark this week.

These first two are with her first companion and trainer Sorella Baker.

Getting her first in country haircut.

Silly photos are a must.

I am not sure who the other sorella is.

Time for lunch.

So just a quick observation from the mom. She has a beautiful smile, however, she has always been very self conscious of smiling and letting her teeth show. I have very few pictures of her genuinely smiling. I have noticed that so many of her pictures from her mission include smiles where she is showing her teeth. That leads me to believe she is becoming more comfortable with who she is and not worrying as much about what others think. I can see her confidence growing and that makes me really happy. I am grateful she can't see the blog until she gets home. If I brought this up to her, she might start smiling with her mouth closed again. I love the new smile!