This week has been fantastic!

Cioa Cari!
This week has been fantastic. Sorella Worsham and I are still together, and still seeing miracles. We have decided that president probably doesn't want to mess with a good thing. We are focusing a lot of our time on Michael and Lizbeth, and it has made the work wonderful. We went to their house on Thursday, and they made us something called tiger's milk. It was in a tall glass and it kind of looked like a pink smoothie. Our big concern was that it was alcoholic, so I took a very cautious drink to check, and it was made out of fish. Which just turned out to be surprising. It was so good, just not what I expected.

We also had a FHE with them and several families in the ward (most of whom were spanish speaking so my Italian is starting to become more and more Spanish sounding every day.) I told Lizbeth on the way out that my favorite thing about the church was the spirit I can feel whenever I go, and my second favorite thing is that no matter where I go, I can always find a little family. She laughed when I said little, and told me that the church was like a huge family. I guess she is right. I am lucky to be a Latter-Day Saint and have you all as my brothers and sisters.

Also we are having a lot of success with our English course. All three of our intermediate students have started reading the Book of Mormon. We ask them to read a chapter during the week, and then we pull the spiritual thought from that chapter. They are truly spiritually progressing, and we are working on getting them all to start taking the lessons. Every now and again we combine advanced and intermediate so the elders can go to ward council, and it is so sweet to see our three students pull out their personal copies (they have all been given one and we have asked them to bring it every class) and explain it to the advanced class. I have great hopes for all of our students.



I just wanted to share something she wrote in another email after I asked her how she was "REALLY" doing.

I am doing well. I am learning a lot from being a missionary. I really am doing well. There are always hard things. Most of the missionaries in my district served together in another city before getting here, so I sometimes feel a little left out, and self conscious about my Italian. Also people keep making me eat a ton of food, but I am happy to report that those are my biggest problems. I am learning and I am growing. I worry about all of my people back home. I worry about you and dad, and Alisha, And BAM, and Dan, but I feel the spirit, and my testimony is growing.

I can't wait to see her and hug her and hear all about her adventures!

Here are a couple of pictures I found.

Another Transfer in Rome!

Ciao!
Well, I am still in Rome for another transfer, and I'm really excited because the work is going really really well, and it would have been a huge disappointment to leave it. We have been teaching a very sweet peruvian family twice a week, and they are really progressing. I am just forever amazed by them. Especially Michael (the husband) he just responds so well to everything we teach. I was told in the MTC (missionary training center), that sometimes teaching people would just be like reminding them of something they had known a long time ago, and that they had simply forgotten, and that is what it is like to teach Micheal. He always tells us that what we are saying makes a lot of sense, and that he thinks it's true. His wife is a little more apprehensive, but still progressing rapidly. She has had a lot of bad experiences with religion and just wants to make sure that it is true before she makes any major commitments. The ward is really really great and they were invited to three separate FHE's (family home evenings).

We also did a three hour read a thon this week with the Silva family. All three sets of missionaries took a shift to read out loud with them for an hour. The goal was to get Janus (18 year old son) all the way through the third book of Nephi. It didn't quite work out that way. With English being their second language (it's still what they like to read in) we had a really hard time helping him understand scriptural terms, and only got through 9 chapters, but it was really great and Sorella Worsham and I found a scripture about unity that we really liked. 3rd Nephi 2:18. We have used it in a handful of spiritual thoughts.

Our children's English course is really picking up, and we now have three families consistently coming. The kids are away too smart for me, and pick up vocabulary and grammar so quickly. They also LOVE the Book of Mormon. Each one of them has their own copy, and they bring it every week, and literally fight over who gets to read. We are learning to pick long scripture passages. They are are 3 little boys who I am sure will serve missions one day. The great thing about English course is it just builds so much trust and plants so many seeds. One third of our baptisms come from English course, so I like to put a lot of focus on it.

So this Sunday was a little chaotic. We met a man earlier this week on the bus who confused us for nuns (that is very very common) and got off the bus sooner than we were able to clarify. He did tell us he wanted to come to our church this week. So as he was getting off the bus we handed him a pass along card. So Sunday morning this 80 ish old man shows up at our bus stop in his sweater vest, and he tells us, that he does not know where this via Bra 34 (the church address) is, so he decided he would come to our bus stop and accompany us to church so that he could find it. So we get to church about an hour early and give him a brief tour and teach him the basic restoration so that he doesn't panic when he realizes we aren't nuns and in fact this is not a catholic church. Then President and Sorella Waddoups show up for a surprise visit. So we send Peitro (our friend in the sweater vest.) to Elders Quorum with President, and we wait for Lizbeth and Michael. When they arrive we drop Francesca off at nursery (she was a champ she just kind of waddled over there by herself.) try to get Sebastain into primary (he really really fought it, and then grab the elders to sit next to Michael into Elder's Quorum. So finally about half way through Relief Society we head in with Lizbeth. During gospel principles 3 more investigators come. So it was just kind of a chaotic day, so beautiful, but very stressful for Sorella Worsham and I. Luckily the ward really stepped in and helped because there is no way that Sorella Worsham, and I could have met everyone's needs alone. The other missionaries also both had investigators in church, so in total there were 8 present. The Rome 1 record (since I have been here) is 9, so we are getting close to breaking it!

Also I had a really beautiful, kind of conflicting experience this week. There is a huge group of Romanian "gypsy" immigrants in Italy right now, and it has turned into a very difficult situation with both groups. The Romanians have developed a reputation as thieves, and have become really dehumanized by almost everyone. We aren't allowed to give people money as missionaries, so for the most part we don't work very heavily with them, but this evening I got on the bus and there were 3 little boys on the bus. The oldest was probably about 11, and was teasing one of the younger boys. The 11 year old called me over and told me that his brother's (?) feet stank (oh 11 year old humor!). At first I was tempted to roll my eyes and walk away, but he called me over again, and I have a very soft spot in my heart for children so I decided to talk to them. Throughout the conversation, I just realized that they are just like any other little boys, and one of them really reminded me of Nathan Stewart (his name was Daniel) This little boy had an accordion so I asked him to play it for me, and he did. He absolutely beamed when I clapped and told him that he was very good. At some point the little boys started hitting each other, and I told them to stop, and that hitting was not ok, and they immediately stopped. It was just a very eye opening experience that these little boys were exactly like the little boys in Augusta Georgia, and that they just wanted praise, and love. I gave them all a piece of candy (actually Anziano Nickel gave them all a piece of candy), and I told them to be good, and that I thought they were really good boys. It was really interesting to see how they responded to that kind of interaction, and I wish that I could do so much more for them. I just realized again in a more deeper sense, that people are people, and that we all feel things the same way, we are all desperate for love (especially children) and that we are children of God.

When it rains in Rome

Cioa Cari!
Well the rain continues. I'm about ready to chuck my boots and umbrella out the window just as an act of faith that maybe one day it will stop raining. However, when the Lord tries you, he also blesses you. Last week (I think I already mentioned this) we found a sweet peruvian family when we took a bus going in the wrong direction. We have now taught this family two lesson's and we invited them to church this week. They called us the night before and assured us that they would be coming. Sunday morning came, and we waited for them in church for a while and relief society started and, elders quorum started, and primary started, and our sweet peruvian family was no where to be found. So we gave them a call, and they told us that their youngest was having some stomach pains and that were having a hard time getting out the door. Usually in missionary speak that translates to we don't really want to come, and we will not be there. So under normal circumstances, Sorella Worsham and I would have gone to class and tried again next week, but we both felt very strongly that we should wait just a bit longer for them.

Fifteen minutes before sacrament meeting, they came. We took their two children to primary. (Seeing the look of shock and excitement on the primary president's face was really wonderful. We only have 6 kids in primary) and went to the last ten minutes of gospel principles. Then ten minutes later we went to pick their children back up, and they had had a wonderful 10 minutes in Primary, their oldest refused to leave, so they promised him he could come back next week. (YES!!!!), and then we went to sacrament.

Literally half of the ward descended on them. Sorella Worsham and I didn't even end up sitting next to them, and at one point one of the sister's in the ward took the kids out into the hall so that their parents could focus on the sacrament. At the end of sacrament the dad told me that he was impressed by how many people in the ward could speak spanish. (Not me, we have spent a lot of time with Spanish speakers these last couple of weeks and so far I have learned to say good evening my slow cat, and where is my goat? neither of which are very useful.) and then he very sincerely thanked us for inviting them. Both the husband and the wife are very open, but I can tell that the father's heart has been incredibly touched since we have started working with them. Also their little girl is a standard two year old, but she loved the music is sacrament meeting. She went completely still and tried to sing along. It was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

They have started an Italian course for the foreigners in the ward who cannot read or write Italian, and we supervised that this Sunday (they need someone to lock the church after course and we contribute a spiritual thought at the end.) It was really funny, because the whole course was specifically designed for a new convert named Awad, and he did not enjoy it at all. The woman teaching it is very very structured, which is not the kind of teaching that Awad responds to. So at one point he left "to go to the bathroom" and about 5 minutes later we noticed that he hadn't come back, so we went to go look for him. We found him in the foyer, playing on his ipad and we told him "awad corso Italiano!" (he only speaks arabic, and he spent about 2 minutes trying to get out of it. He told us "Italiano bad, English good, and please Spencer no italiano, no." Finally he said ok, ok Italiano good. So we sent him back to Italian course, and then went to go get drinks, and two members came and found us to tell us that Awad was in the foyer skipping Italian course. They were upset because I guess they had tried to reason with him, and he had told them no no Italiano bad. So we went back to Italian course, and did kind of a one on one to help him with Italian, but he was miserable the whole time. He will eventually learn to read, and he will be grateful. I hope eventually.

Also I have been studying the old testament this week when I have a little extra time, and it has been really interesting. I have a learned a lot about the priesthood, and about sacrifices. It just makes me understand how great of a teacher our Heavenly Father is. I can imagine how difficult it would be to make people understand the atonement, years before it happened, and he used sacrifices as a teaching tool (for my animal lover friends they also sacrificed a lot of fruit.)

So one thing that I have learned on the mission is that our lives really shape the way we see the world, and it's hard to work with people who see things, and people, and Diety different than you do, but we really can learn something from everyone. Also the way that other people see the world doesn't have to change the way you see it. I spent a lot of time fighting people's opinions at first, but I'm just learning that it only closes their minds more and more. I'm trying to remember that anger and hatred, won't eliminate anger and hatred. I just want all of you to realize that at the core people are the same. We are all children of God, we all hurt, we all love, we all cry. We may do it in Spanish, or Bengali, or English, but at the root it's all the same. I think that sometimes we search for things to make us different, but in the end we are all children of God, he designed this gospel for each and everyone of us, and that makes us more similar than we ever realized. I love you all. I hope the Lord is blessing you in your daily lives, and that you can feel that you are wonderful and important to Him, and to me.

Lo prosimo (till the next time)
Sorella Madyline Spencer

(Also I have learned how to say where in arabic, and hello, and I have good morning written on a piece of paper but whenever I try to say it, I get some very very blank looks.)

A week of Miracles

OK so remember how I am supposed to write this email every week, and I haven't for at least two weeks in a row now? I'm really really sorry about that. So I'm sure you are all very very curious about what winter is like is beautiful Rome, and I'm sure that you would all be very pleasantly surprised to hear that it is very very............wet. It has been an uncharacteristically rainy winter. And I have become very very accustomed to traveling with an umbrella. (which I broke this morning so part of P-day will be spent buying a new umbrella) 

Thanks to the rain most of our appointments fell through this week, because buses stopped running. Rome is designed really really well (thank you Julius Caesar) so flooding is not normally a problem, but this type of perpetual constant rain is really uncommon here and some of the lower parts of Rome have been flooding slightly making it difficult for buses to rain (don't worry I live in Monte Spaccatto which literally translates to mountain, so I am safe).

So we did a little bit of casa a casa (door to door) which we kind of avoid as missionaries, because we don't actually have doors here we just have citofinos (those little metal boxes that you use to buzz to get into people's apartments) and it is really easy for people to just ignore us, so we have very very little success getting into people's homes. HOWEVER, some missionaries try to look for open doors so they can actually literally knock on people's doors.

I have never served with someone who has felt comfortable doing this, and thus I have never done it. Sorella Worsham happens to be a very big fan. So she wanted me to go into this huge, very nice apartment complex, so after explaining to her that I only have one point left on my permesso before I get deported (you start with 16, and you gradually lose them for various offenses. Missing a culture class costs you 15 points and I missed one in the transfer from Sicilia to Roma) and other such grumbling and general apprehension, I followed her into the apartment complex, and I am really grateful that I did. Two people let us in. One of them was a woman named F....., and she has two little girls. She met the missionaries in the past, and then moved (this never happens, people never know who we are) She was very receptive and she told us that she really liked the way that we prayed. She said she felt like it was really direct to God.

The other was a woman named Erica. This story is really great because we hadn't been doing door to door for very long, and I was really skeptical still, and we knocked on this door and a man (maybe about 25) opens the door. As he opened the door this huge dog runs out at us. So he is yelling at the dog, and trying to get him back in the house. There is a little girl (maybe about 3) in the background crying, and I am just standing there thinking how the whole apartment complex specifically this family wants to kill us. So he finally gets the dog and the child calmed down, and he asks us what we want, and we tell him (lets be honest Sorella Worsham tells him) that we have a beautiful message for strengthening the family, and instead of rolling his eyes and shutting the door, he says preggo (which means you are welcome to come in.) I literally responded veramente? (really?) We didn't end up getting to teach them a lesson, because his wife was on her way to a friends house, but we have an appointment for this Friday. Please pray for us!

Also I told you that we have been doing a lot of work with what we call our ancient records book (schedas dating back to 1996) and we have started , meeting with a woman named Silvia, who lived with an LDS family in Ohio for a year and a half. (literally twice in one week where we were able to meet with people who are familiar with Mormons! Crazy.)

OK last miracle. There is a college campus in our area that we wanted to go to do English course advertising. We are really trying to start teaching more YSA (young single adult) aged people and young families, so Wednesday morning (I think) we took a bus to Gimelli to do advertising, and when we got there we could NOT find the campus. It was early morning which is a really bad time for finding so we decided to try to put English course Billotini (pass along cards) in mailboxes while we looked for the campus. At a certain point we ran out of English course Billotini, but we still hadn't found the campus, so we decided to just keep using normal billatini (standard LDS pass along cards). After an hour or so we went back to the bus stop and asked the bus driver where gimelli was and he told us that we had rode the bus in the wrong direction and Gimelli was on the other side on town. So feeling kind of stupid we got back in the bus and went home, but last night we received a text message from a man who lived in this area, telling us that he wanted a copy of our free DVD about Jesus Christ, and our Book of Mormon. So sometimes accidents are inspired by the Lord.

Last thing I have been reading Jeremiah, to try to see what life was like in Jerusalem during the time of Lehi, and I saw something that I really really loved. In the first couple of verses the Lord is telling Jeremiah what his destiny (probably not good word choice, sorry) is and Jeremiah literally says ah (that is the only verbatim thing that I can remember) and then something along the lines of Lord I am just child how can I do that? And maybe the ah wasn't exactly the same as the ughhh Lord, how can I possibly do that. so I didn't explain that very well so everyone go home and read Jeremiah and remember that you can do anything with the help of the Lord.

con amore Sorella Madyline Spencer