This week was heavy.

This week was heavy. It was great, I felt the spirit, I grew a lot, but it was really heavy.

Our investigator Veronica who was planning on getting baptized this week had her baptisimal interview with our district leader on Saturday. During the interview she and Anziano Carr decided that she should probably wait a little bit to get baptized, it's definately for the best and she is still working towards getting baptized but it kind of ruined the sword fish lunch we had afterwards.

Sorella Marquis had to go to the hospital for stomach pains that ended up being a nerve inflamation on her ribs. That was stressful.

Other heavy things happened, but I am having a hard time sorting through them in my head right now. On a plus side my beautiful moment this week was named Lamin (yep like Nephi's brother , I kind of feel like I have the power to change the whole story line of the book of Mormon). He is from Gambia, and comes from a muslim background. We told him there was a life after this one and that he could live with his mom for ever, and he said "Woah, this is very important. I have never heard that thing before." I told him we had a book that could help explain it a little better, and we are meeting on Thursday to give it to him. I hope he responds well to sharing a name with the protagonist of the whole book.

I was able to go to Siracusa on an exchange, which was awesome. It was amazing to see the ward again, and I was companions with Sorella Williams for a little over 24 hours. The best part was just having a little bit of a break. I am sure that there are problems in Siracusa, but they aren't my problems and it was pure bliss. As soon as I got back to Catania, I felt the weight or responsibility hit me again.

I have come to realize that rest as viewed by Latter-day Saints is a little bit different than how the rest of the world sees it. I am able to go to bed almost every night knowing that I am doing what the Savior expects of me, but I also know that there is a lot more to go, and I'm tired, and I didn't wash my hair this morning, but I would so much rather have the sense of peace that comes from following the gospel than clean hair.

"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!

P-day's are now on Monday!

Bongiorno,
Transfers came and Sorella Baker and I are still serving here in Siracusa. Sorella KImball is being transferred to a small city outside of Rome, so the days of the Spencer W. Kimball jokes are over. :( At least for now, I have great hopes that we will serve together one day. I don't see myself ever leaving Sicilia, I just fit in here too perfectly so she will have to come back.
This email may not be the best quality, all the other missionaries are in here, and they are being absolutely hilarious which normally would be awesome, but right now is just really distracting. So in Siracusa we have 500 less actives, Sorella Baker and I have been trying to visit them, and we have had a lot of success, but there is only so much we can do. Sister Baker and I were studying together and we were talking about member missionary work and the differences between Georgia, and Idaho. Then Sorella Baker pointed out that if everyone did their visiting and home teaching there wouldn't be any less actives. I have only done visiting teaching in student wards, and honestly I have never been a huge fan. I have always felt like the biggest service my visiting teachers could do, is to let me sleep and vice versa from me to them, but I thought about it a little bit and realized how great of a tool it can be. As I was pondering it, it made me think about Bailey, Amy, or Alisha and how devastated I would be if while I was here in Italy they went through something really difficult, or drifted away, and their visiting teachers didn't reach out to give them the comfort that I couldn't provide from so far away, and 3 of the people that I loved the most would be suffering alone. I realized that everyone has someone who loves them as much as I love Bailey, Amy, and Alisha, and I decided that I would never neglect my visiting teaching ever again. Later while I was talking to Sorella Baker about this we were talking about how the Savior, and our Heavenly Father must feel this same way, but a thousand times more. Our Heavenly Father has these children and he can see them suffering but he can't physically be there to help them, so he assigns the best possible people to bring them comfort, and when they don't it must hurt him so much. After considering this, I can't imagine ever skipping my visiting teaching again. (I'm sure my mom will be really glad to hear that because she is the biggest fan of visiting teaching) Sorry this week has been pretty standard for missionary work. I can't think of anything else to say and I'm way distracted, but I love you all and I'm praying for you every day!

Thanks again to a wonderful mission mom for the photo. I am not going to know what to do since her daughter is transferring out of Mady's apartment.

Giving Mom a Heart Attack!

Caro famiglia e amicizi {Dear Family and ?, I can only assume it is friends, but it won't translate}(not sure if that is the correct spelling, but it's definitely the right words!),
This week has been an absolute adventure, like every other week in this beautiful country. So this really interesting thing happens when you go to a new country, and you put your body under the stress of a new language, and new foods, and new everything. You get really really really sick. So I absolutely hate being sick so I always try to pretend that it's just allergies for about two or three days before I admit that I am actually sick. So day one of my really bad "allergies" we had a permesso appointment. It's the equivalent of a green card. So the four of us gathered together, all of my personal information including my passport, and headed to Ortega. we got there and they told us that the computers were down, so to set up an appointment for the following week. I was not feeling the greatest so I was more than happy to comply, so me, the other four sorelle and all of my personal information started the return trip back to Siracusa. Sometime during this 15 minute walk back home my entire packet of every piece of information proving that I am American, and a missionary, and actually truly Madyline Spencer was separated from me. My companion thinks someone might have grabbed but considering the way I was feeling at this point in time, I think that I missed my bag, while I was trying to put it away. (I wasn't planning on telling this story because I know my mom is already worried enough, but Sorella Haynie is putting it in her blog, so I thought it might get out, and that you all should probably hear my side as well.) {and yes, I was freaking out as I read this because I could totally tell where she was going before she ever got to the point} So we went on our way, cleaned our house, wrote letters, and went to a church activity. As the activity was wrapping up we were discussing the word of wisdom with a member's friend (it wasn't going well) when sweet sweet 3 year old Lorenza comes running into the building screaming c'e la polizia (it's the police!!!) shortly followed by the police asking for a Madyline (Madalayna) not many people know my first name so I didn't respond at first. Then they asked for a Spencer. so I walked over highly concerned because there is very little reason the police would need a sister missionary. They said Signora tu ai tuo passapotrto? (ma'am do you have your passport?), and I responded thinking that it was in the genealogy room, and that I was maybe being deported. Si nella altra stanza una minuto (yes, in the other room, one second) and they said no , signora noi, abbiamo tuo passaporto (no ma'am WE have your passport) then proceeded the most terrifying 15 minutes of my life. Apparently they had found my permesso packet in the street and had seen that it was a blonde haired blue eyed religious American, and assumed that it had something to do with the LDS church, so they decided they would swing by the church and see if a Madyline Spencer was there, which miraculously we were. So while I know my mother is probably panicking at this point in time, it's just a strong testimony that the Lord takes care of his missionaries, even when they aren't being very smart. So instead of being concerned, you should take comfort in this story. {It's no wonder I am loosing sleep over this girl!}

On Tuesday we got a new investigator and two potentials! We taught an english course lesson in the afternoon to a beautiful woman , and afterwords we told her that as missionaries of the church of Jesus Christ we have two purposes. To help bring people unto Christ, and to serve the community, which we do through the English course. We told her that one way that we help people come unto Christ is through prayer, and we taught her how to say a simple prayer, and then we invited her to kneel and say a prayer, and she did! Afterwards we asked her how she felt, and she said happy, and peaceful, so Sorella Lovell invited her to take the lessons, and we have an appointment on Thursday! Then we had corso (class). The way that I plan spiritual thoughts for corso is kind of strange. I choose a theme based on the lesson, and then I study a topic relating to that theme, and I just sort of let the Lord guide me. I know that it sounds unorthodox, but I have had a lot of success. This week our lesson was on renting an apartment, so I decided to contrast our homes now with the homes we will enjoy in our eternal lives, which led me to talk about perfected bodies which seems like a very strange spiritual thought for an english course, but the spirit seemed pretty sure that it was the right message to give so I proceeded. So I gave my spiritual thought on how regardless of how we live this life we will all receive perfected bodies and how great of a blessing this is. Then as I was about to finish I felt prompted to explain that this is only half of the promise that we have been given (I had not prepared this) that if we live righteously and follow the steps outlined by our Savior we can live with our Father in Heaven again, and then I invited anyone who was interested in learning more to stay after and set up an appointment, and two women did. They both took a Book of Mormon, and told me they would read it, and write down any questions they had (I did not ask them to do this.) I have learned that I learn so much more through my personal study, and thus am better able to teach when I really put a lot of effort into my study. If I don't sacrifice I can't teach nearly as well. That is pretty much all that I accomplished this week, but I feel pretty good about it, and I know that when I am healthy, next week will be a lot more productive.
I am also learning that the doctrine is only half of it, the rest is love. I am friends with all of my English course students, they gave me step by step instructions on how to make snails, so if anyone is interested...... I feel so blessed that the Lord has opened my heart this way, and I look forward to the rest of my time in Italy.

{Thanks again to a wonderful mission mom who shared a picture}

So thankful for tender mercies!

I have really been missing Mady this weekend. We always go to the church to watch conference together. I am thankful for the Lord's tender mercies. She was unable to send pictures this week because her camera battery was dead. Late last night I found some pictures of her on the mission blog, and today I received a sweet email from a fellow mission mom who sent a picture and a link to more pictures! I know the Lord is mindful of my needs as well as the needs of my missionary. I am grateful for His watchful eye and extending those tender mercies when I need them the most.

These are of a picnic on the water for P-day.

This is one of the sisters that live with her in the apartment. (the daughter of the wonderful mission mom who was nice enough to send me the picture!) Evidently there is a running joke about their names. They get comments regularly about the prophet Spencer W. Kimball. Sorella Kimball's first name starts with a "W".

And this is a picture of her district.

Siracusa Week 4

This week like every other week in the mission has been very full of miracles. Earlier this week we had an appointment with a less active named Sorella D'luca. We got her address out of the ward directory and started to look for her house. After about an hour of searching we gave up, and our phone has been acting up so we couldn't call her and let her know what was going on. We were really frustrated as we were leaving her house. However, as we were heading to the church when a man at a plant stand saluted us and told us that our Italian was very good. I have always wanted to stop and look at this plant stand, and the man seemed very friendly so I stopped to thank him for the compliment. As we were talking he told us that he had known another missionary in the past who used to walk past his plant stand all the time, but that the missionary hadn't passed by in a long time. We asked him if he had ever spoken to this missionary, and he said yes. The other missionary had given him a vangello di Gesu Cristo Opuscolo {a brochure about Jesus Christ}and he had read it so many times he probably had it memorized. He told us he liked to read when it was slow at his stand and asked if we had any more opuscoli {brochures}. So we gave him a restoration, and plan of salvation pamphlet, and a Book of Mormon. Then we exchanged numbers and left. The next morning was church and we were having an appointment about meeting with members before general conference, and he walked in to the church. We had given him a genealogy pass a long card and he wanted to know more about it. Later we had an appointment with him where he told us that he had begun to read the Book of Mormon, he isn't a huge fan of Nephi killing Laban, but he is very curious and very receptive. He was also interested in how much the Book of Mormon stresses record keeping, and he wants to know more about genealogy. Later we found out that Sorella D'luca has never lived in the address that is listed in our 5 years old ward directory. So years ago someone made a very inspired mistake.
The English course is going great. I really desperately want my students to come to general conference, and so I have given two spiritual thoughts on conference, and will be giving a third on Thursday. This last Tuesday I brought a picture of Thomas S. Monson and bore a really strong testimony of how blessed we are to have this man acting as a prophet in these latter days. I wanted my testimony to be enough to get them to come, but I wasn't sure that it would be so I told them that it would be in English and Italian to give them a little more incentive to come, but I stressed what a wonderful opportunity it is to receive personal revelation. After class (I teach the advanced huddle) one of my students came up to me and told me he is coming to conference. He is one of my most dedicated English students and I thought it was for the opportunity to practice hearing English, which while not ideal is better than nothing but after he told me that he was coming because I wanted him to come. It was one of the most beautiful moments I have had on the mission so far. I am just saying really really sincere, maybe even desperate prayers that all of the speakers speak very slowly, and very clearly, and that my students can be touched by the spirit.
Another cool thing that we did this week was Jesso. Which is where we take a sheet to a busy piaza and two of us draw the plan of salvation, and two of us distribute pamphlets. I like talking to people a lot, and drawing not very much at all so I drew one cloud and then started passing out pamphlets. As I was grabbing pamphlets a woman stopped me and in English asked if I spoke English (This happens to me all the time because I look so very not Italian. A lot of times I will be speaking to someone in Italian and they will proceed to tell me all the words they know in Italian which for the most part consists of hello, how are you, I love you.) We talked to her for a good 45 minutes and she seemed very interested in Genealogy, and her boyfriend might come to English course!
We are meeting with a lot of ward members to help prepare them for general conference and inviting them to bring a friend (same goes for everyone reading this email :) ) which means that I have eaten a lot of cookies this week. I think we should start hiding them in our bags, but it hasn't happened yet.
I absolutely love Italy, Sicilia especially. The ward is great, and the Lord is preparing us to meet people. As much as everyone told me that Europe was a hard mission and that I wouldnt have a lot of success, the Lord has almost been throwing people at us.
Love and miss you all
Sorella Madyline Spencer

The work is alive and well in Italy.

OK sorry there was no blog update last week, I had a hard time figuring out how to get photos loaded and it needed to be done so I spent most of my time figuring that out. OK so as you all know I am in Siracusa which is a small small town (not small enough that we know everybody but small enough that I have only been here for 3 weeks and at least five people said Hi to us on our way to get groceries today) on the coast of Sicilia. The work is really slow because we were "blown in", which means that we are both new to this area and that we have 0 solid investigators at this point in time. It is hard but I am actually really grateful for this time to dedicate to the lonelier members of our ward. We have a lot of time to dedicate to the elderly and widows which is absolutely wonderful. We have become family to some of these people which is amazing. I wish that we had more investigators but I am really glad I can spend so much time with these people. I know that I wont have this kind of opportunity in my life ever again, after the mission, and I probably wont have as much time once the work picks up so I am savoring it while it lasts.

That being said miracles are happening every day. The other day we were heading out to do ricerca per gli meni-attivi (searching for the less active) and I don't like to bring my Book of Mormon for distribution unless we are searching, because it is heavy and our area covers a lot of ground, but this morning I decided to put it in my bag. We spent a while knocking on a few doors with no response when we hit a name on a street we were unfamiliar with. We spent about an hour and a half looking for his house before we decided to move on so we could get a couple more houses in before prazo (in Italy its against the law to knock on doors between 1 and 4p) and we moved on to another street we were unfamiliar with. We spent about 40 minutes looking for this house as well when someone stopped us and asked if we were evangelists. We said no and introduced ourselves. She told us she was very curious and she said she wanted to hear more. So we sat down and gave her the first discussion. When we were done she gave us her number and address. We get a lot of fake numbers so we did a squillo {RING}(really common in Italy you call and let the phone ring once and then hang up.) and her phone actually rang! Right now I think she is more curious than anything else, but I think she has been searching for this for a long time. The work is alive and well in Italy.

Con amore
-Sorella Madyline Spencer

(this weeks email comes with a couple of pictures!)

Saved by the mission president's wife! Pictures!!

Mady wasn't able to send pictures this week (Oct 2, 2013), but the mission president's wife has saved the day!! These pictures are from her blog from the Catania/Palermo/Malta Zone Conference held a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

This is her bearing her first testimony (according to Sis Waddoup's blog)

And some miscellaneous shots.....

And my all time favorite.....she is absolutely glowing!!

Week 2 in country

I only received a mom e-mail this week, but I did get some pictures that I can share, so I suppose that will have to do for now.

"The cool buildings are in a town called Avola, they are know for their almonds, and the word for almond is really similar to my name." {mandorla=almond}

These next 3 are my personal favorites!

This is what you get when you order a hot dog in Italia!

This dish was made for the Sorelle (sisters) by a student in their English class. They are teaching English to the Italians and it has proven to be a great finding tool to teach the gospel.

I assume that these are the missionaries from her area, but I am not sure because of the vague email I got from her today. She assures me that next weeks e-mail will be wonderful. (IT BETTER BE!)

That's all for this week!

I love missionary moms!!

I received a sweet email from a missionary mom whose daughter is serving with Mady. She even sent a picture! Thanks Allison!

Her first week in country

I am officially in Italy. I was shocked at how much you can feel the love and guidance of the Holy Ghost in the MTC but it is about 1000 times stronger in the field. There was one day where both companionships (we have two sister companionships in this ward) were planning a lesson for a part member family in our ward. When we went to talk about what we wanted to teach, we had planned the same lesson down to most of the same scriptures. It was really cool to see how the Lord uses us to teach his children what they need to know.

I am serving in Siracusa (Sicily) right now, my companion and I were "blown in" which means both of us are new to the area so we are starting from the ground up. We have one investigator that the other sorelle were not making progress with anymore, hopefully we can make a difference. He is a wonderful guy who just does not have any hope. He has had a really hard life and he doesn't seem to believe that God could possibly exist, but I hope that we can help him find his faith again. We spend a lot of time finding, which we don't always have a lot of success with, but once someone accidentally buzzed us in and we were able to fill an entire apartment building's mailbox with pass along cards (that's legal here.) I'm pretty sure a miracle is going to come of that.

The language is kind of tough, the southern dialect is very different than what I learned in the MTC, so I don't always (and by that I mean, almost never) understand what people are saying to me, but I can fake it for about 5 minutes because I'm pretty sure I know what they are probably saying so I do OK.

Our biggest tool for finding new investigators is the English course. I teach the advanced course, which is tough because it turns out that I don't have a lot of knowledge of English rules. There is a man in my class who is obsessed with America. He has a cousin who lives in Michigan who he is going to see next summer, and I have great hopes for him. I know there are a couple of people who get this who are either serving in Michigan or are from Michigan, so maybe I will tell him to look you up, because he is DEFINITELY going to be baptized by then.

I am so grateful I am on a mission. Its changing me so much. I have learned a lot about hard work and about loving people. It's amazing to me that our Heavenly Father has the ability to show so much love for each and every one of his children, but he does. He loves every individual person in Provo, in Georgia, and in Siracusa, and he just does the most wonderful whimsical things to give us the happiest lives possible.

The coolest thing about serving in Italy is knowing that I'm not in the birthplace of Christianity, but the place responsible for Christianity's ability to endure for the last 2000 years. I am walking where apostles walked and talking to descendants (mom please fix that spelling) of people who talked to Peter and Paul! These people have a lot of faith. Its kind of misdirected sometimes but they truly want to believe in something. Hopefully we can lead them to the thing that will bring them the most happiness.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mady sends two emails to me every week. One for the blog, and one for me. This next section includes excerpts from her personal email.


Oh mom you have no idea how much I miss you. As missionaries we spend a lot of time talking about our families, and I just continue to be amazed at how wonderful mine is. A lot of missionaries don't have parents who would take care of them when they had bad dreams or when they were sick, and I'm so grateful for the compassion and love our family has. I'm using a computer in a public internet cafe and it is pretty old, so I haven't figured out how to email photos yet. My address is Via Poblio 17, 96100 Siracusa, Italia. I cant wait to hear from you! I am anxiously awaiting letters from home! Italy is a lot like Georgia in weather and culture. People are very kind, the biggest difference is that men read into kindness a little bit more so you have to be careful. My ward is fantastic. They tell me my Italian is great and they love practicing English. Members expect you to eat a lot. They don't do leftovers so we legitimately have to finish everything on the table. We went and got gilatto and I ordered 'nutella fredo' (cold nutella) it was so gross, but I have had gilatto since and I love it! ...... My apartment is the biggest in the mission, and was just remodeled because of mold.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This week, I got a third e-mail.

OK, we personalize EVERYTHING here! Our walls, our planners, our scripture cases, EVERYTHING. If you can find some great photos I would love to get them. If it isn't to much of a hassle I would love one real photo and a version you printed off the computer so that I can tape it to stuff like planners, and encourage everyone else to do the same. I love photos! Also pictures of Christ and quotes from prophets are also greatly appreciated.

I really appreciate getting dear elders because it's always nice to hear from you, but would you mind typing something up and mailing it to me instead? The dear elders get really confusing really quickly and we don't have a lot of time to piece them together. Also a nice short handwritten note would be nice as well even if it's on a sticky note.

Also what nationality am I? People ask me all the time. I get Russian and Polish a lot and frankly I do not know.

People are obsessed with my hair here. It's weird.

Sorry this is a mess, they have different keyboards here.

I love you to infinity and back, no take backs.

Arrival Pictures!! She made it!