The Book of Mormon truly invites the spirit into our lives

It's officially August but the work is still going shockingly well in Taranto. In Italy most people leave their cities for a full month and go to the beach. Thanks to the fact that we have a beach in town most of our members and investigators will still be here. Thursday and Friday are going to be fairly dry but I think we are planning on dedicating those days to putting the area book back in order.

Things are going really well for the Ernest family. All three of them were in church on Sunday. I went to primary with Michael Angelo so that his mother could concentrate on Relief Society, and he had an amazing experience. They learned about family home evening, and he and I talked to Sorella Ernest (he needed help explaining the basics because he is four) about making it a part of their daily week, and she is more than willing to do so. Her family is hands down the most important thing to her in the world.

Also I love going to primary so much. It is such a tender mercy that the Lord has allowed me to work with children this much on my mission. My two favorite memories of my mission will forever be when Sebastian in Rome was telling me secrets in his sweet little mix of Italian and Spanish, while eating yogurt, and he ended up getting yogurt all over my hair and face, and when Michael Angelo taught me how to beat box. I have worked with kids for years now, and I have found so much joy in teaching them the gospel, and telling them that they are special to Jesus. I frankly just love children so I go to primary whenever I can find an excuse.

Also we had a really amazing miracle this week. We challenged the Bonvisuto family to start praying for missionary opportunities when I was with Sorella Knight, and I'm assuming that they did (Our appointment to follow up is on Wednesday) because when I got back from my scambi (exchanges) their niece was in church.

We saw Martin this week and we had a really interesting experience. I have been teaching him (my companionship) for over a month now, and in that time, he has changed so much. When I first met him he did so much to lash out for attention (he has had a really rough life). He would say things that were mean, or strange just to get us to react, and then he started reading the Book of Mormon. He finished the whole thing in one month, and during that month he changed so much. He wanted to be around the missionaries all the time. He was constantly researching the church online. He stopped being hateful and started being kind. He stopped doing and saying things for attention. He radiated with the light of Christ. When we saw him this week, all of that was gone. He had completely regressed back to his old self. After we talked for a little bit, we brought up the Book of Mormon, and he said that "when he read it he was so happy, and he felt addicted to the church, and as soon as he finished it he wanted to read it again and again, but he didn't and all of those feelings went away, and that God didn't answer his prayers anymore" so we talked about how important reading the scriptures were and read a few verses together, and by the time we were done he was more calm, and peaceful. It was a huge example of how important it is to read the Book of Mormon, how it truly invites the spirit into our lives.

This week has been a little tougher

This week has been a little tougher. It's really hard killing a missionary (this means being a companion with a missionary who is finishing their mission and getting ready to go home), because it makes you think a lot about home. By the time that I got to Bari, I was completely unmotivated to do anything at all. Except eat focacia, Bari makes some really good pizza. I figured out for me the personal remedy is speaking in Italian outside of the house. When I speak in Italian it turns off the Madyline in my head and turns on the Sorella Spencer, which makes it easier to concentrate on finding, teaching and being a better representative of Christ. I am with Sorella Knight right now, and she is very willing to syl with me which is a great help, and we have seen a lot of huge miracles come from syling.

Within the first hour that we were together a less active stopped us on the street, and invited us to come see him and his wife. Then later in the evening, on the way back from an appointment with the Ernest family we stopped to talk to a father and his son about coming to church, and he asked us if we were from Canada. We explained that we were American and that we taught an English course. He seemed very interested and as we were talking his wife and three other children came and joined him. All six of them are planning on coming to English course, and we are going to go meet them at a nearby grocery store, so that they can find the church for the first time, because our church is on a really small unknown street that no one knows where is, which means that any time anyone comes the first time, they get super lost, and I spend all sacrament meeting on the phone with them helping them find the church. So we will walk with them the first time. There was a really good feeling about them, and I have a lot of great hopes. So in summary syling brings miracles. It makes me feel more at ease when inviting people to come unto Christ. I really hope that Sorella Pancheri feels the same. (syl means speak your language)


Tanya and Tushom came to church on Sunday, and had a wonderful experience at church. Bishop asked Tanya to share her testimony, and it was really beautiful. The ward is completely and utterly in love with her, and she fits in seamlessly with the other youth. She has a huge desire to serve a mission, and I honestly can't believe how much I love her. I'm a little more worried about Tushom. He is best friends with one of our more rowdy deaons, Robert. It's a little ironic but Tushom is turning out to be a great example for Robert. Hopefully they will both be able to help each other in the long run. Also after church Sorella Knight ended up beat-boxing with Robert and Tushom so they adore her. They are trying to teach me, but really I am just not cool enough.

We are really worried about Martin, he and his mother got in a huge fight, where she broke his phone in half and told him he wasn't allowed to have any reaction with the church ever again. He slid a note under the elders door letting them know what happened, but we haven't heard from him since. We are praying for him, and truly hope that his mothers heart will be softened. Other than that I don't know what we can do other than wait. Since I wrote this Martin called us from a secret number. We are seeing him at five-thirty tonight. We could use a lot of prayers. This kid is amazing and he deserves the gospel in his life.

The work here is really moving. With all the progress Tanya and Tushom are making the ward is really getting excited about missionary work. My goal here was to see a member referral baptized, and Tanya and Tushom are already moving in that direction. I hope to see a lot more member referrals, because I truly think missionary work is the best way to strengthen a ward. I really do love Taranto.

Also I have been able to spend the week with Sorella Knight, who is an amazing friend. I am really disappointed she isn't my companion. It's so easy for me to work with her. Our teaching is really fluid, and we make really good decisions together. I guess if it were that easy, it wouldn't bring growth. Che peccato. I love you all a ton, It's always great hearing from you. Have a great week! :)

So many miracles!

I have been so excited to write this email for days now. We have seen so many miracles this week, and there are many more to come.


Miracle number one is named Martin Manole He is our 16 year old investigator from Hungary who wants desperately to be baptized, but his mother is very very opposed to the gospel. Because Sorella Bair and Anziano Kasper are leaving, she invited us to her home this Sunday for lunch. We were warned before hand not to pray or talk about the gospel by Martin,  but before lunch, she invited us to pray, and allowed us to do a brief spiritual thought on gratitude, and leave her home with a prayer. Before we left she told us that her home was open to the missionaries, and that we were free to meet with Martin, whenever we wanted. She still hasn't given him permission to be baptized, but we are heading in that direction. I think she is just afraid of losing her son, I think when she understands that she won't lose her son, but rather have a richer relationship with him after baptism, her attitude will change.


Miracle number two sarebbe la famiglia Ernest. They are our beautiful sri lankan family. The oldest daughter Tanya came to church on Sunday, and she blended seamlessly with the girls. We went with her to young women's to help her feel more comfortable, but she ditched us during the second hour. We have been spending a lot of time with teenagers recently, and I have started to realize that I am a lot older and less cool than I had thought. This is a direct quote of a conversation Tanya had with the other young women.

young woman 1: Imagine a lama, with a horn like a unicorn that shoots unicorn horns out of it's mouth.

everyone but me laughs

Me to Tanya: What are they talking about, is this a new thing on youtube?

Tanya: No it's just a mix of animals.

Young woman number 2: A panda t-rex mix with a unicorn horn.

Young woman number 1 pretends to be said panda t-rex unicorn mix.

Everyone but me laughs really hard:

Me:I'm really confused how do you all know about this, is it on the internet? Is this the new thing,like gangam style.

Tanya: to me: No it's just funny.

At this point I stopped talking because I wouldn't embarrass Tanya


We went to the Ernest home for dinner on Sunday night, and they all agreed to be baptized! We will work on setting a date with them and make sure that they are fully prepared this transfer.


Miracle number three is named Nicky Spagna He is an english course student, who has been reading the Book of Mormon, and he came to church on Sunday. Sorella Bair and I discussed it, and we decided that if there isn't a significant reason to hold onto a male investigator (like in Martin's case where he does not connect very well with men) we will pass them to the elders, so the elders will be teaching him, but we have formed a great friendship with him, and I hope that the sister's can continue to be a support to him, as he progresses towards baptism.


Miracle number four, we went to Stigliano yesterday! Nicky Spagna, and another english course student went with us to do genealogy and finding yesterday. It was a huge day for missionary work in two folds.

A) we were able to find living members of Sorella Bair's family, who are planning on helping her continue her family history work in December and

B) we also passed through and stopped in Nicky's home town, which is connected to Stigliano. The city is beautiful, and Nicki comes from an old influential family in that area (that continues to be influential, they asked him to be mayor) , so we were able to meet a handful of people in both cities, because he introduced them to us. It was a really wonderful experience, and it gave the church a very nice image. I'm sure that for the next few weeks Stigliano, and Acetura will be talking about the American Mormons who are parenti of the di bello family, and friends with the Spagna family. I could see missionary work being very successful in both cities (they overlap completely) especially with the help of Nicky and Sorella Bair coming back in December to do genealogy. I wanted to see if Nicky would be cooperative, so I mentioned to him that I was going to tell president about Acetura and Stigliano, and suggest that he put missionaries there. I told him, that it might not happen, and even if it did happen it may not happen for years, but he was very excited, which is amazing for two reasons.

1) Nicky is excited about doing missionary work, and every person I have seen get baptized on my mission has shared a desire to serve a mission, or share the gospel with their friends right as they start to make the most progress. so it demonstrated that Nicky really is starting his conversion process. 2) If Acetura\ Stigliano area were opened, I think that Nicky would be a huge help with referrals, and getting things started.

Also Sorella Knight will be coming to Taranto from Friday to Tuesday so that Taranto has sister missionaries, and our investigators don't get neglected. I'm really excited because Sorella Knight is very musically talented and Martin's mother is very passionate about music, and I'm hoping that we can go visit her at least once while Sorella Knight is here. Let Sorella Knight play the piano, invite the spirit into her home, and hopefully hopefully leave her with a prayer and a spiritual thought. Also Sorella Knight is one of my best friends in the whole mission, and I have missed her so much, so it will be really great to have a week with her as my companion. I love what I am doing so much. I can't imagine a life where missionary work isn't the heart of everything I do. I love you all but I may never come back. Just kidding. I miss my dog too much.

What just happened?

This week was really crazy. Taranto is such an amazing city that I literally just cannot understand. Sorella Bair and I joke that the theme of our transfer together has been "what just happened?" Literally I go to bed every day trying to process my life. I think it's being in two. It makes you crazy.

So the three most important things that happened this week.

1)Martin- We spent all week trying to arrange an FHE (Family Home Evening) with him and the other Hungarian family in our ward, but because of the language barrier, it didn't ever end up working out. The first night Martin could come, and we confirmed with the Kovacs family, but the address in the ward directory was wrong so we never ended up finding their house. The second time Martin came, and Fratello Kovacs agreed to meet us in the church, but no one else in his family came so we ended up finding all of the random extra people in the church and doing an FHE with them. The third night we got to the Kovacs home and Martin's mom said he couldn't come (we met her this week!!!!! Huge miracle) so we ended up having dinner with the Kovacs family, Fratello Kovac's best friend Fratello Miccoli, and their best friends from down stairs.

2) The best friends from downstairs. They are a beautiful sri lanken family, we watched the restoration together. Unfortunately the tv was broken so we watched it in black and white, with no sound, with english subtitles. So I had to translate it into Italian. I did not to a great job. Despite all of that the spirit was so strong, and they invited us to come teach them on Tuesday, and to eat dinner with them on Saturday, and they are all coming to church on Sunday. It was a huge testimony that the spirit can work through imperfect instruments, and that our human efforts are always enough. He just asks that we try, even if the tv is broken, and your companion is laughing because you chose not to translate the phrase " I am going to fetch some gingerbread, Joseph" because I don't even think they HAVE gingerbread in Italy, and if they do, I do not know the word for it in Italian.

3) We had a million missionaries in our apartment for zone conference. I did not love it. It was a lot of chaos, and I hid on my balcony for a while. I felt really guilty until I switched balconies and found my companion doing the same thing. The upside was that two of the sisters who came were Sorella Kimball who is one of my best friends in the whole mission, and Sorella Rost who served here in the past, and she invited two of her old investigators to baptism! We didn't even know who they were so it was a huge blessing that she came or they might have gotten forgotten due to the confusion of Sorella Cherrington's emergency transfer.

Now I am in Bari with Sorella Knight (she was just on an exchange for the day) who is one of my best friends in the whole world, and I couldn't be happier.

Love

Sorella Spencer

Taranto's Zone Conference July 2014 - Random pictures

Pictures lovingly borrowed from The Italy Rome Mission Blog, and Sorella Kimball's blog.

Learning about selfishness

This week was really great. We are still struggling to find work. Blow in's are always really hard. We are hitting the ward list really really hard. We saw nine members this week, and we have started doing a really fun spiritual thought. I remember when I was growing up, the biggest reason I didn't help the missionaries do missionary work was because I didn't know how. I honestly thought that the only way to share the gospel with your friends was to wait for them to come up to me and tell me that they wanted to be baptized. I never realized that it was as simple as explaining why we don't drink coffee, Or inviting someone to church with my family. So we have been doing role play to help them bring up the gospel in casual conversations so they feel confident sharing it with their friends. We hope to see fruits come from that. If nothing else we are hoping the members will get excited about sharing the gospel.

Other good news, really really good exciting news. We have one progressing investigator named Martin He wants desperately to be baptized but his mom is very contrary to the church. So this week we did a lesson on the power of prayer, and encouraged him to pray to soften his mother's heart so that he can come to church, and that evening she invited us to dinner at her house. This is huge progress, and we are so excited. We will be eating with them tonight.

I am learning to adapt my finding techniques for Taranto. In Siracusa all of our investigators came from English course. In Rome working with the ward list was really succesful. In Catania our biggest challenge was getting people to stop talking and feel the spirit, so we created a survey with questions that stated our doctrine very clearly, and we had great success with that. Here it seems like none of those work to the same degree. From what I have seen the best finding tool there is testifying to people, which requires us to be really bold. One thing that I am going to try to do is find one question of the soul (which are listed in the Book of Mormon section of preach my gospel.) every day to ask people on the bus, during finding etc. and show them the response from the Book of Mormon. Hopefully it brings results.

If you have any suggestions for what we could do more. Please let us know, being 'blown in' (this means that both missionaries are new to the area, so they are starting from scratch) is really hard, and we are kind of grasping at straws. If there is anyone who served a mission, what worked on your mission? Converts, what made you decide to talk to the missionaries, member's what have missionaries said to you that made you want to share the gospel? I have promised the Lord that I am going to put everything into this city, and I am trying really hard. I have been feeling the spirit a lot more strongly, and I have seen huge obvious blessings in the work here. I truly am grateful for my opportunity to serve here.

Another huge lesson I have learned in Taranto is about selfishness. It's interesting how our perception of selfishness is very narrow. We think of people who won't share, who want to talk only about themselves etc, but it's a lot more common than that. Self loathing is actually the biggest form of selfishness and pride that I have seen on my mission. It makes people think about themselves constantly, how everything affects them, and when someone hates themselves they cannot love anyone else, because every human flaw becomes a malicious act from someone truly evil. I have been studying it a lot lately, and I'm trying to become less selfish. When ever I do something I try to ask myself what are my motives for doing this. Am I looking for attention, or a number, or am I actually trying to bless someone? Do I want this investigator to get baptized so that I can be known as a missionary who baptizes, or so that this person can draw closer to Christ? Am I being kind to this person because I want them to be happier,or because I want them to like me? What's crazy is the people that master this (like my companion Sorella Bair) are the happiest. They don't spend all of their time imagining that everyone hates them, because it doesn't matter. All that matters is how they can bless others. So far I am making great progress. I have been able to identify how many of my thoughts truly are completely sefish, so now I know where to start. I love you all and I hope that you are having a great week.

Love,

Sorella Spencer

I'm just stepping foot into Italy for the first time

The only word I can think to use to describe Taranto is rich, and rich in the vibrant sense rather than monetary. People are so purely Italian. They communicate more with their hands than with their words sometimes, the food is amazing, people are so emotionally drien

(I am not sure what that word was suppose to be, so use your imagination)

, and everyone hangs out in public squares in the evenings and just chats. I kind of feel like I'm just stepping foot into Italy for the first time, because Sicilia truly is it's own country, and Rome is so universal, but Taranto is Italy. Olive oil, mozzarella, pizza Italy. The ward is amazing. They are so loving and treat each other like family. We didn't have a meal appointment for after church on Sunday (which is totally normal) and one of the members tracked someone down for us to go home with, because missionaries lunching alone on Sunday, non si fa. We have had almost daily contact from the bishop (that NEVER happens, I have had to fight to get an appointment with the bishop in every ward I have served in), we have already gotten a referral!!! and last night a huge portion of the ward came to church in the evening to go less active finding. This ward is gold. The work moves forward in Taranto because the members are helping it, rather than fighting it.

So last week I was serving with Sorella Cherrington, but unfortunately she had to go home super short notice. So I had to drive up to Rome with our Senior couple, drop of Sorella Cherrington, and then pick up the beautiful Sorella Bair, and then drive back to Taranto. That was 12 hours in the car, just after riding 8 hours in the bus to get from Catania to Taranto. I'm pretty much tired of cars. So we are doing great except that we don't know our area, and we don't know how to get around, but the Lord is blessing us so much. I have never been able to learn a city that I have served in very well at all, but the Lord has blessed me with a huge ability to figure out where I am going. I'm so grateful for all the help he is giving us. :)