Thanksgiving in Italy!

Cara Famiglia,

Well this week was Thanksgiving. It was pretty strange not having any hype for it here in Italy, but the weather was pretty Thanksgiving-ish I guess. My companion and I spent a little bit of companionship study listing off to each other things we're grateful for, and then continued throughout the day, so that was fun. We also got some Kebab to celebrate! And I am thankful for an awesome family and an awesome mission!

This week was pretty good! We are still teaching Isaac and he is awesome. We are seeing him tonight with a member, and hoping to make some real progress. We were a little worried, because last Friday we taught him the Word of Wisdom and he was a little hesitant about accepting it, but he was still super excited to come to church so we took that as a great sign. And then he came and brought Rita(his fianceè)! It was great, and the Sacrament Meeting was dedicated to the Young Women so they all spoke and sang a song together and Isaac and Rita both liked it. We are also still teaching Thomas, although he is a bit flaky. I don't blame him because he has a really difficult/complex situation, but it's tough to teach somebody when you go to there place and then find out they're in Bergamo even though you confirmed the lesson the night before! Fun stuff here on the mission. Another cool story, this lady named Martina who Anziano Webb and I found in Gallarate about a month ago finally resurfaced and scheduled a solid return appointment. So we went over to her house the other night with a member and found out she's Seventh-Day Adventist! She is one of the first members of that church I've really come in contact with before, and she is big on Saturday being the Sabbath Day still but she is great! She had even been reading out of the Book of Mormon since we had left it with her! So we're excited to help her get baptized!

In other news, the weather is getting a bit cold. Legnano is still Legnano, and everything is going well. Today we hit up Switzerland for P-day, Bellinzona and Lugano are gorgeous, and we even got some Dr. Pepper and Vanilla Coke, which for some strange, sad reason is not sold here in Italy! Other than that, we are really pushing on member and less-active work this week and things are looking up. This work is amazing.

My spiritual though this week comes from a fantastic talk on gratitude given by President Monson in the October 2010 conference called 'The Divine Gift of Gratitude.' Even the title makes me grateful for the opportunity to be grateful! Anyway, he quotes Joseph F. Smith here: “The grateful man sees so much in the world to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil. Love overpowers jealousy, and light drives darkness out of his life. Pride destroys our gratitude and sets up selfishness in its place. How much happier we are in the presence of a grateful and loving soul, and how careful we should be to cultivate, through the medium of a prayerful life, a thankful attitude toward God and man!” I know that is true! I've noticed that when I'm ever down or unhappy during the day, I can just think back to how much the Lord has blessed me every single day of my short 20 years of life up until this point, especially on my mission! And then I realize the truth of this Aldous Huxley quote (also in the talk): “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” So I am really grateful for my family, for my mission, for my friends, for my companion, for all the blessings the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings me, and the most amazing gift ever which is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love you all a lot!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith