Lago di Garda!

Cara Famiglia,

This week has been pretty awesome in Verona! Today for P-day we went to the Lago di Garda with a member from Verona 1(the other ward in Verona) with the other Anziani. It was really pretty! The peach trees blossoming look a lot like the cherry blossoms in DC.

Working has been pretty good. Right now we are kind of struggling to find new investigators but things are looking up. We are still working with Kingsley and Gladis but unfortunately neither of them made it to church on Sunday for various reasons.

Last night we found a super cool kid named Michael who is Brazilian. He's been in Italy for about five years. We had had a pretty lousy day in terms of finding people and he was the last person we stopped while he was riding his bike. Turns out he's been going around to different churches because none of them feel right to him. We talked a little bit about the Book of Mormon and after a while he pointed at it and was like "Where can I get that book?" It was awesome! He lives really close to our house with his mom and we are going to go back and see him and blow his mind with the Restoration.

Other than that we are trying to build up relationships with members, a lot of which actually live in this suburb of Verona called Bussolengo. The ward here is really good though, we have about a 90-100 people that come every week.

This week I finished the Book of Mormon again, woohoo! I had been doing the thing where you highlight every reference to Jesus Christ and there are a lot! It was great. But I particularly liked verse 25 at the end of Moroni 9, after Mormon writes about all the horrible things the Nephites and Lamanites are doing:

25 My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in yourmind forever.

So he explains all this really awful stuff and then says "but hey, don't let it get you down, because Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world!" It was a really interesting thought of how important it is to always be optimistic and how "it's better to look up." I'm really grateful for the Book of Mormon that bears testimony of Jesus Christ and the restoration of His church. I know it is true. I love you all lots!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith