Birthday Space Transfer!

Cara Famiglia,

Ciao Siena! Ciao Piacenza! I love that you can use the same word for goodbye and hello in Italian! But yeah, I am now out of Toscana and in the great city of Piacenza. It is basically halfway between Modena and Milano, and in fact the district is us, Reggio Emilia, and Modena, so I will finish in the same district I started in! My companion Anziano Benson went to Busto Arsizio!!!!! He is so lucky, that city rocks! My companion now is Anziano Thompson, who is also from Idaho Falls(in fact he went to the same high school as Anziano Benson), and who is in his third transfer. He did his first two in Busto, so it has been cool to hear what was going on there.

Seeing as how I literally just got here this morning, I'm not super up to date on the work but I can just say that it is stellar! Piacenza has seven baptismal dates and a ton of investigators! When President called to tell us where we were going he said 'Piacenza is leading the mission in baptismal dates' and in the rest of the district there are seven other dates. So we will have our hands full! My companion is awesome, I can already tell!

Thanks to everybody for the Birthday wishes! Special shout out to Grandpa and also the Benson family who sent me a really great card. I hope they know how awesome of a missionary their son is and how much he is going to tear it up in Busto.

My spiritual thought is really simple, but I really loved President Eyring's talk from the Sunday Morning session of Conference about the 'pavilion' blocking us from God. I would also cross-reference Elder Holland's talk and encourage us all to leave our nets behind and join the cause of Christ with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. I know that this decision we make will change our lives, and as we pray 'thy will be done' we will find our lives more fulfilling than whatever we could fill them with. I love you all lots, and I know this work is true!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith

Training!

Cara Famiglia,

Well well well, I have a new companion down here in Siena and he is a stud. His name is Anziano Benson and he is from Idaho Falls, coming to Siena straight out of the MTC. He is a really good kid and basically spent his time before the mission working. He also played soccer in high school! We drove up to Milano last Wednesday and spent the night there and on Thursday morning we met up with all the new missionaries and the other trainers. It was really cool to see that Anziano Scheurn is also training.

In doing street contacting and working in general, Anziano Benson puts me to shame. He talks with everybody! It is really cool to see how much faith he has and it gives me an example to work harder and remember the fundamental purposes of missionary work. Since he has come we have probably talked with more people and gotten more phone numbers and appointments in such a short space of time than I have in my entire mission. The work is definitely growing.

We found a really cool guy named Adam who is from Mali. He is living in Siena studying to be a doctor and his wife and two kids are still in Africa. He speaks French, English, and pretty good Italian, and really loved the Restoration. He grew up in a Muslim family but read the Bible and believed it, so now he is a Christian. He is going to love the Book of Mormon.

We are still working with Kellan, our chinese friend. He came to church again on Sunday! And even though he barely understands what is said he can feel the spirit and said he likes coming. We taught him on Monday and figured out that we were making things way too complicated for him with the language barrier and everything, so we basically just talked about the really simple concept of praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true. He agreed and promised that he would pray. He is super sincere and even after the lesson he basically said 'Hey Anziani, if I don't join your church, can we still be friends?' It was super cool and we just said 'Yeah of course!' It was a good lesson.

This week I really enjoyed reflecting on a talk from David A. Bednar in the November 2006 Conference called "And Nothing Shall Offend Them". I quote:

"When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not acondition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.

In the grand division of all of God’s creations, there are things to act and things to be acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:13–14). As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity for independent action and choice. Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents, however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to an offensive or hurtful situation."

The idea of 'acting' versus 'being acted upon' is a really cool concept that you can think a lot about. Every time we choose to not get angry, offended, upset, or bitter towards someone we are choosing to act instead of being acted upon. I am grateful that the example Jesus Christ gave was to act, and that by acting we not only better ourselves but are more capable to serve others and bring to pass our missionary purpose. I love this church and I love this restored gospel. I love you all lots too!

-Anziano Benjamin Smith

Still in Modena?????

Cara Famiglia,

 

The answer is yes! I am staying in Modena. Anziano Kimball, however, is not so lucky, as he is being transferred to GENOVA!! He is going to be training again aaaand opening a new companionship! Pretty intense! He is super excited though, his brother served in Genova in the Milan mission about 10 years ago. My new companion will be Anziano Hutchinson, who is one transfer above me, I knew him in the MTC and he's a really good guy, so I'm looking forward to serving with him.

 

This week was pretty exciting. The first thing I would bring your attention to would be last Thursday. Guess how many lessons we had planned? Answer: 9. Guess how many fell through? Answer: 9. Buuuuuut, it was still an awesome day because we taught three new lessons and picked up three new investigators, two of which are now progressing! And one accepted a baptismal commitment! And they were all even Italians! So even though that day was kind of rough it ended up being dang good. Also, for the second time in my mission so far, a family invited us over for dinner after knowing us for only about 10 minutes. It was great, but unfortunately they weren't really interested in the gospel. But we did get a nice Italian dinner. Our other investigators are doing well. Paolo is an awesome guy who is the companion of a sister in our ward, i.e. they are not married but live together with a kid. He's known the church basically his whole time being together with this lady but only just recently said he'd be interested in learning about the gospel. I don't know if I've mentioned him in previous emails since we've only taught him two or three times, but he is a stud, really sincerely wanting to find God in his life. At our appointment on Sunday after church, he showed us that he had taken a bunch of notes on the Alma 32 reading assignment we left him! It was awesome! I loooove when investigators keep commitments. Our other investigators are doing great too, progressing along pretty nicely. Pray for them!

 

This week in studying for Paolo's lessons we were reading about faith and I was really impressed with the Hebrews 11 and Ether 12 team-up. They both just give a run down of amazing miracles all throughout scriptual history wrought by FAITH! It was literally awesome, to see how much Faith is a principle of power. It is also good to know how to increase your faith based on Alma 32. I still always remember the quote I think from Sister Hekking who wasn't even my seminary teacher, but who says 'great faith has a short shelf life.' I know that as we read and hear the word of God, and pray, our faith will increase! I've seen it go up a lot since I've been out here, and every day and night I pray that I can have enough faith to work miracles here in Italy. And it works! I challenge everyone reading this to improve their faith every day, it makes life much better.

 

I love being out here in Modena! I love Italy! I love being able to wake up and go out to spend 100% of my time serving the Lord, without having to worry about school or anything! I know Heavenly Father answers prayers, even if it's not always the way we expect! I love you all!

 

-Anziano Benjamin Smith