San Marino

 Ciao a tutti,

Another week that has flown by; can't believe I've been here for a month now! It's really hard to remember everything that goes on and keep my weeks straight. This was another week of meeting with less active members and trying to meet new people. We have an amazing new friend named Giulia that we started talking to last week. She was interested in a Facebook ad by the church about prayer and we've met with her a few times and introduced her to some members. She said she would even come to church (spoiler alert she didn't). But still going well. 

On Monday we had an exchange in Ravenna which is a lot cooler town than I thought it would be. So a lot of us were all in the town together and we just went out and found as many people as possible. And for the day I swapped companions (I was still in a trio) for Anziano Churchill and Bartholomew. It was nice having a change and they're really cool. I also think that was the most I've spoken to people so far. In English and Italian. They're were a lot of nice people and we got a good amount of people for Ravenna to continue working with. More than anything it was a nice recharge, even if it was the day I worked the most so far.

For p-day today (for once I'm writing after p-day activities) we went to San Marino and hiked to the top of the city (the city of San Marino in the small country of San Marino). It was without a doubt the most intense hike I've ever done. For going straight up a mountain there was a lot of ups and A TON of downs. We would hike straight up (as in ropes were provided to pull ourselves up) and then would turn the corner and stumble down another 20 feet and then start hiking up a staircase that was basically a ladder 100 more feet. I should have taken pictures. And it was like this over and over (except the staircase was sadly only in one part). But the pictures will show the beautiful city and amazing food we had with a less active who is amazing. He's so cool and talked the cost of our food down and good us some nice free water (sparkling and still). After exploring a little more of the city he then took us for some Gelato, of which today I tried Nutella gelato; delicious (Nutella runs my life now).

This week I listened to a BYU devotional called "Faith Still Precedes the Miracle" by Mark L. Pace. I listened to it because I could not find my notes on it so I decided to listen to it again. And once again it was full of Gold. While the overall message is in important something else stood out to me this time as he was finishing a story about a family that had traveled hours and hours each Sunday to get to church in Spain. They put their faith to work by going every week with the hope that their children would remain in the church as they got older. And the miracle came, as well as a ward closer to home. But when he was listing the other miracles in the lives of the parents and the children he said the same phrase after listing things such as where they now live, marriages and jobs he said "and holds a current temple recommend". 

It was important enough to list after every member of the family. In the last couple BYU devotionals I've also heard the phrase from general conference to "live inside" our temple covenants. For many friends this may not be making sense but I found this repeated phrase interesting and worded in a new way (although I do sometimes still feel very 'young' in the church so it may be very typical haha). So anyway highly recommend that devotional if you have time to listen to it. I know I kinda left some thoughts with loose ends but that's also how all the great philosophers do it.

La prossima settimana!
Anziano Puzey











 

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