Hey there! Wednesday comes again! Here I am in Milano. Somehow, I'm surviving the city! It's actually starting to grow on me a bit.

My challenge to myself over the past two weeks has been to learn the names of all of our members. It's been rough, but I'm getting there. I found out that Cimiano is the largest ward in Italy. It's fun to work in such a big ward because there are many people willing to do missionary work with us! We can only do so much without the members. First, members need to fellowship! Why should someone join the Church if they don't feel welcome. All are welcome because all are God's children. Second, it's hard to find people to teach if members don't help us do it! We could ring doorbells and stop people on the streets as much as we want, but the most effective way to get people to listen is if someone invites them!

I've definitely seen that happening here. One man named Valentino is an example. A member brought him to a wedding in the church a few months ago. There, he met Anz. Polson and his former companion. They invited him to meet with them and he became more and more involved in the church each week. Valentino said that he had been looking for truth for a while, but was having a hard time finding it. In this Gospel he told us that he has found peace and truth and he wants to receive more of it. To make that happen, he is being baptized this Sunday! He's very excited for his baptism and he has told us that he knows this is the path God wants him to take. He has a good spirit about him and I love meeting with him and seeing his testimony grow.

We had a neat experience with one of our new converts. He arrived here from Peru a few months ago and doesn't speak much Italian. Shortly after he arrived, he married a member here and was baptized. We had an appointment set up with him a few days ago and his wife would be there to translate for us. When we arrived though, we found out that she had been called in to work and that he was alone. We were worried about how we were going to communicate with him. We let the Spirit guide though and started out with a prayer that we would be able to communicate our message. We had a wonderful lesson about eternal marriage. Even though he spoke almost entirely in Spanish, we were blessed with the ability to understand him and to bear our testimonies to him in a way that he could understand us. I know that the gift of tongues is real and that we wouldn't have been able to do that without the help of the Spirit.

The Spirit is a powerful thing. Nothing can be accomplished in missionary work until we listen to the promptings of the Spirit. It's not always easy. The natural man sneaks in quite often and tries to rationalize. "Oh no, you don't have to talk to THAT person." "Oh, it's late. You should probably just go home." "Just stop trying with him. He's not worth it." "Sleep in a little bit. You deserve it." The natural man can be quite deceiving sometimes. I'm not here to listen to him though. I'm here to learn how to listen to the Spirit. 

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19). 

It's important to listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. God knows much better than us and He will never lead us astray. If we listen to the Guidance that He sends, we will be blessed. If we don't, we are missing out on so many blessings. God knows YOU and He loves YOU. If you seek Him, you will find Him. That's a promise!

Love, Anziano Simcox

The picture is a picture of our church in Cimiano.