Buon Anno Nuovo! - 12/31/14

Happy New Year!!!

I am almost in shock that it is about to be 2015. I never thought it would come. I imagined that I would just live in Italy forever and that it would always be 2014. My life is moving so fast. Just three short weeks and I will be back on American soil. I don't plan on leaving it anytime soon, for anyone who may be concerned.

Christmas was wonderful. Christmas, in many ways, is quite different here than in the States. There is way less commercialism. In fact, on Christmas Eve, all the stores were closed by 7pm. It's definitely a family event. And the majority of Italians celebrate Christmas Eve more than the actual day. Christmas Eve is when the whole family gets together, no matter how far away they live, and they eat a big dinner together, they light up their Presepe (Nativity) and their Christmas tree, and they spend time together. Christmas Eve is definitely a holy night. Christmas Day instead is a day of rest. The city becomes a ghost town and you can hear a pin drop from several kilometers away.

We spent our Christmas day in the church. It was a lot of fun. One of the largest families (that makes up almost half of our ward) set up a "festa" in the chapel. We ate a bunch of food, played some games, and hung out together. One family brought a computer to Skype their sons who are on missions in Colorado and South Africa. They let us use it to Skype our families as well, for which we were very grateful. It was great to see my family, and especially to see how much my brothers have grown! I almost didn't recognize Owen's voice!

Tonight instead we need to be in early. New Year's Eve gets very dangerous after dark. An Italian tradition is to throw things off of balconies (everyone lives in an apartment, so it's pretty universal). The idea is "in with the new, out with the old." Some go so far as to throw microwaves and refrigerators off balconies, although I suspect alcohol may have some involvement in that stupid idea. To avoid any dangers, we are ordered to be in the house well before dark. Another Italian tradition for New Years is to make as much noise as humanly possible. Last year in downtown Milano I could hardly my own thoughts at midnight. I thought a war might've erupted with all the loud blasts and flashes of light! Here in Merate I imagine that it will be a little more tranquillo.

Here's an interesting story. It made flashback to a similar experience in Pesaro, my first city. We returned home one afternoon to several wailing alarms from inside our apartment building. As we approached our front door we realized they were coming from our house! Our carbon monoxide detectors were blaring. After consultation with the office, we called the Fire Department. The operator was slightly antagonistic and did not really make me feel very safe. He seems to doubt that there was anything in our apartment, but begrudgingly sent us a few men to check it out. After a sweep of the apartment they found that our hot water heater was indeed leaking some fumes. Nothing at all serious, but something to fix nonetheless. As we sat in the living room filling out some paperwork, one of them started asking about what we were doing in Italy. Two Americans in a decently plain apartment with pictures of Jesus and a few old men in ties, and a bunch of blue books in different languages... That would probably invite some questions! We talked for a while. The older man asking the questions wasn't too open, but he listened just the same. The younger man that was with him seemed genuinely interested and listened intently. We were able to teach about the Restoration and about the Book of Mormon. At the end, we gave each of them a copy of the Book of Mormon with the invitation to read it and pray about it. "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you," right? Of course right. It was a wonderful, yet unexpected finding opportunity. We never know when prepared people will be put into our path.

There's my spiel for this week. Hopefully you enjoyed it. We didn't watch our allotted Disney movie on Christmas, so we're off to our apartment (so that no refrigerator crosses our path) to watch the Incredibles! I already quote the movie all the time, so it should be a blast.

Talk to you next year! Love, Anziano Simcox.

Natale è vicino! - 12/17/14

Hello everyone! Christmas is right around the corner! I'm excited! We found a Christmas tree and some decorations tucked away in a little box in a pile of missionary "leftovers." We dug them out and made ourselves a nice little set-up. It makes me happy. 

Life in Merate is going great. We've kept ourselves pretty busy, so I'm grateful for that. There are some great people here. Our bishop is very involved in the ward and is also eager to improve missionary work in his ward, so we couldn't be any happier! The ward is also excited that the missionaries have a car now. "I missionari sono mobili! The missionaries are mobile!" They even announced in sacrament meeting that we have a car and that missionary work in the ward is now on an unprecented climb. The bishop invited us to come early on Sunday to a meeting with the bishopric. They printed of a list of all the members and then went down the list and selected about fifteen families in the ward that they wanted us to visit. Some are less-active, some are part-member families, and some just need some extra love. That list is our number one priority this week and we've made some good plans to see as many on that list as we can this week. It's going well so far and we look forward to seeing some great fruits as well as sharing as much Christmas cheer as possible. We're grateful to have so much support from the ward.

My new companion is named Anz. Keller. He's a good guy. He's only been in the mission for five months, so he's still on the younger side. Sometimes I forget how young he is, both in the mission and age wise. He's still 18! He's a bravo kid though. He has a good heart, a good work ethic, and a good testimony. That's all you need!

In personal study the other day I came across this scripture. "But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish." 2 Nephi 26:31. It's simple enough, but it made me ponder about real intent in work we do, whether it be missionary work, or life, or being a Christian in general. Even if we do all the actions, they mean nothing without real intent! The scriptures are full of testimonies of that principle. If you are a laborer in Zion, work for Zion, not yourself! Otherwise, what point is there?

Have yourselves a very merry Christmas! Remember the reason we celebrate. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life."

Sending you my love this Christmas season, Anziano Simcox.

L'ultimo trasferimento - 12/6/14

I thought I was safe for my last transfer. It turns out that there's no such thing as "safe!" For my last transfer, I'll be leaving Lodi and the office and going off to a city named Merate. It's really close to Milano, like most of my cities! I'd say I know the Milano area better than anyone else by now. Merate is about 30km northeast, so I'm just taking a couple skips down the road. Also, we get a car! Woooo! In my mission, only a few zone leaders + the APs + the Office Elders have cars, so I get to break the tradition. I'm pretty excited. The Merate ward has been asking for a while for some missionaries with a car. Most of their members don't live in or near Merate, which makes it hard for the missionaries to get a lot of work done because it's hard to get around on bus/train around Merate. I'm looking forward to introducing this new element into the work at Merate. My new companion's name is Anz. Keller. I don't know him much. He got to the mission in September, so he's decently new still. I haven't been with a younger missionary in quite a while, so that will be fun too. Overall, my last transfer will be quite an adventure. I'm looking forward to it.

My only concern is training my replacement. When I first got here, I had a week and a half of training. With my replacement he'll have barely three day's worth; even less because we have a conference and then transfers. It'll be quite an adventure! I feel like I've been using this word a lot "adventure." I feel like a while ago all this would've really stressed me out, but working in the office has really taught me how to welcome change. Now I just think it's all a barrel of fun. The office was such a dynamic job and I never really knew what I could expect for that day. Of course, my whole mission is that way, so this is just another chapter to add to the novel that is my mission.

This week was a great week in Lodi. Last week, our Bishop asked us if we would organize a family home evening for the ward. We were excited to have an assignment from Bishop so we jumped on it immediately. We talked with the Sisters and we decided we would use it as an oppurtunity to put into practice some of the things that Elder Fingerle taught us in our conferences a few weeks ago about social media. We decided to watch the Church's Christmas video (christmas.mormon.org) and discuss the meaning. The title of the video is "He is the Gift." The video talks about how the first gift wasn't wrapped or bought in a store, but given by a Father to His children. We talked about different ways that we can share the gift through social media and through other means. The activity went really well and we had about twenty people there, way more than we expected! The Bishop was excited to have the activity too and would like to start making it a monthly thing. Our Bishop in Lodi is great. He's really involved in all the different parts of the ward. It's got to be pretty hard to be a bishop.

We don't really get a P-Day because there's so much work to be done for the transfers. I'll end this email here.

I love you all so very much and I'm grateful for the love and support that you all have given me over the past almost two years. Even as I go into my last month as a missionary, you've all stuck with me and this would be a whole lot harder without you.

All the love, Anziano Simcox

Giorno di ringraziamento! - 11/29/14

THANKSGIVING! Even though we're in Italy, we managed to have ourselves a merry little Thanksgiving. The Harmers, the Dibbs, the Assistants, and us had a wonderful dinner at the mission home. Sister Harmer was cooking for two days straight. Bless her heart. They went to an American military base and got a bunch of American food, including a Butterball turkey, so we had a decently American Thanksgiving. It really hit the spot.

Don't worry, we eat Italian food too. Wednesday night we had an activity for just the men in church. Our investigator (really he's the ward's investigator, we just handle the paperwork) hosted it. He's a professional chef, so he knows his stuff. He taught us all how to make Parmigiana di Melanzane (Eggplant parmesan). Che buona! Anz. Strang and I came ready with spatulas and mission aprons (see picture). It was a good bonding moment with members of the ward.

We've been working with a less-active/part-member family. Roy and his sister Lalita are from the Philippines and joined the Church many years ago. Lalita's husband Joephil, who is not a member, just recently moved here. Because they live so far away from the chapel and there are no busses/trains on Sunday, they have not been able to come to church. We asked around, but no one was able to give them a ride. This past Sunday in church, we noticed an Italian woman in church whom we'd never seen before, so we introduced ourselves. She was a member who had moved to Rome, but had just recently moved back to the same city where Roy and his family live. As we were talking she asked if we ever visited people in Crema. We mentioned Roy and Lalita. She wondered why she had never seen them in church and we said it's because the mezzi don't run on Sunday. She volunteered her car on Sunday and also time in the evening to accompany us to lessons with them! We took her to a lesson a few nights ago and she fell in love with them immediately and organized a ride for them tomorrow. Sweet!

Last Sunday we had a funny experience with that family. They had invited us over one afternoon because they said they would have a couple people over to lunch. We thought oh cool! We'll come, eat, and then have a lesson with them. Well, "a couple people" turned out to be a bunch of filippine and their Italian husbands. We rang the doorbell and Lalita's sister opened the door. She was really confused why we were there, but we thought she was Lalita because they look alike and so we were double confused. But she let us in anyway and everybody just got quiet and stared at us. Honestly, it looked we had just been out ringing doorbells and we just walked into a party. We looked around for Roy or Lalita or Joephil, but none of them were there! So it was super awkward for a little bit. Then we ate some food and started talking to people and it got less awkward. We actually had some good conversations and met some nice people and dispelled a couple rumors. There was this group of Italian men and they were kind of mumbling amongst themselves and saying some not too nice things. Then one of them came over to where I was sitting and said "so, tell me about this whole Mormon thing. I've never had a chance to talk to a Mormon." We had a really nice conversation about Christ and prophets and a bunch of other good things. We exchanged numbers and hope to see him and his wife again sometime!

Moral of the story: Missionaries should crash more parties. :P For the record, Roy and co. did show up eventually and confirmed that we were indeed invited.

I'm loving Lodi. Between what little time in the evening we have to do proselyting work and the time we spend in the office, life is so spontaneous and unpredictable (see Exhibit A above). I'm loving it. I'll find out pretty soon if I'll be finishing my mission here or going off somewhere else for my last six weeks. I'm hoping to stay. I love Lodi so much.

TTFN. Have a great week! Love, Anziano Simcox.