Buon giorno tutti!
Hello! Here I am in Bergamo. What a beautiful city! I wish I had a picture to give you. I'll make sure to have one next week. This is a huge change compared to Milano. I liked Milano, but it definitely wasn't very high on the natural beauty scale. This city is awesome though. It's built at the base of a mountain range. Part of the city is built literally on the mountain. They call it "Città Alta" (High City). Most of the inner part of the city and all of Città Alta has still maintained the old architecture and street layouts that you imagine when you think of Italy. E.g., cobblestone streets, mismatched houses, shuttered windows, colorful walls, man on the street playing the accordion, etc. The people of the city have their own dialect called Bergamasco. It's completely different than Italian and I don't understand a word of it. Luckily, most people speak Italian too. Although my accent must be just right because someone on the bus a few days ago mistook me for a Bergamasco and started speaking to me in dialect. I just smiled and nodded.
Anyway, this is a great city and I'm grateful to be serving here. There are two wards (congregations) and one branch (little congregation). Anz. Hansen and I, along with two sisters, are assigned to the branch. There's about 40 members, so it's actually a decent sized branch. There's a large majority of Italians too, which is more uncommon than you would think. Italy is very demographically diverse, especially in the Church. There are so many South Americans in the Church that I can actually understand Spanish now too just from being exposed to it so much. Some people hope to serve in South America, or Africa, or Asia, or Europe, but I get to serve in all four places at the same time!
There are so many wonderful people that I've met here already. We are teaching a decent amount of people now, which was a pleasant surprise for me when I arrived. Yesterday we had dinner with an Italian family that let us in while we were ringing doorbells. That's a rare occurence, let alone to be let in by a family! They were so awesome and such a beautiful family. They were a true example of what Christians should be. Plenty can have faith, but in the end only those who act on what they believe are those who are profitted by their faith. Another neat investigator is an older Italian man who stopped the missionaries in the street. Usually we're the ones who do the stopping! He came to church on his own three weeks in a row and has already started to make friends with the members. He sure likes to talk (typical Italian), but he loves the church and the ideals that we practice. Another great family we are teaching is from Bolivia. A few weeks ago as they were teaching the family about the Word of Wisdom (Mormon health code, e.g. no coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs) the wife listened very intently. After they were done teaching, she said "If it's a commandment from God, we should follow it!" In that moment she vowed to give up her tea and coffee. That takes a lot of faith to make a life change at the drop of a hat.
That's the work for now. There's A LOT to be done in Bergamo. I've been busier than ever this past week, but I love it. I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.
Recently, someone referred to us missionaries as "angels." Now I'm nowhere near even kind of on that level, but I was touched by the compliment. While I definitely don't measure up, the comment did get me thinking. Who are the angels in our lives? "And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked, and I beheld the heavens open again, and I saw angels descending upon the children of men; and they did minister unto them" (1 Nephi 11:30). God loves us. He won't leave us alone and so often, he sends down his angels. An angel may be a friend, a missionary, a teacher, a parent, a sibling, or any other number of people in our lives. God sends all sorts of help and guidance especially for YOU because YOU are his child! The other part of this though is just as humbling. God sends angels to you, and He also sends you to be an angel for someone else. Look out for those opportunities. Often you might not even notice them, but if you are keeping your life in line with the will of God, you will be that angel for someone around you.
I love you! Love, Anziano Simcox
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