Life's Lessons Learned - 4/16/14

Life's Lessons Learned:

-There's something in Bergamo that I'm really allergic too.

-Vietnam has its own language.

-People read their scriptures more than I think they do.

-Good things do come from Mormon.org

-It doesn't matter how much you dust something, it will just get dusty again and you'll learn to accept it.

-The people you would think wouldn't listen to you, could actually be the most interested.

-Italian flour is lighter than American flour, meaning that you need to use more of it. Swindlers...

-All of Germany goes to Bergamo in April for some reason, and they don't appreciate when I try to speak to them in German. They just look at me, think "Oh that's cute," and respond in English.

As you can tell, it's been an interesting week. Since Sunday night I've been somewhat dying from allergies that turned into a really bad cold. Luckily, I haven't had to stay inside yet, although it was really tempting. We looked like a sad pair yesterday. I kept blowing my nose and Anz. Johnson kept sneezing. We still worked hard though and had a great day yesterday.

One cool thing that happened yesterday was we met a great new investigator. I'll call him..... Antonio. A while ago, he went onto Mormon.org and requested a visit. Because of some scheduling problems on both ends, yesterday was the first time we've been able to meet with him. He took lessons from missionaries about four years ago. He went to church, had all the lessons, and almost got baptized. Something happened though, and he stopped investigating the church. He told us that since then he had been doing a lot of searching and reflecting and that he felt directed back to the church. He went online, requested a visit, and then we came! He was very ready. I don't know how he was in the past, but yesterday, he was ready. We commited him to read and pray every day, to come to church, and even to be baptized. He was ready in that moment to set a goal for baptism, so we were very excited to be able to be there to him. He accepted everything so well that we didn't even know quite how to react! I look forward to seeing him progress.

Second story, For my whole time in Bergamo, and some time before that, we've been teaching a wonderful Bolivian family. For a while, they haven't been making progress and we felt as if our visits were not yeilding any results. Their children love to see us though and the Spirit was still present when we taught, so we decided to keep teaching them. Due to some scheduling conflicts on both sides, we weren't able to see this family for almost a month. Yesterday, we finally were able to have a lesson at their house. They were so excited to see us and one of the members we usually bring with us. We began by talking about their reading and to our surprise we found that they have kept up reading even during our absence! In the past month that we haven't seen them, they've read all of First Nephi and part of Second Nephi! They were excited to tell us about the chapters they'd been reading. The eleven year-old daughter was quick to explain the concept of free agency and that there is always a choice between good and evil. Even the mother, who was progressing least, was excited to tell us about their reading. They have been reading almost every night, with their young children being the driving force. They remind them every night to read together, and so that's what they've been doing. It was so neat to see them getting excited together about the scriptures. I'm also glad that we have hung on to them, even when it could've been so easy to stop teaching them. This week, they're attending church as a family.

Easter is coming up! I'm so excited. If we don't have any one to feed us, we'll try to make a nice Easter lunch for ourselves just the same, coupled with Grandma's Easter bread (Thanks!). Easter is always a great time of year, especially here in the mission. The religious aspect of Easter is celebrated much more here than at home I think. Many people have been wishing us a Buona Pasqua, Happy Easter. I haven't seen so much as a single rabbit or jelly bean, although some jelly beans would be great (hint hint).

No really, Easter is all about Christ, and I'm grateful to have the mission to teach me about this. Holidays in the mission are so different. It's strange to not be around family and friends. It's strange to not have all of the usual traditions. It's nice though to focus my attention on the meaning behind the holiday. I love the words of this scripture, even though it's probably the most commonly quoted scripture in Christianity: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (St. John 3:16-17).

Buona Pasqua! -Anziano Simcox

The picture was taken from a bell tower in Città Alta. We could see the whole valley. Don't you love the classic European style against that beautiful mountain range?

4/2/14

Helloooo.

Transfers are happening. That's always a tad stressful. It's always nervewracking to get a new companion because you never know what he's gonna be like. It's easy to be afraid of getting the guy who, like, eats his boogers or something. Haha. No. I don't think we have any of those guys. My new companion's name is Anz. Johnson. I know him already and he's a good missionary from what I've seen. Tomorrow, I'll ship Anz. Hansen off to Milano, where he'll go to Livorno, which is all the way down south a bit after Florence, then I'll pick up Anz. Johnson. Anz. Hansen will be training, so he's excited about that. He only has two more transfers left, so he's been having a lot of reality checks lately. It's been good to serve with an older misisonary who already knows what's going on. In all my other companionships it's always just been the two of us trying to figure things out.

These past few weeks have been pretty busy in Bergamo. Now that Spring has arrived, people seem to be a tad happier. We've been able to see several new people come out of the woodwork.

We found a wonderful new investigator. We were walking down the street and we stopped a 23 year old young man. At first we pinned him as just another punk kid, you know? I'm grateful we stopped him anyway. At first contact, he was a tad skeptical. It was apparent that he'd thought about religion quite a lot in his life, more than most other young men. After a minute or two he asked if we could sit down on a nearby bench and talk to him. That opened the door to a twenty minute lesson about the Book of Mormon and how we know that this Church is the Church of Jesus Christ. We prayed with him, took his information and set a return appointment to come and see the church. He actually came a few days later when he said he would! That doesn't always happen. He loved the church and the simplicity of it. We were able to talk a bit about family history work, temples, and baptism, and we taught him about the Restoration. He admitted that his interest was primarily curiosity, but he did say that he would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. At the end we invited him to pray using the model in the Restoration pamphlet. He did so, and did it wonderfully. It's not often that an investigator says a heart-felt prayer in the correct format on the first try. He will try to make it to General Conference this weekend and he was very touched by our invitations and the things that we taught.

General Conference is this weekend. For a missionary, it's like the Super Bowl. In General Conference, which happens every six months, the Prophet, the twelve Apostles, and other Church leaders address the Church on topics that they have prayed about and prepared. I love General Conference because there always seems to be a talk or two that was meant just for me. If you'd like to know what it's all about, here's a link: https://www.lds.org/general-conference?lang=eng

It's a great relief to know that there is a prophet on the earth today. We believe in a Living Church. We know that the heavens are not closed, but that God speaks to us and loves us still. I read this great scriptures a few days during my daily studies. 1 John 4:7-11:

 7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

I love those verses. They contain the truth that I see in action every day. God is love. We worship the God of love. He is our Father and He loves us. He knows us personally. He wants to bless us. Of these things I bear my testimony.

-Anziano Simcox

Settimana 5, Trasferimento 9 - 3/26/14

 Week 5, Transfer 9.

Sorry. Mission life is lived six weeks at a time. Hah! The end of my second transfer in Bergamo is looming. It's already been almost three months. The clock runs on a different schedule in the mission. Speaking of clocks, Italian DST is this weekend. Thankfully, we were fore-warned this time. Last Spring, no one bothered telling us and we strolled into church an hour late. The members about had a heart attack. Missionaries late to church?? They must have gotten struck by lightning or something.

I apologize if I make any spelling mistakes. I feel like my capacity to use English is slowly diminishing... I have to think so much harder to spell things than I used to. Maybe I'm just getting old. Twenty years is almost over the hill right?

One of the computers at the church isn't working today for some reason, so we had to go to an internet point. I feel like I'm in Pesaro again in the back room of that sketchy Western Union shack.

We gained a great new investigator yesterday. Elders from another ward found this man on the street last week and referred him to us. He is from Nigeria and he has been here since 1997. He also speaks fluent Italian! He is very humble and very faithful. He was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, converted to being a Pentecostal, and then when he moved to Italy he stopped attending church because he believes that they are all run by men instead of God. Obviously that gave us a huge kick-start right into the Restoration. He told us during the lesson that for most of his time in Italy he was content with his life. He had a nice house, a nice car, expensive clothes, etc. A few years ago he lost it all and since then he's been able to realize that he's missing something and he came to realize that he won't be taking any of those things with him. Since then he's been looking for God. As it happens, he has a friend that is a new member in Bergamo 1 who has been encouraging him for a while to check out the Church. When he met the Anziani on the street a few days ago, he felt the Spirit tell him that this was his time. We believe that he will be a great strength to this branch and we are so happy to see his testimony grow.

Also, as a funny side note, our investigator Frank asked us on Sunday if he could see the baptismal font. He's been thinking about baptism for a while. For all intents and purposes, he's already a member anyway. We opened up the font for him and a bunch of dust bunnies flew out. There was a member standing nearby who laughed and said "it's been a while since we've baptized." Frank got a kick out of it though. It hasn't been that long, it just looked worse than it is. That font should be filled here pretty soon. There are several people in Bergamo who are overjoyed to be baptized, they're just waiting for the right time. 

Of course, as a missionary, I feel like it's always the right time, but it's always up to them. I have a favorite quote that says "It is contrary to the economy of heaven for the Lord to do for us that which we can do for ourselves." The choice is always ours, but it's up to us to align ourselves with God's will. That's the real test of this life. We do that through repenting of our sins and mistakes and doing all we can to make our will become the Lord's will. He is perfect and unchanging, so we must be willing to change ourselves and make our lives more in harmony with what He knows is best. After all, He always knows what's best.

I wish you all a pleasant week! I hope life is going well. It is always a pleasure to hear from all of you wonderful people.

I wish you a sack of love, Anziano Simcox

Palme e Montagne: La primavera è venuta - 3/19/14

Hey everyone! I hope that your week has been as good as mine. I also hope you've been able to enjoy some sunshine. If not, we must've stolen it all from you. It is a beautiful day today! Right now the windows are open wide, the birds are singing, the trees are budding, the breeze is softly blowing... ahhh I love Bergamo right now. Spring has definitely arrived! I've also realized for the first time that there are palm trees in Bergamo! I never realized that snow-capped mountains and palm trees could exist in the same climate. Please forgive me. I am from Ohio after all. The tallest thing I'd ever seen before college was a cornstalk.

We wanted to go up to Città Alta again to see the duomo this time, but there was a public transportation strike today, so our plans were foiled. Go figure. Ah well. I'll include a few more pictures from last time anyway.

A few days ago, Anziano Green and I did a companion exchange. I went down to Brescia with him while his companion took my place in Bergamo for a day. Anz. Green and I were in the same MTC district, so it was a barrel of fun to spend a day with him and reminisce a little bit. Tomorrow makes one year in Italy for us you know! Anyway, Anz. Green and I arrived a little early in Bergamo to switch back with our companions, so we did a bit of street contacting and then sat down on a bench for a gelato break (Pres. Dibb approves gelato breaks, so don't call me lazy!).. As we were talking, a young woman came and sat down next to us. She was publicizing some seminar or other, but she was really excited when she found out that we were American. She'd been there a few times and she spoke English very well. We let her give her pitch, but suddenly she stopped and asked us what we were doing. It's not every day you see two nicely-dressed foreigners with nametags, is it? That opened the door for us to give her a quick overview of the Restoration. Anz. Green asked her if she had ever prayed. She said that she prayed often to what she believed was God. Her belief was that God is the universe, the overarching power that watches over us. We gave testimony that in a way, He was, but that we believed that He was much more: our Father in Heaven. She had never really thought about that before and she said to us "I feel good vibrations in my heart right now." We explained that it was the Holy Spirit bearing testimony of the truth and we promised her that this message was what she was looking for in her life. We were able to leave her with a pamphlet and some more information. Sadly, she said she wasn't quite ready to pursue lessons yet, but she was very touched by the encounter, as were we. She definitely moved up the conversion scale that day. Because we listened to her, she listened to us, and I believe that opened her heart to receive some truth. Moments like those make me love my mission even more.

Bit by bit, our investiagators are making progress at various levels. We had quite an experience on Saturday I believe it was. We were walking down the street and we met an investigator from another ward. He's been going through an extremely difficult time in his life and was grateful to have seen us, if only for a bit of confirmation that someone still cared about him. More importantly, he had been looking for a confirmation that God still cared about him. As he was talking to us about his various roadblocks, one of our most progressing investigators, whom I'll call Frank, appeared as if out of nowhere. Frank had stopped taking lessons because of work, but was and is still attending church just as much as any other active member. He appeared in just the right moment and bore testimony to this man about the power of the Book of Mormon and how itìs been helping him in his life in so many ways we were never aware of. He encourage this man to read, pray, come to church, and listen to the missionaries. For all intents and purposes, Frank was an angel who fell from heaven in that moment at just the right time. He was a tender mercy of the Lord to us and especially to this man. It strengthened my testimony that our work has much more power and influence than we ever know. As missionaries we only see the tip of the iceberg. 

In this life as members of the human race we only ever see the tip of the iceberg. We do not have the capacity to see the whole picture. Each one of us is allotted his or her portion. God is the one who sees the whole picture at once. He uses each of us and that portion that each of one of us has to accomplish the entire purpose. If we are in the right place at the right time and living the right way, we will be the right piece of the puzzle at the exact moment it's needed.

As always I send you my love. Keep being awesome. I love you! Love, Anziano Simcox.

I never was known to be very balanced was I?

Buon Mercoledì! - 3/12/14

Hey howdy hey my friends and family. Happy Wednesday.

This week has been quite the busy week. Now that the sun is out I think everyone is in a much better mood. We've been teaching a lot lately and we've been able to see many miracles.

We've been able to find some great new investigators. Two of them came to church a few weeks ago. They're a young couple from Bolivia. He's been here for a while, but she's only been here about a year. We had been trying to meet with them forever but we eventually stopped trying. Out of the blue, they came to church so we were finally able to set an appointment with them. They are a beautiful young couple who are truly interested in what we have to say and truly interested in growing their faith in Christ. Over homemade apple juice, probably one of the most delicious things I've ever drunk, we taught them about the restoration. It was an awesome lesson. The next day, he wasn't able to come to church, so she just went by herself! The members adored her and basically adopted her.

Our investigator David moved to Holland to look for work. It was really sad to see him go, but we're hooking him up with the missionaries there as well. Hopefully we'll stay in contact every now and then.

Oooh oooh. Other fun story. I taught a man named Joseph Smith. I'm not kidding. We were actually teaching his brother, but when we started talking about Joseph Smith he was in the other room and he said "I hear my name in there! What are you sayin'?" He came in and joined in the lesson. It was a funny moment, but it ended up being a good spiritual lesson and he listened because that was his name and in the end agreed to another appointment. Sadly, he lives outside of our area, so we had to refer him to the other Bergamo Elders. Last time I checked they're still teaching him.

I attached some pictures of the view from Città Alta. We went up there last week for P-Day. It's so beautiful. Everything is very old, but well-preserved. It was neat to step back in time for a little bit. 

Sorry to cut this email short, but time's up for now. Thanks for being awesome. I love you all! TTFN. Love, Anziano Simcox.

March 5, 2014

Happpppppyyyyy Wednesday everyone. Hopefully your week was a good one.

Today there's finally sun. FINALLY! Mamma mia... We're taking advantage of the sunny day and going up to Città Alta to take some pictures. Next week I'll finally send you pictures of these great scenes I keep telling you about. I'm happy that Spring is coming around.

I'd like to share an experience we've been having lately with  bringing members to lessons. As missionaries, we are generally encouraged to bring members of our congregation to lessons with those who are investigating the church. Missionaries are generally only in one place for several months and then they leave. Members are much more permanent and are able to help these investigators and new members in ways that the missionaries never would be able to do. Usually throughout my mission, I've brought similar members to similar investigators. Ex: Young people to other young people, Bolivians to Bolivians, Italians to Italians, etc. Two weeks ago in ward council, one of the members brought up the fact that our congregation seems to be divided by race. The Bolivians usually sit with the Bolivians, the Africans usually sit with the Africans, and so on. She said that it made her sad to see such division and that this also creates a problem for new converts, especially those new converts who belong to a minority group. "Just as they come with the missionaries, so also they leave with the missionaries" she said. We decided we would do what we could to break up this division. We've been teaching a Bolivian family. Usually we had been bringing Bolivian members with us, which was working well. We thought we'd do something a little differently though. This week we invited an older Italian brother to come with us. Not only did the lesson go way better than expected, this member was really able to bond with this family and he even got the children involved. (As a side note, their eleven year old daughter is now an investigator and is progressing just as well, if not better, than the parents!) Because they live in Città Alta and the public transportation doesn't run very frequently up there, one of our biggest challenges has been getting them to church. The member we brought with us was more than happy to offer them a ride. The mother of this family was able to come to church this Sunday, and next Sunday the daughters will be able to come too. This experience made me think outside of the box a little bit. It was good for the investigators and it was very good for the member as well. He bore testimony in church about how grateful he was to have accompanied us on our teaching visits and he invited the other members to make themselves available to the missionaries as well.

Church this week was great! Between us and the sisters in our branch, we counted ten non-members in church. For our area, that's pretty extraordinary. One family that we had stopped teaching decided to show up in church. That was very exciting. A few were people who have been coming for a while. Some of our investigators have basically become members, they just haven't been baptized yet. Hah! All in all, it was a great Sunday and we hope to be able to repeat it.

One other neat experience was seeing David really fall in love with the Book of Mormon. At first he wouldn't read it. We were trying to think of ways we could help him understand. Every Saturday, we have a "family night" for the branch. It was our turn to give the lesson this week. What we did was we gave everyone a piece of paper and asked them to write a letter to their loved ones. It was meant to be a "final words" kind of thing, but they were only allowed 25 words in total. We collected the letters and set them aside in a box labeled "trash." Obviously, this caused some negative reactions. We said, "Imagine that your loved ones receive this letter, but they decide they don't have time to read it and set it aside. How does this make you feel?" We wrote down some reactions and then told them that this is how God feels when we do not read our scriptures. You see, the scriptures are letters that God has written to us through his servants the prophets. They are meant to be personal revelation for us. When we set them aside and let the less important things in our life take control, we miss out on the blessings that God could have given us. God is always waiting to bless us and He's given us everything we need, but if we do not act, we cannot receive blessings. Food for thought.

I love you all. Have a great week. -Anziano Simcox

Cercare, suonare, e bussare per insegnare! - February 26, 2014

[Insert generic Italian greeting and blip about how time fast goes... err... how fast time goes].

Day 24601,

Italy is still beautiful, missionary work continues, the sky never ceases to mercilessly open the acquaducts of heaven upon Earth's helpless inhabitants, I continue down a steep slope of exhaustion punctuated by brief eight-hour periods of respite, and I still love my mission! That's the missionary spirit. Things that would've bothered me a lot before my mission just don't seem to have as much effect as they do now. Patience really is a virtue.

Now that things have settled down after transfer week (always a strange week, even if neither of us are getting transferred) it's back to the old grind, a.k.a. the street and peoples front doors! Actually we don't usually make it to the front door. Most houses in Italy are apartments. Even though they're all packed together, each one is gated and locked. So, to get into the apartment you have to ring the intercom outside. A missionary door approach is way less effective over the intercom, so usually we hope that someone is nice enough to let us in to actually knock on the front doors. It's like Seinfeld. Remember how Jerry always had to press the button next to his front door whenever people wanted to come in? George and Elaine always rang, but Kramer somehow always just made it in by himself. Just think of missionaries as Kramer. Although, if we used his door approach we'd probably get deported.

I've still seen some miracles ringing intercoms though! The week before I got here, they were ringing intercoms and someone let them in. He opened the front door and they were just soaked, so he had enough pity to invite them in for a minute. He invited them to come back to his house to explain a bit more to his family. Those are like the magic words in missionary work: "Come back and teach my family." Well, transfers happened and I came here. We went over to his house on the day we planned and they were a beautiful Italian family. They fed us a great dinner, with foods straight from Lombardia (which is the region we're in) and they let us teach them too. In the end they were practicing Catholics and were happy to stay that way, but the mere act of them listening made all the difference. They were happy with their beliefs and their way of life, but they opened their door anyway and gave us so much love. That's true Christianity.

Our investigators are doing pretty well. Our friend Johnathan (it's hard to remember these names I make up) is progressing very nicely. He came to church again and he's loving it. He is an interesting character. He's in his early twenties, but he's some sort of preacher. People call him from all over the world so that he can preach to them and give them advice over the phone. It's kind of neat. Most of the time he does it in Twi, so I haven't really understood anything he preaches over the phone, but it looks pretty interesting! Every person we teach has such an interesting story and I love being a part of all of them.

Well that's it for now. Keep on keeping on everyone. Love, Anziano Simcox.