Things are doing great here! It feels like
things are getting very busy and that I'm doing a lot of traveling, but
hopefully things will settle down a bit and I can focus entirely on
missionary work. For example, today we leave for Trapani! I have to go
back to get my Permesso di Soggiorno which allows me to live in the
country. After picking it up I'll be good for the rest of my mission and
won't have to worry about it anymore. I'm just bummed that it's going
to take up a whole day for travels!
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| Rome Temple - 10/12/12 |
Rome was great! Everything went smoothly with
getting there and I had a blast. The only thing I saw in Rome besides
the mission home was the temple, and it's getting so big! When I was at
the very site over a year ago there was just a giant hole, and now it's
on it's way to getting finished!
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| Luke and Lacey |
The zone leader council was a very uplifting
experience and it was a day full of learning. I met some amazing
missionaries that I didn't know before and we all had so much fun
together. I learned a lot from President and he is such an inspired man.
Us Sicilian guys were the first to get to the Villa so I got my
interview with President and got to help Sorella Kelly cook some
delicious food for lunch and dinner. I was on onion cutting duty, and
she had fun laughing as I cut the juiciest onions in the world and cried
like a baby. We decided that we are going to make a television show
called 'Cooking with Sister Kelly' because you 'feel the Spirit' so
strong that it brings you to tears.
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| Anziano Lacey with President and Sister Kelly |
The only part that wasn't fun about the trip was
almost missing the plane thanks to insane traffic on the freeway, the aftermath of a man being hit by a bus, which we saw...
Not very fun.
Friday night we had a very fun activity with the
ward that was a scripture jeopardy game. I was called a few weeks before
to be the team captain and everyone made fun of me for the name I
chose:
Mahershalalhashbaz (a Hebrew word that means 'destruction is imminent' that you can find in the Isaiah chapter in 2 Nephi 18:1. My
team loved the name however, and we won so we aren't complaining! I am
really making some great relationships with members.
Our investigators are doing great and we are really
trying to help them progress. We heard from the family that
lives far away and who we gave the blessings to and we are
collaborating to fix an appointment, but things are tough with all these
travels and whatnot. Another miracle happened as we were walking home
after a day of finding work in the rain. I've had the feeling to do zone
t-shirts for all of the Sicilian missionaries, and there is a little
t-shirt printing shop close to our house. We walked past and I thought
that I should just go back a different time because I was tired, but then I
felt pushed to go back. We stood outside the shop reading the signs of
the kinds of prints they do, and the shop owner came out to greet us. I
asked him some questions and he invited us inside, even though they were
about to close. His wife was there and so was their little five year
old daughter. We talked about 'business' a little bit, but then we all
just hit it off and became instant friends and they poured out questions
about the church to us. It turns out that a couple weeks before I tried
stopping the wife, Veronica, on the street but she was busy or
something so didn't have a chance to talk. They are very interested in
the church and said that we can pass by again to share the message of
the Restoration with them!
We are seeing sparks of interest of the Church in
our English course students. We have a few that might become
investigators and our course is so big! We teach sometimes four courses
now with all four of us missionaries taking a different level, and I
love my intermediate students. I have about thirty who show up on a
regular basis, sometimes more. We are all great friends! One guy went to
Paris and got me a little souvenir of the Eiffel tower! Some of the
things I'm most grateful for about the mission are the relationships and
friendships I'm making with people in this wonderful country. I really
hope I'll be able to afford coming back often in the future! You have no
idea how much I love the Italian people.
Things are going great with training and Anziano
Smit is such a stud! We have a lot of fun and we get work done. We were
walking yesterday and there was a man with his dog in the park, and he
had this device that looked like a giant spoon for scooping pasta or
something like that. As we wondered as to what the device was, he placed
a tennis ball inside it and we finally understood as I yelled, "It's a
fetching launcher!" We had a good laugh from that!
As I approach my year
and a half mark I must say that I'm starting to feel this 'tiredness'
that missionaries get towards the end of the mission. Me and Anziano
Longhurst talked a little bit about it with the Kelly's, and they said
that their son that just got back from Argentina just slept for days.
They said that that was how they knew he worked hard.
Here it is for the week! I say this in almost every
email and I'll keep saying it always: I love my mission! I love and
thank you guys for your examples to me, and for your encouraging words
and Spiritually energizing prayers! I love you Dad, I love you Mom, I
love you Morgan, I love you Brooke, I love you Heather, I love you Greg.
And to anyone else who might read this, family, friends: I love you and
thank you for your support and prayers! Have a great week! Vi voglio
BENONE!
Con amore,
Anziano Clay Lacey
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