Jul09
Sup Fam
Buon Giorno. Buon Giorno.
Well everyone another week has past and lots of things are different here in Crotone. My Trainer moved down to Sicily to be a Zone Leader and a new missionary came up to Crotone to be with me. His name is Elder Morgan. He is from Southern California and he is a super nice kid.......Lets just say that I have been praying pretty hard for patients lately. All is well thought. The Lord sent him here and so I just need to love him and get to work. Everything is going to be fine...we just need to get back into the swing of things and we will this week. We have some fun things coming up this week. We are having a birthday party tonight here at the church for a member....So that will be fun! We have a few sweet families that we are going to start meeting with and teaching them. So hopefully we will be able to get some things rolling here and get some people to start progressing. Things are on the rise here though! Please pray for my investigators and their families...This will help out a bunch! Thanks so much!
For those of you that would like to see some pictures of me during the week or follow the mission there are some blogs for our mission. The first one is...
This is the senior couple that is serving in Crotone right now with me. They put some pictures on of us all the time! Then the other one is on Google and you type in Italy Rome Mission Blog and it will come up!
Last Monday night was so fun! We finally got to meet with the basketball team. We dropped a 40 minute spiritual thought on them all about why we are serving missions and the restoration. All of the boys were paying attention and asking questions for the full 40 minutes. It was so SWEET! Hopefully we will nab a few of them and get them to start coming to church! After we gave the spiritual thought we got to practice with them. In practice I dunked it two handed pretty hard. It was sweet not going to lie....The kids were in shock. Everyone quit talking and just said Di Nuovo...which means Do It Again...So I dunked it again. The kids all freaked out and the coach was pretty impressed. It felt so good....After practice some of kids came up to me and asked me how I jump and what leg workouts I do. I just told them that hard work and dedication we can do anything that we put our minds too. It doesn't matter how tall you are, what your name is, or where you come from we can do whatever we want if we are dedicated and willing to sacrifice. Monday Nights practice was for sure a good experience for me and for the exposure of missionaries. When we do fun things like that people get to see that we aren't just these kids that just try to jam the book of Mormon down your throat. They get to see that we are normal kids, just like they are. SO we will for sure be going back to basketball practice and becoming good friends with those kids!
I also met Anziano MIKA! He is the coolest kid in the world. For those of you that don't know MIKA....He is 6 foot 10 inches and plays basketball for BYU. We talked about sports for a good hour or so...He is a Giant!
I am great though. I am really starting to love the mission and feel a love for these people. The language is coming okay. I am eating a ton and working out super hard in the mornings. I am just trying to be the best I can be. I hope and pray that all is well back home. I love you all so much!
On Wednesday Night, after I dropped Elder Kiser off, I did an exchange in Reggio Calabria. On this exchange we went to the train station and taught some people that are homeless.... These people live in the old train carts that are broken down and don't work anymore. They have no house to go to...they have nothing! This broke my heart....It made me realize how blessed I really am. Then the next day I was reading in Alma 26 and I read verse 2... it says...:
"And now, I ask, what great blessings has HE bestowed upon us? Can ye tell?"
So when I read this I took a look back at my life and counted some of my greatest blessing and most amazing things that have happened to me in my life. If we look back at the biggest of blessing and even the smallest of blessings...and we look close....We can truly see the hand of The Lord in all things. When we begin to see the Hand of God in all things we realize that He has been there from the beginning guiding us to where we are right now at this very moment. We see that He has never left us Comfortless. We see that He has Never left us alone. Yeah we might have had some very difficult times...Everyone goes through hard times. That is just apart of life...but He always "will hold thine hand" ( Isiah 42:6 ). As we learn to see the hand of The Lord in all things we begin to have more trust in Him and in His Perfect Plan of Happiness. We don't have to worry so much about the difficulties of daily life, because we know that He will provide if we have faith. This life is not easy...We all know this. There are some things that we have gone through or will go through that are pretty tough. One thing is for certain....There was a Man. A perfect man that never committed a single sin....that walked out into a garden, "fell on His face" (Mathew 39:26) and shouldered alone the weight of our sins. He went through everything that we have gone through and everything we will go through and so much more. In the midst of hard trials we can know that The King of Kings and The Savior of the World is on our side and He will never leave us alone. Never.
So when this life throws us a curve-ball and it feels like the whole world around us is falling to the ground...Chin Up and Smile....For we have The Prince of Peace and The Son of God right by our side.
I know He is there. I know that He sends angels down to be on our right side and also on our left. We are never alone. When this life gets dark and dreary...say a prayer...and I promise that it will be answered.
I love you all so much. Thank you all for the emails, love and prayers. I will continue to pray for you all. Things are great in Crotone! The mission is a beautiful thing! I am very lucky to be where I am! Have a great week everyone!
God be with you all till we meet again!
Much Love.
Peace and Blessings.
Anziano JarDee Nessen
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