Spain New Missionaries - May 2015

May 26, 2015

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) regarding faith:

“It takes faith—unseeing faith—for young people to proceed immediately with their family responsibilities in the face of financial uncertainties. … It takes faith to fill full-time missions. But know this—that all these are of the planting, while faithful, devout families, spiritual security, peace, and eternal life are the harvest.”

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Two new missionaries arrived in Rome after spending two weeks in the Spain MTC.  Both live in Northern Italy and will now be spending two years in Southern Italy.  They are wonderful.  We look forward to working with them.

New Missionaries - Spain MTC - December 2014

December 9, 2014


The missionaries arriving from the Spain MTC always arrive a day before the missionaries who arrive from the Provo MTC.  They usually get all their luggage and we always say a heartfelt thanks for that tender mercy.  It's probably because their flight is only two hours and there are no layovers.  Because they come a day earlier, we are able to spend extra time with them and get to know them right away.  For President it's no big deal, but for me who struggles with the language, it's a time to learn to communicate with them.  We were able to spend some quality time with them and even took them to see the church of San Giovanni (St. John) and drove by the Colosseum.  Even though most of them come from Northern Italy, that's a treat for them.  We try to get them to bed early because the next day we arrange for them to do real missionary work with the missionaries currently serving in Rome.  It's a great opportunity for both of them. 

New Missionaries - Spain - September 2014

September 16, 2014

Life is full of twists and turns, but somehow we always get where we should be.  The drivers dropped the departing missionaries off at the airport early in the morning and then stayed at the airport to pick up the new missionaries arriving from the Spain MTC.  They usually arrive on the same plane, but this time two of them came on one plane and two hours later three more of them came on another plane.  Unfortunately one of the elders had a stomach virus so one of the drivers brought him straight to the villa where he could go to bed.  The others went with President Waddoups and stopped for pictures in front of the temple.

All the missionaries, except for the sick one, walked down the street that evening for gelato.  On the way, they met one of the Assistants' investigators and invited him to come to the villa for a spiritual thought.  All of the missionaries took an opportunity to tell what the gospel meant to them.  It was beautiful listening to the new missionaries and feeling of their marvelous spirits.  We were all blessed by that opportunity--and it was a great way to begin a mission.

The following morning, they helped fix sack lunches for missionaries who would be traveling long distances the next day.  Some of the missionaries from Rome picked them up at the villa and spent the day teaching them what missionaries do and say.

Kabobs in Italy?

June 24, 2014

Sometimes we shake things up a little bit.  This time we decided to take the new sister missionaries from Italy to get kabobs for dinner.  Standard Italian food for them isn't really a big treat and we'd already had pizza with them.  We walked down the street and ate kabobs.

Spain Arrivals

June 24, 2014

We now have three new sister missionaries from the Spain MTC.  All three now live in Northern Italy, but one of them is originally from Columbia, one from Italy, and one from Portugal.  Our mission is very diverse.  Our missionaries come from all over the world, and the people in Italy whom they teach also come from all over the world.

We stopped at the Rome Temple Site for pictures and then stopped at a pizzeria for pizza.  We have driven past this little pizzeria for a year now and every time we comment we should stop there because it advertises a meter of pizza for 8 euros.  This time it worked out perfectly for us to stop.  We had the right amount of people, it was pranzo (lunchtime), and the line wasn't huge.  This was a special treat because we usually go straight to the mission office and have sandwiches.

Helping make transfer lunches