Anziano Ruiz in the Italy Rome Mission: There are so many great experiences to experience being a missionary.

June 19, 2017

Happy father's day to my dad who is the all-time master ninja! And has really taught me so much in this life.

Also happy father's day to all the other great dads out there and father figures.

Ciao tutti!

I'm staying here in Olbia with Anziano Parker for another transfer and I'm excited to do some more good work!

This week being transfers was a pretty crazy one. Anziano Cutler from Sassari was leaving. I'm gonna miss that guy but we'll have fun in college together! The new companion wasn't coming until the next day so we ended up being in Sassari for a couple of days this week but it went great. While we were there we got talking to some kids who claimed to be atheist. We started talking about faith and ended up teaching the end of the restoration and they were really intent and interested. It was cool to be able to help someone rethink the existence of a God. It just feels so great to be able to bare a testimony to someone listening sincerely and even better when they accept your testimony and you know it helped them. I love that best of being a missionary.

Yesterday after church some members invited us to lunch and as we were getting ready to go they told us to hurry and go put normal clothes on for the lunch. I didn't really know how to respond but they were so insistent and I wasn't really feeling anything telling me no. So we went and changed into normal clothes real quick and brought a bag with missionary clothes then got in the car and we were off to lunch. The member lives on a beach so it's about a 35 min drive to her house. She said she invited some people, but that we were not to bring up the gospel unless they asked us. So we get to the house set up the table and then her friend came and brought his girlfriend and little girl! So that was cool, of course we get talking and they ask about us and we tell them we're Americans here serving a mission to help people come to Christ. They were excited to meet us! People always love talking to Americans here, it's really cool, they love hearing about the different culture. Since we were in normal cloths they connected with us and we could bring up the gospel without coming on too strong. After lunch they started asking more about out church and we ended up teaching them the restoration! At the end I told them that God provided a way to know if this message is true. And Fabrizio, the guy( his last name is Ferrari which is sweet) said "How can we know if it's true!?" So we taught him about the Book of Mormon. As he was leaving he asked for a Book of Mormon. So that was a really awesome experience.

I guess I learned that God works in mysterious ways! I never thought that on my mission I would go to a beach house on a Sunday, wearing normal clothes, and teach a family the restoration but I did and it was awesome! There are so many great experiences to experience being a missionary. Going about it being able to bare testimony that God is our loving heavenly father, and all the other amazing truths we receive from the restored gospel is just a cherry on top! I love my mission and the Italians!

Have a great week!

Vi voglio bene!

Anziano Ruiz