Beginning of Transfer 11 of 16

We had transfers yesterday, and so I'm getting closer to the end of this beautiful experience here in Italy. I still have quite sometime tho before the real "end" comes.

Well we got transfer calls and I'm still here in Vercelli! Sadly my companion Anziano Eusebi got transfered tho, he got transfered to Bologna! That's an awesome city just saying. As for me I got a new companion! His name is Anziano Albright, he's in his 5th transfer so a little younger in the mission but he's super cool! He's from Springville Utah, he wants to be a stunt man when he returns from his mission and the coolest thing of all. He's a ginger!! Fun fact real quick his birthday is on October 31st!! What?! For those of you who don't know I have a brother who's birthday is Oct 31st and he is also a ginger. It's all because of Halloween.

Well this week wasn't very eventful besides the transfer calls, and the transfers themselves lol

Oh ya I'm a district leader now, that's the first time in my whole mission and Anziano Albright is my frist companion who is younger than me in the mission which is kind of crazy 🤪

Most of the week has gone by with member appointments because Anziano Eusebi was leaving and we shared a video called "Egli è il dono" which translates to "He is the Gift" it's a really sweet video and I just want to share a quick little story about this. 

Growing up in my family Christmas was always exciting especially when it came to opening presents Christmas morning. My favorite Christmas tradition that we had was called the greatest gift of all. After all the presents had been opened there was always one present left, a small little box under the tree. A simple box with natural colors, nothing to extravagant. We would go in a circle and ask everyone in the family what there favorite present was that they had received that year. When I was little it was maybe a bicycle or as I got old a video game or something of that sort. We would go around again and ask if each family member if they would trade their favorite present for the greatest gift of all (the simple box). When we were younger we didn't always know or understand what was in the box or what the greatest gift of all was, so at times someone would say "no" other times "yes". We would then open the little box which was in fact the greatest gift of all, inside every year was a picture of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We would then go around on last time to ask the same question. Would you trade the greatest gift of all for your favorite present? At this point my siblings and I would always say "yes! Of course we would!" now looking back at this family tradition I see a lot more than I did before, more meaning behind the real lesson that our parents were trying to teach us. Our Savior, Jesus Christ was and is the greatest gift of all. Our Father in Heaven gave Him to us, so that he could suffer for us, die for us. So one day we could return once again to our Heavenly Father's presence. I want to let every single one of you who is getting this email, that I know our Savior lives. He came into this world 2000 years ago to take up the sins of the world. That means you, all of you and me and everyone in the world. He then was raised from the tomb three days after He was crucified, for you. I know that the things that I'm doing as a missionary here and that other missionaries in the world are doing are apart of His work. To bring Heavenly Father's sons and daughters back to Him. If any of you have questions or concerns about any of this please email me or message me on Facebook! I love you all so much! Have a great week! 

Vi voglio un mondo di bene, 

Anziano Harrison 🇮🇹 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly! 

Ferrara, Bologna, e Venezia!!

2/28/2018

This week has been so much everything lol

I started it off by hoping on a train to Milano, then from there a train to Bologna and then from Bologna to Ferrara! In total it was about a 4 hour travel time, I got to the train station in Ferrara and there was no missionaries there and no wifi to try and figure out where they were sooooo I just waited for about 45 min in the train station and then he showed up my new companion with his old companion who was leaving Ferrara. It was raining but not too much so we got to the apartment okay! The rest of the week was very very very rainy and windy and cold it's literally the coldest I've been since coming on my mission that's for sure, it rained everyday except for Monday night that's when it snowed, which made it even colder!! But it was nice to see snow again! It's basically all gone now though sooooo ya 

Anziano Jones where to start with him he's a very hard working missionary is from Croydon Utah me and him have a lot of similarities in many different fields, we already know it's going to be an amazing transfer! 

Traveling here in Ferrara is difficult, we use to have a car here but last transfer they got it taken away so it takes us forever to get everywhere. We left Friday morning to go to an appointment at 10:45am on a train the appointment was at 2:30pm and we walked into our apartment at 8:45pm it was a very long day full of travel and one lesson but the lesson went really well! We talked about the Book of Mormon showed the video of President Monson talking about how important it is and the nonmember really seemed to enjoy it!

Sunday morning we got on a train to go to Mestre, the town right outside of Venezia (Venice) for stake conference here, it was a good conference. They called a new Stake President, and talked a lot about the small and simple things that make the members of the church who we are! I'll be honest the last week or so I've been struggling with the small things like reading the Book of Mormon just because I've been so busy with packing and traveling all over but I know there is power in the little things we do such as reading, praying and going to church! After conference we took a short train ride over to Venezia to go see the canals and the duomo it was really beautiful I'll send a few pictures a little later. 

Oh I also forgot to say I gave my first blessing ever! And it was in Italian I was so freaking scared but it went really well I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it! 

We got to go to Bologna yesterday for special district meeting and today for P-Day

In special district meeting we talked a lot about our presentation to people we don't even talk to on the street. President Allen has asked all of us to start carrying Il Libro di Mormon's (Book of Mormons) around with us. Not in our bags but in our hands so people can start to register that the people with name tags have books in there hands and also to put us out there more as a mission! I really liked it! Our Zone Leaders (who are both really cool i like them both a freak ton lol) asked us these questions and said to always try to ask yourself them. 

Why is the book of Mormon so important?

Why am I on a mission?

What is my purpose in this life?

Why is it important to care about people? 

As a missionary I believe these questions are essential, if you are or aren't a missionary i still want you all to ask yourselves these questions as frequently as possible I know that it will help you all in your lives!

I love you all and hope that your week is going well and the next one will be even better!

Love, 

Anziano Harrison 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly! 

an airplane a member here is working on

Venezia

Venezia

Venezia

Snow again from Monday night

Snow again from Monday night

gelato in Bologna

Transfers!?!

2/21/2018

We got transfer news this last Friday and Saturday, Anziano Minnoch got a call from President Allen on Friday morning and he's training here in Alessandria sooooo that means I'm out of Alessandria.... Saturday morning I figured out that I'm getting transfered to..... FERRARA! I'll be honest I was a little disappointed when I first heard but I'm excited because I get to practice my Italian and get myself out of my comfort zone!! My new companion is Anziano Jones, he's from Park City, Utah and is in the same MTC group as Anziano Minnoch, Is an ex-capo from Muggiò (one of the zones in Milano) i don't know much else about him though he seems pretty cool! I'm excited for it!

In other than that the week has been full of visits to members in the ward, visits with our investigators and less active visits. Oh and English class that's always something we do. 

Today for P-Day we were going to go to Serravalle again with our ward mission leader but he said he was going to sleep in, and so now we have to pay for ourselves which is kinda lame. But I'm not planning on buying anything, maybe a postcard or something lol

I'm going to miss the people here in Alessandria but I sure made a lot of long time friends and can't wait to do so in Ferrara as well, I'm going to miss the investigators as well they are all amazing! 

I'll even get to see more people from my original MTC group that are in the new Zone I'm going to so that's gonna be fun! Hopefully get to play some volleyball with Anziano Marocchi (he's a tall dude that has a volleyball scholarship to some University in California I think Long Beach State but I cannot remember) and also get to see Anziano Austin from the MTC! 

I'm gonna miss the district that we have here in Alessandria as well the missionaries here are so freaking cool! 

For English class this week we went to this place called Walla Walla Burger here in Alessandria as an American food place to show the English class what kind of food we eat there in America and they seemed to like it! I'm going to miss the English class they are all super amazing i hope the missionaries that stay here will be able to make them all investigators of the church! We also got to see this cool church in Acqui Terme, I'll put pictures of all of this stuff. Oh and also we had Carnevale this week it's the festival that leads up to the 40 day fast that Jesus Christ had in the desert before he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. (or so I was told by one of our English class members) 

Other than that I cannot think of anything really that happened this week over all a good week enjoyed it and can't wait for my first week in the new area! We have stake conference in Ferrara this Sunday and guess where it's being held!?!? Venezia!!!! In English you guys call it Venice lol but I'm sooooo pumped!!! 

Love you all hope to hear from you sometime this week! 

Love, 

Anziano Harrison 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly! 

The church in Acqui Terme

English class at Walla Walla

Carnevale costumes

Carnevale costumes

Concentration camp?!

2/15/2018

Allora, questa settimana era un grande casino... Scherzo!! Questa settimana era bravissima!

Alright I'll let all of you who don't know Italian try and figure that one out hehe

Google translate might say something it doesn't actually mean but what I said wasn't bad I promise! 

Okay so this week was really good we've started teaching Victor more recently so that the wedding and then the baptism can happen! That's one of the reasons I'm sending this a day late we had 3 appointments with people that could only meet Wednesday so yah therefore Thrusday because P-Day this week. We taught him the Word of Wisdom yesterday. Funny story about that he says "so is cocca against the Word of Wisdom?" we had no idea what he said cause it did not sound like cocca he says "let me show you" goes into the other room to grab this coco powder and I turn to my comp and say "dude is he talking about cocaine?" my comp gives me a very discouraged look and then Victor brings out this knock off brand of Nesquik and we both start laughing and tell him "no that's not against the Word of Wisdom" haha still makes me laugh! 

Sunday we had two friends bring potentials for us and that's another reason we moved it from yesterday to today (P-Day) he's officially a new investigator for us he's a Nigerian named Destiny and you might think that's weird but in our Area Book named "Sunday Thank God" (we couldn't get ahold of him his phone number changed) but Destiny seems pretty legit he asked a good question about smoking and if our church allows it or not obviously we don't in case any of you didn't know that lol and he said "good that's the way its supposed to be smoking is bad" 

I performed surgery on Tuesday after district meeting, oh and we also decided that I'm staying in Alessandria for a 4th transfer but we will see if that's actually happening Saturday morning when transfer calls come in. If it does next P-Day I will be packing everything up and moving somewhere else I've loved it here in Alessandria so for (besides it always literally being grey) the ward is awesome and so is the work! I'd miss it for sure! 

Alright for this week's weekly title we went to the Cittadella di Alessandria which is a fortress here and convinced the Sorelle that it was a Concentration Camp during WW2 🤣🤣 I got some funny videos but the videos won't send so if you remember after the mission I'll show em to ya  

Anziano Minnoch stepped in human feces while walking around the Cittadella and started freaking out it was hilarious he convinced Sorella Walker to wipe it off for him cause he's kind of afraid of germs or something lol

Suprisingly enough I only got a small cut on my hand this week on P-Day lol I always seem to find new cuts or something after P-Day is over lol 

I'll try to send pictures so that you all can see the ragazzacci roba I've been doing up in here lol promise again it's nothing bad! 

Well I love you all and I miss you as well! This week I learned a lot about getting back up when you are down you just gotta do it. JUST DO IT! don't lay around and wait for life to get better get out there and make it better! Let Heavenly Father know you've been struggling ask him for help he will send it in one way or another! If you need just someone to talk to write me an email ramble forever and then send it I'll read it, the whole thing. I will respond probably not something as long but I will try and help! That's what I'm here for!! Once again I just want to say I love you all and am so very grateful for all of you who are or have been apart of my life! 

Love, 

Anziano Harrison 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly! 

Planking on a bridge

Handstands for Days

swag flag

Sorella Walker did what?!?

2/7/2018

So this week was pretty depressing not gonna like either cold, raining or cloudy all week, except for today after we got back from Serravalle.

So we've started teaching a new investigator named Victor he's the fiance of one of the sisters investigators and he's doing really well we've had all three of the first lessons with him and the last lesson he said at the end "I have this warm feeling in my chest" and we told him that was the Spirit telling him these things are true what we are teaching! We have been teaching him because the Sorelle have Betty (Victor's fiance) and she really wants to get baptized but they live together so they have to either get married sooner or wait till after the wedding which rn is in June... So we're shooting for a wedding in the next few weeks!!

Today we went to the Outlet mall and went shopping because Saldi has been coming to an end which is sad but good cause it means I won't be tempted to buy stuff anymore cause I will all be normal prices again yay!! 

I've had a lot of funny moments this week but not enough time to share them so I'll keep it to Spiritual stuff!

One of our English class members his name it Giorgio (pronounced Georgeo for you Americans who don't know how Italian works) asked me a question in our advanced class it was "When was the last time you were upset? because you always seem so calm and happy" and the truth was I had been upset earlier that day. I responded with "It was actually earlier today, but I try to not think about the things that upset me. I like to move pass things so I can focus on the good in my life." he seemed very satisfied with my answer but in all honesty I believe that I am happy because I am doing the thing that I love the most, and that's serving my Heavenly Father I just want to say I am very proud of everyone that's on this listen for everything they do in their own lives and a special shoutout to all of those people who are putting in or who have already put in their mission papers I'm excited to hear from all of you where you are going and what you are willing to sacrifice for the Lord! Love you all!

Love, 

Anziano Harrison 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly! 

Lindt store at the mall

Opposition in all things

2/1/2018

Alright let's start this weekly off right!! Honestly don't know how to do that though so I'll just start it with we had Conferenza di Zona (zone conference) yeaterday and it was sooooo good by far my favorite one so far and also only my second lol

I'll talk more about it later don't worry! 

Thursday last week we were on scambio (exchanges) with the capi (zone leaders) in Genova, Anziano Minnick and Anziano Johnson went and did service for a member in their ward where they got to ride in a brand new ambulance to go and help old people get to the hospital. Which is pretty dope. While they did that Anziano Johnson and I (both of are zone leaders are Anziano Johnson's) made some lemon bars and planned on taking them to less actives but when we went to find the less actives houses the first one we couldn't find... The second one lived at the top of this hill that we had to basically hike all the way up, we get there and Anziano Johnson forgets what his last name is.... Sooooo we ring all of the c'è telefono's to try and find him and the ones who answered didn't know who we were talking about and the others didn't answer (I'll send a picture of a c'è telefono) and then we found this sick over view of the part of Genova we were in cause we were on top of the hill (I'll send a picture of the view as well) other than that Thursday was riding a train and all of our classes we teach and institute with the ysa. 

Friday we went to the Mensa (food kitchen) for one of the Catholic convents here in Alessandria and did service in serving the homeless people food! 

Saturday we took Cletus (our recent convert) to a member dinner appointment and we showed the video "A Shower of Blessings" that Elder Uchtdorf and the family really seemed to like it! 

Sunday we had church and had only two investigators sadly in sacrament meeting but we did have a potential come during third hour! That night we went to the Catholic convent to have a dinner they were making for all the volunteers who serve the homeless people during the week. They waited for us to get there to start their prayers that we didn't know

Monday we had a sfida (challenge) from President Allen and we got second place out for the whole mission and the Sorella here got 3rd so we're pretty cool 

‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️ the challenge was 3 people's family situations and testify how the church can help them, 2 acts of service to someone other than your companion, and then 10 peoples contact information on Facebook we finished it 40 minds after the challenge started!!

Tuesday we had district meeting and we had waffles after which were super good and buy a ton of food for zone conference so that took most of the day. 

Wednesday was Zone Conference and we had trainings on Finding, Safety, Comp Study, and How to be the Hero in the lives of others. 

It was very insightful for the Hero one and that's why my title is "Opposition in all things" because there are so many things that are against us even in the real world but if you didn't have the opposition then you wouldn't grow the ways you need to. I know I've seen this a lot in my life mostly because of things I've done for myself but now in my mission it's just things like wearing the missionary nametag makes people stare and sometimes it's awkward but just smile and talk to them its something I'm working on! I love being a missionary and again if anyome who's reading this needs help with anything I'm here for you I love you all please email me! Pictures will come shortly!

Love, 

Anziano Harrison 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly!

view from the hill in Genova

Zone Conference with Anziano Douglas and Baker (and my new suit)

Before Haircut

 After Haircut :)

2nd time to Genova in a week?!

1/24/2018

Alright alright first off I'd like to apologize for last week I didn't really make time to start or even first me weekly it was very short and not very informative. 

Okay now that I have that off my chest! 

This week has been really slow with missionary work we have zero progressing investigators so we've been trying to work with our 3 non progressing investigators to try and help them progress and also with the 10 potentials that we have but none of them could meet this last week either which is kind of disappointing but the work goes on!! 

More about Anziano Minnoch (my new companion), so I already said he's from the state of Washington he's really cool nice and organized and likes to have things clean which is something I really like! He's pretty funny most of the time. Lol he played football in high school he is almost done with his mission he has 4 transfers left but he is leaving from the mission early to start school again.

Sorella Kopischke got transfered to open Lugano and train a green for her last transfer. So Sorella Johnson from Bergamo came to finish Sorella Walkers training. Which is cool we have a blast so far.

Were currently on a train to Genova for P-Day were going bouldering with the Genova Anziani and the STL's. 

The reason for my title if the email is very interesting. 

So our bishop asked us if we could go to Genova last Sunday to see the Devotional that President Uchtdorf gave. And we told him that we couldn't cause it was out of our proselytizing area and he said I'll call President Allen to ask if you can come. We think his joking at this point but then a few days later we get a text saying "I'm going to call President Allen today to ask him" we start freaking out and decide to call President Allen and tell him what's going down. He says "you can go if you have investigators that can go" so we message or call all our investigators and at this point it's 2 or 3 days before and they all already have plans so we tell President Allen and Vescovo and then the day before (Saturday) we get a text from the Bishop in a group chat saying that he had gotten permission for us to travel to Genova with the GANS (YSA) so that's why we went to Genova Sunday night! 

Besides all that our week was pretty slow and not very exciting we've been trying to do more finding which is good! 

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again i had started it over again in the MTC when is was there and I'm so glad I finished it all the way through I've started it over again! I'm already in 1 Nephi 16 or 17 i cannot remember which one but it's so good for those of you who haven't read it at all pick it up and start at the beginning if you have questions about anything message me on Facebook and I can answer questions about something if it's confusing. I'll try to help you out but even some things confuse me sooooo pray about it

I love you all and hope this week is a good week for everyone! Remember who you are and what God expects you to become! 

Love, 

Anziano Harrison 

Don't run faster than your guardian angels can fly! 

 

 Carride to Genova Sunday night!