New Year, New Opportunities...and I’m 21 - 1/8/18

Anziano Ridd turns 21!

Celebrating a shared birthday with a church member - such a sweet family to
share a birthday cake with Anziano Ridd!
Buon Compleanno! (Photo credit: Mariachiara Pagano)

SM was baptized, and lots of Young Single Adults came to show their support and friendship!

Hey guys!

This week was jam packed full of great things. Honestly, it felt like the beginning of a new hope. The beginning of new energy and new enthusiasm. I hope you guys also feel that with the new year here. 

Let’s start with the fact that I’m now 21. We had a great experience at the P family’s home. LV, one of the daughters, turned 20 on the same day, so we celebrated together. It was nice to eat cake on my birthday again - hahaha. 

Following this, we had the beginning of greatness. SM, our18- year old friend and investigator, was baptized. It was an amazing service. He had YSA (young single adults) from Rome, Terni, and Perugia there to support him, and he bore strong testimony after he was baptized about the restoration of the truth. I feel like his testimony is a strong, blazing flame. Earlier in the week, he taught a lesson with us. He truly gets the purity and simplicity of the gospel. He was the first baptism of Perugia thus far. (More to come soon).

After that, we went to visit Sorella R ~ a great member who lives pretty far away, but has need of the sacrament. So we visited her, and her spirit and testimony are so strong. She told us how she has been striving to view all other people as God would see them, so that she can love more fully. She is a great example to me. 

As for me, the transfer calls come tonight. This is my last transfer. This is the time of making goals. This is the end in many senses, with the sad passing of President Monson, and the end of the mission coming. But I see it as a great beginning. I want to be better. I want to serve more, and give it my all. I think all of us have things we want. Sometimes we discourage ourselves though, and say we can’t get them. I think when we realize our potential, we also realize we can do anything that we put our mind to. All it takes is some really solid plans for those righteous goals, and DAILY recommitment to them. I hope we all work toward something in the coming days and months so we can develop in the years and decades ahead. 

I love you all! Happy new year. God bless President Monson.

Anziano Ridd

New Year, Baby! 1/2/18

Terni Center

Perugia Center

Happy New Year! 

I hope everyone had a great week! This week for us was pretty good!

We started off by spending the day after Christmas (Santo Stefano, a Catholic holiday), delivering cakes to all the group (church) members and singing carols to them. It went great and they loved it. 

Then this week we also did a scambio with the zone leaders. Once again, Anziano Daniels and I did work in Terni. It was fun and we enjoyed the work we did together. Sadly, my dear friend Anziano Huntsman is not feeling so great, but he is recovering. He is still hilarious as ever, even when he’s not feeling well. 

We had a pretty cool gesso we did on Saturday night in the center of Perugia, and had some decent success talking to people about the Gospel. Due to holidays, many people have been pretty closed. 

This week we picked up GR as a new investigator. He is Ecuadorian and is a cool guy. His parents were Mormon and his brother is too, but they don’t live in Italy. His wife was is less active, but currently they are baptized in an evangelical church. It’s an interesting situation, because we originally thought he was a less active too. His wife seems like she might not want us there (strange because she was LDS) and he is pretty interested to hear about priesthood and prophets, but believes anyone who believes in Christ is saved. So I’m excited to teach them more, to say the least. Especially because they are expecting a baby in a month!

Over this past week I’ve recognized how strong I have grown in my testimony of modern day prophets. By study and prayer over these 2 years, I know that their words are the words that God has for us in these days. I know He’s called them and they are inspired. I know Jesus lives, and He directs this church through them. The Holy Spirit constantly confirms this witness to me as I read and study their words. 

Give it a go; try it for yourselves. Go study the words of modern day prophets. Apply their promises, and you will see blessings come from that obedience. (Click here to read/listen to talks from church leaders from the latest General Conference).

I love you all! Make goals this year! Follow Abe Lincoln’s mom’s last words to him, “Be something!”

Anziano Ridd

Merry Christmas Round 2 - 12/25/17

Caroling in the centro

Some massive studs in my district

The nativity scene

Skyping with the family on Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! 

I hope you all had a great week. This week we were pretty busy.

Zone conference happened and I really loved the messages. They talked a lot about being consecrated missionaries and doing the simple everyday things that make us better. I really like those themes, as I have seen how the small things are what make us great, not any big massive act of charity.

During zone conference we did a nativity skit. Pictures will be attached. I was a wise man. 

Then we also gave a blessing to A, the youngest daughter of the P family. Sadly, she has been really sick recently! (Even on Christmas Eve). So we are hoping and praying she gets better soon!

Anyways, the best part about Christmas as a missionary is that you get to realize that for the whole year you have been 100% focused on Christ. You also get to be his hands in places around the world to help others know about Him, and his plan to help us return. I love it. I hope we all try and do some small things each day to bring us closer to him. I recommend sincere prayers. 

Love you all!

Anziano Ridd

Stromboli! 

Zone elders

Perugia art. Toucans? 

Another Week, Another Italian Church Opened - 12/18/17

Anziano Ridd (left) and Anziano Hughes (right), with friends C & G

Carissimi!

This week was super solid. It stated with the fact that we met with quite a few new investigators and less actives. 

We have a cool new investigator named WL. He is Peruvian and pretty excited to learn about the Book of Mormon. We will hopefully meet him again this week. 

Then we had some more fun and eventful parts, like on Saturday night. We finally got an appointment with an inactive member on Saturday. He invited us to go to a Christmas party that he was invited to. We said yes, and later that night an entourage of 5 cars came by our house. We were instructed to enter the Porsche Cayenne S in the front. We did gladly, and they proceeded to take us to one of the biggest Italian houses I have been to. It was filled with evangelical Christians and all together we sang songs about Christmas, made friends, and read scriptures. Anyways, it ended up being great, and we made a lot of cool contacts. Also, we met A (who is the less active member) and made an appointment to meet with him this week. 

On Sunday morning, we came to Terni and participated in the opening day of the Terni church building. It’s super nice and pretty much American. Anyways, it was wonderful to go and bring all the investigators to see where they will be baptized. We then had an open house at the end and it was a big success. We had nonmembers, less actives, and inactives come. I love these people.

Spiritual thought: The most happiness in our lives comes from our relationships with people. 

Love you all! 

Anziano Ridd

PS - Shout-out to Riley Dunkley who is awesome and just got called on a mission to Paris, France!

Perugia Gold - 12/11/17

Hey Guys!

This week was alright. Perugia is on fire and on the way to becoming a branch!!!

So I’ll hit the highlights. 

This week we have done great work here in Perugia keeping our great active members involved and making the inactive become more active. We had 2 priesthood holders in church that are now becoming active. 

As for that, we are doing very well. The members here are super awesome. Also our work has been okay. Despite difficulty of finding more investigators, we have nice investigators. They are mostly all progressing toward baptism and conversion. The big highlight for the week is that my good friends Anziani Osmond and Allred found gold. He is named SM. 

SM is like...18 years old and he is living on his own because he wants to be more independent as he grows up. He is super awesome and nice, and was interested when they invited him to come to English course. He speaks English perfectly and loves to learn. When he came, he soon learned about our church and was interested as he didn’t practice much of anything recently for religion. He looked up a ton of info on the church and studied it out himself. The last Sunday, he came to church on his own. Then during this week, the other Anziani met with him and he knew all of the lessons already. He totally understood everything, and was excited to accept a baptismal date in early January. He told us he always thought he was weird for having standards in high school, but now he knows that God guided him the whole time. He is so smart and fun. 

The Lord knows us perfectly. He also will guide us if we let him. He puts us in the lives of others to help them. Look around every once in awhile and try to figure out what God wants you to learn from or do to help those around you, and you will feel a higher purpose in life. I know it will also bring a lot more happiness as well. 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Anziano Ridd 

When We Accept That We Don’t Know, We Learn. If Not, We Never Progress - 12/4/17

Perugia, che bella sei tu!

Our Christmas tree

Hey Family,

So on Monday night we received our transfer calls. Not too much commotion here, all of us in Perugia are staying for another transfer. As for Terni, we still have the same sisters and Anziani Daniels and Huntsman, but we got Anziani Jensen and Becker. Pretty cool stuff, and I think we figured these changes would happen. 

With that out of the way, this week was interesting. I enjoyed a lot of it, but sadly many of our appointments fell through. That opened up our opportunity to start up our casa a casa (door to door) here. Hopefully this next week we will be able to meet with these people. 

We worked with Sorella P again this week. She is great, because she knows to ask us when she doesn’t know something. This week she told us, as we taught the Restoration, that she wants to understand scriptures more. So we taught her according to her needs. It was fun, and she is continuing to progress. 

Then on Sunday we had SN in church, along our new elder in the church. His name is BT, and he has been a member since 1999 in Nigeria. He is sweet. So that should help the church a ton. SN is on fire right now, and he is getting us new referrals and is doing all he can to serve others for the “Sii una Luce.” 

Anyways my small thought for the week is that we need to be humble. If we think we know something, we won’t search to know more. But if we are always questioning things, and if we are always humble, our progress is unlimited. I know that it’s been true for me here in the mission. Even when I have done something well 1000 times and it seems to work well, if I am humble and ask, “Is there a better way?” I can always find the answer is yes. Go search for the best way to do everything, especially in doing things for others. In doing so, our growth is unlimited. 

I love you all!

Love,

Anziano Ridd

My French toast this morning

Priceless Above All Things - 11/27/17

Anziano Hughes & Anziano Ridd with their new friend SN,
who was so grateful to be receiving his new Book of Mormon in Spanish

Thanksgiving celebration, complete with a turkey, to kick off the “Sii una Luce” or the “Light the World” initiative this December. Click here for ideas on how to help light the world this Christmas season. 

Hey guys!

This week was great. We worked a lot with members and less actives and the Lord blessed us because of it. 

To put this in some perspective, Perugia was opened to missionary service again 6 months ago after many years without elders. Before this, the members had to go to Terni (an hour or more away by car) if they wanted to go to church. So when Perugia was opened, we had a few super awesome members who were coming to church switch over and come here, and then a bunch of other people reactivated. Nowadays we usually have about 25 people (including us) that come to church each Sunday. With that being said, there are still plenty of less actives or inactive members in the area, because they don’t know where the church is (it’s so new). And right now, the obstacle we need to overcome is the fact that the missionaries are the only active priesthood holders here. We need a good 3-4 to open a branch. 

Ok, now y’all can see how Perugia is in a pioneer stage of its growth. Very exciting but very...delicate. As missionaries, it is our responsibility to edify and build the church where we are. Usually that is most effectively done by baptizing converts, but other times it’s about finding already baptized people and converting them by teaching repentance. This week, we did more of the latter, due to many of the investigators being very busy this week. 

As it turns out, the Lord wanted us to do the latter. We saw a ton of miracles.

I’ll dive into some quick numbers: 

Less actives known about before this week in Perugia - 7

Less actives known about after this week in Perugia - 14

Now I don’t actually know how accurate those numbers are, because the truth is we have more less-actives in the area; it’s just impossible to contact a lot of them. But of these people, I want to go off on a couple stories. First, a lot of these people found are men. Oh my gosh, I have never been more excited to meet with men in my life. We should meet with  two of them this week. On top of that, these two guys either live right next to where we meet for church, or are about to move there. 

It was perfect timing with one family that we saw. Two weeks earlier, their Mormon cousin moved in with them from Lima, Peru, and EL’s husband (not a fan of Mormons) was away. We brought them Books of Mormon and a message. IB, the cousin, came to church with us. But the coolest thing was when their 7-year old daughter came up to us and said how much she would like a Book of Mormon, but no one ever gave her one. We whipped one out and told her “Happy Thanksgiving” as we gave it to her. Her face just lit up. 

Now on to my favorite thing and maybe one of the biggest miracles Perugia has ever seen! Since being here I have been praying fervently to find men and people to build the church…to find the elect. (People who are truly ready to follow Christ, no matter what). This weekend we received one of the answers to these prayers. Saturday night, after a long day of finding and being stood up, we received a call from Indiana. I answered it, as it’s not a usual occurrence. Fully expecting to hear a nice American “Howdy” on the other end, I was taken aback when I was greeted by a girl speaking Italian. She said she was a sister missionary from that area and had a referral to send to us, but it was not working the usual way. And in the process, I learned that her parents taught her Italian even though she’s American. So moments later I received a text about SN. Now referrals are rare here, especially something like this one. I was beyond excited to see where it led. I called his number immediately, only to be once again talking to a woman in Italian, only this time she was from Modena (northern Italy...and no, she didn’t want to learn about Christ’s ministry in America). Disappointed that the number didn’t work, we made a plan to swing by the address we had on Sunday night. 

Sunday night shows up. We are traversing the cold (-1°C), windy, and twisted roads of the historical part of Perugia to find this address. After many wrong turns, we find his name on the buzzer. We ring it. We wait. We ring again. Then we hear a voice, “Chi è?” “Noi siamo i missionari morm-“ “SALITE! VENITE SU ELDERES!” So for those who don’t understand that, he was expecting us. We walk up the steep old Italian steps to his apartment and meet SN. SN was baptized when he was in his twenties, but since moved to many places and never went to church much. He still believes, and recently, his dear friends who are LDS from his country (Ecuador) just went through the temple and invited him to put God first as well. Well, this man has been prepared. He told us his story and how grateful he was to see us. The joy he expressed when he heard there was a church here was immense. He told us he wanted more than anything a fresh slate, a new start to his life completely dedicated to Christ. He then told us that his was sad, because all these years he hadn’t come to church and didn’t even have a Book of Mormon. Then something great happened. I pulled a Book of Mormon in Spanish from my bag and told him it was for him. This grown 45-year old man took the Book of Mormon, he hugged it and told us how important it was. He told us how he knows this is what he once had but was missing from his life - the full study of Christ’s ministry. Then he asked if we could take a picture of him with it. I obliged and I decided to take a selfie as well, to commemorate the miracle. To say the least, this man followed a spiritual prompting to contact missionaries and refer himself to us. He knows that following Jesus Christ is priceless above all things.

This week we also organized a Thanksgiving celebration on Wednesday for the members here to kick off “Sii una Luce” or the “Light the World” initiative this December. It went very well, and we even had some cool new friends I made in Terni come up! (Oh yeah, I did a scambio with Anziano Daniels in Terni). That event was great, because now our relationship with the ward and the Gans (YSA) is strong, and they are ready to help out in building the church here. Click here for ideas on how to light the world with service this special Christmas season. 

Anyways this is long. Oops.

Love you all! I hope you loved this week!

Anziano Ridd

 

Carving the turkey!