6/1/2016 (week 83/104)

Transfer time already!! I will be staying In Como but we are sad to announce that Anziano Thomas will be leaving 😦 which kills me because he has been absolutely flipping fantastic to me. We really hoped for a third transfer together!! BUT. If anything could’ve happened we are glad that what happened is the truth: Anziano Thomas will be going ZL in Verona with Anziano Harbin, who we just lived with last transfer, and my new comp will be Anziano Mortezazadeh!!!!!!! I can still remember when we were in the Varese district together for 6 months and we would always joke about how we would be Capi (ZL) in Como together. And now it’s happening! The Lord is too good to me! We are excited to get working together in the two wards, and our simps are also making fantastic progress!! For example, we had a French Elder come down from Switzerland last week to teach one of our simps in French, and he became even more converted to the gospel that he now loves. He reads his scriptures every day for four hours. WHO DOES THAT?????? We love him more than I think he will ever know!!! Also, our district here will be having three baptisms next month, so you could say things are going miraculously!! This place is truly paradise.

I want each and every one of you to know that I truly and sincerely love you all, thank you for your support, and care for your welfare. If there is anything I can do other than thank you all, let me know!!

Anziano Squire

Anziano Thomas and I

A day spent in Menaggio

5/11/2016 (week 80/104)

Thank you all for the birthday wishes!!! I had a good one because I was able to do some good service for others this week!

Due to the fact that the other Anziani here got closed (sent to another area) and we are working with both Como wards now, we are extremely busy and are constantly trying to balance all the simps, members, less actives, etc. It’s nice, haha. Honestly, going from transfers where we had two simps and members that didn’t want to meet, it is really nice to have a good playground to work with! This past week has been a tad difficult due to the fact that it’s been raining and so none of our African or Italian simps have been showing up to our appointments, but I’m sure it can’t rain forever. The coolest thing that happened was with a man from Senegal that we met named Bara, who really only speaks French and a few words in English and Italian, but we were prompted to go talk to him so we know it will work out!! When we had our first lesson yesterday it was just about Jesus Christ and His role in the world because Bara is a Muslim. We shared “Because of Him” and “Hallelujah” videos, both in French, and then he just stopped for a minute and said in very broken Italian “4 and 6”. We had no idea what he was saying so we asked what he said and he pointed to the clock that said “4:06” and then again said “4 and 6…..today…..I go Christian…..4 and 6 today…..we….Christian…..we friends forever…..”

It was honestly one of the most special moments of my entire mission because it was truly a man changing his life in one moment. He said that in his country you will be murdered if you worship Christ but he is happy to be here so he can, because he believes firmly in Christ. It really makes you think of what we take for granted.

I know he will go places and I thank God for a simp that has strong and sincere desire to learn!!! It is such a miracle and we love him!!!! Ever since that lesson we found out that he stays up for a long time most nights to read the Book of Mormon. Truly he must be an angel.

Till next time,

Anziano Squire
The original MTC Zone back together for the day!

Beautiful Lake ComoHanging out for the day in Lenovo with Gabriele and Patrik.

Italian grocery store with fresh meat and cheese.Our Zone 

4/20/2016 (week 77/104)

Ciao tutti!!

We haven’t really had a real P-day more than two times this transfer, due to meetings, appointments, and exchanges we have had to do, so I have had no time to be able to write these!!! My suggestion, if you want updated info on me for these last 5 months just email me directly and ask what you would like to know! I can’t guarantee the blog updates will happen very often anymore :p not that they are happening very often right now, but you get the point….

Anyways things are going fantastically here in beautiful ol’ Como, and the work is really flying off! We got 5 new simps (investigators) this past week!!!! 5 OF THEM!!!! I haven’t had a week that good in many months!! I know we are being blessed by the Lord and we are seeing the success as we are trying to pay more attention to what the Spirit is saying as
we do finding work. For example, as we walk around in the giant groups of tourists and such, we search around us and listen for specific promptings on specific people to stop, because if you stopped everyone out here you would go through a lot of tourists and shoppers and miss
the real people who are interested. It has been a real blessing you could say, and we are extremely happy with the way life is going!! 

Anziano Thomas, to add, is an absolutely incredible missionary and an even better man. The only way to describe him, that I can think of, is the human embodiment of a ray of sunshine. He always has a spectacular aura of happiness and love around him, and it really plays off to the blessing of those we meet with and teach! Not to mention, me.

As for right now we have also been doing a lot of work recently with all of the refugees, especially from Nigeria, and I would encourage all of you to look up President Kearon’s talk from this last General Conference to gain more insight into their lives. It truly does change you and I love that people with all of heart. They are family to me. I am even learning Nigerian Pidgin English to better communicate and connect with them and it really has a hilarious effect!! The reactions they give when they see a well dressed white guy start speaking their
broken english dialect blows them completely off of their feet and they laugh out of sheer disbelief as well as open up tremendously. It is honestly one of the funniest things I have ever seen, to see their reactions as I speak their language and do their handshakes. 

Big news, or maybe not so, is that transfer calls are this week already! I think Thomas and I will be staying together but there is hearsay that he will be going AP (Assistant to the President) so we will have to see what happens!!

I love you all and wish you the greatest week!! Again, feel free to email me if you want to talk, get more frequent updates, or even just say hi!!!

Anziano Squire

My email address is: squire.jacob@myldsmail.net

With Mahesh & Friends in MilanoComo at nightMy apartment in ComoComoComoComoComoComoMilanBrunate

3/23/2016 (week 73/104)

I know, I know. It’s been an entire month! But we haven’t had a great amount of time lately!! Here’s what happened: I was transferred to the beautiful lake city of Como where I am now with an absolutely STALWART companion named Anziano Thomas (who is also the nicest man on planet earth). Right now, we are serving as the Zone Leaders of the Milano Ovest Zone which covers Milano, Como, Busto Arsizio, Varese, and the Swiss section of the mission, which comprises of Italian speaking Switzerland. What can I say? I’m happier than I’ve been in a very very long time. Definitely the happiest on my whole mission. Being a ZL was described to me as thus: you are a normal missionary, you just have a much grander pool of people to serve that now includes the missionaries in the entire zone. And what an opportunity it is!!! Having more people and more opportunities to serve is the greatest thing in the world, and it is truly the reason why I am so happy. Not only that, but the work is starting to really blow up in Como right now, seeing as we found 6 new people last week, will try to set 6 baptismal dates this week, and the other guys should be having about 5 baptisms next month!!!!! What????? I seriously don’t feel like I am in Italy any more 🙂

I hope to get time to write more soon but until then I love you all and wish you all a wonderful week!!!!

Anziano Squire

We live right next to the lake so we do lake studies occasionally.

 The last group of missionaries in Como.

3/2/2016 (week 70/104)

Ciao Tutti!!

Beenawhile hey?

So, lots of developments recently!! First off, I’ve been sick for a few weeks which is kind of a let down, but I have been able to do someR&R at the apartment, which I have discovered that I desperately needed!

     As for the fun stuff though, we have been moving forward with our member project and we have been finding families!! Multiple families!! It is one heck of a miracle and I know that it has all been led by God’s hand because this kind of success is not normal here! Also, a few weeks agoIi gave all the transcripts, plans, write-ups, everything really, to President Dibb and he said he would have to take a closer look. Next thing I know, we are at a zone conference a week ago and our zone leaders introduce a new “member missionary plan” that Dibb has given them
to institute throughout the whole mission. BAM. Fill up the font boys! Seriously, I could not be happier with the way this thing is turning out!!! 

     Another big thing, we met a new guy named Nicolas a few nights ago that we set a baptism date with that night! He is incredible, and we introduced him to the gospel library app, so he’s been reading like crazy! In fact, when we went to teach him about the restoration
yesterday, he had already seen and read everything that we were going  to share with him. All he says is, “I know its true!!!! It makes complete sense!!!” 

                                                Where did you come from??

     But yeah, we have 3 baptisms coming in the district within the next month and a half, including Nicolas, so you can say things are going wonderfully! Transfer calls are this week though so we will have to see what happens. I think Allred and I won’t be staying together for a fourth transfer, so I’m 95% sure that one of us will get moved! I’ll keep you all updated!

Cultural Bit: Some people in this region of Italy don’t even speak Italian, they just speak Venetian dialect. It is the ugliest sounding thing in the world.

Spiritual Bit: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isa. 1:18)”

     We have a very specific promise from the Lord of the reality of His Atonement and the living reality of cleansing. It is a simple and very complete process, and all we have to do is ask for it! But how often do we reach for the wool? How often do we really seek out the snow? Do we believe in the reality and literal possibility of the cleansing? Or do we each believe, deep down in our hearts, that there will always remain a faint stain? Do we really have the simple certainty that our faith brings, that we can be completely clean?

     One of Satan’s greatest weapons is making us question ourselves, making us think of ourselves as undeserving commoners, no more worthy to blessings and divinity than ground we walk on. Even as he approached Moses after Moses’ glorious vision of the heavens given by
the Father (Moses 1:1-25,) he first tried to make Moses forget his true identity with the patronizing platitude “Moses, SON OF MAN, worship me”. Striking down the divinity in us, he searches to constrict us to the degrading dogmas of eternal anonymity and unworthiness. He doesn’t want us to think of ourselves as the children of God that we really  are and of the reality of the “snow”. But, as the Lamb lives, we ARE worthy of the “wool”. 

     If we have the faith to push aside the downgrading darts of the devil and make full use of the sacrificing atonement, then we can have faith in a full healing. If we don’t believe it is for us, then we will never achieve it.

     You don’t have to suffer anymore because someone already bore that yolk. It may seem like we must take upon ourselves greater pain and a greater punishment, but for a love we can’t comprehend, and in a way we can’t fully understand, we don’t have to.

     Our Brother made it possible. Have the “faith to be healed” and “be of good cheer” for it is truly “according to [our] faith that [we] will be healed”. This I share in His sacred name, amen.

Till next time in……Tuscany? Maybe? 

Anziano Squire

   Padua

    
  

Eight of us went to the American Military Base Commissary and stocked up on American food! 

   
  
 

2/10/2016 (week 67/104)

MIRACLES. TONS OF THEM.

So, after two days of this new transfer, we as a district, have two new baptismal dates with VERY SOLID simps. I am more sure than I have ever been that these two will be baptized and we are so excited at how fast the work is going right now!! As a result of the project too, we have a brand new family to work with that are friends of some of our members!!! FRUITS I TELL YOU!

Another new thing, is that we have two new elders. Elder Cabrera and Elder Brown, who are two hard working Elders that are excited to get the work moving here!! Not much else is new, but I can say we are really seeing the Lord’s hand with all the new people we are receiving, and I know now more than ever that the Lord has a very active hand in our work and is guiding the things that we do. New horizons are dawning out here and it will begin making sense soon why this city used to be the center of the mission!!!

Not much time, but know that I love you all and your prayers and support are really going towards helping out the work here, so thank you all!! I am the happiest I have been on my mission right now and I couldn’t thank the Lord enough!

Love,

Anziano Squire 

 
  
Me and Anziano Allred at the Villa Pisani in Stra, Italy.

1/27/2016 (week 65/104)

Ciao tutti!!!

Ok, so it has been a while since I have written last, due to the fact that we have been fighting a multiple front war out here with implementing the member project in the ward, working with over 20 simps now, and lastly, working with a nice little illness that has been making its way around our apartment and into my insides. Too much info? Oh well.

As for the project, I have spoken with my Grandfather, who used to be a Mission President in Portland, Oregon, and he actually said to have a project very similar to the one we were endeavoring to create. He said that the one he researched and rolled out made his mission the highest baptizing mission in the United States, and that they were averaging about 120 baptisms every month. The success was unreal, and so we hope to do the same. What did we do? Well, I pretty much scrapped most of what we had and rolled it out with the plan of my incredible Grandpa.

I have finished the meetings and presentations with the ward leadership, the Ward Council, and my Mission President, and now the final part is to present it to the ward in a large, combined meeting with the whole ward next week!

It was cool because I was speaking with the President last week about the
Project, and he said that it was exactly the type of thing that they were hoping on implementing in the mission here, but were still in the process of planning. Now, with the information from the plan we have been working on down here in my area, we might be able to initiate a mission-wide plan based off of this one!!!! COOL STUFF ERR’BODY. Cool stuff. Just gotta give thanks to the Lord on this one because He has given us everything on a silver platter and planned out so much of this for us. This would not have been even the slightest bit doable without Him. 

As for us though, the next transfer will be next week and I can only guess that I will be staying here to further the plan among the members, but I honestly don’t know what will happen with the others!!!! I guess we will have to see in a few days when we get the calls. Who knows though!!!

Cultural Bit: Missionary culture time!!!! It is likely that in whatever area you serve in, the nearest pizza joint will know the missionaries VERY well, have a basic grip on the doctrine, have attended church once or twice, and even give you discounts for “frequent purchasing.”

Spiritual Bit: I had many discourses that I would have loved to share from what I learned the past few weeks, but one of the greatest things I think I can put here, is the article from the December, 2015 Ensign called, “Christmas with the Dombrowskis”. I don’t think there is much else to be said or shared than the sweet spirit invoked by this first hand account of a humble Christmas. I urge you all to read it! Christmas with the Dombrowskis

I love you all and wish you each the best of weeks!!

Anziano Squire

1/6/2016 (week 62/104)

Ciao tutti!

Things have been really picking up here and time is becoming slimmer by the minute so I might only be able to update this every two weeks! Sorry!!!

These past few weeks have been grand and things are starting to explode on a nice scale, I could say. For example we have found 4 new people so far this week, which is more than I have gotten some transfers haha. They are really solid people too!! One of them we had the feeling to call even though he was dropped a year ago for having moved to Calabria. He said it was impeccable timing because he was going to move back to Padova in about 3 days hahaha. WHAT??? He is golden and even accepted a soft baptismal invite last year with the
missionaries. He is wonderful and speaks Italian and English fluently. I love him already!!! 

Another cool instance was Saturday night, which will double as my spiritual thought. We were walking on our way to a lesson in the rain when we walked past this young man and briefly said hi as we passed. “You should’ve given him an English class card” I just kept hearing in
my mind over and over. Finally, about 2 minutes later, I stopped and just said, “Anziano…. we need to go back and talk to that man.” He replied with a “he’s gotta be far back though, but I’m down.” I knew we might not catch up because it was a far ways back that we saw him but we started back when I suddenly heard “RUN” fairly shouted into my head. We ran. About 5 minutes later we found him. It must have been a bit frightening to him to see these two men in suits run after him but we had a genial conversation! 

“Hey!! I know this is a bit odd, but would you be interested in going to a free English class we teach??”

“Actually yeah, me and thirty other of my friends, who all just moved here to Italy, all want to learn English and we were just talking about it today!!! Where can I go to learn??”

Brothers and sisters, when the spirit tells you to run, you run. There is very well a needy soul on the end of your trek.

In addition, we are about to launch that member project in a week or two, we are just finishing up the last touches on the plans right now and trying to run it through the ward council/hold a formal presentation to display the various phases, everyone’s parts and expected duties, etc. It should yield great results!

Cultural Bit: Tennis shoes with suits are worn by the public fairly often. I hate it.

Ciao e a tutti una buona settimana!

Anziano Squire

12/23/2015 (week 60/104)

Oh man, I am doing poorly at this whole blog thing! I apologize to each one of you that reads this!

So, Christmas time encroaches upon us and at this moment we can revel in the joy and hope of a better life to come. For the spiritual message today I wish to pronounce my knowledge of the fact that we can each receive beauty in this life in the place of the calamity, strength in place of weakness, and tears of joy in place of tears of sorrow. Now is the time to change life and make a better day, because our dear Brother suffered so that we might. Let your joy fill where the sorrow has carved you and feel the “song of redeeming love”. Now is the time to celebrate and give thanks, for love has truly birthed a new future for us. It was this love that brought Christ to the earth for us; this love that brought Him to minister to us; this love that made Him weep from happiness and pain for us; this love that brought Him to His knees and up to the cross for us. This love was focused on others. May we seek this love and seek to have it for each other, for it will be given to us if we but ask with a sincere heart! (Moroni 7) And what does He ask? That we love Him, and that we follow Him. In this there is happiness, so what are we running from?

The most important thing I wish to express, however, is the vital fact that we don’t forget about Him after this season, for as He was born for us, He yet lives this day. Let’s love Him, dear brothers and sisters, and show Him our appreciation for the way He lived, by the way we live. Sacrifice, and you will show love. Let us not answer negatively to the ever so gentle question that He asks each one of us, “will ye also go away? (John 6:67)”. I pray that we continue our journey with Him, and grow in the love that He so freely offers us.

Comunque, these past two weeks have been very good and we have been doing a lot of really solid work!!!! The only downside is that Renzo practically dropped himself in a tired exclamation saying that he was not ready to fill the deep void inside of him with the gospel yet. It kills me to see. He is a very depressed individual, and I understand that sometimes it is easier to stay in the sorrow where you are habituated to the cold, than try to make a leap out in faith. Truly, I know how that feels. But, I know how good that joy is when you finally do take that leap and feel the joy of life again, and this gospel is how he is to do it. He knows it too, but just wants time….

Other than that, we had another lesson with our new miracle girl, Ariana, which was quite exciting really, but I kind of forgot how to talk to girls younger than 40 it seems. so it reached a fun little level of awkward until we got to the spiritual aspect of the lesson. Luckily, we had a stellar member who just came back from her mission in Australia and she was able to give us some assistance, and a helping hand to Ariana in giving her a friend in this city! When she gets back from Tuscany in January from vacation, we will continue the teaching with her, but it is going very well!!

Then, last night we attended a Christmas party held by our investigator Wilfred, and there were about 10 people crowded in his little shop! There was hardly the space, but we (as the Africans would say) “clapped our hands and praised God together!” I have really grown to love African parties because it’s all centered around God, the joy in life, and being a brother to one another. Good stuff, and we will be visiting the apartment of about 6 of them next week, so that is wonderful!!

Lastly, we know that our relationship with the members is growing to quite a strong point because they gave us about 40 pounds of food this last Sunday, and we were so happy we nearly cried. Ok, it was just me that nearly cried BUT STILL!! This is incredible, considering they did not like the missionaries when I first showed up. We can now launch a full scale, multiple tier member missionary plan that Anziano Allred and I have been planning and setting up for months. I am so excited.The project we are basing this off of had unreal success in Como. FILL UP THE FONT BOYS.

Cheers everyone, and I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!!!

Anziano Squire

   
 Need a letter to make it really bad? Just post some Italian security on it!!!

12/9/2015 (week 58/104)

Ciao tutti!!!!

MIRACLES THIS WEEK. Allred and I have been going for a 21 lesson week, as part of a challenge from our President and it has been going incredibly!!!!!!! We have so far found about four new people, one a professor for international law, and another a Tuscan girl who is also very interested!!! We have been just trying to trust the Lord more on the finding and thanking Him every step of the way, and we are really seeing growth. Let me tell you all about the girl though!!!! We found her 30 min walk outside of our normal tracking area just sitting on a

bench and we decided to just give her a card for the new Christmas video of the church. When we gave it to her we saw that she had been crying and so we asked if she was ok! Floodgates. Big ones. Wrong question…..or, actually the right one. We talked for a good long while with her about life, and other things and she really began to cheer up. After the friendly conversation, we went into a Christmas lesson and bore an incredibly powerful testimony to her where all three of us where crying at the end. After that, we said a prayer for her and her family and at the end she was so happy and emotional she gave me a hug. FREAKED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME. Was not expecting that one!!! We were able to get her contact info though, and she wants to meet again so we will bring a member with us that is also around the same age and we think that we will be able to make amazing progress with her, she is so ready!!!!!

Good week y’all. Don’t have time for the other parts but know that I wish you all a wonderful week!!!

Anziano Squire

  Anziano Allred took this photo in a Vatican owned church here in Padova that apparently he couldn’t take. He didn’t know, hahaha.

Prato della Valle in Winter. (Prato della Valle is a 90,000 square meter elliptical square in Padova, Italy. It is the largest square in Italy, and one of the largest in Europe.)