We first visited with many of our members to encourage them
to come and join with us to watch conference on Sunday (instead of watching it
at home on their computers), so that we could feel each other's spirits and
rejoice together.
Here we are eating pizza at a great pizzeria in Siena that
is tucked away in the corner of a small piazza where most tourists would never
find it. Our wonderful English sister,
Emily, found this place and we are so glad she did. We talked over pizza and encouraged her to
join us on Sunday for conference, and we were so happy when she came on Sunday
to feast on the word of God.
 |
| Emily and Bonnie, and our small, individual pizzas! |
 |
| Yes, Darryl ate it all. Bonnie only got through half of hers, so we had great leftovers. |
We planned a full afternoon of conference on Sunday. We first split into groups and the sisters
listened to the General Women's Conference from the week before, while the
brethren listened to the Priesthood session.
We hooked it up so we had some rooms in Italian and some in English.
After listening to these sessions, we prepared a wonderful
branch dinner, where Brother Natale made two kinds of pasta; one with a rich
red ragù, and then a wonderful Carabonara.
We supplemented that with other things that the members and
investigators brought to share, and we had a marvelous feast.
 |
| After a great dinner! Brother Natale, our great cook, is standing on a chair next to our 6'8" elder. |
Then, when 6 p.m. rolled around, we gathered around the
computers, monitors and TVs again, where we all watched live the Sunday morning
session of conference.
We were truly fed by living prophets who warned us that the
tides of opposition and persecution against the precepts of God would continue
to rise. And as Elder Holland so
eloquently stated in his Saturday morning discourse, "we must defend the
gospel with courtesy and compassion, but we must defend it!" Man's laws, no matter how much popular
opinion might be shifting to accept what is contrary to God's commandments,
cannot and will not change God's laws. The
time to stand is now!
Bonnie followed up a wonderful Conference weekend with a
branch family night centered on the things that we learned in Conference. It was wonderful to listen to our members'
thoughts about General Conference and the important truths that they pulled
out; those that were answers to their own personal prayers.
On Tuesday the elders asked us to assist with a lesson on
the Book of Mormon with one of their investigators. It was a great experience watching them teach
this fine sister, and then having the chance ourselves to share our own
testimonies of the Book of Mormon, the First Vision, and the divine calling of
the Prophet Joseph Smith. She committed
to read more in the Book of Mormon, and to seek and pray to see if it is a good
seed that will grow into a testimony.
That same afternoon we took our sister missionaries with us
to visit a sister and her son who live in Poggibonsi. This good sister is working hard to support
her little family, and we are trying to help her return to activity. While she isn't coming to Church quite yet,
she is reading the children's illustrated Book of Mormon stories to her
six-year old son, and he is truly learning the stories of that great book. In fact, Darryl showed him some of the
pictures from that book that went along with the home teaching message that he
was teaching, and this six-year old was able to recall and share the gist of
the story. It was fun!
It seems like the card game "Bang" has become
quite popular with the elders in the mission.
Many play that game on their P-days (hopefully not on other days). One of our Siena elders got a set of cards
and wanted to play on P-day. So we went
down to the Church on Wednesday afternoon and schooled them quite nicely. Bonnie won two games, and Darryl won the
other. They may not invite us to play
again.
Yesterday two Senior Couples serving in our mission came to
visit Siena.
 |
| Brother and Sister Keefer, Bonnie, Brother and Sister Harmer |
So we took a few hours out of our day to show them around
this beautiful city. Bonnie and two
others decided to climb the tower at the Piazza del Campo (the tallest
"secular" tower in all of Italy), to take in the spectacular views
from the top. (Darryl is saving his
energy to tackle this climb in a few weeks when Kara and Chris come to
visit.) The day was gorgeous and the
views tremendous!
 |
| The Tower |
 |
| Looking down on the Campo |
 |
| And over toward the Duomo |
 |
| Bonnie at the top! Proof she made it! |
 |
| San Domenico from the top of the Tower |
We also toured Siena's gorgeous Duomo, with its Museum,
Baptistery and Crypt. Some very great
stuff!
 |
| The baptismal font |
 |
| Christ standing in the River Jordan getting water poured over his head. A bit incongruous, but that was the belief in the 1400's when this painting was done. |
Finally, although we are here in Italy preaching the
restored gospel with all the keys of the Priesthood and the authority to act in
the name of God, we are always reminded that the world is filled with wonderful
people not of our faith who are striving to live the teachings of the Savior.
We walked by Siena's Catholic Charity center that does so
much good for the homeless and hungry in the city, and we snapped a couple of
shots of the great goals of this Christian service organization.
The Seven Spiritual Works of Charitable Service
1. Counsel the doubters.
2. Teach the ignorant.
3. Admonish the sinners.
4. Console the afflicted.
5. Forgive offenses.
6. Patiently support molested persons.
7. Pray to God for the living and the dead.
As we strive to serve our Lord to the best of our abilities, it is our prayer that all of us will look beyond ourselves and reach out to help those in need, wherever we might find them. Let's not get so caught up in our own small spheres of existence that we don't see the greater community and ignore those we can truly help.
Remember, we are the Lord's hands in accomplishing His great
work!
No comments:
Post a Comment