RIFLE - Week Three

Well I'm starting to realize how easy it would be to put on a ton of weight in this area. We get fed by members so much! The other night we had dinner with some members and there is a tradition of having an eating competition between the missionaries on who can eat the most wings. I was the lightweight only eating 40 while my companion had 42 and the Spanish Elders had 45 and 51. Only problem was we played basketball with some investigators right after and we were all super sick. Good times.

The work is going well. It's funny because this week felt a little slow in terms of how many lessons we got to teach but we still had way more than we'd ever had in Dartmouth. It was interesting to see how my expectations have changed for myself as I've come into this area and we've been so blessed. I'm so thankful for this area, for my companion, for the members and for the other missionaries we get to work with. It's so sweet.

It's wild how many trials the people we meet with are going through. I feel so much love for them and I can see just how much of a blessing it will be in their life if they will just accept the gospel. We were meeting with one investigator that has to be out of her house by December 1st and has no place to stay and it's a trial for her and we shared Mosiah 24:13-14 with them

13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.14 And I will also ease the burdenswhich are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

She didn't embrace it completely but we are praying for a miracle for her so that the Lord can lighten her burdens.

I love each one of you. Thank you for the letters, emails, packages, etc. It's cool to feel so supported as I'm trying to keep focused on the work.

A Lot of Teaching in Rifle

Que pasa mi raza,

Elder Yates(1st comp) and Elder DP

Sorry that one's Spanish not Portuguese. We spend a ton of time with the Spanish speaking missionaries that cover the same area as us so I get to hear Spanish way more than Portuguese. In fact we switched companions for a day for training and I went to the Spanish area and I understood everything but I could barely communicate. I could still pronounce it pretty well so I mostly read and he talked. Of course then the other day we knocked a door and they only spoke Spanish but they let me in and I taught them about the Book of Mormon in the Spanish I remembered and they said we could send the Spanish speakers over (at least I think she did). Anyways "que pasa mi raza" is how we always great each other.

I'm loving Rifle so much. It's cool to be in a small town rather than in Denver. I loved Denver but I love the small town feel where everyone knows and recognizes each other. The Members of the Church here are awesome too. They feed us SO MUCH! I barely have to buy groceries. They also come teach with us pretty regularly.

Elder DP, John (got baptized), and Elder Smelcer

We had a couple awesome experiences this week. The first was Monday evening. I had been sick all day so we didn't get to go on a hike with the other Elders but I was feeling better by the time dinner rolled around so we went to stop by the house of one of our investigators and talk to her for a bit. Her name is Sheri and she's going through a hard time where she is trying to get clean off drinking and get her kids back so we had planned on sharing a message about having the faith to get us through our trials. We started talking about it and it was exactly what she needed to hear. We had also felt like we should bring a copy of The Family: A Proclamation to the World and so when she talked about how she was having a hard time deciding what adjustments to make to the House Rules when her kids came home I pulled out the Proclamation and read a paragraph that talks about how success in family life is most likely to occur when founded on the principles demonstrated in the life of the savior, love, forgiveness, repentance, patience, etc. I had her read it out loud and half way through she began to cry. She said "this is an answer to prayer. I have been looking for something like this for so many years. Thank you so much." It was such a tender moment and I am so grateful I got to be a part of it.

We had one that was kind of cool and funny at the same time. We went to meet with a man we're teaching named Eric who believes it is his life calling to serve the world because the Lord has blessed him so much which is way cool so we're looking for service to do with him. It's interesting because he is such a talker and doesn't listen all that much. It's even more interesting because he lives with 4 other bachelors. So the other day was the first time we taught him in his home because we usually had just talked outside by his truck but he let us in and one of the guys (Bobby) had been drinking. So Eric asked "what's the good word of the day" and we shared with him a message about serving others from Mosiah 2:16-19 and talked about the service that we're doing and the service they can do but as soon as we started getting into it Bobby just started yelling at us. I say us but I mean me. He pointed at my companion and said "you're the man, I love you" and then kept looking at me and saying "put those down" and pointing at my scriptures, "what do you need those for, can't you speak for yourself" and just drilling me with questions and then not listening to the responses. It was kind of hilarious but pretty annoying as well but all the other guys just kept rolling their eyes at him as well. Anyways, the cool part is that one of the guys who we had never met was really interested in our message. His name is Abraham and he was a really quiet but humble guy. Bobby had kept ranting about how Abraham would spend all day reading his Bible and Abraham's response was about how it helped him focus on the things that matter most so we're looking forward to seeing him again soon.

Well I'm having a great time! I love getting to spend all day doing this work. We felt super blessed this week because we got to teach 25 lessons which is more than either of us have ever taught in a week. It was so nice to spend so much time in people's homes talking rather than out and about knocking and having it not go anywhere. It's cool though because even in those stretches when no one wants to talk to us there's still the feeling that we're going about the Lord's business so what we're doing is important.

One of my favorite quotes from Christ right now is when he's speaking to a man who brought his son to be healed:

"If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23).

Keep it real!

~Elder Adam Della-Piana

Trasfer to RIFLE, CO

Dearest Family and Friends,

So as you know I was transferred at the beginning of the week and I was told that I would be transferred on Thursday but didn't find out where too until Tuesday. Well on Monday Elder Yates (my last companion) emailed president and basically told him "If you're taking him away, at least send him to Rifle" which is where Elder Yates' spent the first four months of his mission and talked about it all the time. Come Tuesday at transfer meetings and Elder Yates has already been put with his new missionary fresh out of the MTC and they announce on the projector that I'm headed to serve in RIFLE! It was a pretty wild sequence of events. 

So now I'm in Rifle Colorado. Its a little town in the middle of the Mountains off of I-70. 

Rifle, CO

It's been a sweet first week, especially because I've gotten to know a bunch of the people that Elder Yates used to talk about. He served with my new companion Elder Smelcer who is a great missionary hailing from Fresno, California. He's a short, energetic water polo player who had a tough companion last transfer so he's ready to just WORK this transfer. 

The investigator that Elder Yates had talked about the most is named John and he was baptized on Friday. Elder Yates had tried really hard to come out for it but President didn't let him which was kind of disappointing since John wanted him to say the opening prayer. It was cool for me to be a part of though. Of course when I met John for the first time we were doing service at the thrift shop where he works and he couldn't pronounce my name so he just decided to call me "Dora" and then he just kept talking about how he wished it was Yates instead of me. He's super funny, he really just likes messing with people. 

John's story is actually pretty cool. Our mission is part of a pilot program for the Church's website justserve.org so we spend several hours a week serving without talking about the gospel unless the people ask. The program was just started recently and so John is one of the first people that have gotten baptized as a direct result of this program. The missionaries here go work at a thrift shop almost every day where all the proceeds go towards the food bank next door. John works at that store and one day at lunch he just started asking questions and eventually became interested in the church and turned his life around. It sure strengthens my testimony of the fact that when we "go about doing good" (PMG) and are living the principles of charity that the savior taught our example can be the best missionary tool. 

We had a bunch of other cool experiences this week. We got four new investigators this week. One was a referral through church headquarters, another is the husband of one of our investigators we haven't seen in a while that decided he would listen too, another was with a pack of drunk guys that were friendly but loud but he was sober and gave us a conversation and say we could come back and another was someone that had investigated once before but had fallen off the map and now she let us back in. 

I've started putting a quote from my studies on the top of the page in my planner daily just to give me something motivational throughout the day when I check our schedule. The other day I read in Mosiah 4 which talks about not judging beggars and imparting freely of your substance. The part that stood out to me was the line "for behold, are we not all beggars?" (Mosiah 4:10). It motivates me to try to watch out for others a little more and extend mercy as Christ does.

I love you all!

~Elder Della-Piana

It's Cool Here!

Querido todo mundo,

I hope I spelled that right, I've found that my speaking and reading are much better than my spelling in Portuguese (it means "dear everybody" in case it was too bad for Google translate to pick up). 

Elder DP & Elder Yates

Well they're shipping me out, and not to Brazil. Thursday morning one of the other Visa waiters called me and asked if there was any news on my visa and said that night they were making visa calls that night. When President called that night mid lesson and we had to call him back I was sure I had it and got super pumped. Turned out Elder Yates is just training again and so we had to adjust the awesome day we had planned out so we could go to a long training for that. It was cool though and we still had two lessons with members that evening even though we had to move everything around and got back around 5.

Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Morrison, Colorado

 I've really come to love the members and people of the Dartmouth area and so I'm kind of bummed to have to leave. We felt like we spent the whole transfer laying the groundwork with our relationship with the members as well as with solidifying our teaching pool and figuring the area out. I guess Elder Yates will just get to reap the benefits next transfer. He'll be training again and hopefully he won't mess the next one up as bad as he did with me. (just playing he's a great trainer I love him to death)

This week was sure an interesting one. Tuesday we had a good lesson with Roland and chose December 14th as the date for his baptism. He's very excited and we are sure glad he chose to move that up from March. It feels like usually we come in and he teaches us. He reads from the Gospel Principles manual like it's his day job and so when we started the lesson about the Sabbath day he took off and explained it to us. I swear he's already a member and is just playing with us. 

Then Wednesday we were super excited about a guy named Kenneth that's my age and believes in God but doesn't go to church and we gave him the Book of Mormon and this was our follow-up but when we got there he was super sick. His mom answered and was very nice and said we could come back but we haven't caught him home again since then. Once that fell through and our backup plans went sour we went to some appartments where we had randomly stopped to help some people move in a couple weeks ago. We tracked for an hour and a half with not even a conversation but we kept our heads up and we were joking and having a good time just to keep a positive attitude. Finally a man named Charles let us in. He was moving from California and finding work in the area so he could be here with his Fiance. He let us in to talk for a bit. He said that several years back his wife and son had been killed in a car accident and they had been going to church and studying the bible so he didn't understand how God could have let that happen and it had destroyed his faith in God but he wished he could believe. We talked to him about faith and trials and were able to explain it in terms he could understand. He thanked us and said "You guys may leave, but tonight I'm going to be thinking about what you said. I've been waiting for a long time for someone to explain it to me in a way I could understand because I don't get it when I read the bible." The spirit was there so strongly and I felt many times guided to what to say. It made up for how difficult our afternoon had been. 

Thursday was tricky because it was Halloween so we could only have set appointments and when we couldn't get many we ended up spending the evening with a less-active family just fellowshipping them. It's fun to be around them because they're from Maine and her Mainah Accent makes me feel like I'm back home. 

Friday we had a long training for new trainers that I sat through even though I'm being follow-up trained. It was actually pretty good. I felt the spirit and was able to learn things that I can do just as a regular missionary. Then we had another lesson with Roland where he basically taught us the law of chastity because he had read it that morning and that's what we had prepared for. He even got down to the idea of clean thoughts as well as actions. He's golden. Then we had an awesome lesson with Kathy where we thought that the Sister that was supposed to teach with us wasn't coming but by some miracle she showed up even though we had dropped the ball on communicating with her and she helped SO MUCH and invited Kathy to an activity and really just made the lesson better with her testimony. 

Then this weekend was pretty hard. We literally had two of the best days we had ever planned for and EVERYTHING fell through. All of both days. It was rough. Yet, it was still an awesome experience. Saturday we contacted a referral from headquarters thinking it was a self referral and it turns out she had no idea who had referred her but even though she's not a member she has a daughter serving an LDS mission in Sacramento and she said she has some unanswered questions about the church and invited us back so that was sweet. Then Sunday we were fasting for our missionary efforts and we had made a goal to make it a full twenty-four hours. It was hard. We biked all day, had little success, had to bump back and inconvenience our dinner appointment to do it and ended up starting the meal after 25 hours but when we broke our fast there was such an outpouring of the spirit that I knew the Lord had honored our sacrifice and that our mission will be able to see the windows of heaven open. 

Today we went to Red Rocks with the less-active from Maine that I mentioned. His name is Brother Blake. He is SO funny. The rock formations there were amazing and the ampitheatre would be so cool to be at for an actual concert. I am so going back there when I get home. We went geocaching which was cool. It was the first time I've done it. Look it up it's pretty sweet. We found two of the three we looked for. Brother Blake looked it up and I guess there's one across the street from my house in Maine haha. Look it up for more info. I'm loving it here, having the time of my life. I'll try to shoot off a quick email tomorrow with my new address so you can all write me :)

Eu amo voces!
~Elder Della-Piana

Mom Says to Write More!

Hey y'all,

So I got an email from my mom saying they have to tell people "as far as we know he's doing great." I guess I need to lengthen out my emails a bit. 

I really am doing well. I love being a missionary. It's hard, often we have long stretches with little success but there are so many little miracles that make it worth it. 

So a little more about my companion. His name is Elder Yates, he's from Oregon and lives on mount hood. He is very service oriented and is always looking to do stuff for people. We ended up busting concrete and then pouring new concrete foundation on Saturday for a deck that one of our investigators is building. We do a good job together in lessons because we both know our stuff and are seeking to follow the spirit. It's fun too because he might play college basketball when he gets home (I can still beat him 1 on 1 though). 

As for the work it was a good week and a hard week. We had one of our best days in a long time on Friday. We were in homes teaching with members almost all day and those lessons each felt like they really helped our investigators feel the spirit and see the things they can do to progress.

It started off with our investigator that is progressing the fastest. His name is Roland and he's about 70 years old. He referred himself to the missionaries by calling the mission home and asking for a large Book of Mormon. When we dropped it off to him he asked, "is there any way you could come back and explain the church a bit more to me?" Naturally we got super excited and when we came back four days later he apologized for only reading 10 chapters! (We normally struggle to get people to read a full chapter in a week.) "I'm really just trying to take it slow and soak it all in" he said. So we explained the restoration to him and asked if he would be baptized and he looked at us and said "of course." He explained that his wife died and he's lonely so he really wants to have a place for fellowship and something that will inspire him so that's why he asked for the Book of Mormon because he knew so many Mormons through the years that seemed so happy. He keeps saying "if only I had this 40 years ago."

He's definitely an example of someone that has been prepared by people that have been planting seeds. When we explained the priesthood to him he said "yeah, you have melchizedek and aaronic right?" and we asked him how he knew that and explained that he worked with a Mormon once that he was driving home from the airport and explained it to him. He said "yeah, people said he would go far, his name was Monson, have you heard of him?" and we said "Thomas?" and he said, "yeah, did he end up becoming president or anything?" We're pretty sure he's already a member and is just messing with us at this point. 

It's super inspiring to work with him. It shows me that the Lord is preparing people all over the place and we just need to find them. We biked past his place ten times before we got that referral from Headquarters and all that time he was waiting there being prepared. He's going to set a date for early December so hopefully I'll still be around for that, not that I'd complain if my visa came in but I really love this man. He has some back issues and so originally when we talked about when he would be baptized he said "you gotta be patient with me, I'll do it but I want my back to be well for it. So how's... sayy... March?" Ahhh, I'm sure glad he's healed well since the blessing we gave him and he feels good enough to do it sooner.

Well that's been the big miracle from this area. There's been little ones too though. Of course it feels like a small miracle any time someone invites us back. We just met a kid my age that plays basketball and believes in God but doesn't go to church and we really felt the spirit when we talked with him and as I encouraged him to read the Book of Mormon. We're going back on Wednesday so we'll see how that turns out next week. 

I wish I could write about all of the people we're teaching but I can't. Here's one more though before my companion drags me away to go get our p-day stuff done. His name is Emilio and we're teaching his whole family. He really knows how important God will be in his life as he raises his kids. The cool part is that when we stopped by the first time after he said we could come by some time he told us about a dream he had the night before where we were riding our bikes in the rain and there was a light around us and we were completely dry while all the elements were clashing around us. He's been really good about having his kids join the discussion and hopefully they're coming to church next week. 

I'm having a good time, I love sharing this message, I'm getting better at staying on my bike, and I love you all.

Que perseverem ate o fim,

~Elder Della-Piana

Bike Crash #1

Hello Everybody,

Colorado is a mighty interesting place. Maybe it's just being a missionary here. In fact I'm sure that's what it is.

President and Sister Murdock
with Elder DP

I met my first false prophet this week. He claimed to be "Bishop, Apostle, Prophet and Reagent of the United States of America." He talked a lot about how many billions of dollars Obama owed him by divine right and how the United States would struggle until he received it. It was actually kind of sad because he looked like he was probably homeless and it was a bit scary how serious he was about it. I also had a drunk guy toast me and then yell at me to go back to Utah. Ahhhh good times.

I also had some awesome experiences. Last night we had a devotional with Matthew Holland, President of UVU and son of Jeffery R. Holland. He shared with us how he knew the Book of Mormon is true. He said that he went to the mountains to pray and try Moroni's promise but he prayed and fasted and read and kept doing all these things and felt nothing. Finally after a crazy attempt to summit another peak he was on his way back down and he had the line "line upon line, precept upon precept" running through his head. When he talked to his father about it he realized that that was how he had developed a testimony. He already had one. He had learned bit by bit as he experimented upon the word and found that it was true by experience. It made me think of my own knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I am sure that the Book of Mormon is the word of God because every time I read it my mind is enlightened and I gain new insight and feel that peace that can only be explained as the spirit. Although for me it was not one spectacular moment of the Spirit as some people have described I believe that our witness of truth can come in many different ways as we seek it humbly.

One super cool experience I had this week was that we had a super motivational Zone Meeting and I got really fired up to talk to everyone I saw and the first person we came across gave us a conversation! That never happens. He had actually investigated the church previously and talked about how he had half-heartedly tried Moroni's promise and didn't feel anything after he read a couple pages. He talked about how he assumed that other people had and that not every member of the church was dishonest or hadn't received it but he expressed a desire to hear people express how they had received that promised witness. We explained to him what a Fast and Testimony meeting was and how he could come to a meeting where he would feel that and then I shared with him my experience of how I came to believe that the Book of Mormon is true and that the teachings of this church are true. After all of that it turned out that the day after he was leaving to move to Minnesota and so we won't get to hear the end of the story but he told us he would go to a Testimony Meeting on Sunday and try it out again. He was a super humble guy and very astute. He posed some really good doctrinal questions that were sincere and we were able to clarify misunderstanding as well as explain to him what we believed. It was an all around superb experience. It was cool to see how sometimes you will plant a seed and never know how it turns out.

So our area is one ward and we bike the entire distance. I'm still getting used to the whole biking thing. The other day we were going down a hill and I had a loony-toon-esque crash. I was reaching back with my right hand to get a flashlight from my bag as it was getting dark and we were headed down an unlighted trail. As I was doing this my companion slowed down quickly to make a turn. I reacted quickly so I wouldn't run into him and hit the brakes. Unfortunately my left brake is my front one and as we all know when you hit your front break your bike tips forward. This, combined with my exceeding momentum, caused me to catapult over my handlebars. I almost caught myself on my feet but I lost it and went down hard on my hands. Fortunately there was a patch of grass to my left and I was able to roll myself onto the grass so my looong skid would be a bit softer - whether this was by my own quick instincts or maybe some kind of Angels in the Outfield type thing I am as of yet unsure. My wrist has been a bit sore since it and I was pretty scraped up but other than that I came away in one piece which was good.

I love you all, thank you for the emails and letters. You are all in my prayers and I'm thankful for yours as I serve the Lord.

Ate Mais,

~Elder Della-Piana

Conference Weekend

Chilli and Cheese on Eggo Waffles
(Normal people don't even think of doing this - missionaries do)

There are so many things I want to write about today but I don't have very much time. This weekend's conference was so sweet!!! I came away from each session with added understanding and increased desire to do the Lord's work.

Adam said it snowed hard and melted quickly
(Snow is tricky when you packed for BRAZIL)

This week we had a lot of hard days, but many rewarding experiences on top of them. It's hard to talk to so many people that are not interested in even talking to us. We've had days where we have spent hours trying to contact people that had been interested or trying to meet new people and had no success. It's hard to have a message that is so precious to my life be so easily rejected by other people. Even when we just offer a card so they can contact us with service opportunities we get shot down regularly. Fortunately, I know the Lord's hand is in this work and there are people out there that we will be able to help.

We got to the email late and we're getting kicked out but we are excited about one investigator that apologized for "only reading 10 chapters" of 1 Nephi and has been prepared by positive experiences with members throughout the years. He even knew President Monson from work. He rocks.

Sorry this is so short, I love you all

~Elder Della-Piana