In Rifle for Christmas!

I'm in Rifle for another transfer!!!

Last week my companion was talking to president and President told him that he has one more transfer in Rifle, but said nothing about me except for that my visa wasn't in yet so we assumed this meant I would leave since there's a good chance my visa will be in by the end of the next transfer so they should bring someone in to take over the area. NOPE! Saturday night we got a call from our Zone Leaders and they said "We have some transfer news for you" like one of us was out and then said "YOUR BOTH STAYING! Keep tearing it up elders." We didn't see that coming at all. We're pumped though, it's going to be so much easier this transfer to help people develop their faith now that we've spent so much time strengthening our relationship with them.

We met an awesome new family this week that we started teaching. We were given their phone number by a member of the Rifle 2nd ward and told to talk to them because the mom wanted a way to help her son have a good foundation while he's going through the trials of high school. We went over and visited them and he got really excited to learn more and she really encouraged him to go to church and meet with us again. She even said she would listen in as we taught him as well! He came and played basketball on Saturday as well and we had a great conversation about Jesus Christ. His name is Trevor and he's such a great kid. We're really excited about him.

Elder Cano (one of the Spanish Elders in Rifle) went home yesterday. He served a great two years, a full year of which he spent in Rifle, and by the end he had worn himself out but you could see as we visited members for the last time what an impact he had on the people here. He was such a good missionary and is such a great guy. He's going to UVU when he gets home so I can't wait to see him there. His companion Elder Pikula is training a new missionary that is still learning Spanish. Elder Pikula is pretty nervous because he's still learning the language himself but he'll do just fine.

For Cano's last training as a District Leader we first had a secret santa exchange where we all got another missionary assigned to us and we got presents for each other and then he gave a really great training about Christ. He first had us talk about all the gifts Christ has given us. Answers ranged from family to freedom from sin to hope. The one I pointed out was his example that I have to follow so that I can know right from wrong and see what kind of person I can become. He then had us each break off into different parts of the building and write a letter to Christ where we said what gifts we were thankful for and then decided what gifts we could give to Christ this season. It was such a cool experience. For me, I was able to think about how I can be a more Christlike missionary and do everything I can to be an effective advocate of our Lord. I'm so thankful for this Christmas season we have to celebrate his birth and remember his life.

Merry Christmas!

Love,

~Elder Della-Piana

Sao Paulo high 95 and Rifle low -17

Aloha!

So I find out thursday if I stay in Colorado for another 6 weeks or if my visa's in and I'm going to Brazil! The other day it was -13 degrees when we woke up and had been -19 that night! I was thinking about it and if I go to Brazil that will be a 100+ degree temperature change. Oh boy! I have a feeling I'm staying one more transfer though. My companion says he thinks he'll be leaving Rifle because he's been here 6 months but I would be surprised if they had me take over an area because I'm a visa waiter so there's a good chance I'd be handing it back off after 6 weeks.

"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)

So we got a little over a foot of snow earlier this week so we got to do quite a bit of shovelling. We ended up walking a lot more than usual this week for a few reasons. First on the snow day we weren't allowed to drive but the roads weren't that bad so we got a ride with a member to an area where we could see a few people so that wasn't that bad. Then the next two days we were walking because we hit a curb driving in the snow and bent our front left wheel. It was cool though because we went on exchange with the Spanish elders so that we could see both Spanish and English investigators instead of not seeing any english that day while they went down to Glenwood to get our car. While we were on exchange we accidentally knocked the wrong door and realized after knocking but as we went to walk away someone came out and we apologized but offered to say a prayer with their family (we call it the prayer approach). They let us in and as we got talking we shared a message with them too and they invited us to come back this week to study with them! It was cool as well because they spoke spanish and english and at the end the spanish elder asked if they would rather meet in english or spanish and they said English. It was super funny because we both looked at each other when he asked and it was just a funny moment of suspense to see who would get this awesome new investigator so when they said english we both stayed natural but on the inside he was crying and I was doing a huge fist pump. It was cool

One cool miracle this week was a new investigator named Jackie that we met yesterday. Her sister-in-law encouraged her to meet with us and gave her our number so she called and set up an appointment. She's had a hard time the last few months because her husband has been in jail and she's been trying to support her kids as a single mom which can obviously be really stressful. We taught her yesterday for the first time and she was very receptive to the message of the Restoration. She kept asking really good questions and then when we would explain something she would say "Okay, that makes sense." She was very willing to read the Book of Mormon and pray and she is coming to church next Sunday!! We explained what baptism is and asked if that would be something she would be willing to consider and she said YES! She's a very humble woman and said her husband gets out of jail next week and she wants to be meeting with us and bring him into it when he gets home! So I guess I'll keep you posted on how that goes. It's cool because she is actually David's aunt who is one of the people we started meeting with last week.

 We got to meet with a less-active member that will be starting to come back to church once her broken leg heals and we talked about keeping the Spirit of Christ in Christmas. There were some awesome videos that we watched on mormonchannel.org about it. One was "The Reason Behind Christmas" and the other was "Wise Men Still Seek Him." It was really cool to talk about why we really celebrate and how we can overcome the commercialism that tends to surround this season. I love the quote from Thomas S. Monson that goes something like "The Spirit of Christmas is the Spirit of Christ"

I love you all, and wish you all a Merry Christmas Season.

~Elder Della-Piana

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving Everybody!

Thanksgiving was great here. We had dinner with our Ward Mission Leader Brother Boyd and it was SO GOOD! We had a Turkey Bowl that morning and played football on end for a solid three hours and then rugby and Volleyball for a little after that. It was a good day. We were supposed to have two thanksgiving dinners but one fell through so we only had one. That's probably a good thing though because we were so stuffed.

A couple cool things happened this week. We got two new investigators and both kind of had cool stories.

The first one was David. The first time we met him my companion was actually at the DMV with another missionary to help him get a license and they just kind of talked to David and invited him to come play basketball with us some time. A couple days passed with nothing and then we got a call from a lady that was in from Salt Lake and wanted us to meet her son. We weren't able to connect with her again after she cancelled our appointment and we were waiting for a response. Then tuesday night we went out with one of our members and on our way to visit a recent convert we stopped to offer a lady some help moving a mattress. She didn't let us help but her neighbor called us over to talk. It turned out it was David's mom! We went over and had a really good conversation about God and the Bible and some of our beliefs and he invited us back for this week and we're excited about him.

The other new person we met this week is named Kenneth. Kenneth is from out of town and is just staying in Rifle for a little while as he waits for a job he has set up in Wyoming for the spring. For now he's living off his savings and taking it easy. His first contact with a member in the area was Sister King. They met at the Library and started talking and she invited him to church and he CAME! Then a little while later the Kings had the missionaries over for dinner and invited him and they had a good lesson. The dinner was actually the day before I got here so I had never met him and nothing had come of it since then. Then on Wednesday we were stopping by the house of one of our other investigators and Kenneth is the one that answers the door! It turns out he had just moved in two days earlier and was going to live there for a couple months and he gave us an open invite to come back and meet with him. He's already read the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon and his biggest concern is that he believes in God but isn't sure about Jesus Christ. He offered up unprompted that if he did believe in Jesus Christ he probably would join the Mormon church. He is excited to meet with us and seems open minded. Really a great guy.

We got to do some good service this morning. We put up a shed for a horse in the freezing cold. It was nice to be out working in the yard. Felt a little more like home.

One cool scripture I came across actually in the MTC but I was thinking about this week is in the book of Jude. It says:

"Behold, the Lord ^bcometh with ten thousands of his ^csaints," (Jude 1:14)

 Whenever I think of the huge influx of missionaries due to the age change this scripture comes to mind. It is such a pleasure to be numbered among those thousands of ambassadors for the Lord. It brings me so much hope to think that He goes forth with us. We are not alone in this work.

I love you all!

~Elder Della-Piana

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