July 19, 2020 pt. 2

I'm being transferred to Reggio Calabria!! Everyone in my house got transferred to different areas which is insanity. 

July 19, 2020

It's crazy to think that I'm half way done with my mission. Now it's a chase to hold onto time before it all slips away. I'm already thinking about how much I'm going to miss Italy.

I've recently gotten more adventurous with my cooking. I make a homemade Mac and cheese which is harder here because you're forced to use real cheese and melt it and turn that into a sauce. It was pretty dang good, the cheese isn't exactly cheep though haha. 

I'm writing this before I get my transfer call so I'm not sure if I'm leaving this week or staying for at least another 6 weeks. Both options are a bitter sweet. I've really gotten used to this area and have a vision for it's future. I just hope when I leave that the next missionaries here will see it like I do now.

I'm now writing my own songs on guitar because I'm getting bored of the other stuff and it's not easy to find new songs I want to learn. And no I don't write lyrics it's just the music ahah. Things are still kind of slow here so we have to find productive things to do with our boredom. We're almost out of this mess over here . The more I look at the bigger picture of certain events and changes happening at specific times, God has everything worked out. Necessary steps are obviously made before you could've imagined having to make that step. I'll leave it to you guys to look at everything yourselves and make your own realizations specifically pertaining to your own lives. It's a really cool experience.

My main focus in my personal studies and self development has been to be able to receive personal revelation. It's a skill you cannot be taught and one that requires a lot of work and humility. It's such a rewarding experience because every time you take a step further you feel so good and you feel like you have such a greater understanding of life and everything that has to do with it than ever before. And then you realize that you can learn more because you just did. God really does reward you every step of the way in order to tell us that it's right and to encourage us to keep going.

  

   I think I've heard before to not pray for humility if you don't want a humbling experience. This is kind of funny because you're just asking for a crappy day or two  but call me crazy, but I want to ask God for that crappy day. A thing that I've learned most recently or at least something I finally understand better is that we are in this life to learn in the most effective way possible. A way that Adam and eve had to fall from the presence of God in order to participate in. We were all learning in heaven as spirit children, as were Adam and eve learning in the garden, but we knew and God still knows that that is not how we were going to grow to become like how father in heaven. Books never trump experience. Even if the book is read to us by someone with a lot of it.

This email got pretty long but it could have and would have gone a lot longer if I didn't catch myself there ahah. If you want to have a nice conversation about anything I just said I would love to discuss it with you.

I love you all and have a great week! 

-Anziano Harvey 

June 28, 2020

Hey everyone! Things are starting to pick up here in Italy. We can do activities and even teach people in person! There's still a lot do restrictions tho.

   We just had a ysa activity which was super fun, and in a week we will have another one! It's nice not being in a super strict quarantine anymore.

I don't gave too much to say other than the fact that I feel way more comfortable in the language now and I can actually give input on conversations with bigger groups of people. It's normally hard because you need to know how to say it in the moment you think it, and you can't stumble through what you want to say or someone will finish your sentence and move on .

Things are going to pick up a lot pretty soon so I'm excited for that. Apparently we probably won't get new missionaries until September.... We do not have enough missionaries for this mission. We're looking forward to them getting to come tho!!

Vi voglio bene!!

May 4, 2020

Alright. Our devotional last night was given by Bishop Caussé, the presiding bishop of the church. It was super cool. He's French yet speaks very good English.

This morning the restrictions let off a little so we can be out on the street. For us missionaries that's exclusively for exercise in the morning. So today I ran to the Colosseum!! It was so nice. I almost forgot I was in Italy. We ran through parks and neighborhoods on the way, and we're planning to do other nice touristy runs.

I now play the guitar and am not afraid to say it haha. Meaning I wouldn't be afraid to play if a guitar was presented to me as if to call my bluff lol. Today is such a good day having actually left my street.

I've learned so much so far on my mission. So much so that I feel like I'm a totally different person. It's kind of scary but God has been directing me to scriptures about not fearing what people think or say. I'm ready to start my new life when I'm home! That of course will be a little over a year from now haha and by then I'll have changed twice as much! Haha I'm very excited for what I'm able to become. God truly sees us for our potential and if we just let him take the lead in our lives we will become more than we could have possibly imagined. 

Vi voglio bene! Sorry that I don't write much. It's been hard with quarantine and such. I stayed sane through it all by the grace of God.

Ciao tutti! Arrivederci!! 

June 15, 2020

   It's been a while since I've written a group email... Oops haha. It's mainly because of the quarantine and having absolutely nothing to write about, but now that we're starting to get some freedom I'm just out of the habit of writing emails.

      But anyways. Like I said, yes we have more freedom! We get to go outside and get food to take out. We have to wear masks everywhere we go tho. Even while you're getting a haircut. And no that doesn't work. 😂 I had to hold my mask on my face so that the bands wouldn't get in the way. My arm and mask were covered in hair.

       We have been going to a place called chicken hut which is a very small store that sells chicken, kebab, and baclava. It's pretty good surprisingly but the new guy that works there gives us TINY pieces of chicken. Like a fourth of the size. And he charges the same price. We complained but he doesn't care because customer service isn't a thing in Italy. So we're never going back there again until that guy's gone haha.

       We got a new guy in the house. His name is anziano Argenti. He's from Italy near Venice. He brought spikeball and we decided to play it in the house 🤦‍♂️. We didn't break anything other than our neighbors sanity. One nice lady came to our door and was like, "ma che fate?" In a really nice and kinda sad voice. That means what are you guys doing haha. So now we feel bad and Anziano shupe is going to make her zucchini bread to make up for it.

      We also recently got to go to a ysa activity (because we're the ysa missionaries) and we went out on a walk around Rome and got gelato. There were like 23 of them. It was great. We can also go to the ysa center in Rome. It's not open to the public yet but we can go. So we have access to the library there and we have more books to read!

      Even more recently we did a service project, also with the ysa. We picked up trash and bottles around a park type thing at a metro stop. We all got food after and it was really fun.

      It turns out we can now take public transportation when we need to. And we can go to museums and stuff on pday!! So now we can explore Rome and there won't be any tourists. Today we may not be able to do anything tho because a guy is coming to fix our water heater. We've been taking ice cold showers for almost two weeks now.

      But yeah that's pretty much my life right now. We stuck it through for quarantine on our missions and the blessings are just coming one after the other. Our mission goal for the year is to get 220 Baptisms and we're all adding that to our prayers. If you could all do that too that would be amazing!! It's like 100 more Baptisms than this mission has ever done. We're all very hopeful of it and I do really think we can do it.

     

Vi voglio bene! I hope you're all staying safe!

-Anziano Harvey 

April 13, 2020

So we had an awesome devotional Sunday night. It was Brad Wilcox and he spoke via zoom to all missionaries in Italy! He had amazing things to say and I learned a lot.

     I'm pretty sure I've already said this. But the majority of our work is on Facebook now. We literally join groups and stuff and when we come into contact with individual people we try to share the gospel with them.

     The whole time I'm just thinking about how literally anyone could do this. While I was on Facebook I came into contact with a nice girl in Mexico. She does online classes and knows a guy who lives in Italy! She's a member of our church and this Italian guy had some questions. She found me from a post I made and we got into contact with this guy! Missionaries who serve in his area are now in contact with him.

       In this case I may as well have been a member, because I did no teaching, no preaching. All I did was post something on Facebook. After this quarantine life for us may go back to "real" missionary work. But you all can do the work that we are doing now. And you should all be doing it Always! It's truly amazing the miracles you see when you simply put forth a little effort. God will bless you. 

    For Pasqua (Easter) we made a potato pasta thing and lasagna! We forgot to buy the pasta for the lasagna so we asked our neighbors if they had any and they didn't. But they did have eggs and flour and they told us to make our own.  "It's easy!"they said. So we did it! It was a little thick but we did it. We also found out that we have some very nice neighbors haha.

    A member in Rome drove buy and dropped off doctor pepper, two huge chocolate eggs, and a colomba which is a cake italians eat for Easter. (if you translated colomba.... Yes I know it means dove haha)

   Other than that! I'm not completely insane yet. So that's a positive. I'm now dabbling in the arts of classical guitar. It's very soothing to play it. Also I've been forced to cook more interesting things to not die of boredom. So I'm now an Italian chef!! ‍ My companion is currently showing off a song I taught him on guitar to his family over Skype. I'm so proud . I hope you all had a great Easter! 

March 16, 2020

So we can do literally nothing but call and text people and teach them over video call. We can't even leave the house to get groceries unless we're alone.... Like one person. So president and the assistants made a plan. One missionary wears a shirt and tie. The other has exercise clothes. They keep their distance on the way to the store and the one in exercise clothes exercises outside of the store as the other one shops. Thus making them both look alone and us not breaking our rules of never being alone. Genius.

So yeah that's what we've come to..... Pday is card games and relaxing. The other days are trying to figure out how to not go crazy and get some missionary work done. We're all okay though and I live with three other guys so I'm not going crazy with one other person. We get to go crazy in larger company. Upside is that I get to read and study a lot. I feel so smart now. Maybe I should study a semester worth of college while I'm at it. No joke probably could. 

The raduno di isreale will happen... It's just at a weird phase. Like a pre-teen. A very weird pre-teen. (not to offend all you weird pre-teens out there... We were all weird). I also feel like I've aged 5 years. Imma come out of here with with a beard and a receding hairline.

Welp that's it from your favorite quarantined Italian missionary!

    Will he survive?   Will he go insane?  How much wait will he gain?  Next time on.... 

Big Brother Quarantine - covid edition.

.... yes I'm bored....