This is a blog to cover Elder Nathan Daniel Eads mission to the Rome, Italy Mission for family and friends. He is serving from March 2013 to March 2015.
For God so Loved the Word . . . that means you, me, all the Anziano and Sorella's, all of us that He gave His Son for us. For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given . . . May we each remember that Jesus Christ, his birth, life, teachings and His Atonement is the reason we celebrate this season. May we remember as Scrooge did, to keep this very Spirit of Christmas with us each day for the next year.
Also, as seen in the picture, Christmas is about family, a father, Joseph, a mother, Mary, and the birth of their first born son, Jesus. I hope we celebrate with our families, those with us and those far away in our hearts this year. May we all come closer to Christ in the coming year; may we receive of His image in our own countenance, may we be more like Him as we strive through His atonement to become more like Him. Then we each will find peace on earth, I promise.
This is a hymn for several Protestant Faiths and I believe even for the Catholic Church. The message is beautiful no matter. The words so deeply belong to Anziano Eads and to his fellow missionaries in both the Rome, Italy Mission, and in all the missions. It belongs to each of us who claim discipleship, fulfilling the covenant we have as found in Mosiah 18:
8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called)and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—
I know I need to do a better job of listening to my Savior and His Spirit, when prompted to bless those around me. I need to use my talents, skills, and abilities to bless others. One cannot be weary in doing good works.
I the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them?
Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have born my peoples pain.
I have wept for love of them, They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak My word to them,
Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them,
My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide,
Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them,
Whom shall I send?
Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.
The author in YouTube calls this something else but the actual song is Here I am Lord.
As a reminder we won't post an email next week as the Anziano and Sorella are able to Skype next week with their families. We are very excited to Skype with Nathan! 11 weeks until he comes home.
Okay, at long last, the email that you have all been waiting for. Hopefully ya'll won't kill me later when we Skype.
I guess I should start with that chemical accident that Dad mentioned. That sounds like it was painful. Sorry that you had so much gas buildup. On the bright side, the damage was only superficial, and that saved your life. Just remember to not have so much gas!!!!!!! (private joke).
Okay but in all seriousness:
Mum: I made it over to Rome without incident. Just gotta say that the FrecciaRossa was fast! I was super impressed with the speed of that train! For information, the FrecciaRossa is one of the fastest trains in all of Italy. It goes from Napoli to Rome in an hour and ten minutes. The intercity train I took was about 2 hours and 30 minutes. So, yeah, fast train!
Thanks for the emails, and the prayers. Honestly, if you want to know the truth. I fasted and prayed about it that next Sunday. I won't say the personal revelation I recieved during that period, but I prayed about it all the time up to the train ride, asking the Lord to help me deal with the call, and help me to do what I need to do.
Yeah, miracles still happen, every single day. I honestly don't have any problems now. I've found the bright side of being in Rome. The office is close by, so I can get stuff whenever I need, and reimbursements get done fairly quickly as well. Rome itself is pretty cool.
So, while I can't say I'm super-happy, I'm at least content with the situation, so I can work with the Lord and my comp.
So my new comp is Anziano Zito. He's cool. It's nice to have another Italian companion. I rather enjoyed it with Anziano Curzola, and so I'm happy to be with Anz. Zito. He's, more or less, from a city called Alessandria, which is a small city in between Milan and Torino, about an hour from both. He dies this transfer, so I don't get out of killing someone.
I honestly don't know who that is (Nathan's mom asked if he had met a Anziano Peter Mcullum, who is a ward member's nephew). Maybe he's in a different zone. I don't know anymore. PW got rid of the trunk sheet, the list of where all the missionaries are, so I don't know, or ever met him. Probably won't meet him either, I'm too old in the mission now.
Sounds like both of you guys have had one heck of a busy week! Mom, you got head underwear? What the heck?!!?!?!?! That's wierd. Tell Dad that I'm praying that all goes well with him! I love him, and got his back!
Well, not much to say this week. Spent the first half in it in Napoli saying goodbye to people and stuff. It was kinda hard to say good bye to our investigators, especially when they all started crying. That, at the very least, means you did a good job with something, making a lasting friendship with them.
Then after I got to Rome, it was service opportunities! Been doing a lot of service in Rome 6 as of late. We helped people move around twice, helped out in the office, man it was busy. It was nice, honestly. I enjoyedf helping out people who really needed it and the spirit was pretty strong throught out the day.
We did teach one lesson to our investigator, Nabil, about prayer and how he can know the truth through prayer. Seems like he really wants to change his life, and we're inviting him to do just that with the invites we're leaving. I think there's a good chance for progress there.
Okay, yup, that's been our week. I'm excited for what's coming our way this week.
Later,
I'll let you know about Skype once I know myself. We're still organizing some things.
Well, love ya!
NaNa
Here are some pictures taken from the Rome/Napoli Specialized Training. Yes, they are doing the nativity again and based on the pictures, I believe Nathan is a narrator. Last year he was the "star" and this year he got covered up by the star! Oh the fickle nature of "stars."
See below, Nathan got covered up by the "star" this year!
So, not gonna lie, I am not in a super good mood as of late and I guess I'll start off with the reason why:
I'm getting transferred. Yup. I only am going to do one in Napoli, and now I'm going to Rome, which in all honesty was an area I never had, and still don't have, a major desire to serve in. Oh, and my comp is getting blown out as well. So, we are not super happy about this.
The main reason that this sucks, is because our three dates we have for baptism on the 20th. But I'll talk about that in a bit, so enough of my ranting and going off, I'll talk about things from home and then about how my work, or we should say my old work, is going.
Mom: Honestly, it's just the end of my mission coming around the corner, that's all. It's not that I'm homesick, just tired, and nearing the end. Working as hard as I possibly can right now, so I'm doing okay. You guys aren't that weird, believe me, so it won't be bad.
As for Skype, I'll let you know what's going to happen, because I don't know right now, so once I get to Rome 6, I'll talk to you.
Glad that Coda is doing better, and that he is his happy dog self again.
Zone Conference was all right. Learned some stuff, aka: Return to the basics, keeps things simple. I wrote some stuff down, but I don't have my notebook with me, so I can't say. Besides that, had a lot of fun with my friends, it was fun.
Glad that Festival of Trees was fun. I can't believe I missed you playing!!!!!!!! I hope you filmed it so I can at least listen to it when I get home. Sorry work's been so busy, but that in and of itself isn't a bad thing. It keeps us focused.
I really like the branch here. It's pretty cool. We're working on increasing member work, but we have talked to our branch president, and he is behind the missionary work. He just called a new ward mission leader, an American who lives here, so things will probably start growing quickly.
Dad: Congratulations! You are now done with school, and can finally move on to doing what you love: Whatever that is. I don't know what you like to do anymore since I am not there. But congratulations anyways, it's super cool that you completed everything and did so well.
Both: Hey quick question, but I want both of you to work on this if you can. Can you guys look up information on BYU pathway? It's run through BYU Idaho. It's a college prep class that also can get you over into college right away. It's online and it's pretty cheap. We had a fireside on it here in Napoli, and I was wondering if you could look it up for me?
You can go to the byui.edu, and then look for pathway. If this is pretty good, I might go and do this instead of SLCC. Just wondering, keeping my options open.
Okay, so for my work:
Work was okay this week. Zone Conf, kinda messed it up but it still went pretty well.
We met with Claudio and Evelina this week. Evelina, like always, is ready for baptism, but Claudio is still struggling. He just wants to make sure that this is going to be a decision that when he makes, he's going to keep. So, we planned to just go over the interview questions with them, and then see the responses. I personally find both of them ready, they just need to get the courage!
And Sara is great as well. We taught the "rough" commandments aka Law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom. She was down and willing to try and live them as much as she could. We are going to try and help her stop smoking, and are going to give her the stop smoking program.
I should make a note that we also teach Sara with her mother and sister who are both investigators as well.
And yup. That's how things went this week.
Later.
NaNa
Friday, December 5, 2014
I found this on my Facebook account and I am dedicating this to my son, Anziano Eads and to the wonderful missionaries in the Rome, Italy mission. May when they feel lost or aimless, that they find and constantly rediscover their purpose of serving the children of our Father. May they find their melodies and figure out their parts as they bring these wonderful children of our Father to Him. May they find out how to follow the Spirit and ring out to those searching and thus discover the beauty of a this life, that we are here to literally build, lift, inspire and help as we all seek to walk the path to return to our Father and Savior. May all missionaries and all of us remember our part, our role to do the simple things of life to lift, inspire, and bring others and ourselves back to our Father. One of His greatest gifts is to allow us to go through this life together so we can do these things and perhaps learn a little bit of what it means to become just a little more like Him. Indeed this life is a Glorious and wonderful journey.
Well, Anziano Eads has only 2 more zone conferences left before he comes home! It is amazing to us his parents, on how quickly his time on his mission has gone and flown by. Two more transfers after next week and he is coming home, about 13 weeks. It reminds us of how fast our own lives and time in mortality has gone and the important of maximizing our time in mortality.
The other thing of note, is from his email this week, Anziano Eads (Nathan) said he felt he has lost his sense of humor since he has focused so much on his spirituality. I am glad to see in the pictures that Sister Waddoups takes at zone conference to see that fun side of Nathan still come out. It tells me that it is still there and part of him, whether he realizes that or not. So here are the pictures.
