The Lord's Great Chess Board

Carissimi,

Bear with me friends, this is a long one!

There's been just a few times on my mission where I've felt like the Lord has moved me around like a pawn on a chess board. Both fortunately and unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, my mission has been not a game, controlled by the Lord, but rather more similar to Harry Potter's 'Wizard's Chess." I've had to learn by making moves, by losing pieces I should've held onto, by missing easy opportunities to put pressure on my opponent, and by sacrificing pieces that were hard to give up. The pieces on the Lord's great chess board, especially mine, often seem to have a mind of their own, making moves haphazardly, some good, some bad, but inevitably they turn around, looking expectantly for help after placing themselves in a tricky situation. I've lived my mission too much in this way, relying often on my own strength, my own talents, and my own knowledge... (notice there's a whole lot of "me, myself, and I," in there). The only time I looked back is when I felt like I couldn't reason through the next step, or situations had gone beyond my control, and the only way to save them was divine help. Luckily, the Divine Grandmaster, as we might appropriately call our Heavenly Father, has always held a soft spot for this particularly hard-headed, (softer descriptive words might include strong-wired, or fiercely independent), missionary of his, and most of the time he's ready with a tip when I'm humble enough to receive it. Now, to bring things back full circle, there are times, rare indeed, where the Grandmaster takes over the game, and helps the young, yet aspiring novice make moves he never imagined. Last night was one of those times... So, let me tell you how!

Sapele, one of the awesome African brothers here in the Napoli Branch, came up to me after 2nd hour, telling me he had a friend who had asked him questions about the Book of Mormon, and that he wanted us to come teach him. We set up an appointment at 5, and moved on to teach another brother, Donatus, who joined us for the first time this week! We taught Donatus the Restoration, and look forward to meeting with him more, and having him hear from our modern day prophets this week at General Conference.

After church, Anziano Cutler and I ate over at a wonderful family's home, all but one of whom are investigating the Church, (the one being a new convert of two months or so). After an incredible meal, we likened the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a long distance race. Long analogy made short, start the race with the faith to finish, get up when you fall down, make the necessary water stops along the way, listen to your coach, and sprint through the finish line. You do all that, and you're bound to win the prize of eternal life. We taught, and bounced, as good missionaries do, heading towards Mergellina to teach Sapele's friend. We called him as we got close, and he told us his friend had just gone out, and he didn't know when he would be back. We turned around, and made some calls as we waited for him to get back. We checked in periodically, but it wasn't until 7:30 or so that we got the OK. We headed over, and arrived around 8:15.

When we arrived we were greeted by Peter (returned Nigerian missionary who lives in the same camp), and Sapele, and while we waited for 'Divine Time', we helped Peter practice his Italian by reading from the Book of Mormon. Around 8:45 Divine Time showed up, and Peter and I began to teach, while Anziano Cutler shared a little bit of the Restoration with the front desk attendant. I realized after about 2 min Divine Time was not ready for the Gospel, and that he was there, ready to argue that we were wrong until the Second Coming. We tried our best to reason, to bear testimony, to teach correct principles, and do everything we could to allow the spirit to testify to this brother, but he was having absolutely none of it. We finally got done, said a prayer around 9:15, and began walking back to the station with Peter and Sapele. We laughed and joked about how, "To be learned is good, IF we hearken unto the counsels of God." These two brothers wouldn't trade the world and all its wisdom for the faith in God we have in common, and nor would I. Divine Time was too concerned about the logical reasons why the Book of Mormon CAN'T be true, instead of asking God whether it IS true or not.

Now, most of you are probably saying, Anziano Toronto, can you quit the narrative, and get to the miracle? Cause the only miracle so far of the night is how good the pork was you had for lunch, #blessed... all right, we're getting there...

We hear the train start pulling into the station, and we begin to run, knowing we're already running a bit behind schedule. As we run down the hall, a Spanish looking man, at first confused because we're running, asks us in English, "Can you guys help me get to Napoli Centrale?" "Yeah," we shouted back, "Just follow us, that's where we're headed!" Still somewhat confused he followed us up onto the platform, where we then discovered the train was headed towards Pozzuoli, in the opposite direction, on the other side of the tracks. We sat and caught our breath, and began to talk with the man, who's name we would find out later was Jose.

The train arrived, and we sat down, us across from him, (he even asked if he could sit by us, and we laughed at the idea, cause almost nobody wants to sit with us in this wonderful country). We began asking him where he was from, (Miami), how he liked Napoli, (as expected, he loves it), and then, surprisingly it was he who brought up religion. Turns out that's our favorite subject! He asked about how one goes from being a Catholic to a Mormon, and we asked in return, why? He proceeded to tell us that he came to Italy, (and in a few days Jerusalem), searching for religious guidance, as he put it, a "sign from God," directing him to where God needed him to be. He told us that 10 minutes before we literally ran into his path, he had been praying to God, asking for that sign.

Wow...

We taught him the restoration, and answered as many questions as we could with the short time we had, and parted ways, grabbing his Facebook, and setting up an appointment tonight. We walked away, not really believing what had just happened to us. God took my chessboard, my idea of what we needed to be doing and where, threw it out the window, and said "This is where I need you to be, and this is who I need you to teach." We were there, and we brought his message to Jose, a lost sheep who wanted desperately to be found.

Several takeaways:

God answers prayers. He answered Jose's, and he will answer any sincere seeker of the truth. Through the power of the Holy Ghost, he communicated to both Jose, and Anziano Cutler and I, the love he has for his children.

There's 2 million people in Napoli, and yet he (Jose) runs into the 2 of us at an obscure train station 20 min outside of Napoli. How grateful I am that God put us in the right place at the right time. We shouldn't have been at Mergellina that late, and nor was it in our plan to do so. But it was in his! God has a divine design, a plan of happiness for each of us, and he's willing to move the pieces around in our favor, as we are humble enough to allow him to do so.

This weekend, is General Conference, a great chance to receive the answers to questions that you might have, and to look back to the Grandmaster for some tips on which direction to take your game. I invite each of you to prepare a question for this General Conference, and watch as God answers it using his divinely called and inspired servants!

Love each of you!

Anziano Toronto II 🇮🇹