The sound of the tires on the cobblestones muffled the few words he mumbled. I stared out the side window and silently prayed for the ability to say what I really had in mind. I tried several times, but the words wouldn't form into a coherent sentence.

"Elder Lewis," I finally blurted out, "I don't think we're teaching enough lessons or putting in enough hours to warrant going to Brother Bilotta's house every other night. We're the zone leaders here, and I think we should have the best report forms in the entire zone. At this rate, we'll have the worst." We arrived at the Arno and turned left, giving me an unobstructed view of the wide, dark river. He broke the silence.

"Elder Edwards, I don't really care about your report form. I may not be entirely right in going to Brother Bilotta's house when there's nothing else to do—I'll admit that. I'll even admit that I'm not working as hard as I probably should be. It's probably a bad attitude. But you're not blameless yourself. You live for that report form. Your life is determined by the numbers that show up there each week. You really don't care if you've helped someone, or if you've grown to love someone, or if you've developed a love and respect for this people and this country. As long as you have your numbers on your report, as long as you impress others with your 'baptism enthusiasm,' as long as you're Joe zone leader, you're happy. You're cold, and you're statistical. And I don't think that's right, either."

Silence. I looked out at the fog as we drove along the Arno river, and slowly and deliberately thought to myself, "He's right."

I didn't sleep well that night, but it was perhaps the most significant night of my mission. My mind raced backward. "You've got to love the people," my bishop at home had told me. It made sense to me at that time, and I wrote it down in my journal. How could I effectively work with the Italian people for two years if I didn't have a strong love for them and a respect for their way of life? My older brother had said to me at the airport, "You think it's hard to leave America? Wait until you try to leave Italy after working there for two years and developing a love that will never die. One of the greatest treasures of your mission will be the love that you'll develop for Italy and Italians."

And Dad had once said to me, "Mitch, you'll be amazed at the bonds of love that you'll develop with people over there. You'll praise Italy and Italians the rest of your life. You'll feel sort of like an 'adopted Italian,' and you'll carry with you the rest of your life a desire to return to Italy."

As I lay there in my Via Boito itchy sheets, it all hit me like a brick wall. I did not love Italy. It was a nice place and all, but I often found myself passing judgment: Everything was decidedly old and run down and archaic. Too many carbohydrates in the food, too hot and humid during the summer. Too many apartment buildings in the cities, lousy roads in the country. Everything was too small and too old and too cramped.

And toward Italians, my sentiments were occasionally anything but loving. After a bad day, I often succumbed to my own biases: Too heavy. Unschooled. Too casual. Steeped in tradition, and living in the past. Too emotional and outspoken. My mental list started to frighten me as I looked at it with new perspective.

Where, and why, had I gone wrong? I was only trying to do my best, and I thought that teaching a lot of discussions was a good measure of success. I'd decided early in my mission that good missionaries have good report forms every week. I wanted to be a good missionary, so I became an expert at getting good report forms.

My desire to teach and work hard was not bad—on the contrary, it was honorable and desirable. But I was missing something very important—and until Elder Lewis mentioned it on the way home from Brother Bilotta's, it had never occurred to me. I had failed to even try to love, understand, or appreciate Italy and its people.

As Elder Lewis and I were tracting several days later, the Roman walls on both sides of the small cobblestone mountain road caught my attention in a way they never had before. "Just a sec, Elder Lewis. Can we stop here for a minute or two?"

"Why?"

He cracked a little smile as I said, "I just want to look at this wall for a moment."

We sat down on the cobblestones and watched the wall in silence. I traced the chisel marks of a Roman stonecutter, examined the mortar that had tenaciously held those stones together century after century, noticed the oxidizing stub of what was probably a lantern support, and eyed the Italian ant that crawled upon it, oblivious to the wall's history and obvious cultural significance. After a minute I said, "OK, I'm finished. Let's go on."

As we made our way down a narrow, dimly lit, winding road late one evening after tracting, we passed by a small fruit stand tucked away in a little opening in the stone wall. Beside it sat an old man, probably in his eighties, bent over and looking at his worn shoes. He slowly raised his head and looked at us with tired eyes as we walked by. I paused, tapped Elder Lewis on the shoulder, and we returned to the old man.

"How much is a carrot?"

In a weak, humble voice, he slowly replied, "Cento lire."

"Give me the biggest one you have."

As his crooked hands searched through the box for a large carrot, I searched my pockets for a hundred lira piece. I had nothing but a thousand lira bill, and was about to tell him to forget it, when I noticed his face. Tired and rough and wrinkled, his face nevertheless seemed to emanate a warmness—a sort of light. I finally decided it was his eyes—they fairly glowed with that cheerful warmth. An Italian warmth. He handed me a large fat carrot, and I handed him the thousand lira.

He slowly looked at the bill, and then apologized, "Mi displace, non ho cambio. Mangia la carota," and tried to give the money back to me.

"No," I said, "go ahead and keep it. It's now yours."