My Greatest Treasures

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hands preparing food, with Book of Mormon lying nearby

Illustration by Ben Simonsen

My work as a chef was my life. I traveled the world cooking in luxury hotels and on cruise ships. I joined a team of great cooks that won many international culinary competitions.

Once, I was away from home for three years. My mother would often call me in tears and tell me to come home.

One day in Milan, Italy, where I had contracted to cook at a hotel, I met the full-time missionaries in a crowded subway station. They told me about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and shared some gospel principles. I especially enjoyed what they taught me about the family.

The missionaries gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon and asked me to pray about it. They also gave me a pamphlet with instructions on how to pray.

I returned to my hotel happy, went to my room, prayed, and began to read. The more I read the Book of Mormon, the more I desired to read. Unfortunately, work kept me from seeing the missionaries again. When my hotel contract ended, I returned home to Bari, where I began cooking for another hotel.

One day at the hotel restaurant, another cook, for inappropriate reasons, tried to get dates with some of the waitresses there. He was mad because the waitresses, who were Latter-day Saints, refused to go out with him.

Remembering the missionaries I had met in Milan, I told the cook that the waitresses had a right to turn him down.

“So, are you a Mormon too?” he asked.

Because I liked the principles the missionaries had taught me and because I felt justified in defending the waitresses, I replied, “Yes.”

The next time the cook saw the waitresses, he told them I was a Latter-day Saint. They were excited. When we gathered for lunch, they began asking me questions about the Church in Milan. I told them about the city and that I had met the missionaries there. When our lunch arrived, I reached for a glass of wine on the table.

“What are you doing drinking wine?” one of the waitresses asked.

“Is there something wrong with that?” I said.

“Are you even active?” another one asked.

“In what sense?” I said.

“How were you dressed the day you were baptized?” they asked.

“I don’t remember,” I told them. “I was only a month old.”

They were extremely mad because they thought I was making fun of them. I assured them I wasn’t. I admitted that I wasn’t a member of the Church, but I told them that I liked the Book of Mormon and the gospel principles I had learned. Then I asked how I could learn more about their church.

The waitresses soon introduced me to the missionaries. They could hardly believe it when I finished the discussions and got baptized.

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mother and father with two boys

Family photograph courtesy of the author

With my baptism, my life changed. I learned that you can’t have one foot in the world and one foot in the gospel. I learned that work is not the most important thing in life. I learned that the Lord and my family come first. Finally, I understood the sadness my mother felt in my absence, and I asked her to forgive me.

I quit traveling the world, got married in the Bern Switzerland Temple, started a family, and took a job cooking at a local hospital, where I used my talents to help sick people recover. Now I am in charge of human resources at the hospital. Working locally gives me time to dedicate to my family and Church callings.

From the day I went to the temple and received my endowment two years after my baptism, I have loved the sacredness of the temple and the work there. When my father died four years later, I was devastated. He was my hero. Thanks to the gospel of Jesus Christ, I know that he still lives.

When I entered the celestial room after doing my father’s vicarious work, I felt his embrace. At that moment, I knew that my father had accepted the gospel and the love the Lord has for His children.

We Latter-day Saints have the blessing to know the true gospel. I’m grateful for how it changed my life. The gospel is where I found true happiness. The gospel and my family are my greatest treasures.