“We Have Knees; That’s Enough”

Between 1970 and 1980, Church membership in Italy increased nearly eightfold. As the number of converts increased, Italian Saints were called into positions of local leadership. At the time, none of the Church’s handbooks for leadership were available in Italian. Undaunted, faithful men and women went to work, relying in some instances on only faith and prayer.

In 1975, Leopoldo and Maria Larcher were the first Italians called to preside over the Italy Rome Mission. With no training materials in Italian and unable to speak with other experienced mission presidents, Leopoldo and Maria were forced to develop proselytizing programs for the mission on their own. “We have knees,” they concluded; “that’s enough.” Through prayer, faith, and inspiration, they fulfilled “an enjoyable and productive mission.”

The experience of Mario and Rosa Vaira was similar. After their baptism in 1973, the Vairas determined that they would never refuse a calling from Church leaders. “We are His,” Rosa said, “and we do what they ask us to do.”

In 1981, Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to Milan to organize the first stake in Italy. To Mario’s surprise, he was asked to serve as president of the stake.

“I am not capable,” he told Benson. “I absolutely do not know what I would do.”

“It is a calling,” Benson replied. “Will you accept it?”

True to his promise, Mario accepted the call. “I felt absolutely unprepared, … inadequate to receive a calling of this type. … I didn’t even know what a stake was!” As the Vairas served in this and in subsequent calls to preside over the Italy Catania Mission and the Bern Switzerland Temple, they felt loved and supported by members, and they felt God sustained them physically and spiritually.

During this same time, an increasing number of Italian converts were called as missionaries in the country. When missionaries knocked on the De Feo family’s door in Taranto in 1970, 9-year-old Massimo and his older brother Alberto were taught the gospel and were later baptized. While Massimo and Alberto’s parents never joined the Church, they were supportive of their sons as they became active in their new faith.

When Massimo was a young adult, he had a strong desire to serve a mission. He knew, however, that a mission would place considerable strain on his family’s limited financial resources.

“Do you really want to do this?” Vittorio De Feo asked his son.

“With all my heart I want to serve the Lord,” Massimo told his father. Vittorio promised to help fund his mission. “I considered that money to be sacred,” Massimo later said. “It was the fruit of great sacrifice from a man who did not believe in the Church.”

Massimo served in the Italy Rome Mission from 1981 to 1983 and contributed to the rapid growth of the Church in Italy. Massimo and his wife, Loredana, whom he met in the branch in Taranto, have had many opportunities to serve. In April 2016, Massimo De Feo was sustained as a General Authority Seventy, becoming the first General Authority from Italy.