Dateline: September 2017, Big Bread, Big Smile

Every once in a while, you meet someone exceptional, someone who sticks out from the crowd.  Italo (eat-ah-lo) is one of those individuals.  He stuck out because of remarkable friendliness, and because he always has a warm, sincere smile on his face.  He told me what I already knew, he told me that his last name, Panone means big bread.  But I don’t think big bread when I think of him, I think big smile.  He always has a big smile, enough so that I talked with him about it.  He told me that the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ was the reason behind his smile.  He said he wakes up every day with that smile.

This is his story as he related it:

Italo was born in Berlin during WW II into a very religious family whose values were anchored in the Bible and in their diversity of faith.  His father and grandfather were Italian and Catholic.  His mother was Protestant.  His grandmother was Jewish from a large and wealthy family.  He related that many of her family died in concentration camps during the war. 

When he was just a young boy, five or six years old, Catholic priests introduced him to Jesus Christ.  Christ became the center of Italo’s faith.  Some years later his mother convinced him to become Protestant.  As an adult he still had unanswered questions and continued to research different religions and philosophies.  He was attracted to Buddhism but could not commit to it because Jesus was missing. 

He moved to Italy and developed a successful business in film and television.  But despite financial success he said his spiritual life was at an all-time low and he was not a happy man.  He would enter the beautiful churches in Rome and pray to be guided to the truth and to happiness. 

One day, two young missionaries with black nametags rang his doorbell.  Like so many of other faiths before, he invited them into his home.  Over a period of many months, he listened to their message and asked them question after question – questions he had accumulated over many years.  He said they worked together intensely.  As he met with them, he felt that the Savior accompanied them, that He was there beside them.

Through his prayers and through reading the Book of Mormon he was convinced that he had found God’s church and the church for him.  He had searched for many, many years and finally found what he was looking for.  Upon being baptized he said he felt like he had been given a new life.

That is his story.

I enjoy a good piece of bread, I am fond of big bread; it is hard to beat warm homemade bread straight from the oven with honey on it, but each Sunday I find Italo’s ever present, big smile even more compelling.