One of Don Guanella's greatest concerns was always the search for vocations, for religious willing to continue and expand his enterprise by taking on the problem of the four "fs", as he said. In fact, in the first Houses of Providence four not very welcome guests reigned supreme, whose names began with an "effe": Fame, Freddo, Fumo and Annoyance. Even if they weren't always regular guests, they were nonetheless enemies with whom one had to fight on a daily basis.
Lombardy and other lands were always generous with vocations for the Work of Don Guanella, who had a very simple and effective way of inviting those who felt inclined to follow him... He often went out with six, eight of his patients whom he called " good children": they were the ones he welcomed with particular love, since they did not have sufficient intelligence to live with others. They generally had significant nicknames, as if they had been a sui generis team of bravoes: Pelapatàt, Leccapiàtt, Pallanin, Pestalàc...
It was a scene that had become familiar in Como and elsewhere to see Don Guanella taking his "bravo" for a walk; now seeing them, he said to himself:
- Here is Don Guanella taking his poor children for a walk!
Thus, for example, they went as far as Lurate Caccivio and the small group was often joined by the people they met on the street, so that a small procession formed around Don Guanella and his children.
When they arrived at the church, they greeted the parish priest and then they all went to say a prayer, after which Don Guanella made a short speech:
— My good friends of Lurate Caccivio, I have brought here among you my good children who possess a wealth that many intelligent people do not have, because they have innocence, the Grace of God is always with them and God loves them without measure and they love him as others do not know. We came to you to get some fresh air, because these good children need to have fun, to see this world. But above all they need to feel loved and they deserve it; they deserve it, believe me, not so much because they're nice, and they really are, but because they're good and innocent, even if they're unfortunate because they can't take care of themselves. And when they feel loved, when they really are, they become even better and pray to God in their own way.
Isn't there therefore among you some soul who feels like embracing the religious life in order to be able to assist and love these creatures of the Lord?
Then he reassembled his group of "innocents", accompanied by a small and curious crowd of boys from the village and walked through the green meadows to go back down towards the shore of Lake Como satisfied that he had left the seed of unease with the thought that you can't be happy alone.