Il Tempio da Roma Italia

     So many things happened this week, travel is expensive and I haven't had a bed that wasn't made out of rocks the whole time. Let me tell you what happened!

Pizzas Eaten: 45?

Gelato: 42?

Books of Mormon: 60

     First off I want to say sorry for the late email. Our preparation day was changed to Tuesday this week because of all the traveling that we did and for our visit to the temple. The week started off normal more or less, and we then had to go up to Palermo to get anziano Tucker down to Malta and in exchange get my companion from the airport.

     Once that occurred, we spent the night at Palermo and then caught the 10:30 bus to Agrigento. We got home at 13:00 and immediately bought a chicken each for consumption and so we could have the first real meal that either of us has had in the past two days. A word of advice when you're considering to buy a 5 euro rotisserie chicken from a street vendor. Maybe don't do that. The rest of the day we had frequent bathroom trips and regrets for and because of said chicken. We went finding though, and we were only outside for about an hour before Lydia, our "favorite" old lady came over and talked to us. I had to explain to Anziano Belnap that this was indeed Lydia. I warned him about the things he needed to know about in this city, and she was on that list. But it wasn't too bad this time because it was only 20 minutes of her telling us that our church was the brainchild of Joseph Smith the "18th century conman" and to come to the catholic church instead because it was true and has padre pio.catholics amaze me. 

     Once we woke up the next day, we had an hour to pack for three days in Rome and then we jumped on the two and a half hour bus trip back to Palermo only to immediately get on a train which took us to an airport and then from that airplane to Rome to another car and then finally to the Balzotti's house. We had five and a half hours of traveling that day and only the one meal that night when the four of us who were staying there got fed what was called "transfer soup" which the Balzotti's are famous for. It was delicious and we all had three heaping hotels.

     The next day, Sunday, we all attended church in Rome and I saw almost every single missionary that I came in with from the MTC in there along with my MTC president and his wife. It was quite fun for me to be able to speak to him in Italian and actually know what he was saying. He and his wife are going to be temple workers in the Italy temple for a while because they were released this month from the MTC. I also passed the sacrament that day to a ward. Not a branch, an actual ward! Haven't done that my whole mission until now. It was so fun, because there were so many tourists from America and we could talk to all the people in the room with their native language.

     Church got out, and after our personal interviews with the president of the mission, all four of us (Anziano Belnap, Payne, Huff and myself) were driven to the temple grounds where we were left alone for almost two hours. At the Payton housing building where we were for a chunk of our time, I met Terry Jessop. A quick Google search will tell you that he was the first missionary called to the Italy mission when the country was opened for missionary work. He gave me his card. It was nice. I also met some of the actors who were in the Bible videos the church has and then I went and saw the visitors center and the temple from the outside. A quick photo shoot later and I have many photos of everything that I'm allowed to have photos of.

     Eventually other missionaries arrived and we all gathered for a zone conference. We were the first people to use that building for its intended purposes and to play the organ. That was very spiritual and also very neat. We were then left at the temple grounds for many hours after. We were for sure the first ones there and the last ones gone by two hours in either direction so, of course we got many more photos once the workers turned off the lights and locked the doors with us inside the visitors center. We made it home around eleven thirty and then bed by midnight.

     The next day on Monday we went through the temple in the morning and it is one of, if not the most bellissimo temples that I have seen or that exists on this planet. If you can find a way to come down here, then you should do it. It's worth the effort you will put in.

     The rest of the week has been more busses and trains, some missed and others barely caught. I visited the catacombs today and ran into a Korean woman who was some sort of writer named Rosa. She spoke English and asked me to translate the Italian signs for her because she didn't understand some of the words. She followed all term of us around after that for about an hour and then mentioned she was going to Agrigento tomorrow for the Greek temples that we have there and I feel like I'm going to see her again tomorrow as well, but we shall see. I managed to give her a card with more information about our church, and then she ran off to see other things in Italy.

     Then it started to rain and we ended up getting drenched because we had no umbrellas. This concludes my week but not my time here. Until next week!

Anziano Anderson

P. S. I'll send photos later because my wifi is not great at the moment. 

Transfer Calls

     Every five to seven weeks we receive the long awaited transfer calls that tell us who our new companions are going to be, where we go and what to expect for the next month and a half. We found out this past week who our new mission president is going to be and this morning we learned where we are going and it's kind of nice. 

Pizza: 45

Gelato: 39

BoM: 59

Tuesday

     Alright, where to begin... I suppose I'll start with our first lesson in these two transfers!! Agrigento is not known for "flowing with milk and honey" when it comes to new people to teach. So, when we received a call from a Sorella in our branch that she was doing member missionary work and that she wanted us to teach her friend on Tuesday, we gladly accepted. 

     This coincided with a meal appointment that we had made the Sunday prior and was literally around the corner from this house of this particular Sorella. The lesson went well, it was a little short because our bus never came when it was supposed to the first time. So, we had a shorter lesson that what we had hoped for but we managed to give her a book of Mormon. 

     For lunch, it was Cordon Bleu and a great conversation. Nothing super crazy, but the five kids running around was very reminiscent of my home life because I could see all the antics and it was kind of a "through the looking glass" moment for me. 

Wednesday

     Scambio! I knew the day was going to be weird/memorable because of the greeting Anziano Tucker and myself received not even fifteen seconds after leaving the apartment. We were greeted by an angry Italian that offered us cigarettes and then exploded on us about how we don't smoke and with a level of venom and sarcasm I hadn't heard used by an Italian since we got here he said "hope you live a long, smokeless and delightful life!" which would have been touching if it wasn't so ridiculously angry. 

     After our encounter, we went to the church for district council and then, after those three hours were one and completed I remained in Agrigento with Anziano Oliver. He is one of my zone leaders and he's from Sequim! So we talked a lot about Washington on this scambio and we even saw some scambio miracles. 

     There are three people I want to talk about, that we encountered on this scambio. First, Lilo. Second, Liliana. Third, Rino. Lilo used to be a member of our church, and then he fell away due to some personal doubts. We did our best to answer his questions and to do our job as missionaries, but he wouldn't stop talking long enough for us to ay more than a few words at a time, and Italians have this fun little habit of talking to one person and then ignoring the other. So I was already being ignored and then talked over. This is fairly common, but it's usually not so relentless. After an hour of us being told that he wasn't interested and then having him explain the catholic beliefs that we already knew about, he took a book of Mormon and said goodnight. 

     We had barely gone 20 meters when a very large dog jumped out from behind the stairs that we were planning on taking up to the main road and to a lesson we have. Hackles raised, growling dog. Very big doggo. While Anziano Oliver and I tried to panic think, the dogs owner jumped out from behind that same staircase and told us not to worry. Almost immediately after that, he started sniffing around and then ran off. He thought we were cats, and that's why he jumped. We then had a lovely conversation with the owner of the dog. The dog's name is bello, her name is Liliana and she also took a book of Mormon. We got her number and we are in the process of getting an appointment for sometime this week. 

     After Liliana and her much needed spirit lifting chat, we then headed off to find the home of Rino (pronounced like the city in Nevada) ad that was a 2 hour long and some odd minutes nightmare of trying to navigate the tricky Italian street systems. We climbed so many hills before we finally found the right house, and it was the exact opposite way that we had come. We arrived to our appointment about two hours later than the original time of 19:30. We talked about the restoration, read third Nephi chapter 11 with them, and when we had to leave about an half hour later, Rino called the elevator while we talked to his wife and then when the elevator made it, he opened the doors for us and told us to call them whenever we wanted to talk about christ and they would make time for us. 

     Definitely the spiritual highlight of the week. After this, my companion came back from his Scambio and caught some superbug so he was down and out for the rest of this week until about Saturday, that's when I bought some sweet pants that I'm going to wear for tracing, but they are being hemmed and fitted right now so there are not any photos to share. 

Transfer calls

     I awoke this morning to the sound of Darth Vaders theme going off. That is our ring tone for president Pickerd. My companion got transferred to Malta, and I'm staying here in Agrigento for some follow up training. I'm one of two of the oldest missionaries in my district. We have someone here training in his fifth transfer, and another training in his fourth. He is the youngest trainer that we have ever had in this mission.

Photos!

  

1. I got a package from America! it's from the laurels in my parents new ward! I ate most of the candy already.... 

2. Anziano Oliver on our scambio. Being beautiful as always. 

3. It was stormy one day randomly. Nice. 

4. A tagalog bok of Mormon. Boh. 

5. A sweet photo i took of the coast from a bus. 

Another Week In Paradise

Hello all, or as we say it in Italian, Ciao tutti! 

     I probably waited in line for eight or nine hours this week in the span of two days. That's ok though, because it was for my permesso di soggiorno which is a super visa more or less that allows me to live in this country for the next two years while I'm serving as a missionary. More on that in a bit. 

Pizzas devoured: Quarantacinque or 45

Gelato savored: Trentotto or 38

Books of Mormon: Cinquanta cinque or 55

     It's not every week that you get to start off in Palermo on a rooftop in Italy watching the sun rise while you do stretches to ease your tense legs from all the calcio you played the day before. But, that is exactly what we did this Tuesday to start our week off right. The night before we spent about 113 euro on our Speza for the week we were going to be in Palermo, and so we were staying with the zone leaders for this week. 

     When I say "we" I mean my companion and two other anziani who were there for the same reason we were. Permesso work. I believe I explained this to all of you in the past, but in case you forgot or if I didn't explain it in actuality, here's a brief summary of what it is. When I landed in Italy 6 ish months ago, I was told I needed to go to a post office in my first 8 days here to get this process started. We payed a lot of money, sat in line for an hour or so and then off we went with a return date of six months and two days from that day. That's a long time to wait by the way, but Napoli is infamous for being that slow with Permesso work. It allows me to not get kicked out of the country by the police and to be a missionary. 

     Well, six months and a day later I'm sitting in an airport getting ready to fly up to Napoli directly. I got there just in time for English course, but instead of sticking around there to teach, one of the zone leaders took me to get a Pallones Pizza because the pizza in Napoli is in fact, the best pizza in the whole of Italy. And Pallones is a three minute walk from the church so I couldn't not get a pizza while I was here! 

     On Wednesday, I waited for four and a half hours to get my fingerprints scanned in about 5 minutes. When Anziano Stout and I got there (Stout also had Permesso work) they were helping E018. Well, I got my number and I was E108. There are also three other categories that were being helped. It was literally like sitting in the DMV but without music or seats. We took to sitting on the floor before the police officer that worked there told us to stand up because this was an official government building. But one look around would have told you it was really just officially unclean and unable to hold the capacity of people that were waiting. 

     We stood up, apologized and then lost all feeling in our legs after two hours. We were also looking for people who were wearing headphones because I get there ght as the whole Napoli zone was starting The Amazing Race which is basically just a challenge issued by the zone leaders to help us get our conversations in. When one completes the challenge, they get to post a silly photo or video that's also given out by the zone leaders to signify the completion of the challenge. We had to lip sync to our favorite Efy song. It was rather fun. Ryan Schupe ad the rubber band(s?) Dream Big. It's a God song. 

     After the Questura nightmare, we were called to visit a mourning person who is friends with the anziani. His father had just died the day before, and we were there to give him a blessing of comfort. He isn't a member, but he still respects our beliefs and knows that our blessings have power. While there, I also forgot my passport, so I had to run back the next day before my flight to grab it. I'm somewhat forgetful, I'll admit. 

     As a parting gift on Thursday, the Napoli zone leaders gave me 7 packages of cinnamon roll oreos to share with my district during our weekly council. Those were a hit, and they doubled as a birthday gift because it just so happened that our district council fell on the compleanno of anziano Atanasio. Compleanno, basically means a competed year or a "filled year". But it translates to our saying of Happy birthday loosely. 

     It was just a fun time this whole week. It's all a blur to me, so I'm using my journal heavily while I'm writing. It's a great thing to keep a journal, all of you should do so!

     The spiritual experiences I want to share this week are these two:

First: The time I had with the deceased man

Second: Different ways the spirit prompts you

      First: I've been to a few funerals before. Some I don't remember too well because I was sleeping and very small as well. Others because I tried not to be in the room because I loved the person that was in the casket. But, all of those times, those people have been members of the church and it was the first time I've seen someone who had passed without any of the ordinances like baptism that we have. This is why I'm glad I know about the plan of salvation. I know that man still has a chance to learn about the restored gospel and I know it's my job while I'm here to lessen the numbers of people who haven't heard this wonderful message. 

    Second: When I say different ways the spirit prompts you, it's as diverse and interesting as the amount of people around you, and their moods. Sometimes it takes a hard "Yes" or "No" to get someone to do something. Other times it's a vague feeling or impression that something is right or wrong that spurs action. For my companion and I last night, it was a combination of these two at two different times. There is this beautiful soul that stops us  every single time she sees us which is usually twice a night anytime after 19:30 because that's when her mass ends and she hobbles around with the umbrella she uses as a cane. 

     She's an older lady who is a devout catholic, but forgets everything we teach her between days. So she always tries to get us to come to her church, using everything from friendly talk to straight yelling in an attempt to convince us that we are wrong and she is right. Well, I wanted to teach her again because she's fun to teach, but my companion felt that we needed to leave immediately. We did. Moments later, there was a cluster of catholic priests on that corner where we were standing moments ago and boy oh boy am I glad we didn't have to argue with them for the next hour. 

     Later on in the night, we ran into her again and we talked but said goodbye again. Then, 15 minutes later, my companion and I were sitting down because we had been walking for almost three hours with very little success when I felt that wee needed to go home. Like right now. So I stood up and saw the little old lady and the priests across the street looking to cross. Anziano Tucker and I booked it down our street and then home because we had no desire to re-explain everything that we had just been explain the past hour to the same person. 

This was a crazy long week. 

Anziano Anderson.

New Suit

Hey Dad!

     I didn't think this was going to be the reason I needed a new suit, but I've lost so much weight that even with my belt on the last notch, my pants keep un-buckling themselves and popping open at the most ridiculous of times. 

     I'm just wanting to know if I should tough it out for a few more months in this suit and such or if I should just buy some pants while they are on sale. Because, saldi is going on right now and it happens every six months. It's basically the bi-yearly black Friday that the Italians have to prepare for the next seasons line of clothing.

     Well, that's just a quick question for you.

Anziano Anderson

Mayson,

How much money do you need

Dad

Elder A

 I put 250.00 into your checking account. You should do 2 things. First take your current suit to a trailer and have it sized. Second go buy another suit if you can. Budget well and it should work

Dad

Permesso in Palermo

Benvenuti tutti!

     As the title so wonderfully explains, I have permesso work in Napoli, where I started my mission. I fly down tomorrow and I'll be there for two or three days and hopefully I get back in time for English course on Thursday! I'm headed to Palermo right now though because we have zone calcio (soccer, but calcio translates to foot because they call it football here but calcio is synonymous) later today. I'm writing this email in a bus right now at 7 am my time. Or 0700 military time because that's what this whole country uses.

Pizzas Eaten : 43

Gelato : 37

Books of Mormon : 55 (we finally got more last Thursday after 3 transfers of asking for some) 

     I've noticed in every city I've been to, there is a monument somewhere to honor the soldiers that served in the World War. I've been asked if Italians have ositive feelings or negative feelings towards Americans because of our different alignments for some part of that war and all I can say Is this: 

- some Italians hate Americans but all of them have been old homeless men that literally make no sense and just yell ''Americani!'' in an angry voice at us while we are out proselyting. 

- Others are just like anyone else in America. Just like some people love for example, the British because of their accent or more stable economy, most Italians like us because we are agreeable ragazzi that are trying to learn the language and love to eat their food. Both of these things they love. Otherwise it's fair game as to whether or not they like us solely because we are missionaries. 

     This week was full of missionary goodness however, because we had lots of success in our finding efforts. These past two transfers in Agrigento we have had exactly 0 lessons with people or new people in church because it is a small city. However, this Sunday we had two less active members come back to church and so, we were able to teach them about the new two hour block and the extra hour to study at home, and how we were now having sacrament at 0900 instead of 1130. 

     Then, we had much success with our finding efforts. The Lord blessed us with  two new people to teach one of whom just loves to talk to missionaries of all religions because they have a love for their creator that he believes is lacking in today's society, especially here in Italy. We got his name, number, return appointment and gave him a restoration pamphlet. 

     The second person was a little more skeptical, but he also took a card, gave us his number and then asked us some questions about what made our church different from the other churches. 

     We finished doff the night with a wonderful, hour long chat with a man who has had much heartache in his life. As we passed by him, the little old man on a bench, I asked him in a form of Italian used only with close friends ''how are you doing?''  he asked us to sit down and then told us his life story more or less, and then tanked us profusely for being there that night. I have no doubt he's the reason we left the house yesterday night. Plus, we see him all over the place anyways. Agrigento is small after all. Oh, also, we finally (after three transfers) got some Books of Mormon to share ad use in our proselyting efforts! usually we need these once a transfer, but why not once every three?!?! 

     We also had a scambio this Thursday and Friday where I went to Caltanissetta (birthplace of the cannolo) with anziano Koford from my MTC group. Firstly I thought that it was an awesome  experience being able to be there with him, because I was able to see how we've gone from having trouble talking about ourselves to debating with Italians how '' just because we're American doesn't make us rich '' in Italian. 

     While I was there a few things happened. I snowed. 2 appointments canceled on us because of that inch of snow, we got pictures in the snow, we ouch ed a car up a hill that was stuck in the snow, te snow gear store was closed because of the snow and so we couldn't buy snow gloves, we got three people to commit to come to English course, we had a snowball fight in the street and threw snow over cars because an old man started it, and our companions managed to make it up to Caltanissetta at around 18:00 because of the snow that had halted any and all busses for 8 hours the second day until it had all melted. Then, we stood outside for an hour while it was raining, waiting for a bus that almost didn't come because of the snow that wasn't even around anymore. Italy shuts down in snow. 

     Italy is also very beautiful. Sure, we are prone to earthquakes (which I've had on my mission but nothing major) and volcanic eruptions (which I've also had, still nothing major) and rolling mountains which are absolutely beautiful. They also have wonderful people, beautiful siuls and delicious octopus meatballs. 

     Something Italy has that America doesn't would be four hour Sunday lunches, with four courses including a dessert and some weirdly good foods like octopus meatballs, pasta Al furno, and some salty salad. They also use military time here as a standard, and so, I'm trying to use the metric system as well as military time because it's what's used here as well as the dd/mm/yyyy format. 

The only other big thing that I can think of would be what I mentioned earlier and how I'm going to Napoli on the mainland to get my permesso. I'll let you all know how that goes when I'm done with that, next week. 

Anziano Anderson

2. My shirt ripped a little

1. This car got a different kind of snow

3. My everyday view

5. Me, in a real life snow globe! 

4. Snow in Caltanissetta! 

And so it begins....

 Fuoco artificio. Artificial fire. Also known as: Fireworks. However, this last Monday, while these were going ff, so we're some bombs. At least, it sounded that what and they were right outside of our window for quite a while. We tried to get to bed at 10:30 ish (not very hard) and about half an hour before the actual new year in Italy (I was asleep and awake before you even had yours back in the states) until about 2 in the morning. Even as I write this email at 14:30 here in Italy, I can still hear some fireworks going off. 

Pizzas eaten: 33

Gelato: 46

Books of Mormon: 55

     Alright! I'm sorry I didn't email last week, it was Christmas, and so, I had calls to my family and three meal appointments all in a row, one for every day starting on the 23rd after church where we were fed a nice pile of octopus meatballs. They were rather tasty and I didn't even realize that's what they were until after I heard the members talking about it. I knew we were going to be eating octopus, but I wasn't expecting a meatball form of the creature. It was rather interesting to see how much I've already forgotten what straight beef tastes like, and how it feels in my mouth. almost all beef you buy here unless it's in steak form, has anywhere from 20 to 40 percent pig in it because Italians don't like the taste of straight beef I suppose. At least, that's how I seem to find all my ground ''Beef''.

     A Volcano erupted not too far from where I live currently in this great country of Italy. I didn't feel too much from this big old thing going off, but I do have pictures! Thanks to another anziano in my district who can see this volcano from his house. I'm safe, as far as I know, no one died or was injured. but you know what did affect me this morning? Deep cleaning day!! we got up and to celebrate the new year and because my companion and I were so gosh darn excited to be in a new year, we were overcome with the desire to clean our apartments just like our Mission President told us to do! You can believe we did that. It's nice to have a super clean apartment.

     We found out this week that we should finally be getting our Books of Mormon sometime in the month of January! And I also learned a super fun thing about the month of February! Learning a Latin based language is fun because you learn things like this: Febbre. it's the word for Fever. So the month of Febbraio is literally the Month of Fevers in our calendar year. That's why we named it that. because the Romans figured out that cold and wet bring sickness and fevers, so this time every year is probably going to bring many fevers. Let's make sure we never forget that by naming the month after what it brings! Same goes for October, November  and December because those mean the eighth, ninth and tenth months, but then Julius Cesaer came around and named a month (July) after himself and so did Augstus.Illet you figure out what month he gave his name. That threw the other months out of the loop but they kept their names.

     I wasn't able to do a whole lot of proselyting this week because I had some cold or something that knocked me over for a day and then when we were able to go outside, there was nobody to be found because they were either all shopping for the new years parties they were planning on hosting, or they were teenagers making out with each other. There's a lot of that going on here in Italy.

     One thing of note however, I'm going to be heading back to Napoli this Tuesday because I have permesso work! that means they fly me from Sicilia to Napoli (one hour flight) and then from Napoli to wherever I have to go to get my fingerprint appointment (usually a police station) and then I might either spend the night or, take a flight from napoli to Rome and then from Rome to Agrigento. You can fly to napoli from Sicilia, but not from Napoli to Sicilia because there are not enough people who want to go to Sicilia from napoli for it to be worth it for the plane companies. Then, in about another month or so I'll be headed back to Napoli to get the actual card itself. By that point, it will be almost expired and then unless it's a two year ( which napoli doesn't really give out that often) I'll have to repaet this process again until i'm able to go home.

     if you have ny questions about anything specifically, feel free to send them to me any time during the week, and i'll try to include the answers either in this, my weekly or in a personal letter to you. 

Ciao for now!

Anziano Anderson