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.
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