Ciao tutti!
Voi siete bravi personi! This week was
full of awesome things! and some not so awesome, like me falling up a down escalator
for reasons that elude me at this time. I might explain in my email later on
why I attempted such a feat as to go up a down escalator. As for the time
being, statistics!!
Pizza eaten: 55!
Gelato: 43 (plan to make that number go up sometime soon,
but not sure exactly when)
Books of Mormon: 75!
I'm not too sure why, but I'm very happy
today. So, there will be lots of fun things included in this email and just
stuff that occurs in missionary work and life. I'll start with Tuesday and then
we'll go on from there, explaining a fun story every day that occured if there
is one worth talking about. Andiamo!
Tuesday! we had very much in the way of
meetings today. Six whole hours of zone conference. That's a normal zone
conference for us, because president is very God at scheduling these, and because
they happen once a transfer and also due to the fact that the mission is so
big, it takes about three weeks for all the many and widespread zones to
gather.
After about three hours, the Rotisserie
chicken (one of my favorites) showed up with the pasta from some local diner
and so we ate much in the way of chicken, pasta and roasted potatoes. After
lunch, we talked much about how to give invites and then how to follow up on
them. I was very glad for this lesson, because I realized that I was doing most
of the right things, but then I also had some things that I was able to correct
to make my invites go from good, to Great. Then, we took many zone and
companionship photos (of which I will actually include in this email) and then
we were able to take all of the mail that we received this conference.
If any of you have sent me a package in
the past few months, I'm sorry to say that it has yet to arrive, but there is
always a month and a half from now! We received a ride home from the zone
leaders and then we were able to watch all these dunny videos called
"Safety Zone" which is the only show dedicated to keeping
missionaries safe, and healthy through video replay and analysis. It's on the
gospel library app if you want to see what I have to watch every day in order
to keep myself nice and not hospitalized.
Wednesday! Literally just a bunch of
walking and talking with no super awesome stories. Just some cookies for dinner
and a game before bed with the other anziani. Aways good to have a chill
evening every once and again.
Thursday. We found a wallet on Sunday
and tried to return it today. It really didn't turn out well, because the
doctors office we went to (because that was the only address or phone number we
had as the persons wallet was actually devoid of any helpful details other than
her medicinal prescriptions receipt) closed after an hour and a half of being
open. They are open from nine to ten thirty every day. Except weekends.
Literally an hour and a half for five days in the week. That's barely a whole
working day in a week. I hope the man is a successful doctor, but I'm not sure
I'll be seeing him anytime soon. I'm in good health, thanks to Safety
Zone!
After the Doctors visit, we went to the
metro, but only made it a little ways before it started to rain, buckets. We
took refuge in a Chinese store and discovered a completely real, one hundred
percent WOODEN KNIFE that was meant to be part of a COMPLETE WOODEN AND
THREFORE GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT SET. That's how it was scribbled on the
packaging. Makes me love this world just a little more. Much like the little
staircase that I found shortly after we left the store that descended into a
room that was also out of the rain. But, all I found in there were used condoms
and heroin needles and other such litter. We left shortly after that for an
appointment closer to Rome. In closer to center Italy.
When we arrived there, we went to Alì
Babà kebaberia (which is illegal in the states because it's just a pole of meat
sitting out in the open) and I ordered an whole Maxi for myself. There are four
sizes. That one ranges in the "how are you able to consume all that and
not have to immediately go to the hospital" category. Well, I ate it all,
and then went to an appointment we had with a man named Diego. This man moved
our appointment to Friday, and so we then went to the temple for our second
appointment with a security gaurd who works there but is not a member. We
taught him, and his friend, a recent convert also accompanied us. They work
together as guards and so we stood in the booth with them for a while as we
taught him for forty five minutes.
In that lesson, we hit the word of
wisdom, Tithing and the question of Polygamy that always comes up when we speak
to anyone for more than five minutes. They don't know the church's real name,
but they know about the polygamy and think that we are Amish. But, the lesson
went well. He accepted all that we taught and then we set up a follow up
appointment for this coming week. It was the wildest first lesson that I've had
on the mission.
Shortly after this, in order to get to
the church in time for English course, we tried to take a bus. Well, we left
waiting for the bus and were barely down the escalator when the bus showed up.
I tired to run up, but the rain was so strong and there was so much water that
in my initial jump back up, I slipped and hit the metal corners very hard.
Bloody hands, knee and an ankle, all while getting a mouthful of delicious
sreet rainwater. The escalator descend from the street into the metro. We
missed the bus and I hobbled back to the metro with my companion. We then
missed English course and barely made it home before the other anziani. We had
an hour head start. That night, there was lightning and stormingswhich made it
hard to sleep. But, it was an awesome day for sure.
Friday: I required Crutches for the
whole day because my ankle swelled overnight and I could not put so much weight
on it. Eventually, we made it out the door with time to spare and when we made
it to the metro, we got to watch an old Italian lady scream insults and curses
at an innocent public transportation worker because she was slightly
inconvenienced with some necessary maintenance that was being done to make sure
the metro continued to work. it was just sad watching someone of that age act
like a child who had been told "no" for the first time and understood
what that meant.
While we waited at Diegos palazza where
he worked, for him to finish, he rescheduled us to Monday (today) and today
(Monday) he moved us to Friday of this week. Yay. Maybe eventually we will be
able to meet with him.
Saturday, a great big service project where we
helped a family move out of their house and then they fed us pizza before we
left to watch the morning session of General Conference at six pm our time.
Woo-hoo.
All in all, a wonderfully spiritually nurturing and
physically demanding week where we had the greatest lessons given over a pulpit
and in acts of service as well. I love this mission so much, and I love all of
you very much as well!
Until next week,
Anziano Anderson
1. My maxi kebab. Three pounds.
2. Service project photos
3. We all found the same sticker
4. This. Wooden. Knife.
5. My beautiful companion and I
6. The wonderful district we are
No comments:
Post a Comment