Buongiorno tutti!
I have had a week, and it's fixing to be
memorable I the week to come or just a quick blur. I say this because from
Thursday through Sunday have a meeting every day with either the mission
president thanks to zone conference and interviews, stake conference and a
musical I somehow got roped into singing with a bunch of Italians and my
companion, and just the lessons that are in between those lessons. I feel like
me email next week will start with the phrase "that week flew by" or
something to that affect. I won't remember writing this email, so if that is
what happens then alright! Numbers!
Pizza: 64
Gelati: 52
Books of Mormon: 95
Let's start with Monday the 19th. I and
my housemates awoke and we all decided to go to the Zone volleyball that was at
the temple grounds at 10 am. The thing is, we all live about an hour and a half
away, and the metro is broken until the 26th so we had to take some weird line of
support busses because that was the only was to make it home. We had a
wonderful few hours of Volleyball and there was much friendly competition in
trying to spike on one another. This was all fun and good, but on the attempt
to make it back home, Anziano Taylor and myself were very lost in Rome and no
one knows how to get anywhere when the metro IS working so we ended up
following around a wonderfully kind African lady who showed us where to go and
then told us how we are all "one love" and should treat each other as
such. She told us we were like her babies, and that she wanted Anziano Taylor
to have success after his time as a missionary in finding a wonderful black
girl to marry. Africans here speak from the heart and don't hold reservations
so they will tell you what they are thinking all the time, and it's funny to
see what comes out of their mouths because they always mean those things when
they say them.
Tuesday was full of much time
proselyting in the morning and then English course in the evening where we
taught a great group of three people. The funny thing with our English course
group is, out of everyone who attends, there is not a single Italian. We all
speak Italian, but no one is actually from Italy. The course is composed of
Africans, Egyptians, Brazilians and Romanians but no Italians to speak of. And
ust about everyone that shows up, I've never seen before. I've handed out a
number of English course bigliettini (cards) in my time here in Rome 1 and as a
missionary, and almost never do the people who accept a card actually show up.
They usually give it to a friend who then shows up and then continues to do so.
Wonderful, but funny how that works.
Wednesday was the day we held district
council! For the majority of my mission I have under-esteemed these gathering,
but in this council we were all asked a question that made me consider my
mission this far and if I would be happy with what I had done if my mission
needed tomorrow. I realized that I would not be, and so that pushed me to do
much better, and led to a self reflection in which I found some things that I
needed to change in order to achieve my goal of a satisfactory mission. Once
that was figured out, the Zone leaders came into our room and basically told us
that we needed to re-arrange our room so our desks were next to each other on
the same wall. That took two hours and when all was done, we had a much nicer
and cleaner room (which we intend to keep that way) and a more open floor plan.
Because transfers are the next day, we celebrated the last day of the transfer
together with 2 meters of pizza (roughly six feet) between the four of us, and
we managed to dump a chunk of it on the sorelle ecause they stopped by our
apartment to give us dedicas (notes that tell you how awesome the transfer was
because of what you did sort of like a postcard that we give one another but
only if you are being transferred out) and that was a good way to end the
transfer.
Thursday! Transfer day! while the day
itself was very normal for Anziano Taylor and I without a whole lot of super
memorable things, we did have some very pleasant conversations with some
Italians, and we even tried some door to door finding for about five minutes
before we got every single citofono buzz answered with a "mumble mumble
*click*" and then silence. We found a single mother member and shared the
information of English course with her and she was super glad to find out that
she could bring her son as well, because he is still just a small human at two-ish
years of age. When our new zone leader arrived, I welcomed him with a hug and
then a quick tour of the house. It's fun for me because this man, Anziano
Oliver, was my zone leader in Sicilia, and now we live in the same house which
just so happens to be his first four man experience in the entirety of his
mission whereas I've been in a four man for exactly half of my mission. Strange
how that whole thing works.
Friday, the Zone leaders had Mission
leadership conference at the temple from very early in the morning until very
late at night, so between those hours we were outside for a big chunk just
doing some park finding. We fund a wonderful family that is from Peru, but
mostly female at the moment, and all the boys they do have are under the age of
eight so they don't exactly count as legal adults. We exchanged numbers and
sent them off to the sorelle, but it was a wonderful time talking with them.
Other than that, the streets were fairly bare when we were outside the only
people we saw were busy shopkeepers who were busy either preparing for tomorrow
or closing down for today. Not exactly prime finding, but we got by with some
conversations here and there. Nothing that was super spiritual happened today,
but it was a solid day to do some work.
Saturday had a weird twist to it because
while we were at the church syncing our area books after our weekly planning
session (updating them to one another to make the data they have uniform and
not contradictory) è were called by a woman we didn't know who said she was
still waiting for the sorelle at the metro stop. She wanted to meet with them,
so we called the sorelle and told them what was going on there, and the sorelle
went and made sure to be on their way as fast as they could. However, that
didn't work out because about ten minutes later that same woman called us and
said that she was on a bus because the sorelle weren't there fast enough. Keep
in mind, none of us had her saved as a contact and she just called and said she
was there, with no warning at all. So that was fun. I also archived all my
photos that I had on my phone somewhere in my Google drive account because I
had a phone at near maximum capacity with photos and videos of my first years
and some odd months. For those of you who want to go through those with me
after I return home, there are many to see and no shortage of stories to go
along with them.
We also met with some Jehovahs witnesses
today (or TJ's as they are called in Italian) and we explained how the book of
Mormon and the Bible support and speak of one another and do not contradict one
another. They tried to argue this point with nothing but fact, but when we
started reading from the book of Mormon and cross referencing with the Bible,
and all that was said was supportive of one another, they were left grasping at
straws. The bok of Mormon testified to them of its truthfulness to an extent
that all they could say was "I have never read that book, but I know it's
not true" but they could not back it up. We ended our lesson with them in
testimony of the book of Mormon and the spirit we had there confirmed so
strongly what we were saying that when we ended our lesson with a prayer, all they
could do was walk away as they told us they still didn't believe in the book.
Told them that I could not tell them what they should believe, nor could they
tell me what I should believe, but I could tell them what I know to be true. We
ended the lesson on that note and we have yet to reschedule, but I don't think
it will be hard to do that.
Sunday was filled with food and fun, and
we had quite a bit of both. Statistically, we are fed after church on Sunday by
a member from Peru who has been feeding the missionaries wherever he was
residing for the past 22 years. He is a wonderful cook and even more wonderful
person. He cooks peruvian food for us and it's something distinctly different
from Italian food, in a very good way. Otherwise, we were blessed with a few
new additions to the ward today in the form of a transfer student who will be
living here for the next few years and then in a member family who moved to
Italy but just found the church here after a year or two of inactivity thanks
to a lack of a knowledge of a church building. All of this was good for us, and
fun getting to know them. While we were waiting for a bus, we spoke to an old
Italian man, and exchanged our number and a book of Mormon for his number. He
is also in someone else's district so we sent his information that way, but it
was fun to see someone act on faith and take the book anyhow!
Vi voglio bene!
Anziano Anderson
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