This is gonna be quick!

     Hello people!! 

This email will be quick and I'm just going to hit the most important points of the week and then leave you all with the time to enjoy your lives! 

Numbers: 

Pizza: 75

Gelati: 67

Books of Mormon: 100

Tuesday: This was a day of trial and error because we had a bunch of lessons planned, but we got bidones galore (Bidone is a term we use to tell other missionaries that our lessons were canceled on us) and we met with a super awesome African man who has been baptized twice and wants to know that our church is true before he starts to attend and then get baptized. He's been taught all the lessons, but he just wants to be absolutely sure because Africans hate being baptized more than once, and he's already been baptized twice, so we're being very thorough with him and so is he with us. 

Friday: I had pasta for breakfast because there is no such thing as milk and cereal in this house towards the end of the month, but pasta was tasty and totally worth it. My companion was called by our ward president and told to start writing a talk about conversion for this Sunday, and so he started on that for his personal study. We wandered around a huge market and we bought a few things for my companion to make some applesauce among other things. We had an awesome lesson with another African who wants to know why women can't hold the priesthood in our church, and so we read some talks with her and then shared the ''family:a proclamation to the world'' with her and just had a ball of a time answering her questions. 

Saturday: we had a few lessons and then I was pooped on by a bird for the first time in my mission today, and then I ripped a fatty hole in my pants when they snagged on a random nail in the wall in some backstreet alleyway. It was a fun week, we had a lot of fun teaching and then also just getting to know the  members in our area. 

Today: I wish I had more time to type but I went hiking today and I will send photos afterwards in another email. Thanks for the attention! In Italian we say "brevi ma intesi!" which means "short but intense" and so that's this email! ciao a tutti! 

Spelunking in Sicilia

     I don't know when I'm going to be able to tell you all that I went spelunking in Sicilia and almost got stuck in a cave alittle ways underground. Fine times, and I have a video of the moment as well. Numbers and then experiences! 

Pizzas eaten:75

Gelati: 62

Books of Mormon: 100!!!! 

     Last Monday we went to a soccer field and we played soccer for a while until our time was up and we had time to go and eat food before heading to the church to call family. I was goalie for most of the game because I'm somewhat decent at that and lso because I don't enjoy running all that much so it was an awesome time overall. 

    Tuesday was full of spesa and pass off lessons. The sorelle here have been meeting with a wonderful and smart afircan man that would be baptized if he could get Sundays off, but he's the only one who can work Sundays at his job and he's also the best worker that they have so they aren't willing to give him the time off for even a few hours to go to church. We're working on that right now, but he's an aweomse guy and he has some pretty cool insights on life that you can only have by experiencing them. 

     We also almost bought a swordfish head, but they don't accept card funnily enough and so we missed out on the fish head. Maybe another day, photos will follow when one is purchased. 

     Wednesday was district council, and we all were told to prepare a four to six minute long addestramento about a chapter or sentence in the Preach My Gospel. There were eight of these lessons given, and five of them were on chapter four, which covers spiritual promptings and awareness of spiritual things. It was definently something that this district needed, and it was guided by Heavenly hands for sure. 

     When we had all been edified spiritually, we went to an all you can eat sushi bar where they gave us so much food that we were all suffering to finish in the end. Luckily, Anziano Sabin and I are Bigger than your average missionary, so we ended up taking on the leftovers of the sorelle and just having a ball there. I didn't puke, but I wanted to by the end of that. 

     By the end of the night however, and Sabin did end up blowing chunks because we thought it would be a great idea to do the Banana and Sprite challenge. The challenge is simple. Eat a lot of bananas and then chug sprite. Hold it down as long as you can, and record the results. It took me about five minutes, but after a while, Sabin had to drink litre of milk and then a raw egg. The raw egg got us both. I watched it, he threw up, and then I followed suit again. The miracle of this work I suppose you might say is that both of us can go outside after this experience and still convert people. Amazing really. 

     Thursday was full of finding and lots of fun stuff. We found an African market place that sells African suits, food and just about anything else from the wonderful land of these people's inheritance. We also met with President Kefus, and I was assigned a talk that was to lay about 15 to 20 minutes. Before I came out on my mission, that would have terrified me. Since then, it really doesn't pose that much of a challenge to me. I'm actually excited to give a homecoming talk in church that can talk half an hour because I have material that I can use to fill that space. Funny how that works 😁

     Friday was full of little things and just a bunch of finding because all of our appointments canceled on us within twenty minutes of one another. A whole day of lessons, gone in an instant. We did manage to meet with a wonderful family who just gave birth to a child a few weeks back and who ate currently investigating the church. The baby is also super cute, and I can't send photos so you're going to have to take my word for it.

     Saturday I was given a whole jar of peanut butter and I've eaten maybe a fifth of it since this day. It was fun being able to just eat peanut butter, and I feel much how I imagine a dog might feel when trying to remove creamy peanuts from the roof of their mouth after eating a spoonful of it. We also stumbled into some sort of parade where there were lots of drums, and other tourists for some reason. It was a busy day overall.

     That's all for now! 

Anziano Anderson

Fifteen Hours on a Train and One on a Boat

Ciao Tutti! 

     As I type this, I want you all to know that my monitor is a literal television. I will attach a photo because as all the hip youth say nowadays "pics or it didnt happen!" and so in an effort to not be considered uncool by these same youths I will take a photo. But really though, it's super lit to be back in sicilia again. The last time I served here I was assigned to Agrigento, and it was two hours away from my current place in Palermo or "Paliemmu" thanks to the dialect that is Siciliano. Here be the digits for my mission so far:

Pizza: 78? (don't have my journal on mr right now so I'm guessing)

Gelati: 52

Books of Mormon: 98 (I remember this number)

     I didn't write last week on monday because of the three day span that was between my last email and preperation day. I won't say that the time between then and now wasn't interesting because it's always interesting thanks to general conference and the modern revelation that pertains to those days. If you haven't seen conference because of something that is not of eternal significance, I invite you to correct that and watch it as soon as you can. Now then, away we go! I don't want to put every single detail in this email because that would take way too long, but here are the highlights of some of the days.

     Thursday was transfer day and I spent no less than 15 hours on a train that was headed from Roma to Palermo. There were next to no options for food or acess to water. That was cool I guess. I was able to have a great conversation with a woman from New York and to share the word about general conference. When that was done, I arrived in Palermo a half hour later and luckily, we live relatively close to the house and so, we trekked over there. The apartment is ginormous and I love it. 

     We have had a few meetings with our african members, and I've had more english lessons in this transfer with africans than I think I've had at all my whole mission up until this point. I have been called to work with africans and I feel like I'm in an entirely different mission, because I need to speak an entirely different language with them. It's a dialect of english called "Pigeon" which is basically what english would look like if it was an eagle and it's cousin came in and tried to do all the same things, but couldn't because it's a literal pigeon. it's a very simple version of the english language that most of the africans speak. it's so fun though, because it's not toooo hard to learn oddly enough. Plus, africans are very willing to work and listen to men of God.

     I visited the crypts today and it was ok I guess, I'm just not super into dead bodies that are strung onto the wall and have been there since the 16th century. It's something that I can safely say once is more than enough. We did a spesa, and now i'm taking shelter in the church because of the ludicrous amounts of rain that are pouring outside. I also bought a tie, but thats nothing super crazy just mission culture. this week was long, but not a whole lot of crazy experiences came up. my new companion and I are doing great, and he's worked with africans his whole mission just about, whereas I have not. there are many a thing I have yet to learn, but that's fine. That just means I have many chances to improve in the coming weeks.

until next time! 

Ti voglio bene

Anziano Anderson