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

HeY eVeReY oNe

     There is a lot to cover in this email, so I'm just going to breeze through it all and hope that it all makes sense 😁😁

Pizzas eaten: 59

Gelati: 46

Books of Mormon: 96

     This whole week was just nuts, and I have about ten days to cover because of an offset preparation day. So, I shall begin with Monday the 16th and go forward from there.

     Monday: volleyball at the temple with the Zone was appreciated and many a ball were spiked. I was doing a lot of spiking, and that's thanks to a very small and short net that we use. I can see over the top of it without needing to stand on my toes, so it was a literal breeze to raise my hand and crush any hopes of victory fire the other team. We don't keep score, but it was a fun amount of competition. I discovered that Anziano Smartt used to skateboard and we enjoyed a wonderful cannolo together.

     Tuesday: Nothing spectacular occurred, we had district council and then ate some dolce afterwards before we dealt with technology issues almost the whole time after that thanks to a sim card that didn't want to give us data for some reason. We figured that out and did some finding, nothing to crazy.

     Wednesday: We went finding and I handed out a Book of Mormon to a wonderful woman who is a stay at home nurse for an old man that is up there in years and experience. Anziano Taylor recited the first vision to him and the old man interrupted him and told us to watch because "there is light" and so we did just that.

     Thursday: we helped the area 70 move houses and he bought us lunch. We spent the day doing that and then we went and taught English course. I have some photos of how Italy is too small for me, and those will be attached to this email. 

     Friday : Busy day, we spent the whole morning finding and we didn't have a whole lot of success. But, we did have a lesson with our guy who wants to be baptized even though it was unplanned and he just told us that he was on the way to the church. So, we ran that direction and we taught him for a while and then proceeded to do more finding with a little more success.

     Saturday: We made mini cheesecakes and enjoyed a wonderful family night at the church where all the members played American games with us like musical chairs and telephone. They thought it was super fun, and we had a blast all throughout 😊

     Sunday: The single biggest group of members that we had show up in one day ever. Almost all of them were tourists, and we ran out of translation devices. We have almost 130 of these, and we were out with 20 people needing translation, so we all spread out and translated to those in need. It was fun, and definently worth remembering.

     Monday: Permesso travel! I had to travel two hours to wait for three hours to do a task that took 6 minutes, just so we could travel back for another two hours. I have to go back in a few months for my second Permesso, so that should be super fun.

     Tuesday: My companion fell ill and we were unable to leave the house after lunch, but we were able to reschedule our appointment with a wonderful older man with interest because he is a school teacher so he understands when someone can't meet due to a stomach bug out of the blue.

     Wednesday: we spent the morning handing out English course cards on a bus while I was wearing a white board around my neck with the translated words "Free English course" while we handed them to people. We blew through 250 of these in about two hours and then we had lunch and weekly planning because of the week we've had so far.

    Today! We have a session at the temple in about an hour so until then, we've been traveling and just hanging out at the visitors center so we can talk to tourists and other things like that. If you have any questions, let me know what they are and I'll attempt to answer them 😁😁

Anziano Anderson 

Cheesecake in a tin

Green man graffiti that was cool

A bed frame that would only fit cosi

A shared cannolo

Me being too tall for Italy

A shoe that has arrived at its final destination. 

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019, 14:12 Mayson Anderson <mayson.anderson@missionary.org> wrote:

Ciao tutti!

Insert Witty Title Here

 Hellllllooooooo dwellers of America! (and anyone who happens to not be in America right now due to missionary service or for any other reason, I salute you as well) This was quite the week! Many an adventure, but not quite as hectic as last week to say a little bit. Not that this week wasn't interesting, I just didn't happen to snap any toe bones against unsuspecting bathtubs in the middle of the day. 

The Stats!! 

Pizzas devoured and digested: 71 (That's a lot of dough) 

Gelati coned and consumed: 54 (That's a lot of brain freeze) 

Books of Mormon beautiful and blue: 95 (That's a lot of truth) 

     Monday was an absolutely awesome start to the week because we were told that we were to start effective today a brand new missionary proselyting schedule that would dictate us rising an hour earlier and then going on to studying an hour sooner in the morning and overall giving us that extra hour to be outside and sharing the gospel in the form of proselyting and service to the Italian people. I love the new schedule and can testify of the miracles that just a little more time in the day can bring if you actually apply yourself in that time. Something about obedience brings blessings but exact obedience brings miracles and the like. Other than that, the normal pday activities occurred, and then the day ended. 

     Tuesday! District council to start us off and also a scambio with the Zone leaders. The start of this scambio was marked with a lunch at a Japanese sushi place where we ate until we nearly burst and then waddled down to the bus stop where we rode home and then had language study. It was fun because we live together, so we just switched desks for the hour and then we left to go and do our different things. Anziano Smartt and I went to the house of a member who will be living in Italy with us for the next two months while she works at the temple and we dedicated her apartment so that she could feel the love of the Lord for her there. We then saw where Ceasar was stabbed and then we made it to the church to plan Ricardo's baptism with Ricardo. 

     We came up with a program and then we told him we would have some paperwork for him on Thursday along with a chance to really meet the bishop for more than just three minutes at a church function. He was OK with this, and so we created the program and then we taught English course to finish off the night. But, because we were still on scambio, we all decided to have a big ol' sleepover in one room of the house where we the piled mattresses on the floor and promptly fell asleep. 

     Wednesday the scambio continued and we went about the new schedule as one would do any other day of the week and we did so by studies and then clearing out some of our paper area book. When lunch rolled around, Anziano Taylor and I were back together after a harrowing journey down the hall that only one of us had to make. Sometime in the morning however, I and Anziano Taylor were asked to help a sister in the ward with some window repairs, but we didn't know how to get there, so the Sorelle took us to her house and we showed up in a group of Anziani and Sorelle. 

     The sister that we helped used to be a Muslim, and she told us her conversion story shortly after our arrival. It was long, but she told it relatively quick and it was also full of heartache and sadness but that was canceled out by the joy of finding her savior (her words not mine) and having us as her adopted family. So, we are considered to be her children according to her. She's an old Italian lady though so it's expected. What she ended up needing repaired was some mosquito netting that she couldn't reach due to her short stature, and so that's why she wanted the anziani to come over. 

     Dad, you'll love this because the system they use here to apply the netting in the windows is exactly the same one we used to apply the insulating plastic in our windows for the winter cold. A piece of very long, double-sided sticky tape that adheres to the mesh and the window frame as well. Although, it was velcro more than sticky tape, the principle is the same. Because I've done this before, I had it fixed in about ten minutes in the entirety of the house. Then, I fixed her cordless land-line and showed her how to work it all the while she made us lemonade and Egyptian dessert (seeing as that was where she was born and hence why she was Muslim at the start of her life) before we left to teach a man who speaks only Spanish at the church about the plan of salvation. 

     Two hours after we arrived at the church, we finished teaching the whole plan of salvation, and that was only thanks to the sorella who could speak Spanish and translated everything we taught, along with bearing her own powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. The man we taught is also very elect and nearing baptism, seeing as he quoted a few Doctrine and Covenants verses from memory to us that were pertinent to the lesson. Great guy overall. 

     Thursday was simple and consisted mostly of Baptismal planning and our meeting with Ricardo and the bishop. Neither of them could make it tonight, so we just taught English course instead and then told our English class to bring some food that hils from their home countries, along with the recipes for those dishes in English, and we would do the same for them. So, we are expecting to have some food at English course and then a chance to talk with one another about said food. That's always a good way to learn! 

     Friday was interesting only because we spent a majority of the day at Termini which is a little outside of my current area, but it's fine because we had a missionary purpose to be there today. A week or two ago my companions cellphone was stolen and he has been skating off of mine for that time. Today, we met a man after much trial and error to buy another phone for my companion at termini because it was a halfway point fr the both of us. 

      Once we bought the phone, we came back to our church and attempted to install the governing app that the church uses on a ll it's devices called Maas360 which basically gives administrator access and privileges to our president and there's nothing we can do about it. However, it wasn't downloading on this phone for some reason, so we called it a night because we tried to get this phone to work for a while and it wouldn't. The whole event took the day, and we ran into quite a few members from Utah whilst at termini,as well as from Italy. One of these families bought us breakfast, and then lunch at McDonald's. I love the member attitude towards the missionaries here! Lot's of support and the like. 

     The only thing that we really didn't feel too good about was how Ricardo started to text us about some doubts that he had about his baptism tomorrow, and said he wasn't sure he was ready for that so we sent him some texts and bore testimony to him about the correctness of his choice, and we were mostly left on read but we did get him to promise that he would pray again. That's how we ended our day. 

     Saturday. Was. Interesting. 

     Mostly this was because we decided that the phone we bought yesterday wasn't the one we actually wanted, so we listed it on marketplace and it sold within the first two hours of it's listing. We listed it just before lunch, and as soon as someone told us they would meet us to buy it, Ricardo texted us and said that he wanted to call off the baptism for today. He didn't feel prepared yet, but didn't say that he didn't want to get baptised at all. So we told him that was OK, we can meet during the week that follows because he's tied up with college stuff at the moment. It would've been super cool had he been baptised today, because that is to the day the anniversary of my first baptism in the mission. Exact same day, one year apart. It didn't happen, but that's fine because I'm not worried about it just yet. We're still praying for him, so we'll see whare that leads us. 

     We met the people by the metro station, they bought the phone and we then got on that same metro to head to termini to buy the second phone in just as many days. We ended up buying it and then installing Maas360 on it before the people who bought the phone from us felt buyers remorse and then asked if they could have their money back. We explained ot them that we didn't have it anymore and because they are Italian, we had to block a lot of angry Italian numbers randomly calling and texting us for the remainder of the day. Anziano Taylor and I then bought a metre pizza so that we could comfort ourselves e to the canceled baptism. 

     That's a week in the life of a missionary! if you have any other questions, please do ask! I love to hear them! 

P. S. Pictures to follow in a sperate email. 

Gypsies, Hospitals and Baptisms

I forgot to mention that we have a baptism this Saturday for someone that we've been teaching for a while now. Other than that, photos!

In no particular order :

- My companion watching me take a photo of him and my Mug

- This awesome sticker that'll drive you ocd people nuts

- 16 euro for a pound peanut butter

- my broken toe

- A salad from a lunch we had on Sunday with a member

On Mon, Sep 9, 2019, 11:58 Mayson Anderson <mayson.anderson@missionary.org> wrote:

This was one of the more packed weeks in the entirety of my mission. I've said that a few times in the start of my mission, but back then the bar was rather low. Nowadays it's a little harder for me to say stuff like that, but still possible! 

Pizzas: 65

Gelati: 53

Books of Mormon: 95

     Monday was the start of the title above, we were blessed with an experienced pick-pocketer that stole my companions phone from out of his pocket while we were on the bus from the front of our house to the church stop. That was an exciting start to the pday, and it was just the issue we dealt with all day before the phone stopped showing up on the computer while we were attempting to track it. That night ended with a storm and some awesome lightning shows. 

     Tuesday was a blast because we had district council, and immediately afterwards we went to a Chinese store so that we could buy some furnishings for the house, like an ice cube tray because ice isn't really a big thing here. However, we found rootbeer! Mug Rootbeer! it tasted a little different, but it's very cheap and frankly a welcome change of pace from the Fanta and Coca-Cola that dominate the shelves here. We were blessed with two new people off of the street for English course that night, and they were very fun. Our English course is steadily growing and I love the progress that the students are making in their language skills! 

     Wednesday was a day that was spent mostly just calling people from our paper area book to be in line with data privacy laws by the end of this coming week, and then recuperating a boatload of lost contacts from the phone and adding them into the replacement phone that we got from the mission office. Fun stuff! 

     Thursday I awoke to the smell of banana pancakes because one of the anziani was super awesome and decided to cook breakfast for the house. This was much appreciated because I love pancakes! aside from that, I went to the ER after breakfast because I fractured my toe a few days before but we were busy and I wanted to make sure the pain was more than just bruising. When the purple left, and the foot still hurt, I thought that a good indicator that maybe something was broken. I was correct, and I have officially broken a bone in my life. Although the story is this: I walked into the bathroom and stubbed my pinky toe on the corner of the bathtub in the dark. After a popping noise, I could feel my foot and it felt very not good. 

     After that, my companion sang at the visitors center at the temple grounds and made a few people cry because he's a very talented man and very good at singing. Also, the acoustics were amazing in the room where he performed so that might have something to do with it.

     Friday was the day of studies and weekly planning, and the day that we discovered just how much Italians care about their privacy. We are doing this thing where we collect Italian testimonies and then post them onto a mission wide Facebook page called (and feel free to like and share this page with all of your friends because we would love the publicity!!!!!) "Uno in Cristo" and nobody would allow us to take a photo of them, let alone a video. We had some fun conversations out of it though, and that was a blessing in and of itself. 

     That's all the fun stuff of this week! if you have any questions or comments, lemme know! 

Invite: "Like and share" the Uno in Cristo page on Facebook. Share it with all of your friends. Literally all of them. Do it!! Love you all, can't wait to see you soon! 

Meetings for Miles and Miles

Ciao my golden friends! 

     This week was exactly what the title said it was! We had the planed and regulated seven days in the week that is custom throughout the world. However we had four of those days full of meetings for different and various reasons, and they were all back to back. For Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we were given normal days to just work and do what it was that we desired. From Thursday to Sunday we had a meeting to prepare for another meeting to epare for yet another meeting. More on the way in the words to follow these below! 

Pizza: 65

Gelati: 53

Books of Mormon: 95

     Monday was a fun and laid back day of storms and just a few calls made to my family. Well, my sister. The rest of my family happened to be in Mexico at that time. I saw some videos though, and it looked like they wer heaving a blast, so rest assured that they are doing absolutely okay right now and not at all in the least bit stressed about anything in the slightest! Otherwise, we had a ball finding new people that night and then we turned in for the next day of fun and wholesome activities. 

     Tuesday was a sweet reminder of my childhood as we had district council and then went to our ward mission leaders house where we had a nice little council with him and lunch. The thing that reminds me of my childhood is the food that was served while we were there. As most of you know, my Father served in the Phillipines and so he learned how to cook the four good dishes that they have, and I like to think that I know how to cook one of them, but I suppose I'll have to ask one of the Philippino members that we have here. Anyhow, this member is phillipino and he cooked adobo with rice, and some fried fish that you could eat entirely, bones and all. It was better if you did not ingest the skeletal system and head, but some of us tried a nibble just to say that we did. So, I had some food that I didn't realize I would miss and it was just a good day overall. We spent a good chunk of this day doing some area book flushing to meet with the standards of the new privacy laws, and I made a new tie for myself out of an old pillowcase because I didn't want to buy a new tie and also because I wanted to try making a tie anyhow. 

     Wednesday was fun because we spoke solely in Italian from 09:00 until 21:00 and that helped me realize just what I can't actually say in Italian and what I need to work on. Mostly subjunctive (I wish/think/would like, etc) and some other just ridiculous things that you wouldn't use in a normal gospel lesson. We liked it so much that we plan to keep doing that at least once a week for the rest of the transfer and then just see where our Italian skills are by the end of the six weeks we have together. 

     Thursday started our chain of meetings, and where better to start than with the president of the mission? We spoke with President Smith and had a ball there before we ran back to the church and arrived just in time to teach English course before we headed home for the night. It was fun, I taught the people in attendance how to ask for haircuts, and showed them some pretty radical 'dos as well. Thanks Facebook! 

      Friday was an early start and donut delivery run from Battistini to via dei settebagni 46 in Roma if you want to map that out. Overall it took about an hour and forty-five minutes because busses and metro were the only way we could get from point A to point B. It was fun, and when we made it to the temple, we dropped the donuts off and then went to practice a musical number that my companion was to be a participant in. We practiced, and enjoyed a wonderful time at the temple for the next four hours as we were taught by our president at zone conference, his assistants and then some awesome zone leaders that we have. we received much wise council that we have since applied in our work. 

     Saturday was a hoot because we had all our studies in the morning, so there goes four hours because we also had weekly planning as well. We met with two sisters from our ward, the ward chorister and her very good and musically gifted friend. Both of them are from Peru and speka Spanish, but also very good Italian, and they asked us to show them how to get to the temple so we took them there on the metro and on the way up we did a bunch of finding while still keeping them informed on how to get where we were going and the number of stops and other things to look for so they wouldn't feel abandoned. They told us how impressive anziano Taylor and I are as a companionship and that we work very well together. 

      The reason we were headed to the temple was to be part of and to sing in the Stake conference that was to be broadcasted to Puglia and other parts of Italy that were too far away to feasibly make it to Rome anytime soon. We sang an opening him (number 36 in Italian, all creatures of our God and king whicg was originally Italian to begin with just so you know) and then we stayed because we wanted to learn and also because we needed to take these sisters home when all was done. We grew our relationships with them, and we had a fun little jazz session where one of the sisters made some sort of flute with her hand and my knuckles popped while we were waiting for the train. I'm slightly broken, but it sounds good when put to music apparently. We had one more great conversation with some teenagers on the way back home where the whole metro car was participating and we invited them all to attend English course among other things. The people here are very open and warm when you approach them in the right way. The right way is any way that isn't "ciao! have you seen missionaries like us before?" because the answer is always no, and then they refuse to acknowledge your existence. Fun fact. 

     Sunday was a day of memories and crossroads for me. I ran into members from Napoli and Agrigento that I haven't seen in over a year, and it was such a strange experience but also really satisfying that they all remembered me and were actually lining up take photos in front of the temple with me because it was just an awesome chance that I probably will not have until I come back in a few years from now. Photos will be attached with some explanations. They all agreed that I was a lot skinnier now than I was a year ago, and I'm glad that's the case because quite honestly I was a chunky monkey when I arrived a year and three months ago. I have less than ten months left and that's tripping me out. I'll be home sooner than I thought, and I can already say that I'm going to miss this place more than I think I know. 

     The only thing I want to invite you all to do this email around is read a few chapters of scripture and then compare them to one another because it's so important to understand that what you find in the comparison of these chapters are things that we believe in this church that no one else does. The chapters are first in the Bible:

Matthew 5-7 the sermon on the mount

Compared with:

3 Nephi 12-14

And as always, show love one to another through service. The lord says to love thy neighbor as thyself, and in Italian the word for "neighbor" is "prossima" which means "next" or the person who is physically the closest to you in any given moment. So, with that context, love thy Neighbor as thyself this week as often as you can! 

Anziano Anderson

Another Week, Another Experience

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