Wednesday, July 31, 2013

First Email from Italy

I am sorry but I do not have much time today to write the normal email I would because.. yet again.. my P-Day is being cut short.. So this email won't have clever quotes or many stories! Sorry! I'll do my best in the little time I have. My companion has to fly to Rome for Zone Leader Conference (of which he is... a Zone Leader) and we have to catch Trains, Ferries, Boats, and Planes to get where we need to be in about 1 hour... So that leaves about 37 minutes to email right now... I am not going to Rome.. I am going to a nearby City for a couple days while he is in Rome.

It is my first week in the land of Italy and this email is also going to encompass the past two weeks as well because we were flying on P Day and we couldn’t really email last week. I am sure you are wondering where I am right now… Well, before you read I want you to guess….

...

Wrong...

I am in Messina! It is on the the beautiful Island of Sicily (I've nicknamed her Baptism Island). This town is pretty crazzay. It is right next to Italy like literally swimming distance from the mainland... But for some strange reason these here I-talians havent built a bridge between the mainland and island. But the town aacrossed the way is called Reggio and there are missionaries over there. Just one set of Missionaries and the two cities are practically the same mission because we go to Reggio and Reggio comes to Messina 3-4 times a week. 

That is where I am actually going right now. My Companion is going down to Catania (2.5 hours away) to the Airport and I am catching the ferry to Reggio. We both will not have companions.. Sketchy situation.. especially with me going to Reggio with my limited Italian and no phone to trying to find the Reggio Missionaries. Va Bwa (Thats actually my favorite Italian Word. Its slang for Whatevs)

The language in Italia is crazy. People speak reaal fast compared to what I am used to. But I am understanding more and more everyday. Wow... Email time is already halfway over so I'll tell my stories really quickly!! So the first few hours we got to Messina we had an appointment with some less active members and the whole time I just had no clue what they where saying because they were only speaking Messinese to each other.. And then only Siciliano to the member who was present.. And then really really fast Italian to us. My companion said he really only under like 10% of the whole lesson because they where not speaking Italian. But I had fun and put in my testimony at the end.

Italy is really broken up in languages actually. Most people on the street speak Siciliano or Messinese (Old people mostly Messinese) and then when we talk to them they will speak Italian. But its crazy how many languages there are. Every city (especially in Sicily according to my companion) has really distinct languages that really are not common to each other. That is why everybody speaks Siciliano. Mamma Mia. So much to learn!

It is really pretty here though. There are palm trees and beaches and literally like 50+ cathedrals here. They are really beautiful, old, and big. The average size on one is about the size of a stake center but then 8 stories tall and then a bell tower on top of that. Every block has about 2 or 3 cathedrals. I've only counted about 50 but if you go up into the hills and to other towns they are literally just everywhere! They are beautiful but sometimes it is hard to street contact in the shadow of these huge buildings. But surprisingly everybody is really really really friendly and they will listen to us for like 10 minutes even if they are busy. I really respect that about the Italian is that they are really respectful of the Mormom missionaries (But they hhaaattteee the Jehovas Witnesses. Its funny actually)

The stereotypes of Italians are all true in Sicily. Old men sit in the Piazzas and yell at each other and everybody uses their hands. All of the hand gestures mean stuff to. I've learned like 30 already. The Italian hang all their laundry acrossed the windows in alley ways and they poke their heads out of their windows and yell at each other (happens all the time and I love it). The food is super good as well! 

The ward is awesome. We have about 40 people who attend church regulary and all the members are really strong and friendly. We have a lot of Sri Lankin members about 10. They all have a lot of faith and love the Book of Mormon more than anything in the world. All of the members don't wear normal suits to church. The suits here in Sicily all have zippers and stripes and funky laples. I love them. They are incredibly cheap to. Like the price of a pair of jeans in America. Clothes are suppper cheap here and super classy as well. But I love the ward. They are all very beautiful (Italians are just beautiful people) and very spiritual. They love the missionaries to. We have a sister from our ward serving in Switzerland, Soeur Bounonotte. The Buononottes wants to invite us to dinner sometime.

They eat horse in Sicily. We are going to buy some in the market when my comp gets back from Rome on Friday.

The Street Vendors love the Mormom Missionaries. They don't care for our message but they are super friendly! The Africans are wayy awesome and wayy friendly (They are the Street Vendors). The bar tendors also love us. When we pass by the bars they always offer us free juice and soda. Much needed in this hot weather.

There is a prison nearby and every time a prisoner is let free they have a firework show. Its cool! There was a few shows this week.

Holy Cow there is so much to say!

My companion is a great guy. His name is Anziano Stewart. He has been here for 9 months.

So everybody that serves on the mainland says Sicilia is like a 3rd world country. Its just really really different from the mainland. People are friendly though but things are a lot poorer on the Island nowadays. You can't drink the water in Sicily (except for Catania and Palermo). Sometimes the water goes out. But its all good. We also have a really big apartment which is nice. There is one set of elders and one set of sisters in Messina right now. We have small AC unit which is nice.

English class is fun. We have about 30 people come every week in the summer. In the winter around 100!! But I taught the advance class and all we teach in there is American slang phrases. We have 4 advanced students and they love learning Americans phrases like: Stoked! Pumped! Sick! See you Later Alligator! They also love saying to me "See you see big baboo" 

Italians hate AC and they think it makes them sick to sit by them. So in church everybody sits on the opposite side of the AC unit.

We have to go now... Here is my address for the next 3 transfers (Fact.) Hey listen. President Waddups said not to send packages though! When we pick up packges we as missionaries have to pay like 70 US Dollars to even recieve them. Also the mail system here is a little corrupt as well and Elders and Sisters have had their packages tampered with and stuff stolen from them. The further south you go it is more common and especially in Sicila. Also the post men sometimes slit letter open. Boh.

Via Trento 2L 98123
Messina
Italy

Ciao Ciao Ciao Ciao Ciao (Old people say it like 12 times when you say good bye each time it gets slower and softer)

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Cabin Fever

Well, it’s week number... six I think? Don't really like counting because it going by pretty quickly now. But yes, I’m doing well. Brushing my teeth, playing nice with the other Anziani, eating my greens, and wearing my retainer. Thanks for your letters I really enjoy them! Wel,l here's a quick summary of some things that have happened this week and maybe even a few thoughts that cross my mind as I draft up this here letter...

"It’s the onnnnly way to flyy!" – It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
We got our flight plans a couple days ago! We leave from Salt Lake City going to the Dallas at 12:15. We are flying American Airlines. There we say goodbye to our Milano and Romanian friends and split off into groups of 11 to go to our missions.  My group has a flight at 4:45 pm to London flying British Airways. Then we have a flight London to Rome at 11:00 am. Pretty exciting I think. I also am hoping that we are in the same terminal as the Cafe Rio so I can get my last bite of 'Mehican' Food before it’s pasta and pizza for the next two years!

A lot of my district, bless their hearts, brought literally hundreds of pounds of stuff to take. They have to ship all of their stuff home this week because they can't take it Italy. (My companion literally has half a suit case full of exercise equipment and the other half is full of food.) I'm glad I'm from a family that travels a lot so I know how to pack!

"Don't mind him he's just hackin' on a bone” – Christmas Vacation
So this week we have noticed that every day (mostly every morning) we come back into our room and a lot of the food has been missing. Well last night I woke up to the sound of rustling rappers to see our District Leader just going to town on our pile of food! Every night he sneaks in after we've gone to bed and eats our snacks!! What a skunk. We have to lock our door at night now, which stinks because the AC is still out and it gets super hot in there... But it's a small price to pay to keep the district leader from committing sin.

"Rasta Man Never Die!" - Hawaiian Flee Market Man (Claimed Bob Marley's Cousin)
I sent some pictures of Adam home last week and he seems to be doing really good. He is going to the West Indies where it is palm trees and 90 degrees year round. He is super excited to go and is really looking forward to serving in some of the small Rastafarian villages. I don't know if I mentioned this, but he is in my same building so I see him a lot, and the West Indies missionaries before him. There really is just a personality that they call to that mission because the missionaries who just left are the exact same people who just came in. It's funny how that works.

"You’re nocturnal! Your eyes don't see well even on a good day!"
More problems with the classroom. They fixed the AC. Yay. But now all the lights have burned out in our classroom... I went to go talk to the maintenance people and they said they would fix it... Hmm... A week later they hadn't fixed it so I talked to them again and they said they probably won't replace them... WHAAT??? They said when we leave they are remodeling the whole building and don't really want to fix them because it’s getting torn out anyways... So this week the classroom is literally sooo dark because we just have a little window in the corner. But at least we leave in a few days. Kinda weird that they wouldn't replace them though considering we can barely read in there? Che sara sara...as they say in Italia...

"Caro Padre Celeste"
Yes, Italian is still incredibly frustrating and hard, but I'm trying my best by golly. But one thing that I like about Italian (yes, I'm getting to that point) is the style of prayer. In English we pray very formally and always use Thees, Thous, and what nots... It even says to do that in the White Hand Book—to use formal language. But in Italian you are supposed to pray informally and casually like you are talking to a really close friend. Our teachers kind of explained it this way... In Italian, mostly because of the Catholic Church, prayer is very rigid, structured, and extremely formal. So the people of Italy use the casual form to show that prayer is not supposed to be like that and that God loves and cares for us so that we can actually talk with him. I think that is pretty cool. I was wondering if French or Danish was formal or informal?

"Tanti Aguri a Te (Happy Birthday to You)"
It was my Companion's Birthday this week. I wished him a happy 12th birthday and am making him a little card today and an origami heart. But the day after his Birthday was our teacher's birthday so we took a lot of the stuff that my Companion got and re-gifted it for our teacher. Don't really know how my companion felt about this. He went along with it though? He doesn't speak up much, so we really don't know what he's thinking. But in any case, he was happy that his presents could be used to brighten up somebody else's day. :)

"We're trapped here like rats! Small little rats with no hair and one leg!" - Radio, Brave Little Toaster
Well if I thought it was cabin fever last week... This week has been pretty rough for the district now that we have our travel plans. Kind of weird to think that a week from now I will be in the Italia speaking to real people. Kind of weird to think that there are actually real people out in the world. But we are supa' excited to go.

"..."
Roma lost to Milano this week in soccer. That’s all that needs to be said. But! I made a small 2 ft by 2 ft four square court in our hallway. We play with a lacrosse ball. I am proud to say that Roma always takes home the Gold in that though!

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Independence Day Week

"We are so very grateful that we were able to break away from our Mother Country, Great Britain" - MTC Prayer
So grateful I am to live in this great nation of ours! The week’s festivities kicked off with the entirety of the MTC celebrating the 4th of July together! Many an Elder and Sister was decked out in their finest red, whites, and blues, I myself carried around those American Flags you sent me all day singing various patriotic songs! Nothing makes you feel more American when you can gloat about it in front of the missionaries from the UK (schezo, but there was a lot of Yankee hooliganism from every Patriot here who has the guts in their blood)... But anyhoos, it twas a gay ol’ time! The quote above was from the opening prayer of a huge MTC-wide celebration/devotional! It was sooo funny! Every single person in the MTC couldn't contain the laughter (especially a cluster of British Elders sitting by us). Classic. There were secular patriotic musical numbers and we all watched the movie "17 Miracles."

Some of our Fourth of July tom-foolery.

Anziano Romano and I, spent the night together as companions because my companion didn't want to partake in the night’s festivities... Curious behavior, but he enjoyed himself spending time in the room with another Elder who didn't want to either... I myself had a lot of fun and loved the devotionals! We also were able to watch the fireworks and pig out on an all-you-can-eat ice cream stand they had set up! ... and bedtime was extended to 11:30 (which was actually a curse because we still had to wake up at 6 am)!

Fireworks and devotionals. Anziano Kelley is happy.

This is a picture of the after party of our Fourth of July celebration. Needless to say...pretty crazy night.
"Oh my goodness just listen to what I'm trying to tell you!!" - Thersa Hansen
So we do this little thing at the MTC where volunteers come and we teach them lessons in Italian as if it were a lesson in a member’s home. So first of all the lady was a character—scary beyond all reason and reminded me of Ezma from “The Emperor’s New Groove.” But she also had this big ol' Danish flag on her shirt so I commented on it. She then just started spewing off this crazy fast Italian almost at a yell! I was blown away! But I managed to catch that she was from Denmark and she moved here two years ago and she knows Italian ‘cause she served a mission in Catania. So I said my sister served in Odense and she said she was from Odense and started yelling for like 5 minutes in this Italian that I had no clue what was going on! She eventually got really frustrated with us ‘cause we didn't know what she was saying so she started speaking English. It was a real humbling... But yeah... Thersa Hansen from Odense says hello to you Kris. She's about 50 years old. You know her?

"I am I am, a real religious man!" - Nacho Libre
Life goes on as normally as ever here in the MTC. Classes are long, the language is hard, but the spirit abounds. Doing all I can to stay obedient and hard-working.


"Moroni 8:10 or Moroni 9:8... There's really no difference when you don't know the language"
An Anziano in our district that wishes to remain unnamed taught a lesson this week about baptism to his investigator. He shared Moroni 9:8 instead of 8:10... Needless to say none of us really know Italian so he didn't know it was the wrong verse! Classic. His investigator just gave him the dirtiest look and he just bore his testimony as if nothing happened. Needless to say, the investigator had a lot of questions for him the next lesson.

"Cabin Fever, yeahh!" - Muppet Treasure Island
It's crazy that we have been here for five weeks now and in less than 13 days we are on our way to Italia. We are crammin' in our last minutes’ worth of studying and practice before we have to do it for reals! I really don't know what to expect going to Italy, but a lot of the Elders in my Zone are actually Italian, raised in the US, and only speak English. But all they talk about is their frequent visits to Italy to visit their family! It's making me reaaal anxious to go! Especially when they have pasta nights here at the MTC.

"Venerdi Notte Calcio (Friday Night Soccer) has gone MTC GLOBAL"
Now when I say that Veredi Notte Calcio has gone MTC GLOBAL, I mean it really has gone MTC global. Every new person that I meet knows about the huge rivalry going on between the two missions! It is the weirdest thing! I'll introduce myself and say where I am going and they always ask about "Vernerdi Notte Calcio!” It's crazy that in an MTC of 4,000, the people seem to know about it?? Well...it is a pretty big deal here though. Sadly enough though... Friday Night Soccer got rained out this week. Nobody was more disappointed than myself. We had to settle for a mean game of 4 Square instead but it just wasn't the same. The tension has been building for two weeks for this upcoming Friday and the Milanos are gettin' cocky because they have had a winning record for two weeks! But you'd best believe that AS ROMA taking home a victory this weekend!

Elder Lever came in today. I camped out in his classroom for him. He had a tear in his eye.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Week Three at the MTC!

"In what...way..." - Ferris Bueller
Well...every single one of our teachers left this week to go on vacation so we had not a soul to teach our class. So after a few hours of being lost, sad, and alone, the other Italian teachers decided that somebody had to come supervise our class. We had every single one of the Italian teachers come in and scramble up a lesson for us. I really enjoyed myself though, having little to no structure for class time, and I think I learned a lot. Also, they got this sweet, old, soft-spoken man to lecture us...but he may have been a little too soft spoken. When he talked we honestly could not hear him. Needless to say, it was a long lesson... Didn't help that we are on the top floor with our AC Unit broken when its 103 outside. Real hot in there.

"El Barto" - El Barto
I was talking with Tyler about this before coming here and I would like to say that I have an answer. Yes. There is still bathroom graffiti in the MTC. It's a saddening thought, yes, and what makes it worse is nobody is even clever when they take a sharpie to the door of the stall! The most notorious of these mysterious graffiti-ers is Michael J. Smith, Kentucky Louisville Mission 2010-2012, who has just under 5 tags that I've seen. The stuff doesn't get cleaned off because missionaries clean their own floors and no supervisors really check. So when it goes up, it stays up.

"Don't drink the Orange Juice!" - Mindy Barltett
The rumors are true.

"Let's celebrate our country by blowing up a small part of it!" - Apu Suphadbebenald
There was a special announcement this week! To celebrate the birth of this great country of ours, the MTC has prepared a special 4th of July devotional, which includes secular musical numbers, patriotic talks, apple pie, American flags, and watching the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire! America, America, God shed his grace on thee! Also...our roommate’s parents sent him some fireworks, which I'm sure is against all sorts of MTC policies, and it also concerns me that they were able to ship it through the mail? In any case, I still love this land of ours!

"And I beheld that they were in the Great and Spacious Building" - Nephi
We are like the only apartment on our floor that has six people in a room. The Milanos next door have a much bigger room with only four people. I nicknamed it “the Great and Spacious building” because they quite literally laugh and scorn at us. In addition to the six people in a room, our air conditioning unit went out this week, so it is sweltering hot in there at night! I put in a request to get it fixed but have heard no word on it...hmm… I keep telling my room that it’s trails before blessings, so we are due for something good in the next couple weeks!!

"Pray always, do not faint" - Nephi
Well I don't know about fainting, but as the weeks go on and the days get hotter it’s gettin' powerful hard to stay awake! Tyler said to get as much rest as I could before I left on the mish because I'd be tired for the next two years. I'm beginning to see the truth to that statement! As I mentioned above, the AC in the class and in the room are out, so that certainly doesn't help, but we love it because it's preparing us for Italy in three weeks. 

"Not only are missionaries not allowed to have mustaches, but it's also encouraged!" - NK
Good news from the Office of the First Presidency! Missionaries are now allowed to wear light grey and light brown suits, as well as khaki colored pants! Pretty cool eh? They are also redoing the White Bible which is full of news rules and what not for the mission field, which'll come out in a few weeks! I don't know about you but I think that’s pretty exciting!! Maybe it's ‘cause I'm a missionary…

"Milano busted for recruiting violations and suspected steroid use"
Yes. The Rumors are true. The Roma loss to Milano Friday night of 4-6 was not valid because the Milanos recruited a player going to Mexico who played for BYU soccer. Needless to say it was a huge upset for the Romas, who contested the final score for recruiting violations. The game itself was called a draw and will be played again this upcoming Friday. The Romas have been hitting the gym every morning in preparation for the upcoming game, but only time will tell if the Romas can beat out the Milanos for the MTC championship match.

Questions for Me! From Hailey C*!
  • "Why you not going to walk to Italy? Why you have to fly on a airplane?"
    • Well Hailey... Italy is very, very far away. Remember when you had to fly to Utah and you got to go on an airplane? Well, I am going to do the exact same thing over to Italy. Italy is very, very far away across a big ocean!
  •  "Where you eat your breakfast Nate? You eat bird food for you breakfast? Or maybe waffles or pancakes?"
    • I eat big breakfasts every morning! I love to eat oatmeal and bagels! Do you ever eat oatmeal or bagels? I like to put chocolate chips in my oatmeal and cream cheese on my bagels!
  • "You like to play volleyball when you is a missionary? I think you like to play Frisbee or paint."
    • I do like to play volleyball! But my favorite thing is soccer! Maybe when you are older you can play soccer with me! We don't have time to paint or play Frisbee, but we like to read the scriptures a lot, just like your mommy and daddy do with you every night. You can be a missionary just like me Hailey!
*Hailey C is Nate's 2-year-old niece.


This is a picture of Anziano Romano. He was my companion for the day and he spent about 30 minutes trying to get this picture right. It was a picture of his scriptures and name tag on the grass. He never did get it the way the liked it.