Another Golden Transfer in Sciacca

Transfer calls...

Sciacca for another golden transfer with Anziano Brown. I am super excited.

This week was a real test of faith though. Because we dropped all of our old investigators last week we have been doing street finding all week long. Needless to say, Sciacca is maybe one of the harder cities to do that because you pass the same people 5 times a day and half of them are ex-investigators. But it’s what we have to do. It’s rough. And this week a huge African Storm came in for 3 days which made us do Casa in Casa. Surprisingly, the storm makes people less likely to let you in. HOWEVER! We found this sweet 30-year old who was reading the Bible right before we knocked on his door. Too good to be true? Maybe. I don’t really know yet. We still need to pass by him again. But that is the miracle of the week.

Hmmm. There are not many stories from this week other than a lot of hilarious finding stories. But maybe those are for after the mission.

We had the branch president over for a lesson with our investigator, Marianna. She has been trying to understand tithing for the past 3 months I have been here, so we had to have Branch President over so they could fight it out. IT WAS SWEET! I have never heard so much Siciliano and seen so many Italian hand gestures! The glass on the windows almost busted out from yelling and me and Anziano Brown just sat back and started taking notes! IT WAS AWESOME. Needless to say. No progress was made with the tithing issue and the real problem, we all concluded, was a lack of faith and trust in the lord that he will provide for her needs. :(

I also have been reading the New Testament as of late and came across a gem that is often overlooked. The story essentially goes that Jesus and people had to pay a tax for the temple. Peter argued that the Temple was the House of the Lord and Jesus did not need to pay taxes like this. Jesus took the opportunity to teach that it is best to avoid all forms of conflict and told Peter to go to the sea, catch a fish, and the money for the tax would be inside the fish.

I really like that story and it made me, especially during this rough week of finding, realize the importance of avoiding conflict. Italians, at times, especially on the subject of religion, just want to fight. But, we learn to love them anyways.

Ciao Ciao Ciao.

What's that? A letter from Anziano Kelley?!

The Catania Conference was the big highlight of the week! We all were expecting him to start calling us to repentance (that’s what he did last year) but it was a different guy and he was SWEET! He was from the UK and talked literally about everything we need to know as a missionary but nobody actually taught us! I took a whole bunch a notes and hopefully can put this stuff into practice.

The revelation that we received from the conference though was to... DROP EVERYBODY. Yes. We got back and decided to drop all our investigators and just start from scratch. It’s sad.... But we are looking for the people who are prepared. We have started doing a lot of finding and have not yet found any golden potentials... But all in good time.

District from the MTC. Missing a few...

OH! This week during church the Branch President announced that he was engaged to a member of the branch! It was sweet, and whole branch wigged out! They are both 65ish and have lost their spouses. But nobody expected it! They are gonna make a sweet couple that will help out the missionary work here. Well... That was random but it was a highlight of my week.

Sciacca is slowly turning into a tourist town. Every day we see more Swedes, Germans, and British people... I cannot imagine what this town will be like in 3 months. 

This week is transfer calls. I hope I stay really badly. I have not seen a lot of success here and I feel like a still have work to do! Especially after we dropped all of our investigators... I really want to help this branch in some way! They haven’t seen success in 6 years and I am working my hardest to see some success here. Really want to stay in Sciacca.

Questions from Kris:

Can you tell us more about your new companion? It seems like you are getting along well. How long has he been out? Where is he from?

Ol’ Anziano Brown is from Utah/California... He is like 8 feet tall and good at basketball. He is nice and likes to joke around. He has been out about 6 weeks longer than I have.

How did you find the house of refugee children that you have been visiting? Why are they in Italy?

We met some of the Africans in street because they speak English. They invited us over to their house. Most of them are in Italy as refugees from Libya. Most of the Africans here came through there because Libya is just a swim away. But these guys don’t really have families in their home countries so they just wandered around the continent looking for jobs and what have you. They got caught in the civil war and were deported to Italy.

The thing is there is no potential with this house anymore. There is one kid who wants to learn about us but... It is a very awkward environment because everybody is Muslim and the Moms watch us like hawks to make sure we are not brain washing the kids... So... We are going to have to drop them. Sad. But it’s probably for the best.

I'm excited that you get to go to a mission conference in Rome! Will all of the missionaries in your mission be there? Does this happen every year? 

Just the missionaries in the Southern part of the mission (Calabria, Puglia, Sicily). This happens every year to give the missionaries a pump up and to prevent apostasy and corruption. It was a good conference though!

How long will it take for you to travel to Rome?

We are actually the farthest city in the mission from Rome (travel time). It would take about 18 hours to get there assuming there is little to no waiting time for trains. Rome is very far away. There is also a huge culture difference between Sciacca and Rome… It’s kind of weird to think that this is the Rome Italy mission because it is two worlds apart!

You probably already knew that Quaresima means Lent, which I didn't know much about until my mission when I encountered many people who celebrated it. Do Italians fast during Lent, or give up worldly things for the 40 days leading up to Easter? A lot of traditions do that in commemoration of the 40 days that Christ fasted and was tempted before he began his earthly ministry. I'm just curious about what they do in Italy.

People talk about fasting... But I don’t think anybody actually does it. However, every Friday leading up to Easter people do not eat meat. That is one fast that I have noticed people actually do. It’s super interesting. There are tons of Pasqua decorations in the city and a few churches put up Pasqua Christmas lights. It’s fun! I am excited for the actual Easter celebrations!

Refugees, Telepathy, BBQ & Quaresima

Alright, so this week we made a stop in at this Refugee house that we found. All of the people living there are African Refugees. They are all kids about the age of 17 and are essentially owned by the government of Italy until they get older. They have these "Moms" that live with them 24-7 and cook for them and send them to school. It’s pretty cool! They love us, too! None of them speak Italian. A few speak Arabic, few French, few English, one or two really only speak African Dialect, so they all have to speak to each other in Italian. It’s a weird situation but it’s good. At first the "Mom" didn’t like us. (The one “Mom” is Italian, one “Dad” is from Afghanistan and another "Dad" is from Palermo. They all take shifts at the house). But we turned on the Ol’ Magoo and now they like us and we are going to do a pancake night with them and hopefully get some sweet investigators!

We also found an almost investigator this week in the street (we still have to re-contact him) and he has like a doctor’s degree in TELEPATHY! He makes his money reading peoples’ minds. I don’t quite understand it, but I thought it was noteworthy. He is good man. We like him.

The weather is getting super-duper hot.

The BBQ with the members was super fun last week. They all danced and sang Sicilian Songs and ate for like 24 hours. Super good. We played a little kick ball type game with the youth of the branch and their friends. It was a good time had by all.

This next week we are going to Catania for the Mission Tour. I have a feeling it will be a humbling experience for all us... All the missionaries are afraid he is going to "raise his voice" if you know what I mean. That is usually how all these mission tours end up. Calling us to repentance and putting us in line. I personally am super excited! The best part is we are staying in a hotel (complete with continental breakfast)!

Questions from Dad:

I'm curious, what do they cook for a BBQ in Italy?

Lots of bread, sausages, salami, intestine with onion, sweet lemons, oranges, chips, more bread, salads with homemade olive oil, thick slices of bacon, so pretty much just meat and bread and if you are lucky a super oiled salad!

You mentioned in your letter a Mission tour in Catania and a big Zone Conference in Rome. What does that mean?

The Area Presidency is going down to check up on us and to put us line! I am super excited! Everybody still remembers last year’s mission tour! It’s a humbling time for everybody

Do they know anything about St. Patrick’s Day in Italy?

Yes and no... Every day here is another Saint’s holiday. Today so happens to be San Patricio... Nobody seems to be doing anything here though, sadly. I myself am sporting a green tie and pinched Anziano Brown for not wearing green this morning.

It's Quaresima in Sciacca (40 days before Easter) and all the bakeries in town have these goofy little tings for sale. It's supposedly a big ol' tradition here in Sciacca. Yes. It is just an egg on top of a piece of bread. But everybody is going crazy over them!

Well that’s about it for me this week.

Still More Carnevale

Not all too much time to email today because the members are doing a BBQ in just a little bit.

But the big news for this week is that Carnevale did not end. In fact, they canceled the last two days of the festival last week because of the rain and they decided to postpone it to this weekend. But the thing is all of the shops, floats, and stages were still left up and all the tourists did not leave because there was still things to do. So there were literally 2 weeks of Carnevale and I am sooo sick of it. The last two nights were crazy. Tons of drunkards, police, fireworks, and music. They burned the floats at 2 in the morning last night and had a huge firework show that kept us up throughout the night. But it was good fun for all who attended. The day after Carnevale there is another holiday to "rest" from the holiday. So the members are doing a BBQ.

Anziano Brown (my companion) is 6 weeks older in the mission than I am and a good missionary. He is very tall and speaks very well. He served in Puglia and Agrigento.

This week was actually really a rough week for us. Because we could not be in the city we went out to the small town of Sciaccamare, next to Sciacca, to work. Hours of knocking doors, getting yelled at, and made fun of... But that’s just how it goes. It was a nice, humbling week.

Didn’t really help that Zone Conference was all about finding and baptizing people. We are doing are best here in Sciacca but it’s been super hard to find people for the past little while. But we are still trying hard and being obedient. In fact our motto for this transfer is “Obedience with Obsession.” What we took from the Zone Conference, and the news of a big Zone Conference in Rome, is that we just have to keep looking for people and leave the people who are not progressing behind, which is going to be hard for us but it’s probably what’s best for now!

Our one investigator, Marianna, got a baptism date this week. She has been an investigator for like 2 years and agreed to try for a date. It was a pretty happy moment for us and we are hoping and praying she takes this seriously. Because we are. 

This week we also found a Muslim African Refugee house that has like 12 potentials in there. I will probably talk about it in the next letter but it’s time to get going.

In two weeks we have a mission tour in Catania that we are going to! Should be good fun!

Palermo Zone Conference

Carnivale

Well, it's been a week of fest here in Sciacca. Needless to say, Carnivale has put a halt to much of the work in Sciacca, but we still managed to get some good lessons in and do a little bit of contacting. Most of the people we normally meet with were nowhere to be found, except occasionally in the sea of people that wandered around the city all week. Carnivale was really a sweet thing for the city though! Sciacca is normally the sleepiest little seaside town you could ever imagine, but this week everybody was out partying from dawn to dawn every single day this week.

The weather did not seem to stop most people (it was pretty cold and rainy) but everybody was still outside partying! I’ve decided Carnivale is pretty much Oktoberfest, Halloween, and the Macy’s Day parade all put together. It was pretty cool! The floats were absolutely incredible and literally from every corner of the city there was music blasting from the floats and you could see them towering above all the buildings. It was definitely a festival for young people, but that didn’t stop the retired folks from making a scene. A lot of them dressed up too (got some pretty sweet photos). 

The city seriously has never been so loud though! I seriously cannot express how impossible it was to meet with anybody this week... And the worst part is it is not over, it ends on Tuesday. Wednesday is Ash Wednesday (another city holiday), Thursday we have Zone Conference, Friday is a branch BBQ starting at 5, and Sunday the stake Patriarch is coming, which is from 9am - 6pm... So this week is another rough week.

Before the festivals started though it was kind of sad for us because a few investigators stopped meeting with us because "we are not Italian and cannot understand them"... We saw that coming after Zito left but Sicilians are pretty blunt and just say it how it is... It hurts. But what can we do. Zito did a lot of work for the city and it is hard to keep it all going without the skills he had. We are praying a and seriously trying our best. But he left some really big shoes to fill.

We did however start the construction of our temple for our investigator this week (perfect week to do it because the streets were filled were drunks and immoralità). But it is coming along quite nicely. It is about a foot and a half long and about a foot and a half tall. We are proud of it. It’s not quite done yet though. 

Thanks all and for all.

Ciao Ciao caio.