Families

What are some the Roman Easter traditions? Anything you are looking forward to?

Rome is too big to really have any traditions, unfortunately. I loved Easter in the small town of Sciacca. That was seriously the most memorable experience I have had on my mission. There might be some Easter traditions that people do here but we don’t hear much about them. The people on this half of Rome are all from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, China, Peru, Russia, Nigeria, and Ghana. It’s nutso. So this side of town has lots of different traditions. I am looking forward to conference more than anything. We are planning on making some Napoli Pizza and watching conference. We are inviting all the members who want to come to come. We will see.

What was the best thing you ate this week?

This week we had a lesson with a less active Peruvian family. They cooked a really good turkey and rice dish! We have been trying to meet with this family for about 2 months now and eventually one of our members was able to work some magic and convinced her to let us all come over. 

Who was the most interesting person you talked to this week?

We did a lesson with a referral we got from Salt Lake City. From the office they said he has just been married and has met Mormons in the past and is looking for something more in his life. He is having some marriage troubles and wants to learn more about how Christ can help him.

We were super excited! So we get there and within 2 minutes he is screaming at us telling us everything that he thinks is wrong with our church (95% of which was the Catholic Church, which he must have thought we were or something). We eventually calmed him down enough to pray with him but right after the prayer he got super heated and started going off about nonsense. So for 30 minutes we tried to calm him down but he just kept yelling at us. We eventually had to tell him that we had to leave. Wow... 

What was your miracle of the week?

We were able to meet with a family! They have been coming to English course. They are really nice. The father however may be the coldest most Catholic man I have ever met in my life. Anyways... I will give an update on how that goes but it was really hard.

Baptismal Date!

Is Anziano Kenney still you companion? You never told us what happened last transfer.

Yeah, Anziano Kenney is still my companion. He is great. We are doing good work together. We both finish our missions together as well. I am wondering if I will stay here in Rome with Anziano Kenney next transfer or if I will go someplace else for 5 weeks. We will see. 

What was coolest thing you saw this week?

This week our homie, Mamun accepted a baptismal date. He is awesome. He was Muslim but we converted him. We have been working with him about 2 months. He is really cool. Unfortunately his family is not very happy about it. I hope so bad that he can make friends with the members here and get baptized. We went out to eat with him and our member who was Muslim as well this week. The member is from Egypt. It was really good.

What was your best lesson of the week and why?

We taught a less active who just moved here in from Afghanistan (He used to live in Sweden and was baptized there). He was also Muslim. But we started doing family history with him and it’s really cool because he comes from a land where there are no members of the church. He is currently living here as a refugee because he cannot return home or he will be killed. There is a pretty steep barrier language when we teach him though. He is really cool. 

What was the hardest thing you did this week?

Church was kind of stressful. We had some cool people in church and also some investigators and everything didn’t go as well as it could have. But I guess if the cool new people can make it through a day in church like that then they can make it through anything!

What was your miracle of the week?

We had a conference with Elder Teixeira this week. He will speak in general conference in a few weeks. It was a really neat conference. He talked about leaving behind the culture that our mission has had for the last 20 years (He has been working for the area for a very long time. 20 years. Wow.). It was cool.

Indian Party

What was your best experience this week?
This week we were able to teach Mamun the restoration lesson! It was super cool because he is from a Muslim background!

What was the best thing you ate this week?
We ate some Indian food at our English course student's house at his birthday party. It was super fun. Everyone was in their traditional Indian clothes and everyone was speaking in Punjabi. It was really cool to be there. They are very very Hindu.

We have the mission conference coming this next week! That should be really awesome!

Swagger

Hey Family!

I am doing good here in Rome. Our work is kind of slowing down a bit. But we are praying for finding new people to teach! The transfers went well this week. There was a bit of confusion because some zones put people on trains one day early (without telling anybody) and we had to figure out some of those problems. Other than that it was a good week. Yesterday in church we had Ward Conference. So all of the Stake leaders came and taught the classes and what not. It was really awesome. We have some good leaders for the stake. Sadly we didn't have investigators come. We were supposed to have like four! The weather is starting to heat up though!

This is My Mission

What was most impressive thing you saw this week? 

This week for P-day we went to Centro with all the missionaries who are about to finish. It was really fun seeing the Coliseum (for the 50th time) and all the other sights here in Rome. It was really relaxing and really fun to reminisce with all of my mission friends about exchanges and transfers and all the other awesome things in the mission. For the last 2 days the missionaries come up here to kind of hang out until they report to the mission home for their final night. This group of missionaries has been really awesome to me. Lots of good friends. I have essentially done my whole mission with these guys so it’s sad to see them go. But I will see them on the other side in a few months.

Who was the most interesting person you talked to this week? 

We did finding this week and found our way into this ghetto with tons of Indian and Bangladesh people. Not a soul there spoke Italian, but I can tell you there were a lot of interesting things to see and smell there. Fishes and curry. Children running amuck, burning down trash cans and the lot. We met some really nice people and we actually found a lady from Peru who was a member there but moved here and did not know the church existed here in Rome. So that was actually really cool!

We also met with a Nigerian Family this week. They live in this housing complex of Iranians, Pakinstani, Ivory Coast, and Palestine peoples. We started doing a lesson in the big community dining room but soon after we started we got bombarded by all the kids from their different countries. They thought we were so cool because we were from America. Man... We really are super lucky to live where we do. 

What was your best lesson of the week and why? 

We taught a lesson to our homie named Marco. We taught Word of Wisdom and he didn’t even question anything. It felt way too easy... I was a super junky teacher but he accepted everything without a question. I hope it will be that easy for the rest of the commandments. This will be really cool if he gets baptized.

What are your overall feelings about your mission so far?

I was a little frustrated this week because I have worked so hard to see baptisms and see people change. Missionary work is really frustrating because you never see the results of your efforts. I was really sad because that guy that was baptized here a few weeks ago hasn’t really come to church or quit smoking. I was just really frustrated because all I want to do on my mission is see people change. I was sad because I feel like all of the people I have worked with have not really done that. Va be. I try at the end of every day to say that I have done my best and it is really all up to them. I really just want to form some personal relationships with people and see them change. I also really want to leave these areas better than how I have found them. These past 2 years have been very hard. I have learned a lot. I still have a lot of work to do.

I was also thinking a lot about the city of Sciacca. I have never worked so hard in my whole life as I did in that city and never saw anything really come from it. I want to go back there to Sciacca and do something. That branch needs some help. I felt like I was so young and didn’t know what I was doing there. I want to go back and make a difference. I don’t know why I was there when we both couldn’t speak Italian or teach. We worked sooo hard though! Man we tried soo hard! They just barely saw a baptism there a few weeks ago. The first one in almost 7 years. Man... I love that city.

I guess my overall feelings are that I have worked soo hard… I really want to form some personal relationships with people and in the end see people change. Time is running out and I am doing my best. #swag